Lonely

No one ever told me how lonely motherhood could be.  For as long as I can remember, I longed to be a mother.  I wanted a big family, lots of kids.  I remember planning all this out when I was a child myself, sitting with my elementary school friends talking about how I want to be a stay at home mom, playing house and dolls, in a time when the world told me that was not enough.  I chose a career that would be easy to do part time, one in which I could have the flexibility to control my hours and work as little as 1 morning a week.  I remember those early years in our marriage, longing desperately for a child even before we started trying.  I remember the utter defeat I felt, month after month, in the years of our infertility.  All along, I thought motherhood would make me whole.  Happy.  Complete.  I had a great job, but it was never enough.

My journey into motherhood is scarred at best.  Broken.  I still feel these moments of overwhelming bitterness when I think of our infertility, still questioning why God had us wait for so long.  I question and doubt every decision we made leading up to IVF, wondering if there was some point where we quit trusting God to provide and He began punishing us.  My human heart just wants something to blame.  Being surrounded by other mothers in the same stage of life, dealing with unruly preschoolers, diapered infants, and no time for showers should bring me comfort.  It's the life I live each day.  And yet, I don't know how to relate to these women.  I still feel betrayed and a bit frustrated at the ease in which most of the women conceive.  "We weren't trying" or "this one was a surprise" still just cut right through me.  "God blessed us with a miracle" when I feel like He didn't bless me in that same why.  And I find myself wondering all over again what I did wrong.  Though my head knows the answer is nothing, my heart struggles to feel it.

And once Reagan died, my world was turned upside down.  The "why," never clear and always lurking the back of my mind.  I think pregnancy and complications with Warren and Dean simply served to cover over the grief.  I didn't have it in my weak heart to grieve Reagan's death while being pregnant with major complications with the boys.  And I shut down, not moving forward in the whole process of grief.  Life became simply  and literally keeping them alive.  That was all.  And now?    I'm facing my grief over Reagan in a whole new way, in a new city where people don't know about her life, in an environment surrounded by little girls her age.  I think I heard 4 times today how my hands were full.  But they're not...not as full as they should be.  And how do I communicate that?  I just don't even know.  It seems to keep me separate from other moms, as the hurt just runs deep.  I don't quite know how to move past that.  Or if I can.