July 15th...

It was a Wednesday and I was doing a mad dash to try to pack up everything we would need for our camping trip, and the week long stay in Utah Tru and I would be doing right after. I was having a hard time trying to remember everything we could possibly need for the next two weeks and make sure they were all packed in the right bag. Talk about stress. At some point during the day I was looking for the lid to my lotion which had disappeared from the bottle. I looked through the bathroom... looked in the bedroom... decided it was probably under the bed. So I got down to look under the bed and instead of finding the lid I found... my positive pregnancy test from Clayton. Everything that I had been stressing about for the whole day was instantly forgotten as I knelt there by my bed and felt a huge rush of sadness sweep through me...

I feel like I'm doing okay. I can go for a few days pretty normally where I feel fine. Then something will happen or I will remember something and then Niagara Falls starts all over again. This sucks. That's what I've started to tell people. It just sucks. {I'm not one that normally likes to use the word sucks but I think that it fits my mood pretty well right now.}

I did great while camping, I was fine in Utah. I think that it was good for me to be out of my normal home life for a little while, to focus on other things. "This is getting a lot easier!" I thought as I made my way back home on Saturday.

Yesterday I had my final appointment with the doc. I was glad that there were a bunch of old ladies in the waiting room that morning instead of young pregnant girls. As I sat in the room where I waited for the doctor I thought, "It's nice to have a close to this chapter, a real final close... now I can move on." As I sat there and waited I heard the nurse come into the next room over and visit with another patient...

"How's baby doing? Are you feeling her kick everyday? How many times a day?"

"Oh she kicks all the time, all day long. She's a real mover. She's asleep right now though, but I felt her kick this morning."

Then I heard the sound that is one of the best sounds in the entire world, when it's happening to you. The rumbling, swishing of the great search for a heartbeat. And there it was, like little horse's hooves..... click, click, click, click.

What I would give to be seven months pregnant today, to be able to hear my own baby's heartbeat like that.... what I would give to have a super active baby bouncing around inside of me. This really sucks you know...

My doctor asked me how my moods were. I told him that I'm good for about four days and then I just have a really bad day... "That's pretty normal. Expect to feel that way for about the next year..."

Okay... for the next year... this is what they mean by the grieving cycle huh? I think I'm just going to ride it out and let it all happen. I'm going to have a good time most of the time, but every once in a while when the walls all come crashing in again, I'm going to let that happen too. I think that this is one of the hardest parts about the whole situation... that I still feel so sad about it. That I'm going to feel this intense sadness sweep through me for a while.

At least now, finally, on the good days and probably the bad... I can finally take my little boy to the pool. That's something to be happy about.