Recently I’ve been talking with a group of women who all had late term losses between 30-40 weeks. We all seem to get along incredibly well, and it gives us all an area to go and talk about our children in ANY way we want to or need to without judgement. Lets be honest for a second, if I were to say some of the stuff I say in my group chat with them, to non loss mothers, I’m pretty sure said non loss moms would be terrified. These loss moms? Not phased and more often than not can chime in and say they feel/have felt the exact same way at one point or another.

On top of the talk of our children, we are all very sarcastic and cynical which is sort of perfect and exactly what we all need. We talk about day to day things, and we make each other laugh during the moments when we need it most. My post title is dedicated to them today actually! We often talk about other people who haven’t been through a late term loss, and the awkward things that those people say to us. Someone brought up the hashtag of #blessed being a big thing now, and we all cringed. Like, personally, for me I get it…you’re #blessed because you have a great life, and things are going good for you–Great for you! But, when I search my most common Instagram hashtags (which are pretty fucking sad: #stilbirth, #stillborn, #grief, #childloss, and #Pregnancyafterloss) I sometimes stumble across a photo of a loss mom, or a rainbow baby with the #blessed hashtag.

How are you gonna use that hashtag after all you’ve been through?

The worst is when somehow a photo sneaks in with the hashtag and it’s a fucking picture of food, or a coffee or something stupid. HEY AWESOME. SO GLAD YOU’RE FEELIN BLESSED FOR YOUR CUP OF COFFEE. Oh, or I remember one we talked about from someone saying they were blessed to be given the chance to interview at a job. Yikes. Blessed…maybe you should have hash tagged “#GotwhereIambecauseIworkedmyassoff, or #Iappliedandwasgiventheinterview”.

ANYWAY. What I was getting at is, I know that I’m very fortunate to be in the position that I am- holding my sweet rainbow, a wonderful 6 year old, an amazing husband, etc etc. To the outsider I could have a life that a lot of people would want; once inside my life though, you would feel the devastation I carry around and probably want to jump off a cliff. How’s that for #blessed? There is a huge difference between being blessed, and being where you are because you bust your ass.

I have Alden because I made that happen. I didn’t sit around and hope that I would just end up pregnant. I know my struggles with Infertility and I knew what I had to do to get here. Being #blessed wasn’t gonna make this or ANYTHING happen. I had to bust my ass, give myself injections for upward of 40+ weeks including all my IVF meds.

This brings me to my title- #blessedasfuck.

I will get on board the blessed as fuck train in a second. It’s a darker take on being blessed in my opinion. Maybe it’s just the dark sense of humor that losing a child creates inside of you? Maybe it’s the sad realization that anyone who loses a child and says they are #blessed is insane and probably pushing down some reeeeealllll heavy grief, or the fact that ultimately your child is still dead in the end, blessed or not. But, I can relate to that much more than just being positive all the time. There are mothers on IG who post the weirdest things after losing their children. I know to each their own, but being that positive after you lose one, even two babies, is just…I don’t know. It doesn’t seem real. Like I said earlier, it seems to be a way to shove the grief down and not deal with it.

I like to keep this journey honest and to be an open book. My feelings are raw, and real and I know that for me, reading other mothers raw grief has really helped. It’s been 15 months since Kenley died, and there are days where I feel like it is day 1 all over again.  I, in no way, shape or form feel blessed for this being my life. I struggled with Infertility for damn near 3 years, I lost two babies early in their pregnancies, I went through failed cycle after failed cycle with medications that are awful on my body, paid obscene amounts of money to make a child, was able to FINALLY get pregnant with my most perfect Kenley, and then lost her. Pretty sure that does not fall under the blessed category anywhere.

I do feel blessed as fuck, though; blessed in a darker sense and not religious at all. I was able to hold my beautiful lifeless daughter, and have photos of her. I have things of hers that I can look at someday if I’m ever strong enough. We are fortunate enough to be able to afford IVF, we had 3 embryos, we now have a living daughter, and 2 frozen boy embryos if we decide to have more kids (heart says yes, anxiety and sanity says no). For those reasons I am pretty fuckin happy.

I don’t know. This post is just a jumble of tiredness, random words and raw truth…Maybe I’m just having an off day…

Two nights ago, Alden ate at 11:30, 1:30, 3:30, and 7. At 3:30 I hopped up and warmed her bottle, came back into bed and fed her. After I was done, I gave her a fresh diaper and hoped she would go back to sleep easily- Nope. She cried, and was super gassy. I laid her on the bed and started rubbing her belly…well, about 45 minutes passed and all of a sudden I hear a noise that sounds like someone threw a handful of shit FULL FORCE against a wall. I started laughing so hard. Needless to say when I took her diaper off, it was shit city. Alllllllll up her legs and back.

#blessedasfuck, though,  because I would rather be up to my eyeballs in baby shit than to be alone in bed crying for the baby we lost. Give me all the baby poop.

Yesterday I found out that my neighbor died. She had cancer for nearly 3 years, and always seemed to be doing well (or at least she told me). She and I had text last on February 27th when I asked how she was doing, to which she replied she had just finished treatment and was feeling a little rough. She asked how we were doing and I told her that we were due on the 15th of March to which she replied that she didn’t know we were expecting again, and she was so happy to hear it. She had stopped over to my house just a few days before Kenley died, and I had to tell her Kenley died when she text me a few days after my due date to ask how things were going.

Shane was walking the dog yesterday and passed her house where her daughter was checking the mail. I guess she asked Shane if he lived on this road (were immediate next door neighbors, but we’ve never met her daughter because she was in College) and he said yes, and explained that I often would text with her mom etc. She then said through tears that her mom had passed away on March 18th– The day we got home from the Hospital.

I am so incredibly sad that I never got the chance to take her to lunch, or to have another conversation with her. She was the kindest woman, and I hurt for her daughter. I was crying and Landon asked me what was wrong so I explained to him what happened. He looked at me, and put his hand on my shoulder and started to cry. He is so sweet; he asked if we could go put flowers on her grave. I told him that we could, if she was buried. I hate that my son knows the sadness of death already. I hate that I relived his pain of Kenley dying when I told him our neighbor died. I hate it; His poor little heart.

I found myself to be more sad than I expected because I was taken by surprise; she always assured me she was doing so well.

Shane goes back to work today. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious as hell about it. I know that it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s the first time that I will have both kids alone. I will be ok, I know that, but my anxiety is ramping up and I really want to not spiral out of control so we’ll see how this works tonight…

I wish he could stay home with me all the time. It would be good for both of us. I’m seriously considering getting my medicine dosage altered as I feel my anxiety going through the roof some days. I’ll give it a few more weeks to see if the newborn phase passes and maybe my mind can calm itself down once life regulates.  I think just so much new stuff happening is really throwing me for a loop. The other day, Alden’s social security card came in the mail. When I saw it, I burst into tears. I dreamt of getting Kenley’s in the mail; of seeing her beautiful name typed out on that card for the rest of her life, and instead…she got nothing. No birth certificate, only her name on the funeral home paperwork. Somedays things are the worst they could ever be, I think. And seeing Alden’s card come in the mail should have been so exciting for me (because she is here and I can feel her and hold her…) but, it just sucked.

And finally, a few pictures from the Hospital. They’re not my favorite, and I wish they would have edited her skin because is so blotchy. These pictures do make me SUPER excited to see the ones that we had our photographer take the other day. I am so in love with this little girl, and I hope that she knows that.