When I Lost Hope

If you’re here and thinking that this will be a story of when I went through something, got sad, and then regained my ~joy~ you will be disappointed. That is not what this is, at all.

Today, I cried. I couldn’t stop crying. Every inch of my body felt like I was swimming in sand. Remembering to breathe felt like an olympic sport. This type of episode is common for me. I put my hands to my head, trying to hold it in. The crying isn’t always a symptom of sadness. Usually I’m irritable, sometimes exhausted, but always overwhelmed. In this moment, a panic sets in. Will this ever end? How long will I have to hold my emotions into my body? I know this has happened before, but was it ever this painful? My whole brain feels clouded.

You’re reading this and either know exactly what I’m talking about, or have no idea what this is like. If you don’t have any insight to this, congratulations, but allow me to let you into just one story of how someone can end up here.

My story probably begins after the first loss. I was 20 years old and experiencing the most joy I’ve ever had. I was nearing half way through my first pregnancy, planning for a wedding the following month, and truly in love with my life. I get a call one morning with some shocking and terrible news- go discuss it with my husband for a few minutes, take Leon out of his high chair after breakfast, and go to the bathroom. You know those first weeks where you REALLY have to pee constantly, because that baby is just beginning to press on your bladder. There was a pop, a rush of liquid. I called my sister in law and asked what it could be, and when I explained I was still leaking, she advised I go into the ER. Maybe one day I can go into detail about how the events unfolded from there. Suffice it to say that the following day my son was born at 17.5 weeks, just under a pound, with no hopes of further life. That’s where this story of uncontrollable emotions begin. There was no pain like this.

However, this is not when I lost hope. Actually, I would say it was the beginning of a deeply hopeful time. Every medical professional insisted it was a freak accident. There was no reason to go into labor that early, and it would never happen again. After the weeks turned into months, and the sobbing nightly slowed to occasional waves, things were good. After one cancelled wedding, we got married the following spring. I talked constantly about how I would always love my son, but he knows no pain and wouldn’t want me to live in it. We talked about next time. Dreamed up a rainbow baby as the fulfillment to a beautiful story of redemption and healing and faith.

My husband ventured off to Basic Training and AIT, and for over a year we discussed timelines and such. Leon turned 4, Lucas finished training, and we moved to Texas. Immediately it was time. Finally, we were pregnant again. Now, with pregnancy came the emotional rollercoaster, the guilt of losing one child and having another, many more things we can discuss at length regarding pregnancy after loss. For now, the story picks up about half way through my second pregnancy. After 6 ER visits, being told I was paranoid and mentally unstable by doctors, and constant assurances from therapists and family that what happened WOULD NEVER happen again, I have a weird day. I figured I was losing mucus or something, expected that it was just something new because I was not this far along the first time, but I call my husband and convince him that despite going to the ER almost every other week, I really needed to go again.

I’m sure you know how this ends. I was dilated to 5 cm, despite not having any discomfort. My daughter was in my birthing canal, although my water was intact, but she had bulged past my cervix and there was no way to stop labor at this point.

So after about 20 weeks of being called crazy and unstable, what I was so afraid of happened. My daughter was born, a hair bigger than my son, but still without any hope of breathing.

If you can believe it, this is not the end.

Anger set in. The grief was there, but more so I was filled with rage. Finally, I had some answers about what was happening, but the news was bad. I lost my daughter, but I was also grieving ever having children again.

Now, when I actually lost hope, was 34 days later. A lot of this is not my story. In short, the following month my family is on vacation back home in Arizona. It was the first time I had seen any of my family, and I wasn’t really ready to face most of the situation. However, life does not care about that most of the time, and on the 34th of my grief, my entire family was struck again when my niece passed away while we were visiting.

If I ever write a tell-all book or if you feel like it could help, one day I’ll share what it was like grieving with my family over my niece while I was grieving a daughter they had never met. For now though, that’s still very personal.

So there it is. I lost hope then. It’s been over a year, and I still can’t say that I have much hope. I have had a wonderful nephew born since then, I’m still madly in love with my husband and Leon, I’ve watched my dad fall in love, and good things still happen. The thing is, I don’t know how to regain my hope. I’ve been to therapy, I’ve been medicated, I’ve done yoga and meditation, I’ve tried to focus on how much love I have for my lost children, but I would be lying if I pretended like I had a whole bunch of hope.

My son and daughter are dead, my niece is dead. I’ve had things said to me that I may not ever get over. After my son, I poured all this hope into a space in my heart, and had it ripped away from me. I suppose my message here is just that people shouldn’t only write about how to cope with depression and anxiety. We should have less lists of 10 ways to make your day better. Enough with the “Go for a walk and have a healthy breakfast to turn your massive panic attack around!” I’ve searched for help online about these things, and when I see these posts I just feel more isolated. I get more angry. The hopelessness grows deeper because never being able to “defeat” my grief is just one more the on my list of guilt.

So, if you spent your day in bed or cried in your car for no reason, I’m here to say me too. I have no idea how to help you cope, just to remind you that a lot more people than you think are going through it too. It’s okay to break down. I’ll leave with this, that I once read on a forum about depression: