So, today was my original due date

JJ was born 4 months, 11 days, 14 hours and 7 minutes ago.

Today was supposed to look a lot different than it does right now.

Sometimes it seems like it just happened, but usually it seems like a LONG time ago, not just 4 months! That's practically nothing.

And, how am I doing? I'm hanging in there. Some things are different from when it first happened, some things are more painful. Things are definitely different from this time a year ago. I keep thinking to myself how things were in March 2009 and if someone had told me I'd be pregnant in three months and lose him by the end of the year I don't know if I would have thought it could happen.

My feelings change often. Sometimes it seems like a punishment, other times like a growing experience, but not yet like a blessing. I keep telling myself that eventually it will be long enough ago that hindsight will be able to make sense of it all. The fog will disappear and I might understand or at least be at peace. But, until then, this "journey" is a whole lot of pain and quite a bit of confusion.

As it got closer and closer to my due date, it got harder and harder. And the difficulties seem to change. Now I'm dealing with seeing everyone who was pregnant with me giving birth to their own babies. I'm getting ready to face many different obstacles, things I "shouldn't be doing, because I should have been home with a baby" obstacles. So while all of these mothers come home to care for a new baby, I get to go back to doing what I've always done, just like that. The other struggle is now it's a pretty private process. I've pretty much fallen off the radar and I'm left to do my thing, being allotted little, if any, room as excuse for why things might be hard for me, but plenty of time to ponder and reflect undisturbed.

I'm not sure if I thought I knew myself before, but now I know I didn't and I probably still don't. I just have to take things one day at a time. Try to plod through until this trial is easier to bear. Each accomplishment is something I pride myself in. Each meltdown is something I worry about. And there's not much I can do about either one.

Right now, I still cannot:

• Be around/talk to/talk about pregnant people
• Listen to pregnant people complain
• Be around/talk to/talk about people who recently had a baby
• Be happy for someone who is pregnant or just had a baby
• Bear my testimony about this (I have little experiences I can share on cue to my Miamaids, but that's about it- anything else, I don't have much control over what might come out of my eyes, mouth or nose.)
  

I can almost:

• Sit through a baby blessing at church. I've made it through one (a rather nice, small affair), but had to leave in tears before two (both large, boisterously attended ones).
• Hope to look forward to raising other children in this life
  

But I can:

• Enjoy this time with just me and Jason (we do make a pretty good team)
• Try to lose some more weight without any restrictions
• Read about others' lives to avoid thinking about my own
• Cry about things whenever I want to, almost on cue
  
• Appreciate those with similar experiences who have reached out to me
• Appreciate those who have tried to understand a completely unrelatable experience
• Relish in the control I have at school and the wonderful distraction it is from everything
• Yearn to be a mother

A few weeks ago in my lesson, a member of the bishopric sat through my lesson about communication. He shared a few thoughts that really stood out to me. We were made in God's image, therefore we long to control situations. We were made to create and control worlds, so be limited by our mortal existence is frustrating for us. That gave me a bit of peace because I always looked at it as a bad thing that I wanted to "control" situations. So this trial of utter discontrol (not a word, but works well here) is really hard for me. I just continue to learn the same lesson that I can't control everything and there's nothing I can do about that.

Knowing that it was only four months ago that this all happened does bring me some comfort. If this much could happen in four months, imagine what could happen in one year.