pain
Born behind me (hands and knees), she was gently passed through my legs for me to hold
* such a crazy painful day. Visitors, details, phone calls, it was just overwhelming.
* surrounded with family today was a blessing but I just need some solitude now.
* the details I never wanted to think about - what color flowers, which pictures for the obituary, who would the pallbearers be, what to dress her in. Truly insane.
* I filled a bag of diapers, wipes, nursing pads etc and sent them next door to my neighbors. I didn't need them and had no emotional attachment to them so I wanted them to have the stuff. It affected our neighbors so deeply that my niece came back home in tears, just totally wrecked.
* one of my teenage burger-joint co-workers brought me wind chimes, and even brought lip gloss and sidewalk chalk for the girls. Who says there is no hope for today's youth?
* This morning, Jack saw people across the street moving into their house so he grabbed our dolly and went over to help them for an hour or so. He came home dripping in sweat, then proceeded to get out the mower and mow the entire yard. Then he and my BIL started screwing down the boards to our new back step, so that no visitors would fall and hurt themselves. After several hours of therapeutic work for Jack, my SIL told him "stop working" and he came and sat with me. I know it helped him, but I feel like we're getting lost in this tornado and I needed him to connect with me again.
* I had a salt bath tonight and Jack came and sat beside me in the bathroom. I was exhausted and glassy-eyed and as I talked with him, he washed my sore body with a cloth and brushed my hair off my face. Then he dried me off when I got out of the tub and even helped me put on my jumbo pad (welcome to the world of "wings" Jack). I love this man more every day.
* Julia has been sick with a fever and diarrhea, not much appetite but still playing and buzzing around the house a mile a minute.
* Kim is coping well, listening to healing music and spending lots of time with visiting friends and family. She says she is up to going to school tomorrow and I tried to prepare her for the questions her school-mates would ask her. Pre-teens just aren't very thoughtful or sensitive about such painful things and I don't want her hurt.
* my milk is coming in, mostly on my left side. As much as I hate my jelly belly and bleeding bottom right now, it is unfair beyond description that I am making milk for a baby I can never nurse. I can't even express how angry it makes me.
* my mom has written a letter for Abby and wants to put a copy of it in her casket.
* we found the perfect song for her funeral but the only version I could find to download was in a weird file name, not mp3 but some kind of data file. I can play it on my computer but can't burn it and play it elsewhere. Must figure a way to convert it so we can play it at Abby's funeral.
* funeral? Did I say funeral? No, I must be wrong.