One year ago...

Today is a difficult day.
Although the calendar says that it is now Monday, August 30, 2010, my body thinks it is still Sunday because I have yet to go to sleep. I am fighting the sleep mainly because I know what will come when I wake up.


Some of you knew me on this day last year, but some of you did not. 
I did not write a blog post on this day last year, but I did write one many days later that explains what was happening in my life on this day last year. 
http://madsandkelli.blogspot.com/2009/09/mit-fravr-my-absence.html
I had planned for my first experience with the Herning hospital to occur somewhere around March 27, 2010, as Mads and I showed up, him nervous beyond words and me having contractions that were about ten minutes apart, but both of us, ready to bring our child into the world. However my first experience with the Herning hospital went a bit differently than I had imagined....mainly because it happened on August 30, 2009.


I have done a great deal of reflecting the last twelve months.... reflecting on things such as life and death, decisions and accidents, hope and hopelessness, but one of the things I have reflected the most on is breathing... 
you know...the act of inhaling and exhaling; that process we must do to stay alive.


The reason I have thought so much about breathing was because on many days in the last 12 months, that really was all I could think about. Breathe in. Breathe out. Just breathe.
We all get through difficult times different ways.
I have discovered that the way I cope is to breathe.

I know it must sound strange, but in a world where so much is out of my/our control, it has felt like the one thing I COULD control..... every few seconds, I could gain control of one thing... as my chest rose and fell or as I chose to hold my breath. Either way, I could control it...


I am not a person who wallows in sadness or despair, but I have learned this year that if you do not allow yourself to experience the sadness and experience the despair, you will never heal.


However I am not sure if you ever heal from losing a baby. I know that you grow and you adjust and you experience healing... but healing is a process and I just don't think you really ever come to the end of it. At least not from where I am standing. 


But that is something else I have learned in the last 12 months... we all heal differently and that is ok. Many women have lost babies..... but all of us go through the process in our own unique ways. There is not one path or one "fix" and I have learned that is ok... 
Because this is my journey. 
And it is not like anyone else's. 
And like this song by Beth Hart says, that's ok.