Emotions...and places I won't go

I have rarely known emotions to have such a physical feeling until I lost Chase. Winning games, falling in love, getting married, I guess. But this is different. I can feel the dark cloud coming over me in my heart and when my head realizes this, it almost feels like a weight being laid on my back. Sometimes I try to meet it head on and work my way through it. Sometimes it overtakes me and I don't do anything about it but cry. Like every night I go to sleep. I thank Chase often, for showing me things about myself and Patric and the kids that I never knew before. Like how strong we all are or exactly how much love we have for each other. And also for teaching me about people and relationships and what a true friend really is. I can only imagine what he could have taught people along the way if he were here with on this earth.

So when I laid in bed last night, on my left side, I remembered Chase being there. Now I know him as Chase, but then, it was "baby". I thought it was so cool that I got to be with him all the time. It was so cool that he was attached to me....a part of me. A part of his daddy that I got to love, talk to, and hold whenever I wanted (not that I had a choice!). I think of that everytime I lay on my left side. And I feel him there. I wished I would have hugged him more, though maybe I did. He was so active and I had my hands on my belly most of the time. But now I want more. I was so lucky to carry him for those 9 months. I knew that then but I really know that now. I miss you so much I feel you, buddy. You are always a part of me, always, always with me....

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I found my ultrasound pictures yesterday. They were from my 20 week appointment and there were several. In one of the profiles, his little arm is bent in front of his face at 90 degrees and it is so perfect and so big! You can actually see his muscles--he has little biceps and deltoids and it is so cute. After I found them, I kept looking. I looked in all sorts of hiding places (places I don't ever clean for some reason) for something. I don't know what I was looking for but I kept looking. I went through his dresser and his onesies are all there, most of them yellow but a few blue sports ones because my mom and my sisters knew he was a boy. I stared at his crib and all the cards, pictures, letters, books and momentos from his birth. Sometimes I read through them, sometimes I can't. I don't know what I was hoping to find. Something new, I guess. I don't want it to get old. I don't want to get used to the fact that I have a dead son. I want to keep something fresh. Something new. But I can't.

There are moments of his birth and his life and thereafter that I don't talk about to anyone, including myself. I don't write about it anywhere. And I don't really even let myself think about. I have read other babyloss mamas' words and have commented a few times about these moments or thoughts I have had, but I don't go there too deep. I have not felt ready and I am not sure when I will be. But reading their words makes me think that I will need to do that, too. Sometime. There are a lot of tears in those moments that I don't let myself recall. There is a lot of pain there. I don't want to go there yet I'm starting to feel that this is all I have left. There will be nothing more after that for me to "find" or learn about Chase. And I don't know what I will find talking, writing, or thinking about those moments. But one day, I'll be ready.