Struck today.

I've been anxiously awaiting the announcement of Lucky Blue & Stormi Bree's baby. When it popped up this morning, I did not expect to have the reaction I've had. Full body sobs. In waves, I am rocked hard. I swear I can feel my heart breaking in my chest. I can FEEL it. Overcome with a grief, a love, and a special kind of nostalgia that only a mother can know. Like death, you can never understand birth until you have experienced it. There is a beautiful and devastating permanence in both. In the midst of my breakup, I grieve. I grieve the potential of what could have been. I grieve the incredible experience of the birth of my son. I look at this photo, at this moment, and I know that moment. I am sad that moment for me was so fleeting. This moment is precipice. A new life lies ahead. I am sad for those who will soon find out how hard it could be, and who will be crushed by it. I am envious of those who will stay together, and be strengthened by it, and those who will get it again. I have so many wishes. I wish he would have had patience. I wish he would have seen me through. I wish he would have comforted me when I needed it, and been a source of emotional strength. I wish I could have explored with him deeply and openly conversations of how I experienced pregnancy, childbirth, post partum anxiety, parenting styles, my mother's instinct, second babies, timelines, hormones. Hormones, who only let me begin my return to myself after a year. I envy you with men who don't claim to understand, but those who give you time. Who give you room. Who let you breathe. Who let you talk about, until it is all out, who make you feel loved, not scolded, or hurried. I see this photo, and I remember the feeling of having it all. I was full, I was complete. It is a stark contrast to how I feel these days. A new sense of freedom, yes. But also a strange loneliness. Our son now 16 months. And I still feel that it is so very much at the beginning. And that this is all such a shame. We only got 6 months in our new house together, 2 of which he spent moved out anyway. How was this an honest attempt for us? What is wrong with admitting fault? Working hard? Therapy? Communication? I am still trying to process and reconcile so much of the last couple of years. I will forever be haunted that the last time my former love and I were under the same roof, I was called names, scared, trapped, and I will never forget the way his face would change as he yelled. "I wish I had never met you" he said. "I am mad at him", he said of the baby. I will be haunted forever that he didn't want to try. To work through his demons, our marriage, and fight for our commitment. I will forever be haunted by baby Rosemary, who was supposed to come next, and never will. My body feels hollow now. I don't understand why this happened, as I am in the throes of it. I don't understand how I started with so much love, and ended with so much fear. I am left wondering if I was just something on a checklist as he rushed his way through, a hurried imitation of a life he thought he was supposed to have. I am open, wounded, and sad. I'd waited so long. To find the one person I ever wanted any of this with. For the point in my life where taking a break from work in order to be with at home with a baby was welcome. Loss. So much loss. It's enough to drive a weaker soul mad. I can't stop looking at this photo. There is a bittersweet universe that opened up in me upon seeing it. Of all I had, have, and will never have. 

To those who have been here, how do you get through?

How??