Catching Up...

For the past month I have felt like life has been soaring ahead of me and I have been stuck in place, trying desperately to keep pace with the world bustling around me. I haven't been able to move past the basic emotions of anger and sadness. I am pretty much stuck on those two most of the time.

I still smile, laugh, talk, and function seemingly normally on the outside, but to be honest: I am completely broken inside. I feel awkward, I feel too big for my body, I feel numb. I feel like I am functioning on auto pilot and the rest of me is just along for the ride.

It has been hard being trapped in this house. Every where I look I either see something of Leila's, or I see "where Leila should be"... but isn't. The funny thing is, Leila never entered this house alive, so you would think that I wouldn't have all these reminders. But that isn't true. For the five months I was pregnant all I could think about was where her pack and play would be, where her swing would go, where I would put her baby gym, how her room would be decorated. I rearranged and redecorated our house physically, and in my mind so many times that all I can see is her. She is everywhere, and yet she was never truly in this home at all.

It kills me that her whole life was spent behind a plastic wall. My heart breaks for all the other NICU mommies that I met and encountered while she was at the hospital. I saw so much sadness and so much joy pour out of those rooms. There were a few moms that I encountered that shared similar stories to ours: they offered me so much hope and strength. They seemed to have a never ending supply of positivity. I tried to be like them, even in the darkest hours.

But now, being trapped at home with the reality that my daughter is gone forever, I am finding it difficult to be positive.

And I know Landon can feel that.

And that tears me up inside.

So when my husband came home from his boat det (Navy speak for a short "deployment" to get him ready to really deploy), we packed up Landon and headed to Disneyland.

I will be honest, we had a pretty good time. There were plenty of things that reminded me of Leila or made my heart stop for a minute, but all in all, it was a pretty good time. We were able to "escape" our emotions for a few minutes. We became fixated with Landon's happiness and making everything perfect for him.

I will write more about our visit when I have time. For now I am just trying to catch up with the real world. Coming home last night was like running in to a brick wall.. We had been avoiding it for the past half week, but coming home we could no longer escape reality.

For now I will sit with my son and eat our French toast, and try to hold on to the magic of Disneyland...

Don't worry, I will post the French toast recipe later!