10 Days Later - Dreaming is bad

It's been 10 days. As Chandler said, it feels like months ago.

I had a dream last night that would be amazing for some. To me, it was a nightmare.

I was in a big room, kind of like what a highschool or college lab would look like, with little workstations with sinks and people with labcoats everywhere. I was giving birth, and as it turns out, i was having twins. I was just laying on one of the workstation countertops. For the second baby, i was having an out-of-body experience, like iw as still on the countertop but I was also standing next to me, holding the second baby. I was premature with both, they were so tiny. And the second one was breathing or moving. And i stood there, praying for it to open it's eyes up, but then I also thought "well, at least I havea nother anyway" Then it's eyes opened and it started coughing. Its hand looked all jacked up, and I asked the doctor about it. (the british asian/singaporian doc from Mercy, whose pic i can't find online amazingly) She said something about some sort of condition the babies had. Then she told me I had to start getting a ton of calcium.

So I get up and start wandering around trying to find milk, it's like a mix of my previous jobs and highschool all mixed into one. I saw this chick Michelle that i used to work with, as well as Melinda who I went to highschool with. And outside was this big cooler, the kinds used to store flowers but it was like a vending machine. So i was still wearing just the little paper outfit you get in surgery and I hopped into it, and was digging around trying to find stuff with calcium. Some guy came in, and I had to tell him I was looking for all the milk.

Then I realized I should probably start telling people I had babies, like it was weird. I was shy to tell people. Wondering if they cared or what they would think. People were congratulating me, but in the way as if you tell people that you just won $100 in a scratcher or bought a used car. Mild interest. And then someone told me I was the 9th person from HS to have a kid (like not that many people had), and i was like "WHAt are you talking about?!" and i listed everyone i knew with kids. Then I realized I had to find Joey, because he wasn't with me when i gave birth. I found him, and he was crying over something, I don't remember what. And i was like "hey...where were you...i've been trying to get a hold of you...i gave birth" and he had some sort of excuse, and I was like "seriously...just leave your effing cell phone on!".

Then I went back to the college-looking lab room to find the doctor, and she pulled me aside to lecture me that I had said something earlier that offended her. And i didn't remember what I said, nor did I get what the problem was when I said it, but I just nodded and apologized.
This for sure is a carryover from one time that Chandler lectured me for something that offended him and I was so stunned, it was the night I told him i was in love with him, and I just nodded and apologized but I really didn't understand why but I knew if i said that, he'd flip out and iw as wayyyyy too vulnerable to risk that.

Needless to say, that dream really fucked me up.

It also fucks me up that when I was in highschool and I read about palm reading and I read that the number of lines on the side of your hand meant how many kids you had, and I had 2 strong lines but one faint one, and I told my friends "I guess i'll have 3 kids but one will die". Thanks Younger Self for making that come true.

A comment I received on this blog:
Thank you for being so brutally honest about this. Thank you for sharing this. It's releiving to know someone else is out there with this fucked up set of unexpected emotions.

I'm humbled that people actually read this, and that no one's given me some pro-life lecture. And brutally honest is the only way I know how to handle this, in "real" life I have a smile plastered to my face...this is one of the few rare spots (other than unloading to Chandler and Rachel) that i can't just unload so I don't go around like a ticking time bomb. But if this helps anyone else out there, then i'm definitely glad.

Last night, had some more cramping. I feel like such a douche for bitching about it, like it's not THAT bad, it's more just...odd...because I rarely get cramps so getting them in general is weird.

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2:10 pm

Everything seems like i'm sleepwalking or in a trance. People speak to me, and my usual reply is "huh? What?"

I just want to know that everything physically is at least back to normal. If i think about it too much i start to get upset...the thought of "scraping". It makes me shiver. The thought of some dude being in there scraping "curettage" while i'm completely knocked out.

This past weekend I spent time with Chandler, talking about stuff, and it actually was crazy therapeutic. It meant a ton when i tried to tell him how i feel like i need to be punished for this and he just looked at me with that look of his and told me to just stop, that i've punished myself enough, to view this from a different perspective...maybe that just wasn't the time for this one, and it didn't have consciousness so maybe this one will be in the next round. Interesting perspective.

I just have to be careful...otherwise i'm defeating hte purpose of saying it's over and that i need to know what's what with my marriage. I'm not falling back into the cycle we were in.

I just can't shake this feeling that I got rid of something that would give my life meaning. I seriously feel like nothing more than warm body on this earth. I'm a drone, but i don't feel like a drone...i WANT to feel like a drone. Being a drone but not feeling like one hurts.

And i don't want to be a member of this club that i'm now in.

Repeating in my head is the word "mother"...i was a mother. This body had the potential to have something GROWING inside of it. It felt very odd and alien at the time. Like "wtf can i start making milkshakes and pizza too? am i baby takeout machine?"...but now, it's kind of like, holy crap...that is incredibly POWERFUL, to be able to create and grow a baby inside of you, another human being...that's an incredible powerful thing that guys will never experience.

Oh, and apparently, neither will I now.

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4:10pm

Went to Target today, had to avoid looking at the baby section as i walked by it. And then I was in the book section (picked up Kathy Griffin's latest one...i need a good laugh) and naturally there's a TON of books on pregnancy all popping out at me.

I so badly just want someone to hug me and tell me it'll be okay. I want someone to tell me that this won't haunt me forever, that sh*t happens, that i did the best of a not-so-idea situation, that i made an okay judgment call, that ultimately:

I'm not pure evil or scum of society for what I did.

I can't stop feeling like i'm pure dirt. No, mixed dirt. Even worse.

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5:15 pm

And this is where the tears for today starts. Was IMing Chandler, and i made a wallowing stupid comment about the abortion, he didn't get it, and i kept having to explain it, and I really just wanted to STOP the conversation, i wanted him to say "ah whatever crazy lady i don't get it but whatever", i didn't want to have to explain for 10 mins the whole thread again, why the one quip tied into something else, how i said it becuase i was feeling sorry for myself...

Like i get riled up REALLY easily as a result of all of it, and I already feel like i'm not entitled to feeling what I feel. I get he just wanted to understand the thread, but having to repeat things on the topic, and just feeling like i have to explain why i said what i said means to me that i have to defend what i said and why i feel what i feel.

I feel like dirt. that's what i feel like. I feel like a stupid teenage kid who didn't know vaseline breaks down latex or that you can get pregnant having sex standing up. I feel like I was smarter at 16 than I was about this. I feel humiliated that teenagers protect themselves better than I did. I feel humiliated that I spread my legs so someone can go in and "scrape". I feel humiliated that I had to dress like Patient X in blue. I feel humiliated that I had to wear effing pads last week.

I feel humiliated that I had to go along for the ride of whatever my body was going through.

I felt like a rag doll the instant the test came up positive. That i was just following the direction of whatever everyone else was throwing me, even if that was just a silent voice of what i should or shouldn't do. I don't feel like i did this for me, i did it for what would have been my kid, I did it to spare a lot of other people everything from financial hardship to heartbreak to family embarrassment. I felt pushed and pulled in so many ways. Right down to what clinic to go to was like this one, no that one, no back to this one...

I feel humiliated for being a rag doll, a stupid irresponsible rag doll who risked other people's futures because i screwed up the burden of responsibility and birth control that was on me.

I am my very own Degrassi High episode. Old skool, not the new generation. The one with Joey and Caitlyn...the chick who slept with Joey at the very end of the show (didn't she get an abortion? I thought she talked to Spike about what it was like to keep the kid).

Point is: i feel humiliated. Straight up slushee thrown in my face in front of the world.

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7:40pm
Drove home, bawled, realized I left my cell phone at home, had to turn back around, it took over an hour to get home from work.

I feel so empty. Shallow and empty.

What am I doing?

I just want to run away.

I tried to find airfare to go back home, but it's like $700-$800. I can use my airmiles, but there's so many restrictions around this time of year (Tbirdday and Xmas).

On the drive home I kept picturing the ultrasound. It really didn't bug me at the time, even days later. i didn't SEE it. I just saw the placenta pregnancy sac doodad. And now that image is burned in my brain. THe shape, everything. And how it could have grown. What it would have felt like seeing it grow each visit.

I've decided to stop thinking of the gender thing. I could run with the boy thing and take it so far i'll go nuts. So for now, no more thinking it would have been a boy.

GOD the amount of betrayal I've done to Joey. He loves me so much, and he has no idea his wife went through effing surgery. And Chandler, i pretty much flashed in front of him what he wanted and then took it away. To be honest, both of them deserve so much better than anything I have to offer. Both of them should be with devoted women who adore them, becuase when each of them are at they're best, they're the most incredible loving guys to be with. And i've been blessed to have both their love, and right now I feel like complete pond scum for not being able to give either of them what they want.

How I'll get the vision of Chandler's arm without a baby in it out of my head is beyond me.

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8:36pm

I have a feeling of pending doom. I swear I'm not normally THIS melodramatic. I normally am trying to get a grip on things. But right now, it's so much more comforting to allow myself to drown in this depression that's unlike any other I have ever felt.