It's been a week.

I have survived this long.

It is clear to me that I will not die. That I will find some way to continue living. What sort of life that will be I don't know, which is terrifying. A part of me died with Gabriel, my heart has been shredded, and I can see that I am at the beginning of a transformation. The old person and her dreams and hopes and worries and life is no longer, and there isn't quite a new me to fill it yet.

I know my husband is worried about me, but he relaxes some now. There is so much hope in his eyes when he looks at me, that it crushes me. I don't know how to live up to those expectations. I wish to be better for him, though he doesn't press me or rush my grief. I can honestly say that it was probably for him that I didn't lay down and quit. Now life has reclaimed me and it's too late to do anything but find a way to live, a way to walk again.

I asked DH how you get through life as only half a person, because I do not think I will ever be whole again. He said, "You hop." I laughed. He said the closest he comes to remembering happiness is when I laugh at something he says.

I find myself overwhelmed a lot, sometimes the tears fall whether I want them to or not. I am always sad. Dh says I look so bewildered and lonely. It is how I feel. It's been a week, and I am shattered still. I miss Gabriel so much I can't express it. I spend hours staring at his pictures, which I protect fiercely. I am unwilling to share him with everyone, and keep his picture - all that we have left of him - from anyone who cannot love him.

And yet, I can't talk much about it anymore. I can't repeat the story of his birth much, though I've relayed it several times now. It's harder a week later than it was. I find myself pulling away, unable or unwilling to talk how I am. It is unreasonable, but I feel like it's been a week, and I have to move on now. I don't want to, but I can't talk about him, or me, or DH; I can't force that on other people. There are emails waiting response, compassionate people who wish to know how I am and help me and they are unanswered, because what can help? I'm not going to die now and I don't know how to live and that hasn't changed and won't change for a long time. I feel cut off and isolated from my old friends. I know the barrier is one I put up, but I can't seem to find a way around it. Maybe it's protection - 6 of my friends will have their healthy, living children soon; two of them are boys who were due within two weeks of Gabriel. How can I continue to be their friends after this? I cannot be of use or support to them, and I don't know if I can handle the pain of my loss against their children, healthy and perfect and alive.

Again, the old me is gone, and there is not yet something in place. At least, I am here, but I am broken, cut up, breaking down.

Already, the subject of trying again has come up. No decisions are made or can be made. I need to know more before we can approach it, and six months is the minimum before I can be pregnant again. I do not know that I can do it again, but there is an urge that is strong to try again. Not because another child could ever replace Gabriel - never - but . . . I don't know. I just don't know and I am not making a decision now. But I think about it a lot already.

This is so rambling and I haven't said much have I? I guess there isn't much to say. It all comes back to the same thing. I'm still trying to make sense of Gabriel's life and death, and I do not understand it.