I made this blog back in October to see my progress. I wanted to write down my feelings when I felt them so I could always remember. So I could tell my little girl one day...maybe to help explain it to her better. I wanted to have my ups and downs right there in front of me, so I could feel better about some things when I looked back on them, but it seems like I just feel worse when I look back. I feel like I'm stuck in a rut. I'm just at a standstill. I have been this way for a few months. I remember a post I wrote on the day she turned three months old. I could not believe she was already three months old. Now, here I am, "with" an eight month old little girl. I have an eight month old. What have I done for the past eight months? Shouldn't I be feeling, as they say, "better" by now? It's like a train ride that I want to get off of, but I can't see the stops until I'm already at them. I don't know if I'll get off at a stop that will leave me stuck in some sort of depression, or I'll get off at a stop filled with hope and happiness. So I'm scared to make a move, but I'm also terrified to look ahead and see the train tracks ahead that go up and down, up and down, miles and miles of uncertain hills. That's why I've been so quiet lately. I don't have anything to say, really. I don't want to just whine all the time, who wants to see that? I don't even like to say it. That's why I don't act like anything is wrong around my family or friends. I don't want them to know that I'm really not okay, because on the outside, I am fine. No one really would understand, anyways. Any mother, anyone who has ever been pregnant or had a child knows that love you feel, whether the child was planned or not. It's so crazy, it's beyond unconditional, I feel like it's the purest form of love on earth. I have never been married nor been with a man I could see myself marrying, but I feel like even that love can't compare. It's just different, and because of that I feel like those women can at least see how much it can hurt, but yet unless you've given your baby up to a better life, you never really know how it feels...how it feels to leave the hospital, empty handed. Or, not empty handed, but with a bouquet of flowers not given with a joyous incentive, but given out of sympathy, and with a pink box filled with your daughter's hospital bracelets, hat, and receiving blanket. Or with a memory stick in a camera, holding the only memories you have of the precious time you got to spend with your baby, and knowing you'll have only those memories for years to come. Knowing when you say "see you later," that you will have just that - memories - until you meet again, and you're not sure when that will be. And everything I just said is just the tip of the iceberg of emotions I felt and still feel. It's like when you break a glass into 5 pieces and try to glue it back together, but it doesn't fit quite right because there's a teeny tiny shard missing which throws the entire shape off balance. It will never fit back together quite right because it's like a puzzle and every little piece is crucial. It's a club I never wanted to be a part of - the club of people who understand what it's like to leave a piece of your heart behind and try to pick up the pieces and move on as best as you can...the club of people who are mothers but have nothing to show for it.

That being said, I don't regret my decision because I know it was best for her. But do I wish it had been different? Of course I do...but that, too, is another conundrum...