I just had my first acute heart stopping pain attack in weeks.  I was cleaning up for chag and came across one of the last utrasounds of Gabbi- one where she already looked like a baby and you could see how much her profile looked like Channah.  She had my brother Josh's nose.  God it has not hurt this much in a while now.  I don't want to medicate myself as I still need to cook for yom tov but I think I am going to anyway.

I want my baby.  She should have been here with me tonight.  Jason should have been learning all night with the 3 girls at home.  Instead he will be home with me in case I lose it and there are only 2 estrogen based life forms.

Crap I really did not need this today.  

On top of that I light a yartzheit candle again tonight for my Gabbi.  I do not say yizkor, but the candle is a private declaration of mourning.  Lighting that candle is so painfu, but it is a good pain.  It is the only thing I, as a mother, can do for my Gabbi and I like to believe she is close to me while it is lit.  Pessach time I lit it than sat and sobbed for 45 minutes in front of my candles.

3 months later.  Still not pregnant.  Still miserable.  I have stopped making sure to say my tehillim every night as it does not really appear that God is listening to me anyway.  What difference does my stupid little voice make amongst billions anyway.  Like he is really listening to sad little me anyway.  So many brachot this month.  So many signs.  My body playing tricks on me, and still nothing.  Why is God teasing me like this?  What did I do to deserve this sort of pain?  I must be a truly awful person to deserve this sort of gut wrenching agony.

And it just keeps coming back when I least expect it.  I hate the surprises.  My God I so did not need this today.

My Gabbi.  My Baby.  How did this happen.  Everything was going so well.  I was supposed to be so happy by now.  Recovered from childbirth with a happy 2 month old smiling up at me.  Not a bag in my closet with a picture of a dead little girl and her unused hospital tags.

How did I come to be stuck like this?  How am I supposed to spend tonight remembering accepting ol malchut shomaayim when I think God hates me.   If I were to be asked again I am not so certain that I would say yes.  "Take your rules and stuff 'em" seems more accurate right now.

Keep davening please.  Not sure it is worth anything, but please keep doing it anyway.

My GOSH there is just something about both retail therapy and organizing the house/making things pretty that is good for the emotional stability of my brain.  Bought a new table cloth that matchees my nice dairy dishes for shavuote.  Found perfectly matching napkins at ikea.  The whole thing just appeals to my sense of order and style.  The table is going to  look awesome.

The only tricky moment was walking through the baby section, but I managed to do it without crying and once we were through I was good again.

I just realized that one of my biggest triggers is talking about our trip to Toronto this summer.  In my head from the very first time I heard it might happen it was the time to introduce Gabbi to all the family there who would not have seen her yet.  We would have spent our summer surrounded by people wanting to see us, to meet Gabbi, and oooing and ahhhing over the little pink bundle of joy.

We are still going to Toronto, but now we are going exactly the same as we went last year.  In fact, when I see people for the first time I expect tears not giggles.  Someone else will be getting the oooing and ahhing and "do you need us to sow down a little for you's)  (I am THRILLED for her that she does not have our problems, just sad for me that we do).

I did not realize until just now how excited I was to being, for the first time in a long time, one of the centres of attention for something good.  Yeah, not the best reason to be grieving I know, but I am the first to admit that while parenting is one of the most altruistic things you an ever possiby do, there is still something in it for yourself when people oooh and ahhh and compliment your child(ren).

As always, please keep davening.  Same bat name.  Same bat idea.

Show went great.  Shabbat was really nice, so why am I in such a crabby/stupid/moronic mood today?

Seriously I am stressing over everything (even though I had a really productive day and got all my new website photos done of this season's work and got them all edited and started putting them on line and did some repairs and restructuring to my website).  I went for a walk, got in some retail therapy- yet I still feel like I want to kill anyone who comes anywhere near me?

I tried to stick my shoe in my purse and my phone on my foot.  I ran out to a doctor at the mercaz before checking to see if the sniff was even open (it wasn't) so started heading over to the other branch before even thinking to call the main line to see if there were any family doctors working in our kupah anywhere in Beit Shemesh at all tonight (there aren't).  I tried to stop at a new bakery only to discover they were essentially closed.

Oh, and I found out that it looks like one of the two family doctors who I really like is no longer working at my sniff.

Meantime the blood test results that were supposed to be in today to I could give them to my shrink tomorrow aren't.  There is a slim chance they might come in by 9 but if not chances are I will not have them by the time I need them, which means I will not be allowed to keep taking the medication that is actually sort of almost working.

I am full of nervous energy for some reason, feel like I am going to cry.  I totally feel like God is playing games with my body right now and I SERIOUSLY DO NOT APPRECIATE IT.  I am inisanely furious with the way God is choosing to treat me right now and the next person who tells me God does not give you more than you can handle is going to get shot.

I am, like, so full of nervous energy I am shaking.  My blood sugar is going nutty and I have no idea why.  I am going to call the endocrinologist tomorrow to try to get an appointment asap as I have no idea what is going on.  I have a raging headache, not a migraine, just the headache of a lifetime and my brain feels like it is on speed and running circles around the inside of my skull.

I am at a total loss as to how to calm down.  I am frustrated, angry, furious and doing dumb things and all for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON.   Yes I know everyone can have a bad day but this is totally getting ridiculous.

I can't make my brain stop doing really dumb things.  HELP!!!!

Well, I am about as back into my "normal" life as possible.  My students are back.  I am working a 70 hour work week.  Heading out for a doctor's appointment.  And tonight I ran the book swap.  To anyone watching I think I certainly look like the "old" me.  So when do I start to feel like her?

Well, had Gabbi been born alive she would be just over 3 months old now- I guess that means it has been just over 3 months since my world went black.

I have come a long way in three months.  I went on a date yesterday with my husband and enjoyed myself.  I listen to music again.  I have started reading books so long as they are really light.  The 15 pairs of earring I churned out today for a show later on  this weeks definitely says I am back in the studio, and the shows I have booked means I am seeing customers.  Most of my piano students are back.  I am planning our trip this summer.  Shopping on ebay.  Watching some of the tv shows I enjoy.  I am even hosting the book swap again later on this week.

Looks like I am totally back to "the old Rachel".

Except I'm not.  I go through the motions a lot of the time without having the emotions to go with them.  I light shabbat candles by wrote.  I almost never get through Friday night without tears.  I am taking 3 different pills a couple of times a day to keep me sane, and if I miss a week with my therapist I go ballistic.  I still have moments when I will not let Jason or Channah out of my site, and others where I sob uncontrollably for no particular reason.

I am still avoiding most of my friends.  Pregnant women still make me skittish as do newborns.  While I have starting things like housework again I am doing the bare  minimum for the most part but other times going on insane organizational sprees.  There are times where I think horrible thoughts about myself and others that are just not "me" sort of things to think!  Basically, most of the time I have no idea if I am coming or going and I feel like a nut. (Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.  Right now I am more of an Almond Joy than a Mounds)

In any case, the world has changed through my eyes.  Like the thestrals in Harry Potter I have now seen and understood death and pain and thus there are things I see very differently than I did before.  I try to make better use of every minute.  To help people more and complain to them less.  I cherish every kiss and hug from Channah because I know at some point they will not come as frequently or as easily.  I have learned that not all friends are alike.  Some are like family- and some family is invisible.  I have learned that sometimes total strangers can help the most, and long time time friends can cause the most pain.

I have learned that someone can change your life without ever opening their mouth.

I have learned that some health care workers are incredible and others are so terrible as to seem malicious.  I have learned that many see you as a number, either on a file, on a scale, or on a paycheck and not as a person.  I have learned that if you find a good one hold on for dear life.

I have learned I can fake almost anything if it will make Channah happy, and that her hugs can make even the darkest times a little lighter.  I have learned to rely on Jason more and myself less.  I have learned that there are times to fight for what I know is right and times to let it go because it does not matter anyways.
I have learned it is not always possible to forgive or to forget.

I have watched the world around me go back to it's normal course, and felt myself being pulled along with it.  I can feel my heart resisting.  I should be grieving.  I can feel my head pulling.  I need to be human.  The two sides of my personality fight for dominance and my soul gets caught in the middle.  It wants to grieve and to move forward.  It wants the pain to dull but not to disappear.

I have learned that I can not even begin to comprehend losing a child you knew outside the womb, but others can not begin to comprehend the difference between a still birth and a miscarriage.  I have learned what it is to want something to badly your body plays tricks on you.  To seek things out so thoroughly you will try looking under any rock or take any miracle potion to try to get it.  I also know eventually reality always wins but sometimes you spend a fortune trying to hold it off for a few days.

It feels like so much longer than 3 months.

Obviously I still miss what I would have had, but I am starting to look forward to what will please God eventually be.  No potential child could ever replace the one I lost, but I beg God regularly that he send me one so I have something to do with the extra love built up in my heart.

As always, I end by begging that you please keep davening for a healthy and full term pregnancy that ends with a healthy baby and a healthy mommy for Rachel Marmel bat Mindle Hinda Chaya.

I love living in Israel.  I mean, I really love living in Israel.  Despite the last few months of living through my own personal little hell, I would not have preferred to have lived through it anywhere else but here.  There is a built in spirituality that kept me grounded.  It never quite leaves your neshama so long as your feet  are on the ground here. No matter how small the flame gets it never quite goes out.  At least it didn't for me.  As much as I wanted to turn my back on God and leave his "rules" my soul was torn and I was never quite able to go through with it.  It was like the power of the souls around me was holding my soul with a spider web that kept me ever so slightly tethered to my people.

Driving up to Jerusalem I can feel my spirit lifting as we rise into the mountains.  Getting the car and the freedom to drive in to Jerusalem when I need a pick me up, and in fact having to go in to see my therapist once a week, has made an enormous difference to my overall well being.  Today Jason and I went on a date to o some of the "Jerusalem-y" things that I have never done that I have always wanted to do.  It was exhausting, and a total emotional roller coaster for me, but I am so glad I went and I feel much better for having had the day out alone with Jason.

One of the things that we did was the Kotel Tunnel Tour.  Apart from the fact that the tour itself was incredible and something I have always wanted to do, I had a moment there that I could not imagine having anywhere but in Israel.

So the thing is, about half way through the tunnel tour you reach the spot on the Western wall that is directly opposite where the Holy of Holies was when the Beit Hamikdash was standing.  It is actually odd in that the stones there drip water and it looks like the wall itself is crying.  As we were coming to the spot, a group of 4 women came through the centre of our group to go there to daven.  Turns out, a bride on her wedding day is welcome to come in, free of charge, to pray at this, holiest of holy sites.  It is also long thought that a bride on her wedding day has the power to give brachot to which God will listen.

I left our tour group and went over to the kallah and asked for a bracha.  I told her my daughter died 3 months ago and I had one amazing little neshama at home and all I wanted in the world was the chance to have more.  She gave me the most wonderful, sincere, spiritual and complete bracha, taking everything I could possibly think of into account, and it ended with the other women showering me with brachot and me and the kallah, two total strangers from totally different backgrounds who would likely never see each other again, sobbing and hugging in this narrow, dark corridor with the wall weeping beside us.  Then we both turned to the wall holding hands and each said our own prayers.

This stranger gave me the sort of loving bracha one would expect from a sister or very close friend.  Not a stranger off the street.  I can't imagine being anywhere else in the world and having a similar encounter.  It was  two neshamas touching across the entire spectrum of Judaism.

I don't know what I missed from our tour-guide (who happened to be very good!), but I do know I would not have given up those few minutes for any history lesson in the world.