Empty

On Memorial day I cleaned Pierce's headstone off because I knew they would be clearing it shortly after the holiday and I didn't want all of his birthday things thrown away. I left all the flowers and plants and a couple windmills, I didn't want it to be empty. :) It took them longer than I thought to clear the graves but after they did my little babies grave sat empty for at least a week. I think for the first week in its existence.

Now I know I have said we literally live within a mile of the cemetery, we pass his grave on a daily basis and I often run by it. In all those time I could never remember his "stuff." Finally last week I got over there to put a few things back out. I hate having it empty. I did keep some of the stuff he got for his birthday and put them in with my flowers.  Including a cute little blue windmill that looks perfect next to his yellow rose bush.

Have I mentioned I am a major planner? I wrote out Phil and my's life plan 3 or so weeks into dating while sitting behind the desk at Desert Sun Tanning salon. By month and year when what would happen. Including children, houses, schooling. It is rather surprising that all went pretty well according to plan (besides a couple miscarriages) until Pierce was born. Since then I feel like my plans have all come up empty.

I think in life I am trying to learn that my plans aren't the plans. They seem like good enough plans, and I like em. :) I read on someone's blog a quote that went something like:

You have to give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.


Now why is this so hard for me? I remember after my first miscarriage being SO frustrated that things weren't going according to my plan. ( I am a little bit of a control freak apparently) That only bumped things off plan by a couple of months. This is changing my WHOLE LIFE PLAN.

I feel like I am in a good spot as far as accepting the fact that my child died and he isn't coming back. It has happened and I can't change it. As much as I wish I could. The problem now is creating a new plan. A plan that I like. A plan that I want. A plan that includes that part I can change.

Never in my whole life have I wanted a stragler. I have never been the type to want my kids really close together either. I am much to high strung for that. But I also remember seeing those people who have a kid 5-10 years after what was their youngest and thinking I NEVER WANT THAT. I feel like because of that I have been trying to make myself ready to start trying again. But for some reason I am just not there. I think we have set about 4 different times to start trying that have all come and gone. I want to be ready. I do want to have any bigger gap than we already do. But I am not there. I guess the good news is neither is Phil. At least we can be on the same page in our NON plan. ;)

Phil keeps reminding me that we wont just have a 5 year gap to have a 5 year gap. We had a baby in between. That is his place. I wish I could think "Oh we'll have a big gap and then just have 2 close together." I don't feel like we can go there. We have a lot working against us. C-sections, blood incompatibility, random mutations, freak who knows what else. I remember hating when I would ask people how many kids they wanted and they would answer "We're just taking them one at a time." I was like "ok...... so how many do you want?" haha I feel like that is all we can do right now. Put on foot in front of the other and worry about 1 more right now. Later another might be an option, but I don't feel like I can go there right now.

Life plans suck.  Ya know that? I should just be one of those people who just fly by the seat of their pants. I should have always been the one to say things like "taken 'em one at a time" or "I just want a healthy baby" (when asked about gender preferenc e;) Instead I am miss planner america who wanted 3 boys 2 girls, 2-3 years apart, done having kids by 30 and BOOM my perfect little family. Now that is a good plan, see why I don't want to let it go? ;) 

We'll I am gonna have to. I am gonna have to learn to embrace the new plan or the NON plan. :) At least if I don't have plans they can't come up empty right?