An emotional amusement park

You've all heard of the emotional roller coaster. Grieving your child is like visiting the emotional amusement park.

Some people do well at amusement parks, others aren't as great. Either way, you may start out your "day at the amusement park" thinking one of two things. You are going to make the best of it and keep a positive outlook or you will just try to get through it... anyway you can.

I get the emotional roller coaster analogy. Ups and Downs. Grieving consists of a lot more. There is the emotional merry go round, the emotional water ride, the emotional bumper cars. Also complete with all the people around you who just tick you off.

Sometimes I feel like I'm on a merry go round that isn't all that "merry" at all. It's like a merry go round at some sort of freak show or circus. All while going up and down at various moments throughout the ride, you also get presented with flashbacks, anxiety, and fear. Round and Round, over and over. Just when you feel like you have reached a point you are comfortable with or that the ride has ended...Nope, your wrong. Not only is it not over, its seems you are right back where you started.

Who doesn't love bumper cars? It's so much fun to ride around the track with your friends. Everyone looks so happy and you feel like you might look happy too but then....Surprise! Someone rams right into you and you didn't even see it coming. Blindsided by a stranger. Someone you have never even seen in your life. Blindsided by a new emotion that you didn't know you could have. A feeling so new its scary, it feels uncomfortable to feel it but its all you can do.

Yesterday, I had my nine week appointment. I was given the Doctor's name of whom I would be seeing. The name sounded familiar but I wasn't sure. Adam and I waited and he came walking in. I'm sure my eyes were bulging out of my head.

It was the doctor who delivered Brody.

He wasn't quite the gentle man that I had remembered. Had I made it up in my head? Had I imagined that while saving my life and delivering my stillborn baby that he was "the best doctor in the world". His bedside manner was off, different than I had remembered, his mannerisms in general weren't smooth, his voice wasn't as soothing. He wasn't the man I remembered.

But yet I stared at him. I stared so hard, as if...if I stared long and hard enough, I might go back. I might go back to the day. I might see Brody in my mind instead of Brody in the picture. I might hold him again. I might do things different.

He didn't remember me. I tried to remind him. "How could he forget?", I asked myself in my head. I wanted to scream at him. "What do you mean, you don't remember?" It was only 10 months ago. He was dead! How do you forget that?

I guess the rational part of me stepped in to remind myself that I was just another patient that almost died. I couldn't expect him to remember...but I did.

I found myself not even wanted to talk about this pregnancy and "the plan". I wanted to talk about Brody, I wanted to tell him all the details so he suddenly and magically would remember.

Even worse, when I told my friends and family who asked about my appointment....Nothing. It's gotten to that point. That point in grief that sucks so bad because your still there and everyone else thinks you here. They wanted to hear about the pregnancy, they wanted to hear everything was okay. I felt like Brody's memory was just floating away and that hurts.

Most days, I feel excited to go about life. I'm ready for that day at the amusement park. I'm ready for fun and excitement. I'm ready to ride all of the rides, no matter how scary they may seem.Yesterday, I felt like my day was all rained out, like all the rides were shut down, and everyone left me standing there in the rain.