I am joyful and grief-full at the same time.  I have so much to be grateful for, so much to smile about, so much to rejoice in.  And yet, I also want to curl up under the covers and cry.  Simultaneously.  Like one of those weird laugh cries that make you look like maybe this is the moment you’ve cracked, and the world is witnessing the meltdown.  I haven’t cracked.  There will be no meltdown.  I am sitting with my joy and my grief, together.  I am honoring both emotions and their place in today.  I am smiling and crying as I need to.  Sometimes individually and other times at the same time.  I am allowing my mind and my body to process and experience these emotions as I sit with them and allow them to flow through me and then away from me.

One year ago today, my husband and I welcomed our beautiful, healthy baby boy into the world.  He is everything we could have hoped for.  But that day was not everything we had hoped for.  Four minutes after our sweet boy arrived by emergency c-section, my heart stopped, literally. The amazing medical professionals did CPR for two minutes and got me back.  A lot happened, some I know, much I don’t, not a lot of it I can track, but sometime later that same day my heart stopped again.  This time for 19 minutes.  Which is a really long time.  And due to some caring and committed doctors and nurses and a few miracles, they got me back again.  My lungs filled with fluid, I got pneumonia, my kidneys shut down, I had multiple rounds of dialysis, I had a heart pump inserted, and I had multiple surgeries and transfusions.  I spent the next 8 or 9 days in the ICU on a ventilator basically in a coma.  Due to modern medicine, sheer stubbornness, and the power of prayer and good vibes I left the hospital 20 days after I was admitted to continue recovering at home.

My diagnosis was peripartum cardiomyopathy.  A super rare pregnancy complication. There isn’t much research as to why it happens but what I know at this point after a year of doctors and procedures and rehab and scans and medications is that I will never be able to have another child grow inside of me, I will probably be on medications forever, and things changed.  Many things.  Fast.  Unexpectedly.

My friends and family were traumatized.  My husband had to witness his wife die.  I didn’t get to see my son be born or hold him or hear that we had a boy (which we had waited to find out until his birth).  I missed my son’s first cries.  I missed my son’s first Christmas.  I was barely aware enough to realize when the New Year came.  My husband and I didn’t get to have the typical experiences of leaving the hospital together and figuring out how to put the baby in the car seat or settling in at home for our first night together as a family of 3.  I didn’t get to do skin to skin immediately after he was born (they did do that in ICU while I was on the ventilator).  I didn’t get to breast feed because my time in ICU was too long.  I didn’t get to help with his first bath.  I didn’t get to see his umbilical cord fall off.  I didn’t get to help with his first diaper or pick him up when he cried those first days and nights.  We missed a lot. I missed a lot.

Because of every reason each person should be grateful for every moment, plus all our extra reasons, we have spent the last year not missing a thing.  We have cuddled and played and smiled.  We have traveled and met people and gone on adventures.  We have done overboard and have had zero regrets.  I will never regret a moment spent with the people I love making memories.  I almost didn’t have those moments.

And today, our little sweet boy turns one.  And I am a mess.  I am so excited to celebrate him.  He is so wonderful.  His smile melts away all the crap.  But my baby isn’t much of a baby anymore.  He feeds himself and walks and is figuring out the world around him.  That is all worth celebrating.  And it is also all worth grieving.  I will never get to grow another baby inside of my belly.  I will never get to experience a typical birth.  I will never do a lot of things.  But I am here to do what I can.  And I am so glad I get to be here!

So today, I am going to allow myself this time to feel those feelings.  Even if I just slightly look like the Joker from Batman as I smile and cry.  I am going to let myself sit in these moments and emotions and honor what it took to get here, thankful for what I have and grieving what I don’t. 

So often I think we are told in our society that we must act or a behave a certain way in certain circumstances.  Why does it have to be one or the other?  It is appropriate (and healthy) to allow your body and mind the time and space it needs to let those feelings flow.  The happy ones and the sad ones.  Even if they come at the same time.  I am giving myself grace.  And I hope if you are experiencing a flood of conflicting emotions, that you give yourself grace as well.

Happy birthday to my sweet boy!  And happy cheated death-aversary to me!