March 6, 2015

Dear Carter,

Today is hard too. People say that every day gets easier. People lie. I was given something called Trazadone to help me sleep at nights. Supposedly it is very powerful. It didn’t work. I haven’t slept since the night of March 1. I doze here and there. But I don’t sleep. I can’t stop crying. I see your face every time I close my eyes. I keep feeling how cold your face was when I kissed it the last time. Your father doesn’t understand at all. He wasn’t even there when you came into this world. He never got to see you alive. He didn’t see how hard you tried to breathe. You wanted so badly to live, Carter. And I wanted so badly to help you do that. Your Daddy doesn’t understand why I wake up crying. He doesn’t understand why I can be sitting down, not crying (but not smiling either) one second, and then be completely broken the next. He doesn’t understand why, right now, I can’t function without pills. Two kinds of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medications, narcotic pain relievers, and sleeping medicine. The medicine doesn’t make me numb, but it takes the edge off. And even then, I break down every half hour (at the longest).

Your Daddy is trying to deal with this by “going back to normal.” Back to school, work, friends, etc. And even though I know that he is not unaffected, it hurts to watch him just “get back to normal.” It legitimately hurts me. I feel like, “How can you go on when the whole world has just imploded?” I understand that we have other children that need us, and I tend to their needs (like food, water, diaper changes, etc) and I hold them and kiss them, but I’m not myself. I hurt so badly. And I know that they don’t understand. But I can’t just stop hurting, Carter. My whole life is pain right now.

I feel like I need to be able to channel all of this pain and anger into something productive. I have no clue how to start a charity, but I want to start a charity for women that lose their children. And I want a portion of the money to go to developing even smaller intubation tubes. Maybe if there were smaller intubation tubes, you wouldn’t have died. I need to make all of this have MEANT something. I need to make something good come out of all of this. I miss you so much, Carter.

I love you more than all of the stars, Carter.
Mommy