Another sleepless night

Another sleepless night.  I've never felt so helpless.  I couldn't unwind - couldn't even bring my shoulders down from around my ears, or keep my eyes closed.  They kept opening cause my brain kept spinning.  It's like being on constant spin cycle, without any end in sight.

I think I'm repressing most things to be able to get through the days, so at night when there's literally nothing to do, my mind wanders.  Not just wanders, it feels as though it is hijacked by the negative thoughts and replays of the past few weeks.

I wish I could just hold onto the good things to come out of this.  Whereas the horrible images and traumatic events are on repeat like a movie, the good times and things are like a play you go to see once - you feel happy at the time, but its harder to recall the further away from it you get.

I look at her pictures over and over, just so I don't forget her.  I feel like she's slipping away already, being replaced by the bad times and feelings I can't erase.

When I lay down to sleep, it starts.  I feel guilty.  I feel somehow, I should have been able to prevent this.  Should I have gone to the doctor earlier - would that have changed anything?  Should I have slept solely on my left side?  What if I simply drank more water?  What if I had an opportunity to practice kangaroo-care with her like that one mother and she miraculously sprung back to life like her baby?  What if we had gotten pregnant earlier/later?  What if, what if, what if.  The logical side of me knows this doesn't change anything or help, but these are the thoughts that find their way into my brain and keep me from getting any rest.

And the guilt.  The overwhelming guilt of it all.  Why her and not me?  Why couldn't I give Matt something to hold onto?  Now I feel as thought I'm slipping away from him, too - he doesn't have his daughter and now his wife is incapable of being there for him.  Why couldn't I give Parker a baby sister?  In his own words "now he has to wait even longer."  That tore my heart.  We waited on purpose so we would be financially secure and physically/mentally capable of handling a baby, and now this.  Should we have just had a baby ASAP?  What if I had other children when Parker was younger?  I feel like I've isolated him, relegated him to only-childhood, and thus put him at a disadvantage.

My whole family.  This year has been horrendous.  Coraline was the one glimmer of hope, the one piece of happiness I think everyone was hanging onto.  She was the Christmas present, the New Years promise, that everyone desperately needed.  And now there's just disappointment.  I don't care how many times Matt tells me they're not disappointed in me, I'm still the one who feels it.  I feel like they look at me and something clicks in their heads and they say "oh yeah, she promised us a baby and just left us with broken hearts."  And they can't look at me then.

What is my future after this?  I had a goal, a purpose, a reason for being here.  I guess I shouldn't have put all my eggs in this basket, but FFS.  I felt like I owed it to all the women who had a hard time getting pregnant, or in their pregnancy, since mine was so easy and complication-free.  I felt like it was my duty to have another, to not take it for granted that I could.  And above all, we love each other so much we wanted to create our own child together.

Everything - every promise for the future, every hope and dream, every relationship - has been ripped away.  Father and daughter, brother and sister, husband and wife.  All of them forever altered, because I couldn't save her.  I should have been able to save her - I should have died, not my baby girl.  I knew in an instant the second I held Parker in my arms what it was to be willing to sacrifice my own life for his.  And I would have done the same for her, given the chance.