Signs? Or just more heartache?

We went shopping today, after my much needed breakfast out with a friend.  I never would have believed that talking about this whole ordeal would be so cathartic, but it is.  It doesn't "bring it all up again", because its not like it ever left in the first place.  Coraline is the first thing on my mind every second of every day, and even when I sleep.  Talking about her doesn't bring up "bad" feelings, just affirms the loss I have and the loss everyone around us feels deeply.

We went to the bookstore to try & use my gift card.  I left disgusted.  Not a single book that deals with this situation.  Not in self-help, psychology, pregnancy/fertility, medical/health, grief/loss - nothing.  A few books on grieving briefly touched on "loss of a child", but nothing really in depth other than "this is the worst thing imaginable".  Comforting, right?  One book's only mention of infant loss went "miscarriage - abortion - neonatal loss".  Um, so stillbirth doesn't exist?  Did we just gloss right over that whole factor?  I guess, despite all the evidence I've found in researching this, that the 26000 or so cord-related deaths per year are just not important enough to register.  A flawless pregnancy never just suddenly ends in loss, right?

We've pretty much determined I'm suffering from PTSD, or a form of it related to the intense trauma of the whole experience and the constant grieving from the loss.  Again, I have two modes - forced numbness or near-suicidal depression - and switching between those happens daily, sometimes hourly.  I live in constant fear and paranoia, and I only do things because I'm being pushed or prodded along.  I take all of Matt's suggestions and just do them, cause its easier than thinking for myself.  It's easier than doubting every decision, from what I wear to what I make for dinner to where we go.  I don't want to think for myself most times, because most times it just feels wrong, like I'll make the wrong decision and feel even worse.

Matt and Parker desperately needed haircuts, and despite my not wanting to go to SuperCuts (where I went days prior to having Coraline to get that "new mommy" haircut and didn't want to run into any stylist asking "how's the baby?") it was the only place within several miles.  So off we went.  While the boys are getting their trims, I'm being subjected to one of the many crappy country muzak stations the salon plays, and one of the songs had me in tears.  I don't like or listen to country music, but this one made my heart ache.  I want to think it was a message from Coraline to us - something saying "hey, it's going to be okay - you're all together, doing normal things as a family - I just want you to know I'm here and I'm safe and loved."  I had to leave the salon to keep from breaking down entirely.

Well, remember me in ribbons and curls.
I still love you more than anything in the world...
Love, your baby girl. 

I know the song is about a woman who's "made it big" writing home to her parents, but those lines just reached in and ripped my already fragile hearts to shreds.  Part of me weeps because we never got to put her in "ribbons and curls", and I'll never hear the sweet sound of her voice. Another part of me has been desperately searching for a sign - something, anything - that I still have a connection to her.  That she's still a part of me in some way, because I'll be honest, I can't feel her.  I see her things and pictures, but inside I just feel dead myself.  And so the other part of me wanted this to be her way of trying to comfort me, trying to communicate, keeping that connection.

On the way back home, I saw a rainbow.  Not even a rainbow, really, just a sun spot that refracted and made a small rainbow colored pattern in the clouds.  It's not much, but I'll take it.  I still don't know if I'll ever get that "sign" or have that future-revealing, mind-clearing moment when everything falls back into place and the world makes sense again.  My world won't ever make sense because she wasn't allowed to be a part of it.