Here goes nothing

Ok, here goes.  Every single day I feel this weight of guilt on my chest because I let me baby die.  I did not protect him and now he is gone.  Maybe if I had taken better care of myself.  Maybe if I hadn't tried to support everyone else.  Maybe if E was still alive.  Things would be different. 

When I think about things logically I KNOW that I didn't do anything to hurt myself or my baby, when I think about it logically I KNOW there is nothing I really could have done differently, and when I think about it logically I KNOW that sometimes things just happen without cause or explanation.
But the problem is, I rarely think about it that way.  I have tried everything to explain to myself that I did nothing wrong but I cannot seem to rationalize it and deep down in my brain a scary voice chants 'you killed your baby.'  You wonder why I'm depressed and on edge?  Well how do you learn to function when every second of every day someone whispers in your ear 'you killed your baby'?  That was not at all sarcastic, if you have a suggestion, please share.  Sometimes I feel like the guy from the Twilight Zone who sees the gremlin on the wing of the plane but no one else can see it.  I see what I've done and I know that karma is after me because of it, but no one else seems to see that gremlin.  The karma thing is a separate issue for my psyche in itself (why else would it take 5+ years of being miserable to cure something that should have been 'routine'?)

So now I sound pretty crazy don't I?  In a previous post I told you about the little toddler ghost that follows me around and now I'm telling you that I have a gremlin that whispers in my ear?  Wow, mwc has finally cracked up.

When we were at the Dr and they were telling me my baby was dead but had not been 'passed out of my system' (is there a colder way to put that?) the nurses tried to explain what happened.  In the next month they seemed to find that nothing was really wrong with my body at the time and they attributed it to stress because there was no real reason I should miscarry.  I think that is the biggest reason I blame myself.  Stress.  Its no secret I live a stressful life and while I have been through some difficult times, I feel like I stress myself out more than necessary sometimes.  I take on other people's problems and feelings because I want to help them and in turn that puts stress on me.  It took a long time for me to learn to be a little selfish when it comes to my feelings.  When E died I asked his mother if there was anything I could do to help her family out and she asked if I would call all of his friends and let them know what happened.  She gave me a list of first names and phone numbers scrawled on a piece of notebook paper in his handwriting.  20+ people I called in 2 days and let them know.  Most of them were people I had never met or heard of and were friends from his high school and college days from years before I knew him.  My husband, TB, was too upset to help and broke down after listening to the first call I made.  I told him to sit with a friend and relax while I made all of the calls out of earshot by myself.  I wanted to protect my husband from his pain.  I should have been protecting my baby.  Each time I introduced myself as one of E's friends and explained that I needed to tell them something serious I had to relive the details of the suicide and listen to them break down and cry and ask me questions.  When it was nighttime and TB has finally fallen asleep I would sneak out on to the patio and cry hysterically.  I didn't want TB to feel like he needed to take care of me, I wanted to support him in his grief and be there for him.  I should have been there for my baby.  For the first few weeks I kept my agony on the inside while we attended the viewing with his family members who had lost touch and wanted stories about him.  I kept it inside when TB couldn't go to work.  I kept it inside at the funeral when it felt awkward.  I did whatever I could to bottle up my feelings and that stress killed my baby.  Its my fault and I am having a tough time living with that.