New normal.

I feel like the last 2.5 weeks have been the slowest - and fastest - weeks of my life. Now that things are returning to "normal," it's time to face reality and get back into the world.

J left for his base in CO on Sunday - he drove back his new car [well, new to us; technically a used car], so he hit the road fairly early to make the 8-hour drive back by himself. I hated to watch him drive away; after having him home for 15 days, saying good bye was so hard. I'm just grateful I still have him in one piece though; one thing I did not mention in my last post was that the day everything happened with me losing Devon, J had gotten into a car accident and totaled his car. He was fine, the driver who hit him was fine, but that had happened just hours before my ER visit. To say that day sucked is an absolute understatement.

But anyway.

Now that it's just me and JJ at my mom's house [and my mom's back at work], things are slowly starting to go back to the way they were before everything happened. Physically, I'm OK with this. I feel great, I've healed fantastic, and I hope to be cleared for physical activity when I see my OB and the OB who delivered Devon within the next couple of weeks. Emotionally though, I'm still a mess - and I know that I will be for awhile. I've had a strong bond to my faith as this has gone on and am one of those that believes that God laid out his plan for each of us before we were born, and I just have to accept that God's plan for Devon was to make him one of his angels. That doesn't make my heart heal any faster though, and reality is quickly coming down the pipeline. Soon, I'll be back at work, where I'm sure the healing process will start all over again as I have to either break the news to people who are wondering why I'm there with no baby bump and no baby, or I have to face the sad looks and the "I'm so sorry for your loss" all over again. I feel like such a bitch for not wanting those looks or words of sympathy, because both mean that people care about me and what happened. I just...I don't want to face them all over again. I've faced them enough over the last two weeks.

More sympathy cards came in today. They make me cry when I read them, but I very much appreciate them and the words of comfort they bring me. I also got this today; I ordered it from an Etsy seller the day of Devon's memorial:

Beautiful, isn't it? I cried when I opened the package; I absolutely love it. The footprints aren't his own, but I do plan on ordering a special necklace that will feature his actual footprint.

I also got this necklace from my best friend/Devon's godmother [who has been such an amazing source of strength for me through all of this]:

I plan on wearing both beautiful necklaces all the time to remember my sweet angel baby. They'll be constant reminders that he was here, he was real, he'll always be my son, and I'll always love him. As my best friend said, a Devon-shaped piece of my heart will forever be missing; but that doesn't mean I'll love him less.

I never thought I'd be in this position. I know people always say this when it happens to them, but it's so damn true. I never, ever thought I would lose a child. That I would have to go to a funeral home and plan a memorial service for my baby. It's so surreal, everything that's happened the last 2.5 weeks. It feels like a lifetime ago, and I feel so much older than my 26 years. I just want the hurt and the pain to go away, but I know I can't rush healing. I'll never fully be healed, but I'll try.

So now, I try to find my new normal. I plan on taking on some sort of exercise classes, like kickboxing or something like that. I want to try my hand at more recipes, bake more, get JJ's scrapbooks started. I'll have some time to do all that before I go back to work, so I'll try to get some of those started. Mostly, though, I just want to hang out and relax. I am so emotionally drained all the time that I really only get peace in sleep - but sleep is hard to come by because my brain's always turning. The minutes, the hours, the days are getting easier, but it still hurts. The pain is still raw, still real. But as long as I remember and love Devon, my new normal will soon become easier to handle. Just one minute at a time.