For Lolo

Sitting next to my gorgeous daughter on the couch as she watches Disney short films, with the ceiling fan gently whirling above us and a cloudy day visible through our "dining room" windows (even though this has been our family/TV room for a good long while now, I still can't think of this room as anything but the dining room it was when I was a kid), s-l-o-w-l-y sipping an iced mocha that I only sort of want but still appreciate, it's hard to know what my depression is all about. Simple, contented moments like these make me believe that everything really is okay, and that I don't need to live in such constraining fear and hopelessness. And yet, I know when I am next feeling depressed, I won't be able to truly access this moment in my memory, and even if I can access it, it won't hold the same meaning as it does right now. A shame. But that's why I write. It doesn't fix or change things, but it can be a reminder.

I gaze at Nina and know that the real reason I want this new baby to make it into our lives is because of her. Because of who she is, as her own person and what she is to us. She is remarkable and crazy-making and joy and magic, and I want more of her. I am greedy and insane and in over my head, head over heels in love. I want to only be accountable to myself and yet thirst to have even more Mom responsibility. I want it NOW and completely do not feel up to it. What is comforting this time around is knowing that even as I ache for more of her, and to re-experience what it was like to care for her as a baby and chubby toddler, she is absolutely enough for me and for our family. If she is our only child, what more could I even ask for. She leaves us lacking nothing... (other than uninterrupted sleep, a neat house, and our sanity: minor inconveniences).

And.

I hope this little nugget pulls through. No pressure, little guy (or gal... but I have a feeling...). I just hope you want to meet us. I promise you'll like us. You'll have a pretty cool (probably bossy) big sis, like I was, and a dad who will yell at you in Spanish, love you with his whole heart and brighten your days with his unpredictable bursts of genuine laughter. You'll get to live in a multi-generational home with a Nonnie who will make you feel loved and special every single day and will help keep your dear old Mom & Dad from killing each other when stress runs high. You'll have me for a mom... which I think you'll be cool with. I think I'll do you proud. I'm pretty goofy and I won't yell unless you do something REALLY bad; otherwise we'll just talk it out and I'll give you extra love because I'll know that's probably what you need right then. I'll get tired a lot but I won't make you feel like that's your fault. I'll find reasons to smile and songs to sing even on my hard days. I promise. Oh, I don't cook. But I prepare healthy snacks and sandwiches and eggs and macaroni and vegetables. And I know where the best take-out is. I'll let you have sugar in moderation. I'll read you millions of books. That's my absolute favorite thing to do with your sister, other than listen and dance to music. I'll let you have your own view of the world and won't impose mine on you unless I have to.

And someday, Nina and maybe-sib, I'll get a job and make some money and do something to help others outside of our family. I don't know when that will be or what it will be exactly, and I don't know if I'll really be any good at it at first.  But I earned my degree and that means something for the future. In the meantime, Dad will continue to take such good care of us and work really hard and we have to go easy on him because the world doesn't. 

We want you little one, but also understand it's not up to us, and that we will be okay if you decide to remain in our dreams. You're a beautiful dream.

Small Signs

January 2020

In Solution-Focused therapy, they talk about keeping an eye out for small (sometimes minute) signs that things are changing or improving. These signs are very personal and unique. Got me thinking about my own personal signs. 

-singing in the car- not wanting to skip past each song on my ipod

-turning music on at home and enjoying it

-finding and reading (even minimally) a good book

-packing myself lunch

-being able to choose not to eat something 

-working out

-even considering working out

-feeling less soul-crushed when having to make small talk with people

-fewer headaches

-thinking of small things I can do differently

-being more in the moment with Nina and enjoying her 

-not snapping at Galo as much

Begin Again, Again

I wrote this four years ago but apparently never posted it:

"I feel like God decided to teach me a lifetime of lessons all at once.  How to be a mother, how to grieve, how to live when such a huge part of me has died and another huge part of me has been born.  In a matter of months my identity and sense of self have changed in so many ways.  Not only am I new mom, I'm a stay-at-home mom.  Not only have I lost my Dad, I have lost one of my closest friends.  I have never known sadness like this."

Four years later, I once again feel like God is heaping my plate. Once again, I find myself surviving things I never thought I could survive, and it's only mildly empowering to discover I can. Yes, I'm surviving. Yes, I could be doing a lot worse. But that only goes so far in making me feel better.

Yes, I survived walking into my 12-week ultrasound appointment, alone, and finding that I really was actually totally alone. No tiny heartbeat to keep me company anymore. I survived the initial fear and uncertainty of what would have to happen next and what my body would do. I survived leaving the hospital, the same hospital where I gave birth and last saw my father alive, with a tear-stained face and walking to my car in the parking garage by myself and driving away without getting in an accident while sobbing guttural sobs. It's good to know I can survive those things, I suppose.

I can also survive a d&c procedure two days later and make it through Thanksgiving the very next day, and then hold myself up during my Godfather's funeral two days after that. I can do those things and still be a mom and graduate student somehow. The house is a mess and I am useless and barely can call myself a wife or partner, all of a sudden I'm back to drinking beer and eating sushi and consuming too much caffeine and sugar and oversleeping every morning, but yes, I'm surviving. I'm functional. Yay!

Just kidding. Not yay.

It's hard to know how to feel now. Mostly I feel a lot of nothing, except the desire to sleep. I feel angry sometimes. I say a lot of expletives in my head (and sometimes out loud). When I tell the story of November 2019 to myself, it is peppered with words I wouldn't have thought I'd choose, like, F**KING miscarriage, or F**KING funeral or F*** THIS SHIT.

So yeah, I guess I'm angry. Just a little. Just sometimes.

This morning, as Nina dragged her feet and took her sweet time putting on her boots and coat and hat and mittens, and it was already past the time I was "supposed" to be at my internship, and I 100% still planned to stop at Starbucks for caffeinated sugar, and hadn't packed a lunch for myself because I'm tired of having to feed myself, I realized... I've reached my limit. I think what I need is for someone to explain to me the parameters of the breakdown I'm allowed to have right now without inadvertently traumatizing Nina or dropping out of school. Any ideas, let me know.

Begin Again

November 15, 2019
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What a gift to be able to look back on my blog posts from five years ago, the last time I was pregnant! It's alarming to read such coherent, insightful, lovely, faith-filled words and realize I wrote them. I feel so endeared toward that 2014 part of me, so sweet, earnest, open-hearted and vulnerable. I wish I could talk to her, tell her how amazing and admirable she is, how blessed her child is and will be.

Life has certainly changed since 2014. In obvious, expected ways, and in completely unexpected ways that still leave my head spinning and trying to figure out what reality really is. Birth and death, death and birth. I guess there's nothing truer than that reality.

I can't help but think of all the ways I've changed internally as life has changed externally. My sense of spirituality has changed. That's one of the main things I noticed as I read my old blog entries. And while my initial impulse is to admonish myself, another part of me knows it makes more than plenty of sense that I have changed in this way, and I am not required to be ashamed of it. What is life for if not to evolve along with experiences? At this point in time, I view and interact with spirituality in a specific way, unique to how I have in the past. It's not indicative of how I will always engage spiritually, nor does it take away from or tarnish my past experiences of faith. I do believe I will always identify as a "spiritual" person, because that's just who I am. I continue to learn about grace and gratitude and deep, unconditional love and suffering and healing. God is still present. Now he is just alongside others with whom I identify and connect. Dad. I know Dad more than I know God, and that's just the truth. And now that he has merged with God and exists in that realm of Being, how can I not connect with him in a more profound, spiritual way that sometimes seems to overpower my experience of God? After all, I have known Dad on Earth, and gone from this Earth. He is the most real thing to me, and doesn't that absolutely make sense?

Throw in politics, misogyny, abuse of power and religious institutional betrayal and abandonment, and it's easy to understand my reasons for spiritually existing outside of "the church" - now, and perhaps forever. I am empowered to decide. I am empowered to love myself as God loves me.

In addition to my spiritual life, my intellectual life has changed drastically. I have both treasured and regretted my student status these past few years -- mostly treasured.  And now, I'm pregnant. Once again, I consciously (purposely?) place myself outside the norm. It's not that what I'm doing is so radical, just less common than perhaps it once was. I am in class with mostly 23-26 year olds. I'm already late to the party, and now my graduation present won't be a job, but another baby. Galo and I continue to play by our own rules, which I love about us. And I love about me, personally. And yet there's a part of me that questions my life choices and wonders if I've purposefully made things more complicated for myself while also being selfishly motivated. I've been living off my marriage since Nina was born, and now my self-sufficiency will continue to be delayed while I grow another human. And yes, another part of me does know how ridiculous that sounds. 

So far, this pregnancy has delivered its unique challenges while also delivering a unique sense of calm. I've dealt with anxiety, but I've also found some way to expect the best, which was not the case in my first pregnancy, at least not for a long time. I'm grateful I've come to this state of mind much earlier, and while I know I can't rely on it not changing, I will be thankful for it now. This time, I really miss alcohol and sushi (alcohol the most) and the loss of my coffee-based identity. I am less hyper-vigilant about my body "changing" since I am already far chunkier than I was when I began my previous pregnancy journey. I refuse to throw my back out in the second trimester and will guard with my very life against that happening again. I am less concerned with my skin, I got a fabulously easy haircut and some over-sized clothes, including a giant winter coat. I'm working out (sort of). I'm seeing a new therapist who is questionable at best, and not my beloved pregnancy-cheerleader, Amanda. Need to email her. 

I envision these next weeks and months with cautious optimism and enough experience to know that each step along the way is just that, a step: a period of time with symptoms and experiences unique to that moment. I will keep thinking of millions of baby names of all genders and allow myself to dream. I've been dreaming since I woke up this morning, except for the mind-numbing and soul-crushing moments of deadness that accompany the life of an intern.

I am a mother, a pregnant vessel, an intern, a writer of social work papers, a woman obsessed with Internal Family Systems Therapy and Self-energy who sings Indie Arie songs in her car, kitchen, and head at all times. I will eat ice cream sundaes when what I'm really craving is a beer. I will get through whatever lies ahead. 

Happy birthday, Dad

Before my Dad died, whenever I wrote or typed the words "my dad" I always used the lower case "d" for "dad." Since his death, I feel compelled to write "my Dad" in uppercase. I think it's because otherwise, I never have reason to write out Dad and see it written out that way. No more cards or emails written to "Dad." No more texts - not that we ever texted much. It's mostly the "Dad" of cards I miss.

Before my Dad died, I often worried about his death. When I say "often," I do mean often. At times daily. In the couple of years or so leading up to his actual death, I worried less. Not because my heart wasn't still worrying, but because I actively directed my thoughts away from the reality that of course, someday he would die. I came to the realization that constantly worrying and perseverating on that fact was doing nothing except making me miserable and negatively impacting our relationship. Therefore, I taught myself how to (for the most part) live in the moment when it came to our relationship. I focused on each new memory we were able to create together. I savored our conversations. I took emotional note of how grateful I felt to spend time with him and how our time together felt more positive once I let go of my fear and dread a little bit. Life had already been kind enough to allow certain essential milestones to occur in his presence; for one, he walked me down the aisle. That alone convinced me to loosen my grip on my fear and have a little more faith that maybe, just maybe he'd be around for longer than I ever dared let myself believe. I had always held on to so much doubt that he would ever walk me down the aisle when I got married. But he did. 

Then, he was there to learn I was pregnant. He was there on the other end of the line to hear me joyfully tell him it was going to be a girl. He was there when I threw out my back terribly during my second trimester to empathize and provide comfort and understanding about how awful daily pain can be. He was there in the hospital to greet Nina and introduce himself as Papa Paul. He was there to hold her and let her nap on his belly in the early months when I was so sleep deprived and needed my own nap on the couch, across from him baby whispering on his favorite chair. He was there to play the piano for her and sing to her. He was there with Mom to babysit so Galo and I could go out on date nights (as early as Day 6! Because we really needed some sanity, however brief!). He was there to go on coffee runs with me to Dunkins and sit in the car with the baby while I went to get our coffee so I didn't have to worry about lugging the carseat inside with me. He was there to beam with pride about her existence to family and friends, he was there to see me struggle with new parenthood and express empathy, he was there to worry about me when it seemed like I was really suffering. He was there to tell me to take care of myself. He was there to celebrate his first Father's Day as a Papa. He was there to plan a trip he really wanted to go on with Mom and asserted to me that even though the baby was very little, he deserved and needed to take this trip and we would manage until their return. He was there to buy the perfect onesie for Nina on that trip that said, "Mom needs coffee."  He was there to celebrate her first month of life, second month, third month, fourth month.

And then he wasn't. 

Here one day, gone the next. 

The flood of sympathies..."At least he got to meet your daughter," "You know he will always be with you," "He would/wouldn't want you to *fill in the blank*," "This is harder for your mother than it is for you," "At least he's in a better place"... At least, at least, at least. All true, all well-meaning. All knives to the heart.

I do know he is always with me.

I know you're always with me.

Before you died, when I was always worried about you dying, I made a number of assumptions about what your death would be like. One of the biggest assumptions I made was that once you were gone, I would never be able to tolerate hearing our favorite songs, church songs, or any song in the entire world that would make me think of you, which is most music that exists (or at least, any good music that exists). I prematurely mourned not only you, but music. I wondered what I would ever be able to listen to, how I would be able to live my life without the music I loved so much, without you. How I would ever be able to watch our favorite shows and movies. How I would be able to think of a Wonder Years quote or drink a cup of coffee without crumpling to the ground. How I would be able to go to any of the places we loved ever again.

I had no idea that the exact opposite would be true. That immediately following your death I would cling to your favorite music. That nearly three years later I would continue to listen to your favorite music on a daily basis, share that music with my daughter constantly. That that music would allow me to continue to involve you in my day-to-day life, that because of music you come with me to drop Nina off at preschool. You come with me to get coffee. You are present as I write papers for school or go to the gym to work on my health. When I'm feeling lonely I summon you instantly with the touch of a button as I turn on your music. I call it "your music" because even if it's not one of your absolute favorite songs, as long as it's an artist or even a genre that you enjoyed I feel you with me immediately. There seems to be very little difference between your spirit and the notes I hear.

I don't listen because I feel desperate to have you with me. Well, of course I feel desperate to have you with me. But that's not why I turn the music on. I do it because it makes me happy, because I truly enjoy it. And as I listen, I feel deserving of that happiness. It's not out of desperation to feel something that I choose to connect with you. There are many times I allow myself to feel nothing. I've been on this grief journey long enough to know connection with you is not always possible. Even though I know "you are always with me." The hard truth is, you are not physically here. I cannot see you, I cannot hug you, I cannot talk to you face to face. And just as it is so so so difficult at times to connect with God, to pray, to believe, to hope, it is also hard to connect my heart with yours. Not because I don't know where to find you - you are everywhere. You are everywhere for me even more than God is sometimes. But sometimes I just can't do it. I just can't be with you. And that's okay. I know you know it's okay. I know you know what it's like to walk through the world without a parent.

Nearly three years after your death, I am still singing at church. There have been some bumps along the way, but I am still singing. Every once in a while I have to stop and remind myself: Maria, you're LIVING DAD'S LEGACY. It can be easy to forget or brush off the magnitude of what I am doing. I am choosing to keep your legacy alive. No one is forcing me to. And based on my assumptions about what life after your death would look like, singing at church should be intolerable. And of course, it is painful at times. But it is far from intolerable. It is natural. After all, who I am is your daughter. Who I am is someone who is loved eternally and infinitely by you. The same could be said about God, but to be honest, until you died I didn't really understand what that meant. What did it mean that some Being, some Spirit, loved me unconditionally, outside of the boundaries of time and space? What did that even look like? 

Now, I know. It looks like your hand on my shoulder as I sing. 

Happy birthday, Dad.

Almost One Year

I wrote this post in 2016 but did not publish until now (Dad's birthday, 2018).
***

I haven't written since February.  Why is that?  Well, it's no one reason.  Certainly, I've been busy with my now-almost-seventeen-month-old! Now a walker, budding talker, avid explorer, reading-and-music-obsessed little bundle of energy and laughter.  She gives "oo-mas" (kisses/besos) to all her dollies, animal friends (partial to monkeys, horsies, birdies, penguins, Minnie Mouse and Corduroy), and even some of her favorite books.  Her favorite foods are turkey, cheese, Goldfish, yogurt, corn, beans, bananas, berries, macaroni, tuna, chicken sausage, and the occasional French fry. She is joy and love and learning and snuggles and singing.

But I have also been busy with other things.  Grieving.  Journeying towards (but not linearly) acceptance-- of my loss, my new life and my continuously emerging self.  Trying to balance embracing my emotions and knowing my limits.  Avoiding putting things into words, written or otherwise, and instead just being.  Feeling. Remembering. Listening to Dad's favorite songs and artists.  On his iPod: his church and "Through the Years" playlists.  On Pandora: Carpenters, Bread, Janis Ian, 60s & 70s, James Taylor, The Beatles, and Guess Who radio stations.  In My Life.  Fill the World with Love.  Love is Forever.  Turn, Turn, Turn.  I've occasionally been able to watch childhood home videos and some of his favorite TV shows (Wonder Years, Felicity), even my wedding video with him playing piano and singing for us, accompanying me on Thousand Years for Galo, dancing with me, and recording his "congratulations" message for us with Mom.  I've considered watching some of our favorite movies but haven't yet for lack of time, not for lack of wanting to or feeling uncomfortable with the idea.  I've looked though photographs-- older ones are easier, the more recent they become the more difficulty I have looking at them.  But I still look at "memories" on Facebook and my Google drive and no longer avoid the pictures of him holding Nina, or the pictures of Nina where you can see his hands or his shoulder.  On Father's Day I made a whole digital album of old pictures of us with Dad and really enjoyed doing so.  (I'm dreading passing the one year mark and knowing the "memories" from the previous year after that won't include him.)

But writing or coherently praying?  That has felt more overwhelming.  I've been able to write one (incomplete) letter and one card to Dad.  The letter was on the five month anniversary of his death and the card was for Father's Day. Those brief writings did bring me a sense of healing and closeness each time.  But now we're zeroing in on the one year anniversary of his passing.  I haven't yet arranged to get the tattoo to honor him that I've been planning the whole year, having identified my 30th birthday in October as my hard deadline. I haven't journaled or blogged.  I haven't purposefully or specifically asked God to ease my suffering or help me come to accept this deep, entrenched pain of loss.  Does this mean I'm not ready to accept that it's really been a year?  That I don't really believe he's never coming back?  That one of these days I won't walk into my parents' house and see him sitting in his chair or at the computer listening to music or sipping coffee?  Or go into church and see him sitting at the organ in the choir loft?

In many ways, it feels longer than a year.  It feels like I haven't been able to see or talk to my Dad in forever.  Painfully, he feels like a part of my past.  Not because I don't think about him every single day or still feel his presence in my life, but because his physical presence in my life-- his voice-- feels so far away.  I've ached for it for almost 365 days now. 

Grieving Mama

Your day begins when your husband brings the baby into bed with you at 6:00am.  He always seems to hear her before you do.  You haven't been sleeping well at night, so by the wee hours of the morning you are finally in a deep sleep.  You have always been slow to get with the program in the morning, especially before your first cup of coffee.

The three of you lounge around in bed for the next several minutes - you and your husband pointlessly grasping at some additional close-eyed moments, your 10 month old daughter amusing herself with the Roku remote she found within seconds of rooting around in your covers.  There's one culprit responsible for your poor quality of sleep lately: You keep watching Netflix shows late into the night, your husband snoring next to you for hours.  You try to turn off the TV, but ten to fifteen minutes in the silent darkness is usually about all you can stand of the memories that inevitably consume your grieving mind and heart.  Since you are far from mastering the art of turning your attention to something else, anything else, you try to do what your therapist has recommended: lean into the memories, unafraid to connect your heart with your father's, absorbing the beauty of the love that still exists between the two of you, possibly in an even more perfect way.  And while it is an emotionally exhausting endeavor, it's not exhausting enough to get you to fall asleep. It's anxious exhaustion (definitely the worst kind of fatigue).  So to calm your nerves and relieve the pain you turn the TV back on.  Try to lose yourself and numb your reality with endless episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond, FRIENDS, or some other comedy with or without a laugh-track that makes things seem less serious.  Sometimes you attempt the opposite viewing experience: some show that highlights fictional characters' pain far worse than yours.  Neither genre seems to work.

You don't lift your head from your pillow and neither does Husband, even though he knows he needs to be getting ready for work if he has any hope of leaving the house on time to pick up his carpooling coworker, and you know you need to be getting up to prepare the baby's bottle if you have any hope of heading off her morning hunger shrieks.  You've already blown your chance of making your own breakfast, showering, or getting dressed in any sort of ensemble that resembles put-together or well-groomed by not making sure to be up before her.  (To be fair, it's 6:00am and you only finally fell asleep around 1:30am for a few hours of heavily dream-laden sleep.)  When she hits you in the face with the remote, that's when you decide it's time to get up.

You peel yourself out of bed and attach Baby to your hip as you shuffle into the kitchen and switch on the Keurig before plopping her into her highchair and buckling her in.  You sprinkle a handful of Cheerios across her tray - which always makes you think of sprinkling fish food over a tank - and hand her a bright yellow sippy cup of water.  You hope this will keep her occupied at least for the three minutes it takes to mix her formula (though lately it seems to upset her if you even just disappear into the pantry for a moment or run downstairs to throw in a load of laundry).  You reluctantly dismantled the breastmilk factory for good about a month and a half ago when you decided that you were ready to have your regular-sized breasts back, if not your regular life.  You figured Baby was eating solids well now and before long she would be able to drink grown-up milk anyway, but you still felt guilty about cutting her off.  When your dad died, you figured you'd be able to let yourself off the hook, but it was still an emotional challenge laced with Mommy guilt and ambivalence.  Not to mention, weaning made you remember that your body, though ten months postpartum, is still a walking chemistry kit.  Your hormones are still in a state of flux, and now that you're no longer breastfeeding you feel like you're back in the first trimester of pregnancy - acne, fatigue, occasional nausea.  There's a depressed mood, too, which you've read can occur.  But you're also grieving, so who knows anymore.  It's too painful to try to suss out what's going on emotionally.

As you pop the bottle into the bottle warmer and swiftly loop a bib around Baby's neck, you listen to the sound of the water running in the bathroom as Husband takes a shower.  You are simultaneously jealous and anxious - jealous that he gets to tend to his hygiene and then walk out the door to work, and anxious that shortly you will be alone with the baby and your grief.  To stave off the emotions you focus on brewing your coffee.  In the thirty seconds it takes for the cup to fill up, Baby decides Cheerios aren't going to cut it; she wants that bottle NOW.  Whiny crying episode #1 commences.

So you take the bottle out of the warmer a few seconds early and add an eyedropper's worth of Vitamin D to it as her crying escalates.

"I'm a bad mother."  

It's the first time the thought enters into your head today, but it won't be the last.  It's involuntary; you don't intellectually believe you're a bad mother but there the thought appears anyway, half-baked but distressing all the same.  When she cries like that, it feels like she's voicing all the angst and chaos in your own head. Overemphasizing all your most upsetting feelings and confirming your most troubling doubts.  At least when you were still breastfeeding, you could point to that as a tangible sacrifice and unmistakable act of love for your baby.  Now you're not sure what you're really good for anymore.  You feel like you're just screwing it all up at this new stage in her life.  You resent the fact that you're being forced to learn how to mother and grieve simultaneously.  

You whip the tray off the high chair and cart Baby and bottle into the living room to rock in your glider.  She's at the point where she can feed herself her bottle but it helps to recline her a bit (sitting upright she ends up sucking down a little too much air in addition to milk since she hasn't totally mastered the tilt), but she is so distractable at this stage that you need to constantly supervise and redirect her when having her bottle - even when she's starving and clearly wants the milk.  So you situate the two of you in the glider, and then get up and re-situate three more times as you remember to go get her binky for when she's done eating, her blankie, your book for when (if?) she falls asleep on you and you are bored stiff...

You start to rock her as she drinks, and so you are presented with your first daytime grief challenge (already... doesn't really seem fair since you just got through the night which was hard enough): having to be totally quiet for however long it takes her to finish her bottle and fall asleep.  You know all too well that even if she is happily devouring her bottle, she will not be cool with you flipping through your novel.  The second you even reach for the book next to you she will stop drinking on a dime, discard her bottle (dripping its contents on her blankie) and reach with her tiny hands for the pages that are just begging to be torn.  You also have the remote and your smartphone next to you, but you know that turning on the TV or scrolling through Facebook will produce a similarly distracted and squirmy result.  So even though it pains you, you rock back and forth in grief-filled silence.  You try to just gaze at Baby's gorgeous face and embrace the serenity of the moment, but it is so hard to avoid the raw feelings that come up as you face yet another morning of mourning, knowing someone you loved so much is gone from this world.  There is guilt, knowing you still have so much to be grateful for.  Knowing you prayed for nothing more than the chance to be a mom.  But you never thought you'd have to give up being your father's daughter at the same time.