It has officially been a year since I CHOPPED my hair! What a year it has been! Cutting my hair so drastically has allowed me to get re-acquainted with my hair, which has fostered a deeper appreciation of my curls and coils.

In my culture, a woman’s hair is a BIG deal and typically, the longer the better, so when I told my lovely and talented hairdresser that I wanted a big chop her eyes opened wiiiiide and she let out a concerned/disgusted/shocked WHY?!?

Before the Chop

Without waiting for a response, she proceeded to bombard me with questions as a way to figure out if I had lost my mind… Is it giving you trouble? Is it taking too long to style? Is it falling out? is it tangling too much? Your hair is so healthy and beautiful, why are you cutting it? You have great length, why do you want to cut it?  In essence, what she was really asking without using words was “what could possibly be driving you to make this absurd and insane decision”?

I wanted to answer truthfully and say that a person I love with an intense passion left me too soon, that the one we were waiting for finally arrived but is now gone. However, I knew that neither of us was prepared to handle what I wanted to unpack. I wanted to say that the immense pain inside was driving me to make a change. I was no longer the same and I needed my physical appearance to match that change.

To change my furniture, the color of my walls, and my wardrobe wasn’t enough. The change also needed to be reflected in the luscious curls I pride myself. Those curls and coils of my Dominican hair passed down through centuries of African, Taino, and European genes, those curls that were an extension of me needed to be cut.

Somehow I was able to bite the tears back into my eyes and simply whispered that I needed a change and wanted to try something new but she had no clue how deep and heavy my answer was. Cutting my hair was an opportunity to express and show what was missing me.

A year later and I don’t regret a thing because I look DARN good!

My first social outing since our loss. #curlsbepoppin

That length tho!

first Salonaso

Highlights for the win

The past three weeks have been a complete whirlwind! I work in a school district and the beginning of the new school year is always intense. Even in the midst of the whirlwind that was work, my emotions and time were at a standstill. As if I could hit the play and pause button anytime I wanted to. The fact that it has been a year since the most tragic days of my life is surreal. There were moments where I didn’t think I’d make it. Days where I would pray for death.

At first, I couldn’t see anything past the moment, then it became hours and eventually days or weeks. I was recently asked to describe a picture of what that time was like, I had no other words but darkness. I look back and things were a complete haze. The months after were just as rough, but then I learned to cope with my new reality.

I still can’t believe it has been a year since I delivered my beautiful baby boy and a year since he passed away.

When I look back at the dark months it feels like I am watching a movie, like a slow-motion scene of destruction, like I am watching my life unfold through someone else’s eyes. It’s weird. I guess what I am trying to say is that this past year has been one of the most difficult years thus far, I truly did not believe I would make it. Nevertheless, I’ve made it, and that means something.

I enjoy Facebook memories, there is something about them that makes you reminisce about where you were and thankful for where you are.

Today’s memory brought me back to such a happy day. We were pregnant at the time and had reached 16 weeks, which for us was HUGE. We had gone in for an ultrasound and saw our baby move, saw him moving his hands and feet he was dancing in the womb.

By that point, we had not officially announced our pregnancy and only a handful of people knew, I still wanted to commemorate that day so I went on FB and posted the update below.

We had gotten further along than any other pregnancy before it, so it was important to remember that and be grateful for that.

Today it serves as a reminder that even the little things deserve recognition. I know that it will help me during my next pregnancy. Maybe I will adopt that as my motto the next time I am pregnant. Every milestone deserves to be celebrated.

-JT

I’m the type of girl that LOVES planners. I don’t like putting things on my virtual calendar I like the old-fashioned way of pen and paper. Having a physical planner helps me remember important dates and it helps me jot down important thoughts. Throughout each of my pregnancies I wrote down dates from my Doctor’s appointments, future and current milestones, and I kept pictures of each ultrasound. After my last loss, I couldn’t bear to continue using the same planner I had and it made no sense to buy a planner in October.

2019 started and I could not come to terms with buying a new planner, the pain stung too much. So, for the better part of the year, I went without my hand dandy planner and I decided it was time. After shopping online, going to Walmart, Target, and Barnes and Noble I finally found the one. I bought a planner that I love and that takes me all the way through December 2020!

Although it is just a planner, for me it is much more than that. Buying my planner is a sign that healing is occurring; it is a sign that in that moment I decided that my pain would not hold me back in that area. Though it may seem small, buying my planner was a huge step and a sign of growth. I like planners and had put that part of me on hold, I am glad some parts of me are slowly coming back while others have evolved.

-JT

They say that time heals everything. I would have to disagree. Some things heal with time, such as a cut or a broken bone, and others leave scars that last a lifetime like a skinned knee from that summer when you were seven years old.

I don’t think grief goes away with time, you just learn to live with it. As time goes by you get better and better at the aftermath. I cannot say that at this moment I feel the same way I did 10 months ago. The depth of the pain is still there but it is something I am now accustomed to.

So no, time does not heal everything, but they do say practice makes perfect. Every day is another chance to practice living life, another chance to learn how to live after loss.

-JT

There are two conflicting thoughts. The one that you know is a lie but feels like truth and the one that you know is true but feels like a lie.

Oftentimes it feels easier to walk and live in the lie. The lie does not often require us to grow, believe, or to be challenged. The lie helps us be complacent and stationary. The lie becomes familiar and we choose to accept it as truth. I am not comfortable with that anymore.

Truth No. 1: I am NOT ashamed of my grief! It is not an easy topic to talk about and people sometimes treat me as if I am someone that needs to be “fixed”. I am not. I am going through the grieving process.

Truth No. 2: People treat me different because I am vocal about my grief and how I got here.

Truth No. 3: I will no longer let people’s comfort level dictate how I share nor how I process.

The truth may be harder to walk out, but in the words of Jesus, “the truth shall make you free”. Truth requires growth, movement and sometimes a leap of faith. Accepting and living in the truth may bring about elements of things unknown and take us places we never dreamt of. The truth regardless of how uncomfortable it may seem is where I want to be.

Below is a little something I wrote 5 years ago on my way home from visiting my parents and my hometown.

If I could, I would go back in time and tell my younger self to stop wishing for the day when she could leave home…

For little does she know that a few years down the road her greatest wish would be to be back in that little two bedroom apartment she wanted to leave so fast

 She does not know that there will be a day when her biggest dream is to be home with her family for more than a weekend at a time.

That every time she leaves home her heart is shattered over and over

In the rearview mirror, all she will see are her memories and the faces of loved ones

I would tell her to cherish it, to revel in those moments minute by minute. To hug a little longer, to hold her sister through the night. To kiss her brother good night.

I would tell her to lay on her mami’s lap and wait up for her Papi to come home from work

To soak in every smell that comes from the kitchen and to embrace the sound of every syllable spoken in her native tongue

I would tell her to slow down

-JT

Some days are bad, some are terrible

The good days, well they are far in between

They have come with more frequency and with them so does hope.

———————————————————————————-

I have not been posting as much as I would like to but when I do I try to be as honest as possible. Is there anything about our journey that you would like to know? If so please leave your questions in the comments or e-mail me and I will try to address them in my upcoming posts.

-JT

Part of #MicroblogMondays Click here to learn more.

I LOVE celebrations, absolutely love them. I love to celebrate people and their milestones, holidays, anniversary, and just because. My ultimate person to celebrate is my husband, I absolutely adore showing him how much he means to me on a regular basis and special occasions.

Whether it is Valentine’s Day, his birthday, our anniversary, Christmas or regular days in between, I love celebrating my one and only, which is part of the reason why Father’s Day is so hard for me. Mother’s Day is hard but I find that my emotions are harder to deal with on Father’s Day. It feels weird not knowing exactly how to celebrate his fatherhood. I imagine that once we have babies earth side, I will do this grand gesture in celebrating him so right now it feels a bit empty to do that.

I find it hard to celebrate, as if celebrating is entirely too uncomfortable for me to handle. How do you celebrate amid loss? How do you celebrate when what or who you once loved has been lost? One thing I can say is that it ain’t easy. Saying “happy Father’s Day” comes with a huge sting, with a feeling of drowning while you are trying to get the words out, it comes with sadness. Despite all that I celebrate because even though our children are in heaven, he is a great father. In our circumstance I don’t like the term “you will be a great dad/mom” because it negates the fact that we are already to kids you can’t see.

In order to celebrate I focus on the now. I focus on the fact that he truly is a wonderful father, caring, loving, forgiving, selfless. so, although celebrating may be hard, I won’t let that keep me from acknowledging my husband as the amazing father he is. In the midst of my emotional discomfort I will choose to highlight him in a day that I know it is not easy to be a grieving father.

Fathers are important too, in every aspect and every step. Fathers are important in the process of grieving, sometimes fathers can be forgotten but I see you.

Babe, as a father you inspire me. I am grateful for the children we have made, and I look forward to raising great kids with you. I love you more than words can say and more than I can express.

If today you are like me, finding it hard to celebrate on Father’s Day (because of infertility, pregnancy loss, the death of a loved one) I hope you take comfort in the good, in the memories that were built and the ones that are to come.

-JT

One year… one year can make a world of a difference. One year ago, I had just found out I was pregnant and valiantly walked through the doors of my fertility clinic not knowing what to expect. That first pregnancy appointment was a routine appointment. First, they had to ensure that I was indeed pregnant, so they ran some bloodwork and performed a diagnostic vaginal ultrasound. After confirming my very early pregnancy I was static. Everything seemed different, brighter, happier.

I NEVER would have imagined that exactly one year later I’d be walking in through those same doors, sitting in that same waiting room empty handed and trying to figure out when to start the process all over again. But somehow there I found myself again. Fighting back tears comparing the two parallels. In one alternate universe, I would be walking in, baby in tow excited for all the (amazing, fantastic, caring) nurses, nurse practitioners, and doctors to finally meet the fruit of their labor. In the real universe, we would be talking about the game plan to get me where the alternate reality is.

The CNY waiting room, a place I’ve become too familiar with.

There is a form of bravery that comes with any type of loss. The bravery to wake up and face the day, the bravery to get dressed, the bravery to sit in the front row during the funeral services, the bravery to go back to work, the bravery to stay home a little longer, the bravery to go grocery shopping, to cut your hair, the bravery to laugh again, to cry, the bravery to live. With loss comes the bravery of adopting a new way of living. For me, bravery comes in the way of not giving up.

In this moment, while I’m was sitting in the CNY* waiting room I did not feel brave. I want to crumble, I want to hide, I want to run away, I want to cry. In this moment I can’t believe the life I’m living, just one year ago I was walking in here because the home pregnancy test read positive, today I sit here knowing that the road we will soon embark on will be similar but different in so many ways. Today I sit here knowing that with my loss comes the bravery of not giving up on something I want so bad. And who knows, one year… one year from now things could look completely different.

-JT

Disclaimer:  my appointment with CNY does not necessarily mean that we are currently trying to conceive. Before we get to that step there are a series of tests and bloodwork that need to be done, this appointment was just the first of several diagnostic appointments that will follow.

CNY: CNY Fertility is the clinic we have been going to for the past year and a half. They are amazing and if you or someone you know is struggling with getting or staying pregnant give them a call, you will be in great hands!

Part of #MicroblogMondays Click here to learn more.