So apparently there are far worse things that can happen in life than losing a child, said no one ever.

Excuse my frankness and also my french-but the only way I can adequately describe life right now is with a word called shitty.

I'm not going to even try to fake it like we've got it all together, because we totally don't. I changed the blog title mainly because I'm trying to remind myself that I'm not a walking pile of bones..because once I give in to that, the rest of this hell that is our life right now is probably going to hit the fan and then where would we be. So yes, we are more than surviving, and that's the banner we're flyin' around these parts until we can rest assured that it is true.

So, what now.

That's the question I've been finding myself asking a lot lately. I don't know who I'm asking..maybe God, maybe the air, maybe our cat who I've been spending a lot of time with lately as I'm basically confined to our apartment "until my incision heals" or some crap like that. Don't worry, I'm already off the pain meds (but it is unclear at this point if anyone will believe me after this post ends.)

Whenever I get up the nerve to answer my own "what now" questions I usually end up with stuff like, "stop holding your breath and keep breathing," or "eat some chocolate," or "wine--let's have some more wine."

But in terms of the long term, I don't know. I can't think past an hour, really. I'm praying all of the time and I do know that God is still carrying us. I'll admit that angry-yelling-type prayer has been had but I'm going to assume He's alright with it and that he's not going to stop healing me because of it..I'll get better at that sometime.

So anyways, for those of you who want to know how we're holding up...I've put together a list of ways in which we are..because there's no manual of how to do life after you lose your first child. I've looked. So here you go:


How we're doing it (more than surviving, that is):
1. Kissing. A lot a lot of kissing.
2. Crying. A lot of crying. Ugly crying, too. You know, like when a huge string of snot just sorta comes out and gets all over Chris but he still loves me anyway (I think.)
3. Actually believing Chris when he says that my belly WILL indeed get less and less squishy. Pregnancy, y'all. So crazy.
4. Eating really good food that our friends keep cooking for us.
5. Wine + Beer. Not at the same time, and no we aren't getting shwasted. Although I feel slightly entitled to, ya know, if I were that sort of person and under these circumstances. We're mostly not because (1) we're not sure what is appealing AT ALL about the feeling of being drunk, and (2) I hear it's a bad thing to consume a depressant while actually depressed. Not testin' that little guy out because who knows what in the WORLD I'd be writing up in here if I did.
6. Watching back to back to back episodes of random sitcoms on my ipad (namely Parenthood, which is surprisingly addicting and also good for tuning out my brain.) Remember that one time we were that couple without a TV. Still don't have one, but I'm basically cheating now since my dad got me this friggin' apple device. I'm like, one of them now, or something. Anyways, Parenthood is good because it will enable me to convince all of my brothers and parents to eventually live in the same town as us so that we can be all up in each other's lives and dinner parties and frequent sarcastic bantering sessions. If you've never watched the show you have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's basically my family except we're weirder and don't come with as much baggage.
7. Staying away from the public as to avoid seeing every and all babies and/or pregnant women. Sorry, folks. I'm workin' on this one.
8. Snuggling and not apologizing AT ALL ever for being obnoxiously clingy to Chris. Remember that time my love language was physical touch? Yeah, poor guy. I'm kidding. Touch ranks 2 out of 5 for Chris in the love languages department and it just so happens his number one is quality time--so I'm all, "Hey! Look! If our quality time is spent touching in some way, we both win, kthanks."  Plus I'm like super attractive these days with my slowly deflating belly and snottynosecrying syndrome and lack of ability to put any effort at all into "being cute" or whatever they call it so he's basically the luckiest guy ALIVE.
9. Laughing the HECK out of some mainstream music videos that we're just now getting around to seeing because we live under a rock but SURPRISE I have an ipad now! So, on that note, what the crap, Miley Cyrus. Please. If you haven't seen the new video, just don't. Good thing I love Disney too much to be upset that they have a habit of breading really awful artists. On another non-disney-related note, I really do like the way Mackelmore raps, and I also like to imagine that everything in all of his music videos is from Goodwill.
10. I don't know. I can never think of a number 10. It's like...this thing I have or something.

I do apologize for this absolutely non-eloquent post that has to follow Ellie's sweet birth story. This is my life right now. No filters. We miss Ellie so bad. We love Jesus so much. We are being stretched beyond belief and we are growing a lot........it's just all baby steps. We hope you won't ever have to use the above survival guide, but hey..it's there if ya need it. I highly recommend just repeating step 1 until you feel better, but with your own spouse, not mine.

Love,
Team Tate
(more than surviving)