Birth Story - 39 weeks

As I write this post, there is a tiny baby squirming and kicking and hiccuping in the clear plastic crib next to me. He is more than viable, more than possible - he is HERE and he is PERFECT.

I knew I was in labor just after midnight. The contractions went from painless to not so painless. I ironed a week's worth of my husband's work clothes - a goal I had set early in my pregnancy in case I went into labor before I was actually "ready."

By 1 a.m. I was hurting so badly, but I went to the bathroom and found my bloody show. I tiptoed into my bedroom to wake my husband - "Honey, wake up. We're having a baby."

He shot out of bed like his pants were on fire. It was time to go.

We dropped off our daughter at the babysitter and timed my contractions with an iPhone app. In what seemed like no time at all, we were at the hospital in Triage. A quick check and I was 5 centimeters. An epidural killed my pain and I was able to sleep for a few hours. I felt something running down the back of my leg - another quick check and I was ready.

"Let's meet your baby," the doctor said.

"I like your style," I said.

Four contractions, eight pushes and 10 minutes later, Clark came screaming into this world. The nurse surprised me by placing him on my chest right away. I was in shock. He was here. He was breathing. There was nothing wrong. There was nothing wrong!

I had spent so much time waiting and preparing and worrying over this baby that I hadn't really honestly considered what it would be like to have him here. The nurses cleaned him up and handed him to my husband.

I will never, not as long as I live, forget the look on my husband's face as he held our living baby for the first time. I remember the look on his face when we held Drew, that little tiny body - so underdeveloped and flawed but so perfect and beautiful at the same time - and I remember the feeling of holding something we created together - something gone.

The mere idea that we could hold this living baby and take him home and raise him - I could not stop crying.

The joy of the day had an undercurrent of sadness for the boys we never got to comfort and swaddle and snuggle. It is not lost on us that this joy could have been ours twice before, that all we ever wanted for them was here with us now. Such deep grief I'm afraid will be perennial in our lives and in Clark's. We will, undoubtedly, mark each of his milestones on behalf of his brothers. He is our barometer on how they would have lived.

Now I spend hours just watching Clark sleep. I can't take my eyes off of him - he is so perfect. I don't mind getting up with him at night, I enjoy every bottle and diaper change. I know that nothing can be as precious and sacred as this experience, as this baby, who I carry in my arms AND in my heart.

Quite a jump - 38 weeks

So I held off writing anything until now because at my last posting, Clark was in the 21st percentile in size and while the doctors were "watching the situation" I was "freaking the hell out."

I went in for an ultrasound yesterday and it turns out our little Clark had a growth spurt - he is now in the 50th percentile. Go figure.

While nothing but relief washes over me, my husband is losing his mind - and not slowly. He is anxious to the point of being short and sometimes mean. I am hormonal to the point of being exhausted and sometimes weepy. It's not a good combination, especially for a pair that hardly ever bicker or fight.

He wants Clark here NOW. We discussed induction with our high risk OB, but she said the hospital will not do it without good reason - restricted size is a good reason - but Clark is no longer in that category. I am grateful to have a baby so healthy that medical intervention is actually denied. My husband pouted all the way out to the car because he wanted a baby NOW.

So a compromise is in order. We will schedule an elective induction on my due date - Dec. 29 - with the hopes that he comes just a little bit sooner all by himself. That's just nine more days.

As for pregnancy stuff, I am scatterbrained and exhausted. Carrying around 50 (50!!!) extra pounds is weighing on me physically and emotionally. I can't get comfortable at night and last week I was so dehydrated that I had to spend the day in triage getting some miracle IV. I have all the complaints of a very pregnant woman - swollen feet and hands, I waddle when I walk, Braxton Hicks contractions, weepiness and moodiness. My belly button is gone - yikes.

But Clark is active and healthy with a strong heartbeat and all the right organs in all the right places. Right now I don't care when he comes - just as long as he comes.

Holidays and grief - Week 38

Oh, unhappiness in a happy time - Christmas is here.

I struggle with the holidays. I know I'm not alone - there is just something about happy people all around me that makes my wounds throb a little harder, makes my tears a little hotter, makes my soul a little more raw.
John would be two. This would be Drew's first Christmas, the one with the special "My First Christmas" bib and a little bow tie outfit to wear for goofy holiday photos. I can't even bring myself to hang up to ornaments with their names engraved on them. I can't do it. It hurts.

I do have a photo I did last year of their little footprint cards from the hospital and put them in a holiday frame to be put out every year, but how strange to take a family portrait this year and frame it and place it next to those little footprints. It reminds me, never subtlely, that they are supposed to be here, that we should be baking more cookies and wrapping more presents and creating more memories and new photographs together.

The feeling overwhelms me. The grief washes over me nearly every day. Something - two somethings - are missing. That isn't ever going to change. I'm glad I took the photo of their footprints nestled in a holiday wreath - I'm glad I have at least that.

It's Always Something - Week 36

These last few weeks have been hard on my physically - walking hurts, sleeping hurts, sneezing hurts. I have nosebleeds most days and swollen feet most nights.

But by far, by far, by far, my hardest pain is emotional. I've been sticking out the STUGS (sudden, temporary uprising of grief), which catch me when my mind wanders beyond my emotional fences. I cry in the shower and in the car on the way to work. I cry for John and Drew and for my grandmother, I cry for Emily and her emotional issues - so gradually heaped onto her slight shoulders by dead brothers, emotionally checked out mothers and abandonment by a bio dad she struggles to remember properly.

Then the Universe decides to give me something to cry about: Clark is measuring small.

It was mentioned at our last ultrasound that his femurs were slightly short and his measurements were between the 10th and 20th percentile. Now, a month later and back in the ultrasound room, we find out that the measurements have gotten no better. He has grown, but not at a rate that would have him catching up.

My little guy really is a little guy and now I am so, so, so afraid for him. I'm desperate to deliver him now because I trust the doctors and the specialists to keep him alive far more than I would ever trust my own body.

So though I cry, though I mourn, though I worry - now my STUGs are more about what could happen instead of what has already happened. I just want to curl up in my bed and stay there until I know he is here and here to stay. I have not felt like this in months. I became one of those naive mamas expect happy pregnancies, easy births and healthy babies.

Ugh. Story of my life. How many times must one woman learn the same lesson the hard way?

A Deep Breath - 33 Weeks

 I had my 32 week ultrasound last week and everything looks good. Clark weighs 4.2 pounds and has hair and chubby little cheeks.

His femur length is just a bit short, but other than that, the placenta looks good, his head size looks good, his heartbeat looks good...it just all looks good.

So why don't I feel more reassured? I have moved on from the idea that he could come too early and now my nightmares are about stillbirth. My husband shares my fears. He won't get out of bed in the morning until Clark kicks at his hand. I am stopping my work several times a day to consciously note a kick or a push or a job - anything that will create a milestone for myself so when I have a moment of "when was the last time I felt him?" I can answer my own question.

In "normal pregnancy news," I can report a lot of pressure on my cervix and the nerves in my legs. I passed the glucose tolerance test but found I have a vitamin D deficiency.  I am nesting and I know it.

If my choppy writing style is making you dizzy, know that it is also a condition of my pregnancy. My brain is fried. I can't focus - to the point where I left my cell phone at home today and last week I made toast and forgot to eat it. I'm never hungry until I start eating and then I just can't get enough food. I crave milk, but only very fresh, very cold milk or I can't tolerate it. Everything gives me heartburn. I am exhausted ALL THE TIME.

Clark's room is nearly done - just the details to work out with artwork and storage. We have enough "stuff" that if he came tomorrow, we could work it out.

My baby shower was really quite lovely after all. Everyone behaved themselves - even the weepy auntie who loves to shower us with her aggressive condolences and the somewhat surly auntie who projects a thinly-veiled ideal that my grief is about getting attention. My mother-in-law's talents were displayed perfectly with wonderful food and baked goods. There were about 25 people there and it was just small enough for my comfort zone.

So that's that - 33 weeks and little emotional comfort. I have a room full of baby stuff planned for one special little man in December. But I just can't shake the thought that this can't be true, it can't be happening, and I can't help but wonder what comes next. 

Nesting or Hoarding, You Decide - 32 weeks

Interesting thing about me: I am a hoarder.

No, no, no, not like that TV show with people who live with stuff falling on them and mice chewing at their hair at night. See, when I had my daughter seven years ago, my grandmother was very excited. She bought enough clothing for two little girls every chance she got - great stuff - all the best brands.

I kept nearly every single piece of this clothing. No joke. I packed it all away in plastic bins with lids and stuffed it in the loft space above my garage and there it has stayed - seven years of hoarded clothing.

What if I had another daughter? Why would I give away the things my grandmother was so happy to provide?

I had made the decision to get rid of it all about two years ago. I was pregnant with John and sure I wasn't having any more children, so why keep 15 bins of girl clothes? But then my husband broke his ankle and John died and then grandma died. I couldn't let the stuff go.

Perhaps this story is a bit of a lie to myself. At some point I became scared to touch these bins. Who was to know how I would feel about these clothes, what memories they would show, what grief they would kick up? So I simply left that stuff up there.

Last week my Brother In Law climbed the ladder to the loft and dropped down each bin. I went through it all this week - one bin at a time - sorting out what to keep and what to donate, what to give to my best friend's daughter and what goes to the consignment store. Of the 15 bins, I am only keeping ONE bin of clothing - special sweaters, dresses, things like that.

One of the reasons this process is easier than I expected is my photography hobby. I have THOUSANDS of photos of Emily in all her best outfits - often with Grandma in the pictures. Having those photos is just as good as having the actual clothes - better even in a lot of ways. Of course I had a few weepy moments, but overall the purge of the hoard has been very, very good for me. After all that stuff goes where it needs to go, I can start sorting through basement stuff and get that all organized and together - and then maybe my house will be organized and I will feel like I can have this baby with less chaos than I expect.

Because I expect either total disaster or complete chaos. Or both.

Holding Oliver - 31 weeks

Last weekend I visited my best friend and her two week old son. I thought it would be difficult for me, to hold a tiny little baby, but it was natural. I wasn't thinking of my boys as I held Oliver - I was thinking about Oliver. He's cute and tiny and sweet. He smells of formula. He is not John and he is not Drew.
He is not what I am missing. He doesn't even represent what I am missing right now. That's how deep and soul-touching my grief is...my boys are an independent joy and an independent hurt, they are feelings untouched by things around me. It can't get better and it can't get worse, even when I'm holding a newborn baby boy. I believe I have found the middle ground in this grief of mine, though I am still affronted by people who like to tell me (unsolicited, of course) that "Third Time's A Charm" and "Well, this one is just meant to be, I guess."

Why do people think that of all the things to say to a BabyLoss Mama, saying that their dead children simply "weren't meant to be" is a good conversation starter? I can think of a million things to say - even simply, "How are you?" before launching into a speech about things being "better off" or "not my fate."

My dear mother-in-law, who is very sweet and well-meaning, has decided to throw me a baby shower. (Excuse me while I take a shaky breath here).

She would not be deterred. She insisted that I register for gifts and choose bedding and bibs. She has spent weeks planning and changing and planning the menu and the guest list. She has been so darn nice about everything. Emily is equally excited about the party.

I have a panic attack every time I think of going to this shower.

Where my mother in law sees a room full of people looking to celebrate me and the baby, I see a room full of pity head tilts, questions about whether "this one feels different," and comments about "the trouble."

Why must it be so hard to celebrate my rainbow baby? I think it's because Clark wasn't supposed to be my rainbow baby - Drew was. I live a life that isn't supposed to be - and celebrating anything that IS supposed to be feels like a fool's roulette.

The Thing About Dead Babies - Week 30

One thing I think the people around me don't realize is that I have four days of peak sorrow in my year - four days of remembering and crying and trying to reconcile my heart.
When you have a dead baby, you mourn the death date and the estimated due date. It isn't even something I do consciously. I'll notice that I have the blues, that my hormones are more hormonal and I want to sleep more and eat less. Then I realize - a due or death date is looming.
After a fairly emotional weekend of internal back-and-forth, I realized that Thursday is Drew's death date. There it is - on my the paper calendar and the ticking calendar of my heart - October 24 - the day I said goodbye to John's rainbow brother.
See, in our house, we "celebrate" the boys' birthdays with Emily. We go to the cemetery and release balloons or plant flowers or bring little toys to the headstone. My husband and I cry a little bit and we lay in the grass and look at the sky and just be sorrowful on a day that should have been happy.
But I'm sort of on my own with death days. I don't bring them up to Emily because we want her to celebrate her brothers. I don't mention it to my husband because this pain is the kind of pain I want to keep to myself. I don't want to have to explain it to someone because I really can't put it into words. It just hurts and that's all anyone needs to know. It's my hurt and I just want to hold it and let it be a real feeling for awhile.
So I know tonight and tomorrow and Thursday and the weekend and even the week after will be hard and I know that this will happen to me four times a year, every year, for the rest of my life.
That's what happens when you carry babies in your heart instead of your arms.

I'm going to throw up now - 29 weeks

I am certain of vomit as I type this now. I have failed my glucose tolerance test and am in the doctor's office, laptop on lap, for my three hour test.
I chugged the not-so-delicious orange flavored stuff and had my blood drawn, so now I wait - one eye one the clock - for 11:16 a.m. for the second blood draw of four. I feel like I am going to puke and that delicious burrito I had last night in preparation for fasting is suddenly not such a great idea.
Pregnancy is so much fun! (sarcasm).
I haven't written much lately because my days and weeks have been blissfully uneventful. All the way up until I failed this glucose test last week, I was just humming along, working, painting Clark's bedroom, ordering his custom bedding and curtains, trying to get the house organized...
All of it is impossible to do. We tore apart our bedroom because of a plaster issue and spent three weeks in flux with our furniture stuffed in every other room. Then we started on Clark's room and did the exact same thing plus carpet. That means the furniture can't go back in there until the carpet is installed.
I am amazed that this and a little blood sugar are the biggest problems I have in this pregnancy.
It is very difficult for me to get too excited about these faux disasters. I remember that with both John and Drew I told my husband I wanted to be the woman who fails the glucose test and whines and worries about it. I want to be the woman who has one strange bleed and considers that the disaster and near loss of her pregnancy.
Now I am that woman. It's kind of amazing.

Emily is another story.

My 7-year-old has meticulously planned for her brother's arrival and I was impressed with her level of trust that Clark is coming no matter what.
I was driving the other day and she asked me if Clark would look "just like other babies" and "if he would have anything wrong with him."

Even when we trust in our household, we trust with exceptions.

With Clark well into viability, with my cervix still "long and closed," with his room painted and waiting for carpet, with my baby shower invitations sent, there are still three people who are holding their breath and trying to trust and trying, trying, trying to believe in the average, uneventful pregnancy.

A Baby Loss Mama Doesn't Understand - Week 24

There is this one thing that has been on my mind more often than not lately. In my conversations with fellow Baby Loss Mamas, there is a common thread from the mamas of rainbow babies that I just can't quite grasp. Many of these mamas hold a tiny grudge against their rainbow - "I think to myself, if your sister were alive, you wouldn't be here" one mom said.
I don't want to feel this way about Clark. I don't feel this way about him. Not now and hopefully not ever. I told my husband that as devastated as I have been this last year with the loss of John and then Drew, carrying Clark has been a tormented joy. I worry, I watch every symptom, count every cramp, take every vitamin. I plan for happiness and prepare for another disaster. I lean terribly on the genetic science that soothes me, but I don't trust it at all.
But somehow that has everything to do with Clark and almost nothing to do with John and Drew. Of course I miss them. I still cry for them. I bought orange tulip bulbs to plant at their shared grave this weekend. They are front of mind, always.
But like I told my husband, as sad as I am, as much as I miss my boys, as much as they mean to me individually and together in the sense of motherhood and the sense of loss, I would not trade Clark for either one of them. I would not barter this child away to get back the most precious things I have lost.
I say this because Clark is as much my child as John or Drew. He is as much a part of me and of my husband as those lost little angels. I do not love him less. I do not love him more. This is a symptom, I suppose, of my insistence on grieving them as whole people with whole personalities and whole identities. I can honestly close my eyes and see what I think John would have looked like, or what Drew would have been like. But those somewhat assigned personalities and identities also extend to Clark.
For me, this isn't about "If your brother were alive, you wouldn't be here." It's about "Your brothers died and I am lucky to have you."
Perhaps this feeling will change when he gets here, when he is here and alive and I can think more about how his brothers never had these chances, the opportunity that comes with life.
But I never want to lose touch with the fact that this is a little person who is here not because his brothers died, but because we were brave enough and lucky enough to have him.

The Truth Hurts – 23 weeks

My husband and I have become a little bit obsessed with viability.

Now that we have hit the 23 week mark, my hubby, the king of charts and graphs and metrics, pulled out a viability calendar to scrutinize.

At 23 weeks, Clark has a 10 to 30 percent chance or survival if he were born today. The positive percentages go up exponentially with each week after this one. In a week or two he will have a 50/50 chance of survival.

The thought hit me and the words were out of my mouth before I could swallow them: “That gives him 10 to 30 percent more of a chance of survival at 23 weeks than his brothers had at full term.”

I’m right. The fact that this fact is true is an aching scar on my heart. I think I have only recently come around to the realization that my boys had no chance at life. Of course I knew this when we terminated, especially with Drew. But there is knowing something and then knowing something in your whole self. I had convinced myself that my boys had no chance and now I know that to be fact.

It makes me glad for Clark, that he has a chance, no matter how small, of survival. But it makes me want to cry and scream at the unfairness of it for John and Drew. How do you come to terms with your babies having never been given even the slimmest chance?

The Hard Leaps - 23 weeks

So here I am, 23 weeks!

I type that with a lot of enthusiasm, but not a lot of energy. There has been a lot going on and I am exhausted, mentally and physically.

Where to start?

I have had good scans since my last post – nothing about our situation has changed. I feel the baby kicking several times a day now, almost constantly throughout the course of the day, really. He seems strong. He responds to my husband’s touch and voice, which is a joy to see and feel.

I suppose that is the part of this pregnancy that is so markedly different for me than my angel pregnancies. John would actually squirm away from stimuli. Drew would ignore it. I know now that they were like this because they could not see or hear, both died before they could really feel sensations. I have the feeling John sensed vibrations – he moved when the dogs barked or if I yelled. We know now that the glycosylation meant they would have been born blind and deaf or been born with limited and steadily degenerative senses.

Clark, on the other hand, seeks out his father for activity. My husband puts his big paw on my belly and Clark squirms up to meet it and kick. It is my sign, more so than the genetic tests and ultrasounds, that this really is a different sort of pregnancy.

My daughter has taken on a mission or two of her own in the journey to big sisterhood.

Over the holiday weekend, we took her to the toy store and let her choose any toy she wanted. She chose a doll that wets itself.

“I have to practice,” she insisted. “I have to learn how to burp a baby and how to change diapers. I have to practice now.”

No arguments there. Every week, on our shopping trips, we buy something for the baby. I have worked it out that, mathematically, we should need about 100 packages of wipes in Clark’s first year. So we buy wipes now to prepare. Yesterday I bought a fuzzy little snowsuit for his December arrival. We have chosen binkies and bottles and lotions and toys and little but fun needs for the baby. This is good for my nesting and for Emily’s planning. It keeps us all in the right frame of mind – the place where we are preparing for a baby to come home, not preparing in case we have a live baby.

As for me, I am a lot bigger than I had anticipated I’d be at six months, which means I pretty much need to go clothes shopping again pretty soon. I’m exhausted a lot of the time and that makes me mad because the second trimester is supposed to be about feeling better and more energetic. All I want to do is sleep.

We had a real hold up with our nursery planning this month as a floor joist in the attic broke and sent a chunk of plaster crashing to the floor in our bedroom. All that blow-in insulation EVERYWHERE. So now me and Hubby are bunking in Clark’s room, so it feels a lot like we are camping in our own house. Not fun.

Emotionally, my thoughts are all over the place. On one hand, I miss my Drew and John so much. Taking Emily to Chuck E. Cheese over the weekend was hard for me – babies of all ages are always there. My mind never fails to jump from one lost son to the other – John would have been just big enough to sit on the rides. Drew would be just about as big as that little baby there.

I am constantly reminded that as blessed as I am to have this life and this possibility of Clark, this is not the life that I was meant to live. Something – two things – are missing and they will always be missing.  My arms will always ache for those lost boys. The emotional leaps from happy and blessed to genetically victimized are not big, but they are incredibly hard.