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.