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.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
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.
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.
Friday, October 18, 2013
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.
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.
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