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.