New Digs

In more ways than one.  We moved the weekend after Christmas, with 3 weeks notice, to another city two hours away from our hometown.  It's been (ahem) a bit of a transition for us.  Also, I started a new blog.  Not sure if I'm going to continue to update here or not, but I am going to try and get back into the blogging swing of things over yonder at my new spot, Jenn is Rambling.  Hope to see you there.

The Tears

They are still here for him.

They creep up sometimes, unexpectedly, while I stand at my kitchen counter, spreading the knife, back and forth, back and forth as I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Outside, in the back yard where we now have a little swing set, both girls swing.  One in the baby swing and one going high enough to make the swing "pop", as she says, and a huge, beautiful, graceful blue and black butterfly lands on the top pole of the swing set.  And I come a little unhinged.  Sure, most days I would be delighted to see this little reminder of him, especially near both girls, the only way I feel that they are all together sometimes, if you know what I mean.

But today?  Today I don't want the damned butterfly.  Today I want my son.  I want my son, dammit!  I hate this.  I hate it so much that I can't even find the words to contain my vitriol.  Why isn't he here running around in the grass with his big sister?  Making me nervous around the baby?   Taking things down off the shelves and making messes and stomping his foot while he experiments with his two year old independence?

Why isn't he here?

Oh, Father, why isn't he here?  Some days the trust comes so much easier than others.  Some days I can sit back and say that yes this is the plan for our lives and be at peace with that.  Some days I can't.  It's a struggle today to say, yes, God, yes I trust You, even in this.  Even in this.

    

The sea said goodbye to the shore so the sun wouldn't notice
The seaweed wrapped its arms around you

The carpet on my cheek feels like a forest
And I run through the tall trees with your hand chasing me

The books that I keep by my bed are full of your stories
That I drew up from a little dream of mine, a little nightmare of yours

To be asked to take this plunge to forgive and forget
And be the better man, to be a better man, to be a better man

So love me mother, and love me father, and love my sister as well

The cat's silhouette as big as a monster in this concrete jungle,
The streetlights hanging their heads

So make all your last demands for I will forsake you
And I'll meet your eyes for the very first time, for the very last

So love me mother, and love me father, and love my sister as well
So love me mother, and love me father, and love my brother as well
So love me mother, and love me father, and love my sister as well
So love me mother, and love me father, and love my brother as well

I met a man today and he smiled back at me
Now there are thoughts like these that keep me on my feet, that keep me on my feet.

Almost To The Jumping Off Point

So another big thing rolling around in this here noggin is that one week from today we will begin homeschooling.  While L loved being in preschool last year and we were overall satisfied with the experience, as the year went on it became clearer and clearer that the best fit for our family is homeschooling.  It has always been an option for us, but in all honesty we were planning on private school until our pregnancy with B began to whittle away at the money I had stored up for tuition (B's pregnancy = SUPER EXPENSIVE!) and so we reevaluated and prayed and researched and then we talked to L about it and lo and behold everybody agreed that we wanted to be a homeschooling family.

There are lots of reasons for this.  One is that hubby and I are very familiar with the school system where we live and although it's better than many others, after spending all our formative years within this system we can agree that it is not where we want L to be educated.  She's ahead in lots of areas (her preschool was pretty awesome and she's also a smart cookie) and I just can't get behind the idea of sending her off for 6 hours a day to sit at a desk and "learn" a bunch of stuff she already knows.  I'm not crazy about the idea that they spend so.much.time sitting - recess is a mere 20-30 minutes and lunch is the same, too.  Art and music has been drastically cut.  School starts at 7:45 in the morning!   Also, the particular school we are zoned for, which, just being zoned for this school is silly as there are three other elementary schools closer to us than our zoned school, is not one of the best in our district.  It's not the worst, either, but if I were going to send her to public school our zoned school would not be the one I would send her to.  So, although I fully recognize that there are lots of kids and families that are more than happy and even thriving within our local public school system, it is not for us.

As I mentioned earlier, our plan had been private school.  We do have some rather strong private schools in our area, including a three day classroom, two day homeschool option that we had decided on, but as I said, B's pregnancy slowly whittled away my private school tuition budget bucket.  For the best, of course, but it did make us rethink our educational plans for L and for awhile I was feeling very frustrated by the lack of funds for private school.  Now I see that it's all good and I'm terribly excited about starting on Monday (as is L.  She asks me frequently if it's time to start already?).

We've got a huge amount of support where we live; homeschool is actually pretty common here and we know tons of families who have made this choice (including my family - my brother who is about to enter college and my sister who is in her final year of high school have both been homeschooled since kindergarten) and, surprisingly in some cases, all of our family and friends have been incredibly positive and supportive about our choice.

This week we're tying up our loose ends and getting the last little bits of things needed for our big start on Monday.  Also, we're going for a fancy haircut in a real salon (hello certain store in the mall offering free kids haircuts this month) to get ready for our first day of school pictures.  Can't believe I'm going to have a kindergartner in a week!  Wasn't she just a baby like a few days ago??

Mwah! and You thought Jenn was crazy before? Wait till you see her now.

Thanks you guys.  Yall are the best readers a girl could want.  I appreciate the encouragement and the kick in the teeth to, uh, get over myself and just keep on writing.  I think I've always been a little afraid to hurt somebody in a sensitive spot, maybe a newbie that has just lost a baby or what have you because I was so, so, so, just raw, and sensitive for a long time about living kids and rainbow babies and all that jazz so I have censored myself out of that concern.  But it is stifling, not being able to really share my life when that is what this space is supposed to be all about - my space to really, truly put it all out there, dead baby angst or not.  So while I used Jenn's Den as a place to share the stuff the general public and my in laws couldn't handle about my grief, I was always careful to share about other things in my life only away from Jenn's Den because, again, fear of hurting some newly grieving mama.

Ah.  Enough.

Sooooo, since I have both the inclination (thanks again yall!) and the time this morning (L is at my mom's on a sleepover and Bee is still snoozing away), here I am writing about things other than grief.

I am currently wanting to give away all my stuff, sell my house and move to India where I will take care of the poor and staff an orphanage.  Ha, I jest.  Sort of.  Not really.  Depends on the day I guess.  For quite awhile I have had the feeling that all this stuff in my house is slowly suffocating me and my family.  Now we are not even in the mainstream on this - we buy far less stuff than many of our friends and family, we don't drive new cars or live in a huge house or shop at the mall or even have cable, and yet it got to the point where I could hardly close the toy closet because it was just stuffed to the brim.  Ridiculous!  Ridiculous I say! And so I started purging.  Giving away, sending to Goodwill, having a yard sale, chucking crap in the trash.  Some of this came out of grief and my desire to control what I could in my life - my environment - but it has continued since then and once I opened my eyes and saw the massive amounts of stuff we were housing and storing and spending my hubby's hard earned dollars on, well, it made me kind of sick to my stomach.  Thinking of some poor mother who struggles to provide one single solitary bowl of rice for their child a day and here I am with a pantry full of food and a complaint on my lips about there being nothing to eat.

GAH.

Also?  Also here are some guidelines for how I am supposed to be living my life, straight from the manual I profess to follow - But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?  1 John 3:17 and Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.  James 1:27 and there are many, many, more which I think I have conveniently ignored for the majority of my Christian walk.  Sure, sure, I don't curse most days and I don't get drunk and act a fool at tailgating parties and I speak kindly most of the time and try my best to be honest and pretend like I love others the way Jesus said we should, but in all reality?  In all reality I think I was exchanging responsibility and maturity for the true Christian walk.  Like, we have a modest savings account and own our home and don't spend money on lavish vacations and I pray and read my bible (while apparently not really paying any mind to what it actually says that might be even slightly inconvenient to me) and act like upstanding citizens of the community and isn't that all there is to being a Christian?

No, Jenn.  No that is not all there is.

My spirit has been groaning within me.  I needed to find some fellow-about-to-sell-their-homes-and-move-to-India folks and so I googled Christian simplicity and found stuff which led to other stuff and eventually I read this book:

And then things started to get a little crazy.  I am currently reading some more radical-ish Christian stuff and it is blowing.my.mind.  Yall.  I have so much and others have so little and did you know that around 25,000 people die each day of poverty?  Twenty Five Thousand.  Most often children.  Children of mothers who loved them and cared for them and are grieving for them just as I have loved and cared and grieved over my own children who haven't made it.

It's rocking my world.  Jacking me up.  Making me crazy and inducing a lot of eye rolling in my hubby.  Still working this all out.  Not sure where to go next but realize I cannot continue living on in the way that I have all these years.  

But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?  1 John 3:17

Yall, I have the world's goods.  I now see my brother in his need.  I can't continue to shut up my heart from him.      

 

Crickets

Anybody still here?  I know I haven't been.  Life has been just breezing on by and it's hard to find the time for this space and also when I do I seem to be a bit tongue tied.  Or finger tied, I guess.

It all feels rather redundant.  I don't think I have anything new to say.  Micah is dead and I miss him and I wish he hadn't died and my family will always feel incomplete.  

Not sure what to do with Jenn's Den now.  I used to write about other stuff, years ago, but now, with all the dead baby business in the last two years it seems kind of weird to launch into the whole we're going to be embarking on a homeschooling journey in three weeks, Bee is doing well but was sick with a stomach bug last week, it's hard to keep my house clean and I'm tired from lack of sleep the past few days.  Not to mention it's hard to find the time to sit and write about anything, not just dead baby stuff.

I don't know.  I realize I've lost my readers that used to come to Jenn's Den prior to Micah's death and I think my entire readership is now fellow DBMs.  Which is fine with me, just not sure you guys are all that interested in reading about my homeschool curriculum choices and the fact that Bee seems to think waking up six times a night to nurse is totally cool.

Then again sometimes I still have dead baby angst to get off my chest and it would be nice to have this space still up and running.  Not to mention if we ever decide to try again I'm sure there will be more losses in my future.

Again I say, I don't know.  Any thoughts or opinions?  

Stuck In The Mud

I’ve got a decision to make, yall, and I am having a really hard time with it.  What do we do with the possibility of more children? 

Hubby is all for it.  He would love more; he would love for us to have a big family, a house full of rambunctious kids.  It’s what he knows; he’s one of six.  Prior to trying to build our family we always talked of wanting a big family and even wanted to just let the Lord bless us with as many children as He saw fit.  That was back when pregnancy equaled living baby. 

Of course, pregnancy no longer equals living baby for us.

Pregnancy instead equals four miscarriages, full term stillbirth, lots of shots and medications and doctor’s appointments and fear and anxiety.  It also equals two beautiful, living girls that we are blessed to be able to hold and love on and parent.

We are fertile folks, hubby and I.  Seven pregnancies makes that clear.  We’ve got to decide what we are doing, soon, before we just end up pregnant without meaning to.  Bee is nearing six months old and that is the point at which I will not be comfortable relying on ecological breastfeeding any longer.  After L I didn’t mind taking a slight chance and only using ecological breastfeeding but that’s because I wasn’t scared of pregnancy then like I am now.  Now, I can’t take any chances.  I mean, let’s be realistic here.  It’s not like if we get pregnant then we’re going to end up with a baby.  It’d just be another loss to suffer through while trying to parent my two living children, one of which is a bitty baby who needs me to be present for her and not off crying in the corner.

Being pregnant and miscarrying over and over and losing Micah and then making it through Bee’s pregnancy and delivery really took a toll on me.  And more so than that, it took a toll on L.  She really lost a lot of her mama during some of that time and I wonder how can I continue to whittle away her childhood chasing the dream? Of course now I have to consider how much of B’s childhood I’m willing to whittle away chasing the dream, too.  How many more miscarriages would we have to go through to even get to the end of another pregnancy?  And then, goodness, that doesn’t mean there are any guarantees as to the outcome.  All three of my kids have been born with their cords around their neck.  It killed one of them.  How can I know that and even consider going through with it again?  I mean, what are the chances of it ending well?  How could I knowingly put my family through all that again?      

Most days I’m pretty decided that I’d like to be done.  For good.  Take my womanly parts and leave me with my two girls and never again will I pee on a stick or get an ultrasound or leave the doctor’s office with tears streaming down my face after they tell me, again, that my baby is dead.  It sounds pretty good to me to just be done with all that.  I’d like to move on to another time in my life where that kind of stuff isn’t filling my head and heart 24/7.  I’d like to be able to slow down and enjoy the family that I have here with me. Start a new chapter.  I think life would be so relaxing.

As I mentioned earlier, though, hubby and I aren’t on the same page with this.  And truth be told, some days there will be moments in which I look at L and Bee and think it would totally be worth it to do it all over again if somewhere down the line I ended up with another living child.  I mean, they are worth it.  Both of them were completely worth it and now, here with them both, it seems so easy to have decided to continue on.

But also, with both of them here, it feels a little greedy to even be considering more. Maybe not greedy. Maybe pushing our luck? Playing with fire? Maybe we should just sit back and enjoy what we have and not try to grab for more? Sometimes it feels like two is really more than we should have ended up with and we’ve been so lucky to get these girls and I just don’t want to be around if we push it and our luck runs out, know what I mean?  Sure, other people can get big families so easily and it ain’t no thang, but we’re marked and maybe we ought to just learn our place and then stay there. 

I just don’t know what I really want to do.  Hubby and I have talked about pushing up our plans for adopting (we’ve always wanted to adopt, wanted a little multi-national, happy, busy, love filled home) and letting that be the only way we move forward with family building, but at the moment it’s just not financially feasible.  Not to mention that many countries won’t consider us for adoption until Bee is older, anyway.  Also, I think I need awhile before I’m emotionally ready to devote myself to the rollercoaster that is international adoption.  For now I will continue attending the monthly orphan care meeting at church and making plans for one day following through with that.  It’s just not something for the immediate or even near future right now, I think.

So that brings us back to pregnancy, as that has to be decided soon.  There are birth control issues – because of my funky monkey blood I am very limited as to which chemical birth control I can take. Read: hardly any.  After much discussion with my OB, we’ve come to the conclusion that the choices available to me are not ideal for our situation and there is really only one choice that we are seriously considering, which is the copper IUD.  I am rather tempted to just go for it except that there is the super rare chance of us ending up pregnant with the IUD still in place which tends to equal all sorts of scary and bad outcomes.  Hubby says that, dude, we are the people who end up with the rare and scary and bad outcomes, how can we take that chance? And I hear him. I really do.  We seem to be the poor saps that end up with the .00001 percent of crap that isn’t supposed to actually ever happen.  But it does, and it happens to us, and it feels like it happens to us a lot.   

Yea, so there’s that whole how do we go about avoiding a pregnancy business which just complicates this whole mess and adds to my standing here with my feet in the mud and not moving one way or the other while I fret and wring my hands and wish I could make a decision.

2 Years

Today, my boy would have been two years old.  That seems just about impossible.  Long ago I stopped being able to picture him continuing to grow and change and age.  Now he is mostly just a baby to me, the little baby I held in the hospital and left behind in the bassinet.  I can’t picture him at two years old. I can’t picture what he would look like or what his personality might have been or what he would be doing.  On the one hand that makes me really sad.  On the other hand I think it makes it easier to not have a little ghost of a boy running around in my head.  Better to lose just a baby than to lose a baby and a boy.

Sometimes it seems as if maybe I am living in two different worlds.  One is vibrant and moving and full of life with a noisy four year old and a demanding four month old and dogs that run and get under your feet and a husband who is always busy with something.  The phone rings, the doorbell chimes, there are emails in the inbox.  The other world is stationary, hazy, and quiet.  Not much going on but it’s encompassing, nonetheless.  That’s the world my son is in, the world in which nobody but me has admittance, not even my husband and daughters because they don’t remember him in the same way that I do, I don’t think they go there, to that quiet, hazy place like I do and so I travel there alone and I spend my time there alone.  Nobody comes to meet me there anymore, now that I can’t conjure up a picture of my ghost boy.  In all honesty, it’s been a solitary spot for about 14 months now.  A lonely, sad spot and I really don’t like visiting.  So I go less and less.  I spend more and more time in the vibrant world, the one with the living and I try to comfort myself by thinking that since the ghost boy doesn’t visit me in the other world anymore anyway, there’s no use in hanging out there by myself or feeling guilty when I don’t make the time for a visit.

Today, though, today is different and I feel a pull towards that other world and think I might like to spend a chunk of the day by myself, quiet and lonely.  I won’t; I will be pulled back into the world of the living as soon as Bee wakes up or hubby and L return from their early morning jaunt on the beach.  I really won’t get much of a choice, to be honest, and it’s probably for the best.  Spending my day there would be a very sad way to spend my boy’s birthday.  So instead we will be loading up this morning to go see some lovely historic sites and hunt down some delicious vegan muffins (there are no vegan cupcakes to be found in this little beachside town, and since I can’t have dairy and eggs, vegan muffins will have to do this year.  I am trying to not feel badly about shortchanging Micah with muffins.  Seriously, what is wrong with me that I am worried about shortchanging a dead baby based on whether or not we have cupcakes on his birthday?) and birthday candles so we can have a family celebration of sorts later on.  There is also supposed to be a full moon tonight and so we are looking forward to see that as well.

Ah, you guys, I just miss him so much.  Even after two years of living without him, I miss him so very much.  I still ache for him and long for him and want him here with us.  The unfairness of it still creeps up on me and makes my eyes sting.  I just don’t allow myself to go to that place very much anymore.  I’m much, much better at changing my mind’s subject and moving on to something that doesn’t punch me in the gut.  Maybe that’s what time does to grief? Makes it easier to change the subject? 

****

Micah, my boy, happy birthday.  I wish you were here celebrating with us, I wish we had come to the beach for your birthday not because it’s a change of scenery for us but because you love running in the waves and building sand castles and chasing seagulls.  I wish that muffins just wouldn’t do and we would hunt for a mixer and flour and vegan cream cheese to make cupcakes because what living two year old boy would settle for muffins on his birthday?  I wish so much that I knew what you would look like and feel like and sound like and smell like because that would mean you were here.  I know that you are just fine where you are, I know that you are better off than we are and that it’s just my jealous heart wanting you for me, selfishly, but baby I can’t help it.  A mama can’t let go of her children very easily.  My boy.  My boy.  I love that.  I just wish I could say it to you and see you turn to look at me.  Oh, baby, I miss you so much and wish each and every day that I could have gotten more time with you.  I love you my sweet boy.  Happy Birthday. 

Sepia

We have no internet connection where we are staying, so even though I'm posting this today it was written a few days ago.

  

Well, we made the decision to trek to the beach for Micah’s birthday; consequently I am typing this with the bright sun shining in and the waves crashing not far from me.  It is nice to be here.  I feel more free  to grieve here, not sure why, maybe because I feel like it is a more private space for us?  It is doubtful that we would run into anybody we know.  I feel rather insulated here.  

Being here brings back many memories of when we fled to this very same beach following his funeral.  It is kind of surreal, thinking back to the rawness of life during that time.  Hypercolor.  Now it feels faded, softer, almost sepia.

Bee is with us now.  That is so good.  As much as I try to keep them separate, it is impossible for me.  I’m sure that will fade with time, too.

****

As we came over the bridge into the little beach side town last night it hit me.  Physically I could feel the emotions, the grief, heavy in the air.  We’re here because my son died.  Two years ago our life was so full of promise;  we were like every other person out there, going about our days completely oblivious to true pain and loss.  How I wish we could have stayed that way.  Completely oblivious.  Everything in me yearns to have all three of them here and close with me.  I wish I could touch his hair, hold his hand, see him smile.  I wish I was exasperated at having to deal with a four year old, two year old and new baby.  I have said this a thousand times but it is the same now as it was then – I wish with all my heart that things were different.

Things are not as fresh now, the wounds have begun to heal, I can cry some while I am typing and remembering and then pull myself together and nobody would be the wiser.  But, truly, my heart is still broken, it will always sport an injury, it will always smart when I allow myself to get too close.  It’s still there.  All the pain and longing and missing him.

I hate that that is what has replaced him in my life.  He shouldn’t be equated with that, but in many ways he is.  That’s all that exists of him anymore, the pain and longing and missing.

****

Baby boy.  I miss you so much.  I wish you could have stayed and grown up and loved me like I love you.  My sweet boy, I ache for you and dream of the day we will be together.  Many people assume that because your little sister is here now that all my hurt over losing you is gone.  Micah, I will never stop wanting you in my life.  I will never stop missing you.  I will never stop loving you.  You, my son, you are a part of me that will always be.  I love you.    

And Then Came My Rainbow

I've struggled with sharing happy, happy, joy, joy posts here because I know how hard it can be to read that crap when you're still in the thick of things with grief.  Perhaps because I have really struggled with jealousy and envy and bitterness toward others who are pregnant or have babies or seem to procreate easily without all the miscarriages and shots and baby death, I sometimes assume all of you struggle with that to the same degree that I do, even though I know there are some of you who don't.

Today, though, I'm going to respond to Merry's invitation and share about the joy and hope and healing that B has brought into our lives these last four months.

And I guess I ought to not be so paranoid about sharing that around here as that is our story right now, even with Micah's second birthday coming up so quickly and the sadness we still feel over losing him, we do have joy in our home and maybe this will be the kick start that I need to start writing more about that.

When B was born it was hard for me to believe she was really here and safe and alive and that she would stay that way.  I cried so much during her first few weeks at home.  Cried from joy and relief and the overwhelming happiness that came with her aliveness and also from grief over all that we had missed out on with Micah and the way his memory was treated by some people after her birth and just from pent up emotions and because you know what?  It felt good to cry even though it made me feel like a crazy woman.

Also I'm pretty sure I had a serious case of the baby blues and a touch of PPD to contend with.

But once the dust started to settle and it seemed more and more likely that she would stick around for awhile and my hormones kind of got themselves straightened out and I didn't spend my nights awake watching her breathe and listening intently for some unknown sign of something terrible happening, well, life has evened out.

It is beyond wonderful to have a baby in the house again.  Being able to hold her and kiss her and take pictures of her that other people actually want to look at and singing to her and watching her grow and develop and smile at me, well, there's just nothing like it.  It fills my heart right on up to the brim and then overflows.  That's what it feels like, my heart spilling over.

Although I was happy after L was born and I'm sure would have felt the same way had Micah been born alive, the emotions this time have a depth that was not there before.  I think there is something to the idea that going through a low can bring you to a new high.  Knowing, truly knowing, what a gift her life is makes everything about her babyhood that much more joyous.

She has brought me out of the shell I created after the first miscarriage post L and to which I added layer upon layer through each loss and hurt.  Suddenly I don't mind talking to people again.  Suddenly I feel like a much more normal person than I have felt at any point since Micah died.  Suddenly I feel like smiling, even when I'm having a bad day and things are going wrong, I can step back and be grateful for my two girls and husband and things don't seem so bad.  Because, yall, I know what bad is, and bad is not when there are things that don't go your way or unforeseen bills that show up in the mailbox or somebody who treats you poorly.  No, bad is when you leave the hospital empty handed and your life comes crashing down around you and it's almost impossible to even pull yourself up off of the floor and you desire to sleep in a corner in a large puddle of tears for the remainder of your life.

Not long ago I walked towards our playroom where my husband was sitting and chatting with both girls.  I had to stop midway to the door because the emotions were just flooding over me.  It's amazing.  Just utterly amazing that I have two living children and a husband who loves me and really, they are all that matter here in this world.  B's birth has brought me back, brought me back to a place of life, a place where I feel like I'm really living, a place that is filled with joy.

How does that coexist with everything we still feel over losing Micah?  I don't know and can't explain it.  Your guess is as good as mine.

Backtracking - Thursday, part 1

I'm in the backtracking frame of mind, but not sure where to start exactly.  There's a lot I'd like to cover but I think I'll just start with the labor and delivery part of things since that's the most important stuff I'd like to remember.

So, let's see, the day before B was born was a Thursday.  We were scheduled to be admitted to the hospital that night, but as always, it was contingent upon there being space for us on L&D, since you never know when every pregnant woman in town might decide today is the day to deliver and leave us out in the cold.

Hubby conveniently works for the company that owns the hospital we deliver at and as such has access to lots of helpful information such as the hospital census which he checked as soon as he got into work that morning.  When he called to report that L&D was full, completely full, I about melted into the floor in despair.  Mentally I was prepared to go no further than that very night, I could not have made it one more day and I was desperate that they get me admitted as we had planned.  Desperate really doesn't even scratch the surface of how I was feeling, but we'll leave it at that.

I took L to school and blubbered on the way home.  Hubby called to tell me that he had done some digging and discovered that although L&D was full, many of the patients were scheduled to be discharged that day and there should be lots of space opening up.  My heart moved up from the tips of my toes to somewhere around my knees.  I had a bit of hope we would get in that night, but just a bit.

As I had done Tuesday and Wednesday, I reported to the OB's office that morning and got hooked up for a NST.  I remember that we got put in the overflow room with the funky exam table with no foot rest, hubby and the nurse got me setup with a folding chair for my feet and then hubs and I were left alone to listen to the rhythmic dadumpdadump of her heart.  She passed just fine but even with that reassurance I was scared that the end was near.  Along with reassurance of her good health, I was given reassurance that we would be getting admitted that night, that everyone was aware of our situation and that we were top priority and would only be bumped for an emergency.  My heart climbed a bit higher to sit somewhere in the realm of my stomach.

As hubby went about his day more and more folks at the hospital offered their support to us and reassured him that all would be taken care of and anything we needed would be provided.  The head of L&D told him the plan was for us to be admitted and that we were to have their best nurses.  The head honchos of the hospital even pledged their support for us and each little tidbit hubby called to report left me in tears but also upped my hope that we would indeed be coming in that evening and delivering the next day.

I picked L up from school and then best friend who had come in from out of state came over and we made last minute preparations and got L ready to go to my mom's house for the next few days.  Here we are at my mom's, right before heading off (fyi, these will be deleted soon) -



It's hard to really believe these pictures.  In some ways it seems as if none of this ever happened and it's hard to think of myself as pregnant.

Anyway, best friend and I ran some more last minute errands (one of which was tracking down a Chick Fil A peppermint milkshake. YUM) and then went back to my house to finish up some cleaning and whatnot.  Hubby came home from work and we ordered take out oriental, I had steamed veggies and rice, veggie gyozas and katsu.  Didn't actually eat very much, though.  Dinner was a quiet affair, hubs, bestie and I at our dining room table, me nervous as hell and only thinking of the clock and what was to come.  We made some phone calls and told everyone the same thing, we are scheduled to go in tonight but are still waiting to see if they have space and will update you later.

8:00 arrived.  My stomach had been in knots for an hour prior as the minutes ticked closer and closer to the time I was supposed to call L&D and get the final decision as to whether they had room for us or not.  Even now, just remembering this it's making my stomach knot up.  I was so nervous.  I went to a separate room and called and yes, they had room, the woman I spoke to was so kind, knew of our situation and told me "of course we have room for you".  I cried.  I'm crying now.  Oh goodness, that final confirmation of yes, I'm going into the hospital to give birth again, ah, such an experience.

to be continued...

Let's Backtrack A Bit Here

As was apparent around here, considering I wrote a handful of posts over the span of about 10 months or so, it was difficult for me to discuss B's pregnancy while I was actually pregnant with her.  I'm not sure I dealt with her pregnancy, my anxiety and fears, all my emotions surrounding everything that now goes into pregnancy for us, in the most emotionally healthy way.  But I did the best that I could and ignoring as best I could the fact that I was pregnant seemed to help.

Now, though, I want to go back and record some of it, because honestly, it feels as if I've run a marathon, or climbed to the peak of a dangerous and snow covered mountain, or perhaps wrestled a bear to the ground with just my two wimpy hands.  Getting through her pregnancy, making the decision to labor with her instead of opting for a c-section and then actually going through with it, well, I feel like I've conquered some fears, made huge strides, did something that was really, really, really difficult and made it out alive.

Understand, though, that although it feels like I've conquered some fears, I'm pretty sure I haven't actually conquered any fears, as I've longingly thought of having my tubes tied since getting pregnant again fills me with acute dread and a knot of rather large proportions in my stomach.  

Yesterday I finally finished the thank you notes that we've had sitting in the desk for three months now and hubby delivered them to the two amazing nurses that we were with during our first night in the hospital and the next day when B was born.  It brought back so many memories that I am afraid of losing so I intend to get them all written out here.

Warning: they will probably be all drawn out and super wordy and much longer than they need to be as I don't want to lose the memory of any of it.  Hope you guys will suffer through it with me.  :)

Demands

We are rapidly approaching June 4th, my boy's second birthday.

Second.

How is that possible?  The past year has escaped me, the time has marched right on by, suddenly I find myself older than I anticipated and find the same about my son, too.

My husband wants to take a jaunt to the beach for the days surrounding his birthday.  A few days after his funeral we ran away to the beach, hubs, L and I, and I graced the sand with buckets of tears and had a woman in the Gap outlet ask me if we knew whether the baby I was carrying was a boy or girl.  I will never forget that moment, I was shopping in an attempt to find something that would hide my belly, find something that didn't make me look six months pregnant because people like to talk to pregnant people and I couldn't talk, I couldn't answer those questions, heck, I couldn't keep from crying when nobody was even looking at me, and here she was, breaking me down like that right in the middle of the store.

Thing is that this year it will be hard to escape to the beach because we've got Bee, who hates the car, cries if we drive longer than ten minutes and yall, I am not one to let a baby cry.  So not sure what to do about that, would love to be someplace peaceful on his birthday, get up in the morning and write his name in the sand, pick up some new shells for him, listen to the waves crash and the seagulls cry and hide in our sunshade to let the tears fall, but I can't justify the 1.5 hour drive with a baby who hates the car.

Is it crazy that this feels kind of like parenting Micah and Bee because it's the closest I'll ever get to them having competing demands?  And it's not even his demand, I know that, I know he could care less whether we go to the beach for his birthday or not, but still, I want to hold onto this and make it into more than it really is because my son died and I don't get much for him.  I want to scream at some unknown somebody who is telling me to get a grip, I want somebody to say that to me about this situation just so I can scream that my son died and I get to make a big deal out of whatever I want to make a big deal out of!  If somebody could just say something like that to me so I could let out this anger that is starting to resurface, so I could retort that my baby died, dammit, and I lost so many things when that happened and this is all I have, deciding where to remember his birthday is all I have, it's all I get to do for him and it is important and then maybe I could storm off, scream just leave me alone and slam a door or two.

Two years.  Soon it will be two years.  What do I even do with that?

The Retelling

Usually when I retell our story about losing Micah I talk about showing up at the hospital unaware that anything was wrong until that awful ultrasound that showed my boy still and lifeless.  And in truth that's exactly what happened, we were totally blindsided by his death and caught completely off guard by the news that his heart was no longer beating.

But there's another truth, too, one in which I think somewhere deep down inside I had an inkling that things weren't right.

I mentioned here that I woke up in my bed that night, deep in labor, with a rock-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach kind of feeling and told hubby we need to go to the hospital, now.  I don't know what it was but in some small way I knew something was wrong.  There was a little bit of panic associated with the rock-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach kind of feeling and I don't even know how to put words to it, but if I am completely honest with myself there was a knowledge that things were off.

There were also times in my pregnancy with him that I had thoughts about him dying.  I distinctly remember one day considering what our life would be like should he not come home and I guessed we would just go back to our normal routines, that eventually life would again be like it always had.  After dwelling on the idea for a minute I shook my head and chastised myself for even thinking like that.  But it wasn't the only time thoughts such as those cropped up during his pregnancy.

Did I have some sort of forewarning that he would die?  Did I know, somewhere deep down, that my boy wouldn't make it home?

There was such a strong desire during his pregnancy to have baby things out - I wanted my house to look like a baby would be coming home to it.  I prepared things early on, left all the boy clothes sitting atop a dresser in the back room in plain sight for months when I could have easily put them away, setup the cradle, got out the baby toys, did as much as I could to have my home send the message that a baby would be here soon.

Did I know how badly I would want that recognition after his death?  The recognition that we had had a baby, a son, a child that we had planned on bringing home?

My family and friends threw me a small, intimate baby shower during which I spent a lot of the time feeling irrationally embarrassed and bashful about the whole thing.  Feeling a fraud.  Now I normally don't like the spotlight on me, but even considering that, it was still strange.

Did I know the whole time?  I have wanted to accuse people of going along with an elaborate hoax, one designed to fool me into thinking I would get to raise a son and yet ended with me laying in pools of my own tears sobbing on the floor.

Did I go along with the hoax, too?  Fooling myself into thinking things would be okay?  Pretending that all was well when all along if I had dug deep enough I would have seen the truth?

Do I need to amend my retelling?

Support Needed

Hey everyone - a fellow loss mama, Becky, has just lost her precious rainbow baby, Evelynn.  If you have a few moments maybe stop by and offer this mama some support.

http://fortheloveofbabyliam.blogspot.com/2012/04/evelynn-augusta-rasmussen.html

Thanks.

A Loop

Towards the end of B's pregnancy, when I was facing the fact that I needed to make at least a few basic preparations in case we got to bring home a baby, I had to make a decision about my grandmother's hope chest that housed all of Micah's things.

Irrational as it is, I couldn't have the same furniture in the room as I did when we were pregnant with Micah.  The dresser we put his lovingly washed baby clothes and cloth diapers in and screwed his changing pad to, well, that got sold.  The chest of drawers in the closet that housed all the other baby paraphernalia was sold as well.  I brought in my daughter's old changing table/dresser and we did not put up the crib (not that we really planned on using it anyway) and I tried my best to have the furniture arranged in a different way than it had been at the end of his pregnancy.

Unfortunately there is only one way to fit our king size bed and furniture for a baby into our room, so our bed had to be moved back into the same spot it was when our room doubled as Micah's nursery.  The first night sleeping in it after the move was terrifying for me.  I really shouldn't say 'sleeping' because 'sleeping' is not what I did all night long - no, what I did all night long was lay awake crying and praying for B to not up and die on me.  I couldn't sleep on the side of the bed that I usually do and tearfully asked hubby to switch with me.  You see it was in that bed, hard in labor, laying on the side next to the rail we had already installed for him, when I woke up with a start and felt something was wrong.  A rock-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach kind of feeling.  That's when I told hubby we needed to get to the hospital, now.  That's when I got up and went to the bathroom and saw a little bit of blood and then felt his last movements.  What an awful night that was, the first night sleeping in my bed (and a new bed at that!) remembering those moments over and over again and so incredibly fearful it would happen again.

Anyway, so there was the decision to make about the chest and about his things in the chest - do we use them again?  Or do we leave them be, forever to be his and his alone?  After much agonizing we decided to take out the things we might use (we're cheap and buy a lot of non-gender-specific items) and pack the rest into a storage bin or two to store in the closet and move the chest to L's room to store her stuffed animals and double as a window seat.

Wavering between guilt (how could I usurp his place? how could I move all his stuff to the closet like it's not important? am I trying to replace him with the new baby?) and the knowledge that if he had lived I would have packed up all his stuff and moved that chest in a heartbeat and that part of being in our family is the fact that mom is forever moving furniture and rearranging your stuff, I went through each and every item in the chest and either put it out for B to use or put it in the storage bin.  I did like the idea of seeing his things in rotation, just as L's would be, and that felt right and like an acknowledgement of his short life, an acknowledgement of his place in our family that yes, he had things, and yes, just as if he had lived we would use those things for a subsequent baby.

But I have found that many of his things I just can not use with a subsequent baby.  Mostly, his clothes, because if I dress B in something unisex then she just looks like him to me.  And it's spooky and bittersweet and heartbreaking and I end up crying and, well, I just can't handle it.  So I have had to resort to all pink and purple up in here so that I don't end up a blubbering mess each morning when changing her out of her pajamas.

Coming up on two years since his death and still little things throw me for such a loop.  At what point do I get to be just 'normal' again?  Ever?

 

Intertwinings

Is that post title up there a real word?  Also it reminds me of tea, isn't there a brand of tea, Twinings or some such thing?  Anyway.

For some reason I have this deep desire to keep B and Micah as separate beings.  I want her to have her own identity and not be known as the baby we had after Micah died.  And she is in so many ways, helped to a large extent, I think, by being a girl, and also because she was technically the third baby to come along after Micah if you count the miscarriages and also because she's strongly had her own identity as Baby Bee since very early on in our pregnancy (still haven't told you that story yet, must do that soon), she is her own little person quite a bit.

But there have been so many things that have happened that leads me straight to thinking about all that came before her.  They're not even big things most of the time - the way she looks in the morning, when you glance at her from a certain angle, is an incredible reproduction of her brother's face, her smiles (she smiles!), she's bringing things to her mouth and we have a baby to hold and L talks about how happy she is that we have a baby who lived, and so it's all these little things that bring me straight back to Micah and the miscarriages and all the pain on the road to my sweet B.

For instance, March for Babies is tomorrow, and it's a huge deal where I live, and I've been participating since I was in middle school - this is my 19th year! - and when I think about where we were last year at this time, less than a week from our fourth miscarriage, and where we are this year, trying to plan where I can have a spot to sit and nurse our living baby, well it's all just kind of mind boggling and it all runs together and I'm not sure how to separate her out from the rest or if I even need to.

Later today I've got to drop Micah's sign off so he can be represented on Memory Mile again, a stretch of the walk that has beautiful signs with names and dates from little ones who didn't make it.  As a teenager I always thought Memory Mile was such a depressing part of the walk, but now I look forward to it so much. I was so touched and honored last year when they asked if they could make a sign for Micah (so much so that I took the sign home and now have to bring it back) and it was one of the highlights of that morning, getting to his sign and having friends take pictures of hubby, L and I with it - a family picture of sorts I guess.

The fact that this year we will arrive at his sign with his baby sister in tow is not lost on me.  It seems hugely important and very significant but I think I'm the only one that feels this way.

I wonder if you other mamas that have been so blessed as to have another baby after your sweet one died can relate?  Does every little thing seem so very amazing to you, too?  Like you can't believe you've made it to this place where there is, gasp, a living baby with you, and wow, how did you get so lucky, and look at that! she's still breathing! and maybe she'll get to stay and grow old and you'll get to gaze at her grandchildren, and can you believe it?! still breathing! goodness gracious, a healthy baby, ah!  she's looking to the left, amazing! and now to the right, this is incredible!  still breathing! I can hardly take it!

Also, am I the only one who talks in rapid run-on sentences inside my head?  Huh, come to think of it, that's exactly how I write a lot of the time, too.