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?