You can run, but you can't hide

Oh my god, yes. Or a pregnant belly. And you're happy for them in that detatched, "good for you, random stranger," sort of way, but man, it really is a knife in the heart every time. I saw two little ones today just about the age our July 2017 baby shoulda coulda woulda been now, and a belly on a woman who must have a due date near my December one. I mean, yay for them, wooooo, but it's just jalapeno juice in the wound, because mine should be here, too. That should be me, and it's not, x4.

And you can never escape it. Ever. Leave the house? Slapped in the face with bellies and newborns. Unwind with TV or a movie? Surprise pregnancies as far as the eye can see. Scroll through social media? Pregnancy announcements, updates, complaints, ultrasounds, weekly goddamn belly pictures. Go to work? Karen from three cubes down won't shut the front door about her daughter's pregnancy. Pick up a magazine? CELEBRITY BUMP WATCH!!! 

((Side note, EVERY time I have miscarried, a celebrity announces an O!M!G! pregnancy within weeks, often days. Kelly Clarkson, Beyonce, Serena Williams, and Mindy Kaling/Kylie Jenner. In that order. Every goddamn time.))

Hell, I tried to read a book to distract myself when I lost my December baby, and there was-- no shit-- an accidental surprise "we literally had sex one time" pregnancy DUE IN THE EXACT SAME WEEK OF DECEMBER! I would've thrown the book if I hadn't been reading it on my phone. Instead my brain shut down and I stared at the ceiling for like 10 solid minutes. 

This is a thing so very many of us loss moms (and, I would imagine, infertility moms) have in common. It's hard for TONS of us. This is a frequent topic of conversation in our internet support groups. Pregnancy announcements, complaining about symptoms we'd just about die to get back, high-larious jokes about accidental pregnancies or how easy it is to just shoot out kids like a water slide, well-meaning but invasive comments about when we're having kids [or the next kid]... The list goes on and on. And I will tell you, every time someone posts about it and says, "is it just me?" she also expresses her guilt over these feelings. This is why I don't think I've ever heard a single person say, publicly, in mixed company, that these topics are difficult. We're afraid that those who've never had a loss will not understand, will assume we are just selfish and bitter, will judge. And nobody needs that, least of all in the midst of a shitstorm of grief. 

So we just shut up and smile through dumb comments or stupid Karen's 4,500 newborn pics (THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME, KAREN) then go cry in a bathroom because there literally is no escape unless you go dig a hole in the woods and live there. Ever.


Unrelated, if anyone has a backhoe or excavator they're willing to loan out for digging holes in the woods, let me know.

Far beyond the moon

I don't think anyone ever even sees this, but in the interest of continuity, we have had three further losses. Loss, baby, loss, loss, loss.

I'm sure this will come as a shock but this sucks! It sucks 10,000,000 times more than just having had one, or two. Each one is worse and makes me feel more and more isolated. 

After one loss, I felt like I was on some distant planet, full of other bereaved mothers. We can see the happy, innocent, never-had-a-loss mamas down on their own planet, carefree. Able to enjoy the privilege of saying really cute things like "I'm just enjoying my pregnancy." They know we exist, but only in as a vague, scary idea. At least we bereaved mamas had each other to cling to. 

At that point I thought I understood. I thought a loss mama was a loss mama, whether we'd lost one or two or five. Oh, what a sweet summer child I was. 

It's not the same. One is so bad, I literally can't find language to tell you how much worse second, third, etc. losses are. One is unimaginable. Two is worse. Three is literal torture.  Four is hell. After each subsequent loss, I felt like I got bounced to another, yet more distant planet, more and more isolated, further and further removed from normal pregnant people. From anything the average person can understand. 

At this point I find myself on a desolate, frozen planet, so sparsely populated I may as well be alone.  One or two more losses, and I'm afraid I may just float away like Major Tom. Party!

Two years later.

Today marks two years. She would be about 17 months. It was rough...it's not any less painful.

I suppose perhaps it's like managing chronic pain (though I have never done that)... The pain doesn't go away, and it doesn't get any "better," but you get used to it. It just becomes part of living. But January 3rds (and to a lesser extent, August 13ths) are going to be hellish for awhile. Maybe forever.

I still love her as much. I still miss her and wring my hands wondering if I could have done something (I know I couldn't've). I was afraid I wouldn't love her as much/the same once I had a living take home baby, and I was sort of pleased and relieved to find my feelings about her didn't change at all.

Daphne now has a 10 month old "little brother." He had a brain injury at birth (HIE, oxygen deprivation; something akin to a stroke) and spent two horrifying weeks in the NICU, but as of now he is meeting all milestones and is indistinguishable from his "typical," brain injury free peers. But it's a years long game of wait-and-see. He could end up with any number of delays, disorders, behavioural problems, academic difficulties, etc., of varying severity... Or none at all.

I made Brother a "first christmas" ornament this year, with his picture, name, and the year on it. I made one for her too-- no picture, just her name and the year 2013. (We found out she was gone Jan 3, 2014; so 99% of the time she was with us was in 2013, and that's what felt right).

So both of my babies have special ornaments.

I hate January 3rd. I hate January 4th. I really pretty much hate most of January, actually. January through mid-March 2014 was the most miserable, mentally unstable, horrific time in my life, and I think I need to live a few more first-10ish-weeks-of-the-year periods before they stop stinking of horror and emotional devastation. They haven't yet.

Maybe this should just be a motherhood-related-greif-and-PTSD blog, at this point; because my son's birthday and NICU stay falls during that time period and I fully expect to spend sixteen days feeling sad and weird. I'm not sure I even want to throw his birthday party until after his coming-home-iversary.

I feel like life really wanted me to get a good taste of parenthood right off the bat.  I have two children. One didn't make it out of her first trimester; the second tried to die at birth and has left me with extra EXTRA reason to worry. So they make you happy and fill you with love, but they can (and will) break your heart and destroy the fabric of your very soul with worry and misery on their behalf.

I thought this was going to be a better blog entry. Turns out it's just rambly word vomit. WHOOPS. Good thing I'm shouting into a void, here...

The Noob: First trimester screening

Just a quick post to say we had our Nuchal Translucency scan yesterday and all is well. Baby was bumping and twitching and moving all around in there, and we got to see him/her open and close his/her mouth.

It took a lot of effort on everyone's part to get him/her into the right angle so the tech could get the necessary measurements. She did finally get them, but unfortunately we didn't get any good pics (hence no upload here), and most of what we saw on the screen was a blur of various baby parts wooshing across the screen as she dug and poked and dug and dug, trying to get the right shot.  No idea what it is yet.

I have traveled through time to post from the future, so I can tell you that the results are....completely normal. No markers for any issues. Excellent news!

As happy as that is, I can't help but remember that I "should" have a three and a half week old (or so) right now. Am I still sad? Yeah, I'm still sad. Happy and sad.

"People view the death of a baby as just a sad thing that happened. These babies that die are not sad  things that happen. They are people, much loved and wanted children. They are brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, grandsons and granddaughters."  --Carly Marie Dudley, of Project Heal.

Today is a "Day of Hope," apparently, a day to remember and heal. People make prayer flags and hang them, and sometimes send in photos of them. I'm not participating, because I didn't know about it until today, but I saw this quote posted elsewhere and loved it.

Due Date

Today is my first baby's due date. I made it through the day okay, just welled up a few times. it is hard, and it sucks, even knowing I have a rainbow on the way.

We weren't sure what to do. I knew I had to do something, but finances are an issue, so planting a tree, getting a tattoo, etc. was out of the question. We decided we'd just release balloons here at our house.  My husband stopped on his way home from work and bought two balloons ( I requested the pink one), and we wrote messages on them. 

On mine, I wrote her name and the date of the miscarriage, and underneath that I wrote, "Mommy loves you." On the other side, I wrote "we miss you," and I covered a lot of the free space with hearts and Xs & Os. My husband took the blue one and wrote, "We miss you, XOXO" on the top. "It's on the top, so she can see it," he said (i.e., if she were looking "down" from heaven, she would see the words on the top.) We are not religious, but that was so sweet, I thought.

We took them outside to the area of our yard we thought would give them their best chance at not getting hung up in our many trees.  We held hands and thought about our baby for a few minutes, then we filled our balloons with love (that sounds so stupid, but I promise it made sense at the time-- just focused hard on thoughts of love for our lost baby, while focusing energy on the balloons). I hugged and kissed mine a few times, and that was that. (The hugs and kisses are for the baby, you see, to catch them off the balloon.)

We let them go and watched them for awhile.

(It's hard to see, but you can just see a dark speck toward the top of the red box (the blue one) and a light speck toward the bottom (the pink one). I cried, and we talked about how maybe my late father-in-law was pointing out the balloons to our Daphne. We watched them until we couldn't see them anymore. And that was it. It felt good. I feel like it was the right thing to do.

Are you still sad?

The other day I talked to someone dear to me who knows about the new baby.  (We have told a few people about this new pregnancy, but have not yet made any formal, public announcements.) She asked me that question: "Are you still sad about the other baby?"
Now, normally, this would infuriate me, but I know she doesn't know any better. She has no idea what she's saying. "Are you still sad about the other baby?"

Let me just clear this up for the universe at large, right now.

YES. I will never, ever not be sad about it. Not ever.

That first pregnancy seems to have been nothing but a blip to most people (even to our own families, I think, especially now that I've been colonized by a new womb tenant). The first pregnancy everyone will forget (has probably already forgotten) was not just a first pregnancy; it was our first baby, and her death was a life changing, soul destroying, foundation shaking, heart rending experience. It has had a permanent impact on our lives, and it has forever changed who I am.

To [general] you, our first pregnancy may have been a blip, forgotten, a sad memory, a nothing; to me, she was my first child, who I already loved. My first child, who I was already taking care of. A million Christmases, birthdays, Thanksgivings, Halloweens, first days of school, had already flashed through our minds.  First car, Prom, teenage rebellion, first boy/girlfriend, first bike, books to read with her, sending her out to pick up sticks in the yard before Daddy mowed-- all this and more (so very, very much more) had already been through our minds more than once.

That was my baby, my child, not something that can be replaced like a burnt out light bulb. How ridiculous would it be if I asked my friend, "Are you still sad that your grandpa died?"

Yes, I am still sad. I will always be sad. I am overjoyed about the new pregnancy, but it does not in any way replace the one I lost. Not now, not ever.