tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21809608991354980142024-03-12T20:33:27.799-07:00Letters to LaylaAleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-30444008475218269792013-07-16T18:00:00.001-07:002013-07-16T18:00:34.516-07:00right where i am: four years, six months, seven days<i>I am late to this link up, but I still wanted to write a "right where I am" post, for my own sake as much as being part of the group!</i><br />
<br />
She is warm on my chest, breathing slowly, her lips still placed carefully against the top of my breast, staying close to her precious milk. Her soft, furry head is tucked under my chin and her body melts into mine. I am drinking these moments in...the quiet ones in between our normal chaos. In these moments I want to freeze time, to have this sweet baby sleeping on my chest forever.<br />
<br />
In these moments I feel myself affirming to myself: <i>She is here. She is breathing. She is okay. </i><br />
<br />
I still struggle with the last one. My old friend anxiety comes to visit sometimes, and with frantic googling, I have found a hundred things that could still be wrong with her. I came across a study, months ago, that showed that women who have chosen to end pregnancies for medical reasons still show significant signs of post-traumatic stress even three to seven years later. That was validating, in a way. Recognizing that helps me to keep those thoughts at arms length (almost) and realize that it is not mother's intuition (probably) but just my poor, traumatized brain, trying to be one step ahead of the game. <br />
<br />
I figured it out the other day, why I had gone from feeling blissfully happy with my life one day, to being reduced almost to tears with fear that my baby had some rare genetic anomaly the next. It was because I finally let myself love her. Not the automatic love that began from the moment I knew she existed, but that big, giant mama love that is reserved only for your children. The kind that is so all-consuming that it almost hurts. <br />
<br />
I didn't even know it, but I had a wall up...a big one. It took weeks to break it down completely. And when I did let the big love in, my trauma sensors went off. Because I let myself love a baby girl like that once, and then everything went wrong. There is still a part of me that doesn't believe she will be okay because she's a girl. I'm sure to some people that seems ridiculous, but this part of my brain/heart/soul is not at all logical. <br />
<br />
But she is okay. She is beautiful and healthy and growing and smiling and <i>kicking</i>. Though I feel a bit strange admitting it, she is filling some of the holes in my heart that my first rainbow boy just couldn't. She is not a replacement for her sister, but it feels like a second chance at all the hopes and dreams that came with having a daughter.<br />
<br />
<br />
I have a sense of resolution with her...like we were missing her all this time without even knowing it. We all wonder about souls and bodies and whether Layla's has returned to a new body. She does feel so familiar to me, but of course we will never know in this lifetime. Ironically, all of us in the 'inner circle' (those at Layla's birth) have accidentally called her Layla at some point. It's strange...or maybe not so strange. I think it's sweet that our first girl is real and remembered enough to be mixed up with her sister.<br />
<br />
I was interrupted, both children waking from their naps, and we are quickly returning to our regular level of chaos. Two babies constantly needing me in different ways, and those needs rarely mesh well. At the end of the day I'm exhausted, but it's a good exhausted, like the feeling you get after a good workout.<br />
<br />
And, four years, six months, seven days after the worst moments of my life, I can finally say...<i>I'm happy.</i> :)Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-21596947745383435702013-03-02T21:53:00.002-08:002013-03-02T21:58:47.189-08:00birth<i>It has taken me four years to find the words to write this story of Layla's birth. Suddenly they were just begging to be written. As I approach another birth that I hope will be so very different from this one, I think it was necessary to get this experience into words. It is kind of disjointed and written just as the words came to me...otherwise I probably would have given up again. I have tried so many times to write it beautifully, poetically, but I think the fact is that it just isn't beautiful. It still hurts...a lot. So raw words with tons of bad grammar it is... (I also just realized it has been almost exactly 4 years to the day since I started this blog. Wow.)</i><br />
<br />
We are ushered into a room at the end of the hall, a healthy distance from the nearest "normal" laboring mother. A gown is neatly folded at the end of the bed and I am instructed to put it on and get into bed. I oblige, even though I really don't want to. We wait.<br />
<br />
The nurse comes back to ask me about 100 questions, tapping away on a keyboard as I answer things I feel I have answered a million times in the last few weeks. She gives us an overview of the plan and leaves again. We wait. And wait. I flip through my own file, thick as a short novel, not sure if I'm supposed to be looking. I hope to find ultrasound pictures, but it is full of medical terminology, outlining in detail the nitty gritty details of my baby's diagnosis. There are a few things there that I hadn't been told, at least not in detail. Then there are the pages sent from my midwife, a little bit less formal than the pages from the perinatologists, reminders of the sweet natural birth I would not get to have. Not with this baby.<br />
<br />
My mom arrives. I start to breathe a little easier. The nurse arrives again to administer the little white pills that will begin the process. There will be no fetal monitoring, for obvious reasons. I'm relieved. <br />
<br />
My midwife arrives, bringing with her a sense of...peace? Comfort? Something. She stays with me as my husband and my mom venture off to find food. We laugh together. I notice the stark contrast of laughter against the ache in my heart. It is my first glimpse of what will become the new normal -- life, laughter...in spite of this. <br />
<br />
I start to feel crampy. With another dose of pills administered, my toes start to curl with the pain. My midwife rubs my back and asks the nurses for a heat pack. They bring the worst excuse for a heating pad I have ever seen. It is water-heated and barely warm. We all scoff at the lack of such a simple comfort measure. At some point we all eat chinese food.<br />
<br />
Soon after, the pain is becoming unbearable. It is constant, unrelenting, nothing like contractions were supposed to be. The nurses give me options for pain relief. I don't want an epidural for some reason. Partly because I don't want to pay for it. They give me a shot of something or other. It makes me feel dizzy for a few minutes but does nothing for the pain. <br />
<br />
At some point, my midwife has to leave. She has another mama in labor, and I am taken care of here. Shortly after, I cannot take the horrible constant contraction anymore and I ask for the epidural.<br />
<br />
We have to wait of course. I have to have fluids, etc. This is the first time I've ever had an IV. By the time the anesthesiologist arrives, I am nearly in tears. This is horribly, terribly unfair. My heart aches too much to bear this physical pain for another moment. I do not want to hurt anymore. The epidural insertion is miserable. I cling to my husband as the numbing shot stings through my spine and the doctor has to try more than once to get the needle in the right place. Once it is done, the nurses help me back onto the pillows, and I feel the warm, sweet relief flowing through one side of my body and then the other.<br />
<br />
I still don't like it very much. The numbness in my legs makes me feel slightly crazy, but it is better. So much better. The details start to blur at this point.<br />
<br />
At some point, my dad arrives. I hadn't realized how much I needed him there, but I did. This is too big, too important for him to be in another state. My mother in law is also on her way, from a snowed-in Seattle.<br />
<br />
Somehow, we sleep. My body shakes with uncontrollable shivers all night...maybe from the epidural. Maybe the other drug. The blood pressure cuff on my leg tightens every half hour or so, and even though I don't feel it much, it seems to wake me up every time.<br />
<br />
The next day is extremely fuzzy. I remember the sunlight in my room. J and I trying to watch shows on the laptop, but I can't stay awake. My mom sitting beside me, talking to me, but I can't keep my eyes open or follow her words. My husband, his mom and my dad leaving to walk somewhere and me worrying that they would not be back in time for the delivery.<br />
<br />
People come and go from my room constantly. Nurses, the chaplain. The doctors seem to rotate shifts every five minutes, but of course it is just the drugs and labor clouding my perception of time. One doctor makes a point to tell me that everyone that would be in my room fully supports my decision. But that there are some nurses who choose not to participate. Fiery anger rises in my throat and I want to tell him I will gladly trade places with any of them for a moment. Let them walk in my shoes before judging my experience. I am still angry with this doctor for even mentioning it. <br />
<br />
Suddenly, it is dark. I start to feel pressure and a bit of panic. My mom rushes into the hallway to collect the nurse who had just recently left the room. She checks me again...nothing yet. She says I can start pushing if I feel the urge.<br />
<br />
I do. Everyone is around me except my dad, who fled as soon as I announced that something was happening. I don't hold it against him. I would run too, if I could. My body begins to bear down and the nurse coaches me as she holds up one of my legs. <br />
<br />
But there is an internal battle raging in my body. It is suddenly inevitable that it must release this pregnancy, and yet it is not ready to let her go. My instinctual mother knows there is nothing right about this...that she will be gone once I push her out. But I push, even though I don't really want to.<br />
<br />
Things are happening slowly, and we realize I am pushing her out in the full amniotic sac. The nurse tells me that this time I can push "for real" and "curl around my belly." And I do. Even though I don't want to.<br />
<br />
With the final push, she is born, placenta and all.<br />
<br />
I feel immediately...empty.<br />
<br />
Everyone is crying. The nurse whisks her away to the sink. I want to see her then, but I am too tired, too sad, too scared...to ask. So I let her take her to the other room and prepare her. The doctor checks me, checks the placenta, and then leaves.<br />
<br />
Everyone is still crying. I want my dad back, and my mom finds him again. He had been at the chapel and returned with a quote he had seen. "Today we weep, tomorrow we rejoice." He chokes out the last words in tears. It is the first time I've ever seen him cry. <br />
<br />
The nurse returns with a bundle and lays my tiny baby in my lap. She is smaller than I imagined. The nurse asks if we want to see her defect. I'm sure this is an important step psychologically. I do, of course. We turn her over carefully and look at the red wound blossoming over half of her spine. The nurse confirms that it is "huge" for her gestational age. I won't look again. <br />
<br />
We spend time with her, passing her around. Everyone cries. I am acutely aware that this is just her body...that her spirit isn't here. <br />
<br />
At some point, I am unhooked from almost everything (except that blood pressure cuff), a mean nurse comes to "massage" my uterus. I cry from the pain. And then we are left to sleep.<br />
<br />
Layla's body is beside me and I am terrified to move. All night I am aware of her presence. That, along with the incessant blood pressure cuff and the labor and delivery bed that was clearly not ever made for sleeping, makes for a restless night. But somehow I do sleep, because suddenly it is morning.<br />
<br />
A small box has arrived at my bedside, full of pictures, a mold of her feet, a tiny blanket and gown. There is a set of ceramic hearts, one inside the other. I tie one around her neck and the other around mine. I wrap her in the tiny blanket.<br />
<br />
And suddenly it is very real that she is mine. My baby. And she is gone.<br />
<br />
I cry more, holding her close to my heart and rocking. <br />
<br />
It is time to go home. The nurse shuffles us through paperwork, a shot, and then asks if I am ready to hand over my baby. I do, even though I don't want to. It is this moment that tortures me more than any other in the following weeks and months, but at the time, I do not cry.<br />
<br />
I get dressed, my husband takes our bags to the car. The nurse wheels me out to the elevator. We stop to give a largely pregnant woman and her family directions and I feel so small, wondering what a mess I must look. They glance in my direction, wondering, I'm sure, what on earth had happened to me. <br />
<br />
I climb into the car and we begin to drive. The brown brick hospital building shrinks behind us, and I let the distance stretch between Layla and me, even though I don't want to. I so don't want to.<br />
<br />
We merge onto the 405 and start to halfheartedly sing the old death cab for cutie song from a simpler time in our lives. It is the first time I know that somehow, it will be okay. <br />
<br />Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-36594019265832844892013-01-02T17:01:00.001-08:002013-01-02T17:01:22.960-08:00your body remembersI started counseling this year. Finally. It started when I had some extreme anxiety this summer and then I got pregnant, which brought another wave of intense emotions. This pregnancy has been so similar to Layla's in so many ways and the dates are so close that I am going through my usual "anniversaries" almost as pregnant as I was when they originally happened. <br />
<br />
Many times I have broken into tears in her office, not realizing that there was grief at the bottom of everything. I told her that 4 years later, I forget about that ache sometimes. She said..."but your body remembers."<br />
<br />
I knew this, and yet I thought maybe I was making it up, maybe it was just all in my head. <br />
<br />
I have been feeling so much better the last couple of months. No anxiety, a lot more positive. But the day after Christmas, something changed. I felt so sad for seemingly no reason at all. I have been irritable and angry and wanting to spend a lot of time in my bed (which is unfortunately next to impossible with a 3 year old). Last night I slept horribly and woke up anxious and on the verge of tears. <br />
<br />
Today I had to reschedule my next ultrasound, and it wasn't until she said "okay, we'll see you on January 8th" that I realized. That's the day before Layla's birthday. My body remembers these days, the agonizing in-between. We had our first ultrasound the day after Christmas. The diagnosis on the 29th. The decision, sometime around New Year's day. And then the wait. The horrible days of knowing what was about to happen and feeling her kick and wanting to wish it all away. January 8th is the day we drove to the hospital.<br />
<br />
It's harder this year, because as I'm feeling this new baby girl kicking, learning her schedule and starting to "know" her personality, I am painfully reminded of how real our first baby was when we said goodbye. How fucking awful it was to walk into that hospital and agree to end it, to let her go.<br />
<br />
But this is the pain I chose to live with. I chose to hurt so she would never have to. But oh my, sometimes it's hard. Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-33324841751017196272012-12-12T20:24:00.003-08:002012-12-12T20:24:52.247-08:00sadI am sad, sad, sad. Today the email popped into my inbox, "Your Pregnancy: 19 weeks." And as I read about tiny hair buds and the ability to hear, the tears came. I know, painfully well, what this baby probably looks like. Or at least what she will be like in 2 weeks.<br />
<br />
This time of pregnancy is hard. This time of year is hard. I forgot that they would coincide this year. 4 years have passed, and yet it's all still there. Four years ago, on the day after Christmas, we went to our first ultrasound. I was 19 weeks along. I left terribly upset that the tech could not tell us the gender and that she had seemed passive, avoiding our questions. We didn't know for three days that something was very wrong. Then came a whirlwind of trips south, and bad news became worse. Then, at 21 weeks, I pushed out a tiny baby girl.<br />
<br />
She was so small. Smaller than I thought she would be. She fit mostly in my palms, with long, gangly arms and legs. I remember the tiny traces of hair just barely visible on her head, her tiny, perfectly formed nose and mouth and feet that looked like miniature versions of mine. Her skin was so thin it was almost see-through, revealing tiny webs of blood vessels just below the surface. We looked briefly at "her defect" (as the nurse put it), a large lesion that split over half of her spine, but it was easier to admire the rest of her. <br />
<br />
I didn't know what to do with her at first. She was my baby and yet I felt like she wasn't there, not really. Her spirit was long gone. The nurse commented that it looked like she had been gone "awhile." (I still wonder to this day what that meant. Does that mean she had gone before the induction even started? I will never know.) It wasn't until the next morning that the reality hit. She was really <i>my</i> baby, and she was gone.<br />
<br />
There is something about these weeks of pregnancy, having that acute awareness of just how tiny and fragile this baby still is, how much she probably looks like my tiny girl....it hurts. It feels vulnerable. And just like with Orrin, there is grief too...injustice that they are healthy and she was not.<br />
<br />
This is supposed to be a happy week. We are preparing for a birthday this weekend, celebrating the boy who is currently fighting bed time and giving me absolutely no time to be sad. No time to do much of anything, really.<br />
<br />
I kind of just want to cry for a couple of days. Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-53826050050975456812012-11-27T16:36:00.002-08:002012-11-27T16:36:40.538-08:00anotherI feel pulled to this space although I am not sure what I need to say...<br />
<br />
There is another baby growing. It has been hard. Maybe even harder than Orrin's pregnancy, for some reason. Maybe because there have been more similarities, because the dates line up so closely, or just because it has taken a toll on my body in almost every way. The anxiety has been intense, putting me firmly back in survival mode. In some way, it feels like I have so much more to lose this time. I was only just finding my way in the new normal, feeling comfortable in the life that blossomed in the aftermath of her death. I felt terrified that it would all happen again and I would be pulled back to that very dark place. And so I have put up walls, lived somewhat in denial of this new life in my belly. If I am being honest, sometimes resentment creeped in as well. In the hardest moments, sick, tired, anxious, unable to eat, I wondered WHY on earth I ever thought it was a good idea to do this again. Especially since there are no guarantees. Other people reassured me it was "worth it in the end," but I challenged them silently. I went through it all once upon a time and all I got was a box of ashes and a hefty dose of grief and trauma.<br />
<br />
Yesterday we went to see those same doctors that have delivered us both the best and worst news. We were ushered into the same room where I got the diagnosis with Layla. I had to lay on the table, waiting, with my heart pounding so hard that my body shook with each beat. As she started the scan, I saw the baby's feet moving with my pulse. Then she smiled and reassured me as she looked at the spine and the brain and saw absolutely nothing abnormal. I wasn't totally convinced until the doctor came in. I realized later that he looked different because he was smiling this time. The strongest memories I have of him are of his somber face giving me the worst news of my life. He gave us pretty much an all clear on neural tube defects, but of course it's early and they can't see the heart well enough yet. One more big thing to worry about, but then we'll be done.<br />
<br />
And...we found out that baby is another girl. <br />
<br />
I was not surprised, as I've had a feeling from the very very beginning. It seems I have connected with this little soul despite my best efforts. I have dreamed about and wished for a girl since the day I found out I was pregnant with Layla. After we lost her, the wish turned into what felt more like a need. A desperation of sorts that left me breathless every time someone else would announce that they were having a girl.<br />
<br />
I finally got that moment that I have dreamed about for almost 4 years, and yet...<br />
<br />
It is not what I expected. I am so, so happy. But I still have that disconnect. I still don't really believe that it's actually a girl and she's okay (so far). I feel strange that people are congratulating me on having a girl, as if she is the first one.<br />
<br />
Honestly when I really think about it, I just start crying. I don't really know what the tears mean. I'm happy and yet it's so complicated. This baby is also due in May, only 2 weeks before her sister was. In some ways I feel like it's almost as if I am fixing history, but then I'm not. I wonder if maybe this is her soul coming back to a healthy body, but I'll never really know.<br />
<br />
I don't want this girl to mean that Layla didn't matter. I think, in some small way, it would have been easier to accept if it was a boy. I know that I can grow and carry and birth a healthy boy. In my world, boys live, girls die. Everything has felt sort of 50/50 during this pregnancy, based on my past experiences.<br />
<br />
I just want to feel like I can be a normal, happy, pregnant lady who just found out that she's having a daughter. Another daughter. See? It's complicated. It's messy. It's socially awkward when people tell me I'm so lucky to have "one of each." <br />
<br />
I can't wait for her to be born. Pregnancy makes me crazy. <br />
<br />
<br />Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-81463458813651659942012-05-25T14:34:00.003-07:002012-05-25T14:34:45.274-07:00right where I am: three years, 4 months, 16 days<i>Year two of the Right Where I Am project already. <a href="http://letterstolayla.blogspot.com/2011/05/right-where-i-am-two-years-almost-five.html">Here is my post from last year. </a></i><br />
<i>And here is <a href="http://stilllifewithcircles.blogspot.com/2012/05/right-where-i-am-2012-three-years-two.html" target="_blank">the link up.</a></i><br />
<br />
Three years is different. This is the first May since we let her go that hasn't left me breathless with longing for what might have been. Her due date passed a few days ago, and it just barely registered when I noticed the date, just a flutter of a thought and then...gone. No sadness. No feelings of emptiness or a birthday missing on the calendar. This is the month she would have been born, but she wasn't, and that has somehow become normal. Somehow okay. Maybe this is what they meant by that stage of grief called "acceptance."<br />
<br />
This isn't to say that I don't think of her anymore, because, oh, I do. I think of her daily, still. I think of her every time I see a little bird watching us, or when the sky above the ocean turns brilliantly pink. I think of her when I am in the shower. I remember, endlessly, it seems, that moment when I first felt something was wrong. I roll it over and over in my head, trying to pinpoint the moment when I could have done something, could have changed everything. But I don't want to anymore, not really.<br />
<br />
I think of her as I watch this amazing boy blossom into a little person before me, not just a baby anymore. Her brother<i> runs</i>, he runs and tumbles and kicks with such force. I imagine her spirit is nearby somewhere, smiling about this, the things she never would have done in that little broken body. It is all because of her. This is how it was meant to be, it seems obvious now. He is very much here, and she is this abstract presence in our lives. Not here, and yet so very much a part of the last 3 years. <br />
<br />
Orrin and I were spinning in my chair the other day. He stood on my lap and laughed as we spun faster and faster. Then he got very serious and wanted to stop, pointing at the shelf where Layla's ashes and photos sit. I said, <i>that's Layla.</i> He said, <i>oh...Layla.</i> Yes, Layla. <i>Feet,</i> he said, pointing out the little plaster mold that sits collecting dust. <i>Yes,</i> I said, <i>she had the tiniest little feet!</i> And then he was back to playing. I hope he will keep asking.<br />
<br />
Somehow this didn't make me cry. Grief is so different now. Occasionally it rises in my throat and tears well in my eyes, but I rarely cry anymore. Sometimes I miss the release of those gut-wrenching sobs that plagued me in the early days. Now when grief visits, it sits on my heart, nagging in the perimeter of my thoughts, but I don't let it in much anymore. <br />
<br />
In the beginning of my grief, I remember reading blogs of women that were years out from their loss and feeling horrified. I could not imagine ever accepting this loss, moving on with a new normal. I wanted to cry forever, because it was the only thing I had left. I clung to grief because it meant that she was real, she had existed, even when it seemed everyone around me had forgotten. But there was a moment (or a series of moments I'm sure) when I realized I could still love her and miss her <i>and </i>get up and move on, move past the grief. <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most important thing three years has given me is strength. For the first time, I am talking about what really happened with people I don't know. I am fighting for understanding and compassion for those of us who have made the most difficult, horrible choice imaginable. I am admitting that something went very wrong, and we chose to let our baby go because we loved her. Not because she wasn't perfect, or because we didn't want her. We loved her so much that we chose to spare her from a life of pain and suffering. I am not afraid of anyone's judgement anymore, because I know it was the right thing. I know it was what her spirit asked me to do, what she was preparing me for from the moment I had that rush of intuition in the shower at 6 weeks along.<br />
<br />
I will love her forever for everything she has given me. Strength, compassion, empathy, wisdom, gratitude, a beautiful, healthy child and the knowledge I need to create more of them if I choose to. She is still my first baby, the one who introduced me to that all powerful mother-love that was bigger than I ever could have imagined.<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<i>I cried for you, and the sky cried for you</i><br />
<i>and when you went, I became a hopeless drifter</i><br />
<i>but this life was not for you, </i><br />
<i>though I learned from you</i><br />
<i>that beauty need only be a whisper</i>Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-64986972723313276432012-02-24T20:55:00.002-08:002012-02-24T20:55:43.551-08:00grief: three years laterWe visited the city she was born last weekend. I never have a problem with the city itself, but there are so many memories that float to the surface when I know we are near the hospital.<br />
<br />
Last weekend, we visited the mall that was the last place I visited before the hospital. The nurse had called and told me our room was ready, hours ahead of schedule, and I panicked, asking for just a few more hours. I needed to find something for her to wear. A completely ridiculous task, in retrospect, since she never wore the little yellow dress we bought for her. They don't make dresses for babies that small, for babies who don't live. But still, I had to buy her something, for whatever reason.<br />
<br />
We ate lunch at a table overlooking the ice rink. I remember that last meal with my rounded belly in the outside world so clearly. Below us, a tiny little girl in a tutu clung to her mother as they slid around and around the ice. It was one of so many hundreds of things I hoped to do with my baby girl, and I remember sitting there, chewing, in this numb disbelief that it would never be, not with this baby. <br />
<br />
When we were there last weekend, this tiny little memory that I hadn't thought of for years came rushing back. And Orrin was cranky and throwing a fit and I was so tired and I just couldn't shake the sadness. I felt a little crazy, but I just couldn't stop thinking of that old me, sitting there eating lunch, about to do the hardest thing I have ever done.<br />
<br />
It's still making me cry, to be honest, and I'm not even sure why. The things that stir up the grief these days take me by surprise. Little moments that have been tucked away to make room for the larger ones that have become commonplace in my consciousness.<br />
<br />
There is one other moment that I always think of in Portland. <br />
<br />
We left the hospital and I was a complete mess. I remember sitting in the car, zombie-like, feeling every inch of distance stretching between me and that brown brick building where I had left my baby. And then, as we merged onto 405, Jesse and I started singing.<br />
<i> Misguided by the 405 'cause it lead me to an alcoholic summer. I missed the exit to you parents' house hours ago. Red wine and the cigarettes: hide your bad habits underneath the patio, patio.</i> (obviously the lyrics were not relevant, but it was a song that has been in our lives from the very beginning)<br />
<br />
I think it was that moment that I knew we would survive. <br />
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<br />Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-43042177962731080582011-12-24T12:21:00.000-08:002011-12-24T12:22:14.118-08:00a little birdMy dad told me yesterday that when he goes out to shoot pictures in the wee hours of the morning, there is a bird that separates itself from a crowd and watches him. He said he knows it is Layla Wren.
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I am not the only one who remembers. ♥<br />
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I always think the holidays will not be hard for me, until they actually arrive and everyone is assembling and there is always someone missing. I miss her a lot today.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-55494970713586475462011-12-09T21:36:00.001-08:002011-12-09T21:46:01.710-08:00the 9thI noticed it was the ninth today, for the first time in I don't know how long. It hit me than next month it will be three years. THREE. I'm not sure where this year has gone.
The flashbacks are starting again, without my control as usual. I don't know if it is the light, the cold, that triggers them? Either way, I am feeling that heaviness in my heart again and missing her more than usual. I realized the other day how strange it is that all of it has become normal, part of my past, something that is no longer all-consuming, it just is.
My heart has been nagging me with longing for another baby lately. But I still wonder if it is just missing her, still waiting.
Three years seems like such a very long time.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-58657729355579175092011-08-10T19:53:00.000-07:002011-08-10T20:45:50.932-07:00tis the season?What is it with August? It seems, now, that it is the beginning of my grief season. This is the month it all began, a tiny spark and a flutter of excitement in my heart. In the last few days I have felt the memories sort of crowding in around the edges of my consciousness. They have never really left, but they seem heavier, a little bit harder to bear right now. Maybe it is something about the light at this time of year, or that feeling of being at the tail end of summer, that makes me yearn a little harder for that magical button that would transport me back three years. Back to being that 22 year old whose dreams of a surprise baby (because it was completely impractical to have one on purpose) were about to come true. Sometimes I wish we had just been more careful. Twenty-two is so young to have your life fall apart. Or maybe my magical button would even allow me to change the course of history, to take the vitamins and deliver a healthy girl in May. But would I really choose to change it, knowing what I know now? I don't know. Probably not, now that I have this incredible boy who is so clearly meant to be in my life.
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<br />And then there is the fact that my cycles are suddenly lining up within days of those in 2008. After two pregnancies, 18 months of breastfeeding, and a whole range of irregular cycles in between, my cycles have regulated and the calendars are matching up almost to the day. Which means I am feeling dangerously close to throwing caution to the wind and trying it all again at the end of this month. I don't even know why there is a pull to have another pregnancy that would line up with all the dates. In the early days of my grief it would have been the last thing I ever wanted. And, in reality, it would be completely impractical for us to get pregnant again right now (although that would also be much like Layla's pregnancy). But I can't seem to stop thinking about it, imagining being taken by surprise again, announcing it to the world, seeing healthy a healthy spine and feeling tiny feet in my ribs.
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<br />I think there is a part of me that feels like I know what to do now, like I can fix it, make it work this time, if I only had the chance. I feel crazy, like that instinctual mother has taken over again and all logic is lost to that deep desire to nurture another little being.
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<br />I should probably stay far, far away from my husband for awhile. ;)Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-85719372162184297962011-06-11T19:57:00.000-07:002011-06-11T20:31:41.030-07:00babies, babies, everywhereI have a baby bug today. I think it's because I am about to ovulate, and suddenly tiny babies are everywhere and bringing up that unmistakable pull of longing that I started feeling years ago. This time, however, I have two feet firmly planted in the reality of parenthood and know that I am definitely not ready for another just yet. A newborn, maybe, but not so much the stages that follow. I am just enjoying the return of full nights of sleep too much right now. <br /><br />I do dream sometimes of another surprise pregnancy, conceived at the end of August of course. With a due date in May. And it will be a girl and she will be healthy this time. And maybe some part of me believes that this will bring her back, like I can hit the reset button and do it all over again and this time she will come home with me. I can't believe that these little bits of craziness still linger, two and half years later, but they do. There is still a part of me that feels unfinished. The truth is that no matter how many babies I go on to have, that feeling will probably still be present. It reminds me of the term that was used in genetic counseling: "<span style="font-style:italic;">interrupting the pregnancy.</span>" Not ending it. It's like my body/heart/whatever didn't get the message. It still wants to go back and finish what it started.<br /><br />I do feel another baby waiting to join us, but I am letting her wait awhile (yes, I feel that it will be a girl, just like I knew Orrin would be a boy!). I have a few things to do before I can think about inviting another soul to share my body again, including giving my heart the space to continue healing so that I can just maybe enjoy pregnancy a little bit the next time around.<br /><br />Orrin noticed Layla's picture for the first time the other day. He pointed and said "baby." Eventually I will have to tell him about his sister. I can't wait to hear what he has to say, being the closest to that <span style="font-style:italic;">other side</span> where I imagine her to be.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-79264563517209441482011-05-28T22:03:00.000-07:002011-05-28T22:55:33.359-07:00right where I am : two years, (almost) five months<i>Thank you to <a href="http://stilllifewithcircles.blogspot.com/2011/05/right-where-i-am-project-two-years-five.htmlhttp://">Angie</a> for giving me a reason to write again. Sometimes I do feel a pull to this place, but I feel as if I have written myself in circles about the same feelings, the same grief, the same tiny girl who came and went so quickly.</i><br /><br />I still have her ultrasound picture on the fridge. I keep the ones from the ultrasound on display in the open, because they are the only proof that, at one point, she was alive. I still stare at it sometimes, my heart twisting in on itself sometimes, agonizing over the "hi mom" inscription, but only sometimes. <br /><br />The grief is different now. The load is so much lighter. <br /><br />We talk a lot about how much it has changed us. I feel more withdrawn than ever. I don't relate to most people anymore. I still wonder what it would have been like to be one of the normal ones, to have been able to take my first baby home. I still feel a little winded when someone announces they are having a girl. I worry about everyone's ultrasounds, and then I have twinges of bitterness when they go well. I still get mad when people smoke/drink/don't take their vitamins and still get healthy babies.<br /><br />I still think of Layla all the time. It is not usually with such crushing sadness though. It seems she floats into my mind most often while I am in the bathroom (maybe because this is one of the only times I am alone these days). I wonder wonder wonder if I did the right thing, and usually come to the same conclusion. I feel so deeply that she was not meant for this world, and yet I wish she would have been.<br /><br />Sometimes I have intense flashbacks of her birth, of holding her tiny little body, and they shake me back down to that place. I don't ever want to forget, and yet I try to avoid going too far into those corners these days. I still have this big fragile wound on my heart--the injury is healing, but when I bump into it, the pain is searing again. This wound governs my life more than I realize I think. <br /><br />We have sort of unintentionally turned one of the blankets from her birth into Orrin's go-to blanket. It was the one we passed around, each of us holding it, putting our energy into it. In the end, we didn't wrap her in it, but I remember it on the bed with me as I labored. It has always been in a large rotation of blankets, but lately it has been the one we pull out at bed time. <br /><br />I sometimes struggle with being the only one who remembers these kinds of things. Sometimes I feel like I am the only one who remembers that she existed at all. It's frustrating that people forget. Not many people in my immediate circle really understand the gravity of her life and death for us. It was a long time ago now, but it is still rippling into every aspect of our lives. I think we finally have two feet in the new normal, but the world looks different from here. <br /><br />Lately I have been wishing I could have one more day in the fall of 2008, when I was just pregnant, before the ultrasounds and diagnosis, when everything felt so sure and right and exciting. All I can think is, <i>I was so young</i>. I never could have imagined how much I would change in two and a half years. <br /><br />In general though, I have reached that point that I once thought was unattainable, where the loss is integrated into my life and I...maybe...almost...know myself again.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-19554401316414092952011-02-05T22:34:00.000-08:002011-02-05T22:54:41.264-08:00So, here we are on the other side of two years. You would think I would be over the little things, the surprises that cause the wound to flare up again, but I'm not. <br /><br />A little girl on TV, about the age you would have been, named Layla. Spending time with a cousin that was born on your due date. <br /><br />My mother in law and I were going through fabric weeks ago, and she held up a little unfinished dress and told me she thought it would fit an 18 month old girl. My heart twisted in on itself, and that instinctual mother in me, the one who has still not quite reconciled with the fact that I don't actually have an 18 month old daughter, was confused for just a split second before it all settled in again. No little girl to put in dresses.<br /><br />She is here in my heart, but she is not <span style="font-style:italic;">here</span>. It still feels wrong, sometimes. I still wish I could have both my babies.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-25553021723502893122011-01-09T21:24:00.000-08:002011-01-09T22:12:44.728-08:00TwoDearest baby girl, has it really been two years since I held you? Two years since I examined every inch of you, slept with your delicate little body wrapped up and tucked beside me? I slept, somehow, and yet I remember being fiercely aware of your presence, terrified that if I were to move in such a way you would fall. And my rational brain argued that it wouldn't really matter, would it? You couldn't feel anything, you couldn't die again. <br /><br />I have thought of you nearly every second today, replaying the events of two years ago over and over. I let the tears fall when they needed to, but they came and went without a lot of lingering sadness. We went down to the beach and lit candles for you tonight. Two glowing lights for the years we have lived without you, shining against the backdrop of a brilliantly pink and golden sunset. It was beautiful and simple and perfect, your brother squealing with delight as he stepped across the sand, reminding us of all we have to thank you for.<br /><br />Without you, we would not have Orrin. We would not have known about the MTHFR and the extra vitamins I had to take. I would not have realized how much purpose I found in motherhood. I would not have known my own strength, or that I could love a baby so much that I would choose the unthinkable. I would not have united with so many other strong and courageous women who have walked this path before me, along with me, and after me. I wouldn't have discovered my more local soul sister, or been by her side as she joined me in this journey.<br /><br />I have so, so much to thank you for. <br /><br />So, two years later, I celebrate you. I love that you chose me, that I had the honor of knowing your little soul, even for just a little while.<br /><br />You will always be a part of me.<br /><br /><i>I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be</I><br /><br />Happy birthday baby girl.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-68321354259419366442011-01-04T23:33:00.000-08:002011-01-04T23:53:33.436-08:00more flashbacksThere is an underlying current in my heart these days. Every once in awhile I stop to think of what it is I am feeling so unsettled about. Everything is fine, two years later. But my body remembers, even when my mind tries to forget. There is a constant stream of memories playing, even as I go about my day like normal, and I am remembering things I haven't thought of since they happened.<br /><br />It was New Year's Day when I made the call to my midwife. I spoke the words, full of finality, admitting the decision we had come to. I had realized it was a holiday halfway through the ringing in my ear, and wondered if it mattered that I was calling her then. She sprang to action and assured me that she would get back to me about my next step. <br /><br />For days I existed in a removed state. I stood alone, all the sound in the world muffled, and watched as it kept going on without me. People smiled, laughed, drank coffee, like nothing had happened at all. I went to Starbucks one day and ran into someone I knew. She smiled and asked how the pregnancy was going. I lost it, right in the middle of a crowded cafe full of people, and she rose out of her seat and wrapped me in her arms, even though we didn't know each other that well. She didn't ask questions, she just hugged me and let me go, told me about her sister who had just lost a baby. It was the first time I had told anyone outside of my immediate circle that something was wrong.<br /><br />For days, there seemed to be birds everywhere. My mom would gasp and call us over, and we would flock to the window to find a brilliantly colored bird in the backyard. There was only ever one at a time, spread out over days, all spectacular in some way or another. To this day, I have never seen these kinds of birds again. Sometimes I wonder if it was only my imagination; maybe these birds were ordinary and I was on the verge of insanity? Still, I felt like she was sending me signs, and this is how Wren came to be part of her name.<br /><br />There were so many days, in retrospect, of this in between. How I made it through, carrying a baby who I knew would be leaving us in a matter of days, is beyond me. I cannot imagine that girl, how she kept moving even though she didn't want to anymore.<br /><br />I am so much more present with these memories this year, than last, and I have a feeling this anniversary is going to hit harder. In a way, I want it to.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-9540091819870431162010-12-29T21:55:00.000-08:002010-12-29T22:34:28.672-08:00flashbacksTwo years ago today, I spent most of the day in the offices of a perinatologist and a genetic counselor. They spoke to me with sympathy in their eyes. They gave me a tiny bit of hope around a table in the genetic counselor's office and then took it all away again in the dimly lit ultrasound room.<br /><br />There was something wrong, something very, very wrong. The doctor put his hand on my knee and I couldn't contain my tears any longer. It would take me two weeks to come to terms with my decision, but it was in that moment that I knew. I knew that she was leaving, that we had reached the moment I had been subconsciously waiting for since a moment in the shower months before, when I first felt that something wasn't right.<br /><br />I remember the doctors bowing out of the room, making comments about how this was <span style="font-style: italic;">a lot to take in</span>. It was <span style="font-style: italic;">too much for today</span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">We'll give you some space.</span> And in that space I crumpled into the arms of my mom, who squeezed me too tight, which could only mean that she was crying too.<br /><br />When they came back, they laid out the incredible decision that lay before me. A fucking terrible, impossible question with no right answers. I felt my soul kicking and screaming, looking for an exit from this nightmare of a life I had just landed in. This could not possibly be happening to me, to my baby. I had to leave.<br /><br />So we did. I walked out of that clinic like a zombie with ultrasound pictures and two pieces of reading material in hand: 'A Time To Heal, A Time to Decide,' and a spina bifida pamphlet. We went to see my husband at work, since he could not get the day off to come with us. I flung the black and white ultrasound pictures in his face first. <br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Look, here is our baby. She is definitely a girl.</span> <br /><br />He looked at them, his hope still hanging in the balance. <span style="font-style: italic;">It's not good</span>, I told him. It's actually really, really bad.<br /><br />His face fell and I felt bad for giving him the news while he still had a night of work to finish, but I was so numb. I had already been crying for most of the day, and there was nothing left.<br /><br />My mom stayed the night, packing up our Christmas decorations the following day. There was a box of random stocking-stuffers and holiday paraphernalia that ended up sitting on one of our kitchen chairs for months.<br /><br />I was a shell of myself, numb to the world. I remember so little of those days, the in between.<br /><br />Eventually I would make the phone call, schedule the room in the hospital in the bigger city, walk down that impossibly long hallway, climb into that horrible bed, push out a tiny baby, fall in love with her, and then leave without her.<br /><br />How did I do it? How in the world did I ever do it?Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-30358450259990609432010-12-19T13:07:00.000-08:002010-12-19T13:18:48.296-08:00I realized today that Christmas would be here and then gone before I knew it, and felt a surprising sense of uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. It isn't the holiday that I feel strange about, but the weeks that follow. In the short stack of days that stretched between the day after Christmas and the 9th day of January, everything changed. <br /><br />They are just dates, I know that. But I still don't want to revisit them.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-12690475408288621952010-12-08T19:37:00.000-08:002010-12-08T21:11:20.011-08:00ChristmasI didn't think the holidays were going to be hard for me. I was lucky that my anatomy scan was scheduled the day after Christmas in 2008, and I clearly remember sitting in the midst of the thick fog of uncertainty that followed saying, "at least this didn't ruin Christmas." And then last year, my arms filled with the soft, cuddly form of your brother at my breast, in a thick fog of a completely different, much happier variety, Christmas very well could have not happened at all.<br /><br />This year is different. This year your brother is spellbound by the lights, bouncing to the music, and pulling the tree down with vigor. I spent the other night pulling things out of boxes that hadn't been seen since the Christmas just before you left us, and while your brother tangled himself in lights and shattered ornaments with his bare hands (despite our best efforts to find them all before he did), I saw your ultrasound picture in its frame on the piano, and I realized, again, that you will never get these moments. Or more that <span style="font-style: italic;">we</span> will never get these moments with <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span>.<br /><br />I wanted to know you so badly. Maybe even more now, having spent a year with your brother. There is an ultrasound picture of each of you, still on the fridge. I can't bring myself to take them down. Today I stared at them for a long time and realized that your profiles were so similar. The only difference I could spot was that Orrin has your dad's brow line, and you, most likely, had mine. I want to know what you would have been like: what color your eyes would have turned, the sound of your giggle, if your hair would have started to curl. At the same time I know, in my heart of hearts, that you were never meant for this world. I felt it so strongly, from the very beginning. And still, it didn't (it doesn't) hurt any less.<br /><br />Your presence in my life has become so quiet in the last year. And yet I feel you are closer lately. Maybe because we are fast approaching your birthday again. Maybe you know that I need to feel that you are okay out there. I'm okay here, somehow. I have become this not-so-new-mom with a big gaping spot in her heart that most people have a hard time understanding. I am a mom who gets frustrated, irritated, and exhausted sometimes, even though she has pictures of a lifeless baby in her bedroom to remind her of how lucky she is. <br /><br />I am still here, living, almost two years after we said goodbye. There was a time when I couldn't have imagined this point; when two years felt like an eternity and even the smallest sliver of happiness seemed like an unattainable goal. <br /><br />But here we are. Surviving. More than surviving, now.<br /><br />There is still not a day that goes by that I don't think of you.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-89331127214823079522010-11-05T20:32:00.000-07:002010-11-06T22:45:21.565-07:00skeletons in my closetI have been missing you lately. There isn't a minute that goes by that I don't think about you, but lately it is more than that. It's the time of year, I think. These months of fall were so heavy with hope and excitement over your existence. You, this tiny little spark in my belly, changing the way my world turned. At the end of October, we saw you on the ultrasound screen and I finally allowed myself to fall totally in love with you, even though in my heart I felt that something wasn't right. Thanksgiving brought a table full of family, giddy with anticipation and twinkle-eyed imaginations of how different the next year's feast would be. <br /><br />I was so happy. <br /><br />I cleaned out my closet the other day. I pulled everything out to sort and threw countless pieces of clothing into a donation pile without thinking. Then I came across a pair of maternity jeans that I only ever wore while I was pregnant with you. They were the first pair of maternity pants I bought, actually, and I loved them. They quickly became the most comfortable pair of jeans I had, and eventually the only ones I could still fit into. I wore them to the hospital. And then one day, after you were gone, I was wearing them--out of habit maybe, or just because they were still the most comfortable jeans I had--and I caught the back pocket on a nail on the deck and ripped a huge hole in them. Into the closet they went, forgotten through my entire subsequent pregnancy and following year, until just the other day, when I pulled them out and just sat with them for awhile, remembering.<br /><br />I couldn't get rid of them. Is that ridiculous? They are pants. It's pretty unlikely that I will ever wear them again, but I just...can't. There are so few reminders of your life, of our time together, that I find myself clinging to every shred of evidence I can.<br /><br />I miss you, baby girl.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-2543573162409733522010-09-18T11:31:00.000-07:002010-09-18T11:57:24.589-07:00fallIn the quiet moments, it is you that fills my thoughts. For days, I haven't been able to shake the memories. In the not so quiet moments, the grief lingers in the perimeter, trying my patience, making me anxious and irritable and distant. Tears gather in my throat, sometimes even making it to my eyes, but I cannot cry. I pulled out your blanket yesterday for the first time in months, maybe even a year. Folded up inside, there is still the extra fabric we placed underneath you, stained with fluid from your open spine. I stared at it for a long time, almost in awe. It is one of the only things that still convinces me that you were real, that you existed at all. You are so very far away.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-37727255117022160452010-09-10T21:40:00.000-07:002010-09-10T23:19:34.970-07:00the great disconnectI am feeling it lately, little girl: the disconnect as time stretches and expands between us, between our experience, and you just get farther and farther away. Yesterday was two years since I first learned of your existence, since I stood in the bathroom, listening to my heart pound as if it were going to explode, while the hourglass flashed. Two years since I looked down and blinked again and again, because it was early and I swore I had to be missing one of the words...where was the "not" part of it? But there was only one word on the screen, and in an instant, my life changed.<br /><br />How can it be that we are coming around to all the dates again? It seems just yesterday I was reeling at the fact that a year had passed, and now two?<br /><br />At the same time, I am so busy, so immersed in the work of raising your brother, that it seems a lifetime ago. I feel myself drifting. I have reached that point that I wasn't sure existed, where I don't feel quite so...haunted. You are still an ever present part of my thoughts, but there is a sort of veil over the dark parts. I can stare them in the face now without falling apart.<br /><br />And, perhaps fittingly, your brother has decided to cut this post short by refusing to go back to sleep. There is no time for missing you.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-85731963897150782892010-08-17T20:09:00.000-07:002010-08-17T20:19:46.452-07:00unexpected anniversaryWhen I wrote the date down today it resonated somewhere in my mind, but it took me awhile to realize why. August 17th...not a birthday or an anniversary or a holiday. No, it was my "LMP" in my pregnancy with you. The date of my last period, the official beginning of the cycle that changed my life. I wrote it down a thousand times, told it to midwives and doctors and secretaries and genetic counselors and ultrasound techs, over and over again.<br /><br />It has been two years. Already.<br /><br />I miss that girl I once was sometimes.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-69129699197649633072010-07-28T19:27:00.000-07:002010-07-28T21:05:11.477-07:00finishedShe is on my mind a lot today. I don't know why.<br /><br />I keep thinking about the little things that were lost. The room we never got to decorate. The dresses we never bought. How utterly and completely everything has changed.<br /><br />And it isn't a bad thing, really. I can't even imagine having a girl anymore. I love having my boy, but I am still a little bitter that it didn't all go right the first time. I'm a little bitter that I didn't really get to enjoy my pregnancy, the good one, because I was so preoccupied with the possibility that it wouldn't last.<br /><br />We ran into a mom with a three month old at the store yesterday, and she was asking all kinds of questions about the baby and the birth and here I am with this perfect story, beautiful baby, and a...weight. That's the only way I can describe it. It's like a nagging feeling that I am forgetting something<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>. I feel like a fraud. Because I'm not a normal mom, not really. I have all these dark corners, flashbacks of the kinds of moments that nightmares are made of.<br /><br />I guess what it comes down to is...in my heart, I have two babies. Sometimes there are moments when the world is bustling around me and the subconscious, instinctual mother part of me sort of stops to take count, and there are always two babies there. Only one of them I don't have to wonder about. In fact, I am already finished mothering her.<br /><br />That's just it, isn't it? She has no diapers to change, no boo-boos to kiss, no piles of clothing to fold and sort through and grow out of. She just came and went and there isn't anything else for me to do. And somehow, I am supposed to be okay with that.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-20143930866558276822010-06-25T16:51:00.000-07:002010-06-25T18:46:36.250-07:00some dayssome days my heart beats too big<br /><br />sometimes I am utterly overwhelmed with love for this bright and lively force of a boy in my life. my love for him grows daily (hourly, even) and it has reached the point that if I reach down and really try to feel all of it, try to comprehend the enormity of it, it hurts.<br /><br />some days, the ever increasing real estate he is occupying in my heart seems to shine a light on your corner--the one that is still barricaded and reserved for the daughter who will never exist in quite the way I imagined. this corner is full of love too, stuffed to the brim, but it is different. it has to be different. there is still a hollow there, an ache. sometimes the contrast of this intense joy lighting up my life draws my attention to that darker hollow, and I feel that sadness, that weight, a little bit more than usual. I seem to realize more and more what I am missing, just how much was lost when you died. it is constantly more than I could have imagined at the time.<br /><br />and yet.<br /><br />without you, without the loss of you, I would not have this particular incredible child. I would not have so many things that have become strong, fundamental parts of who I am. after you died, everything changed. I used to resent that change, but I don't anymore. not really. our experience together has become part of me, woven into the fabric of my life. you are gone, and yet you are in everything I do.<br /><br />some days I still wake up angry. some days I am bitter. some days that instinctual mother in my heart wants to take the pregnant woman next to me by the hair and scream at her because doesn't realize just how fucking lucky she is.<br /><br />some days I stop for just a moment to shed tears for the daughter that never was, for my little broken baby that I still love beyond measure. for that once stranger of a self, lost in my own life.<br /><br />I am not so lost anymore. <br /><br />but some days, I still miss you.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180960899135498014.post-66238996018498349842010-05-24T17:16:00.000-07:002010-05-24T20:21:07.481-07:00fresh paintwe are flying down a familiar road again, speeding toward the hope of an answer, although this time the question lacks any hint of optimism. the sun beats down defiantly on our tired faces. the sheep in the fields keep their babies close, taunting me with their good fortune. this isn't fair.<br /><br />it is new year's eve day, though the holiday barely registers. the date is almost too trivial to comprehend. there are no dates, and there is certainly nothing to celebrate.<br /><br />there is tension in the car as we navigate through turning lanes and stop signs into the cement box of the parking garage. somehow, we gather ourselves and set foot on the ground again. one step at a time. <br /><br />the smell of fresh paint and new carpet are overwhelming as push through the doors of a new hospital building. we seem strangely out of place among the brightly colored walls and modern artwork, among parents wrangling running children and caressing swollen bellies. what a sight we must be, tear-streaked and ashen-faced, wandering the halls of a place we never wanted to know. and somehow, we step into an elevator and ascend to the correct floor. a small miracle, as i am outside myself. my body goes through the motions, but i am not here. not really.<br /><br />there is a wait. there is always a wait, as we will quickly learn. we sit among pregnant bellies, bellies larger than mine will ever get, and i stare at the circles on the wall, at the pattern of the carpet, anything but the round protrusions that remind me of what i am already losing, although i haven't lost her yet.<br /><br />we are ushered into a small office with a round table. framed pictures and certificates of a genetic counselor litter the perimeter, not yet hung. i slide into the farthest chair, with him at one side and the window on the other. the counselor places a box of tissue in my vicinity of the table: a permission of sorts, a silent message that says, <span style="font-style: italic;">this will be hard. it is okay to cry</span>.<br /><br />her eyes are sad and her voice is thick with sympathy, quiet with the weight of her words. she offers another ultrasound but i refuse. i cannot bear the thought. she opens a folder, heavy with papers that sum up everything we have learned thus far. and then she pulls out a long string of shiny paper printed with fuzzy images in shades of gray, pointing out lemons and lateral ventricles and a spine that splits nearly in the middle and curves to the left. this is what we know, but there is so much that we don't. there is talk of necessary surgeries, of shunts and metal rods and braces, even to sit. potential brain damage, advanced hydrocephalus.<br /><br />somehow, we reach the subject of the other side, of that other option that is tugging at us because we love her so much that we cannot imagine putting her through this. she looks at us knowingly and says, <span style="font-style: italic;">it sounds like you are leaning towards ending the pregnancy</span>. and the pit of my stomach falls out and the tears spring to my eyes like a thousand pins as she pushes the box of tissue closer. and there, there is the increasingly familiar pull and tug of <span style="font-style: italic;">how can we, how can we not? </span>she assures us it can be done peacefully, with respect, extinguishing the fear instilled in me by my own ninth grade persuasive speech with a pro-life angle. how ironic.<br /><br />the office is too small for this conversation, this choice that feels like anything but. she gives us her cell phone number and we file out, sinking back down the elevator without a word. i am numb. dizzy with grief and fear and uncertainty, and yet i feel very little.<br /><br />in the breezeway, a mother pushes her son in a wheelchair, his gaze absent as he stares out the window. our pace simultaneously quickens as we pass, pushing our way through the heavy metal doors into the damp darkness of the parking garage once again. we do not stop until we reach the car, the doors falling shut on either side as we collapse into our little portable bubble. the silence settles in, thick and ridden with unspoken questions. <br /><br />and there are the tears again, although this time, they are his. suddenly, this is all very real to him, too. suddenly, we are tiny, helpless, powerless to fix this. there is a ripple of injustice as reality continues to set in. <span style="font-style: italic;">why us. why her</span>. this isn't fair.<br /><br />we lean into each other and cry, tears sliding off our noses and mingling together on the upholstery. he is the first to muster words:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">i think we have to let her go. </span><br /><br />i know it is the truth, and yet it is sickening, sitting in the pit of my stomach like a rock or something equally indigestible. there are no good options.<br /><br />we cry a little longer, and i am thankful for the dialog that has finally been opened between us. because suddenly it is real, and it isn't fair, but we are in it together. <br /><br />slowly we settle back into the hum of the rest of the world, where our bodies already know what to do and our minds just follow along. <br /><br />i start the car and we keep moving.<br /><br />we have no choice.Aleinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11672558798152016251noreply@blogger.com2