the i-would-nevers

I am feeling really exhausted by people lately. Maybe it is hormonal or something, but I am in an angry, bitter, frustrated state with the population at large.

There are so many people around me that are newly pregnant. Two of them just within my small-ish group of coworkers. One of them is sixteen weeks, and has brought up genetic testing with me on two different occasions now--not exactly my favorite topic of conversation at 5AM (or ever). Since I have recently been through one and a half pregnancies, I have become the resident expert on "what to expect." So naturally, I guess, she was wondering about this blood work they were sending her for. When I told her it was probably for the quad screen, she went on about how she would be declining genetic testing because...

"I would never terminate a child."

If you are one of the unlucky members of our club, you know how that statement cuts right into your heart. I have seen it written online a million times, but I have never had someone say it to my face. I felt like I had been punched. Even worse was today, she explained that she did end up getting the blood work, but she "wouldn't get rid of it" either way.

Her tone was totally casual, not accusatory or even necessarily judgmental, but I am still somewhat dumbfounded. To her credit, she does not know all the details of my loss, and I'm not really offering them, either. I know that she really has no idea how many things could go wrong, or what she would do if something really did. I know that you cannot possibly appreciate the gravity of the situation until you have been there. You can't fathom the heartache and the agony and the guilt.

I have been struggling with the guilt lately. I tend to get caught up on the negative perceptions of termination and then torture myself with them. In my heart, I know I spared my daughter from suffering, but her defects are still the fault of my body. I am the one who allowed the induction of contractions that would ultimately end her life.

I am still trying to forgive myself.

It's been awhile. Not because I have not had anything to say, much to the contrary, but these days my time with two hands is rare and usually occupied by more important tasks. Orrin is beautiful and healthy and thriving, almost 4 months old. I still find myself taken aback at times, asking myself if this is really my life, do I really have a baby?

I think back to last year, when I was so desperately clinging to reminders of my motherhood, and now, when I am literally covered in reminders on a daily basis. Even at work, when I manage to escape the spit up and pee, I leak milk. Such a difference from the aching emptiness that followed your arrival. And still, sometimes, I don't quite believe it.

Today has been hard. I can't really figure out why I am in such a terrible mood, but terrible moods inevitably lead to reflection of terrible moments and that led me here. I find myself missing being pregnant sometimes, but I think it is more that I miss that short space of time I carried you. I miss that little sliver in my life that was so blissfully, obliviously happy.

I find myself wondering what you would have been like. What your laugh would have sounded like. What color your eyes would have been, or if you would have been born with as much hair as your brother. Sometimes, when he is sleeping, I catch a glimpse of him that looks like you.

I have two babies.

Everyone forgets.

the may flowers

Your plant is coming back.

There are four green, perfect little stems shooting up out of the pot of soil that contains a part of you--the same pot of soil that I was so sure had become lifeless. I took a moment to marvel at them the other day, these delicate new beginnings, and I felt like they were charged with your presence, like a vibration, an invisible force.

I don't know how it all works, and I'm sure it can all be explained away scientifically, but to me it is so clearly a message from you...wherever you are.

There is new life. There is hope.

We are all embarking on new beginnings. And it's okay.

not over it

I came to write the other day, but ended up reading through my old posts instead.

I should know better. There is no better way to turn me into a sobbing mess than to revisit those darker days. The ache has evolved so much in the past year, but it is far from gone. Even now, with a healthy, warm, living baby who smiles at me every morning.

I have been struggling, this month, with the fact that I sort of let your birthday just slip by. I had big ideas for a celebration of your life, but then plans changed and we found ourselves out of town on the 9th, traveling around Seattle with Jesse's family and three week old Orrin. It wasn't until the evening, Jesse and I crammed into the back seat of the family van with Orrin in between, that the tears started to fall. Jesse was the only one who noticed, the only one who knew, and he took my hand and we cried together, heads bowed over our new boy sleeping in his carseat.

Look at this beautiful boy she sent us, he said, and I nodded. We promised ourselves we would do something to honor your birthday when we got home the next week, but we didn't.

We still haven't. And as the days keep slipping away, the timing seems less and less significant. Still, I find myself wanting to recognize your existence somehow. Perhaps I just didn't even give myself enough time to process the fact that it has actually been a YEAR.

I still have so much to process. This grief thing is far from over, but it is certainly taking on a new shape as we move forward.

safe in my arms

Little brother Orrin arrived safely on December 16th--those who are interested can read the story on the family blog.

We are thoroughly immersed in the new baby daze, but it has not escaped me that it is January. Layla's birthday is in 3 days. In the quiet moments, which are so few and far between these days, I feel the grief lurking. But things are so wildly different now than they were last year at this time. My heart is so full, my arms are no longer quite so achingly empty, and that makes it easier. We have an appreciation for this healthy, thriving, beautiful little being that is unparalleled by those who have never known the other side. We are so completely aware of what a miracle he is, and we are so thankful.

december again

It's December again. Yesterday was the ninth. It has been eleven months.

I am unclear how this year has slipped away from me, how it can possibly have been eleven months since we let you go. It seems just yesterday I was cradling you in my belly by the fireplace as the snow fell outside, wondering if you were a boy or girl, counting down the days until we found out. Could have been yesterday I got the call and the world seemed to stop and I became someone entirely different.

And at the same time it seems impossible that any of it ever happened at all.

Lately I've been feeling really overwhelmed with emotion about you. That is the only way I can explain it. It isn't sadness, at least not completely. There is a softness in my heart, a gratitude, an overwhelming sense of....well, love, I guess. That sort of all-consuming, everything-at-once sort of feeling.

We have officially entered the time of year that I have simultaneously been anticipating and dreading. I am faced with that now familiar juxtaposition of missing you while also preparing for and celebrating your brother. He will be here any day now, and so will all the dates that hold significance in your story. It's hard to know how to feel. If I am sad, is that a betrayal to your brother? If I am happy, does that mean I am forgetting?

Should I forget?

Things have been different lately. There is light where there wasn't before. I am not quite as angry, as guilty, as grief-stricken. There is a buzz of excitement in the air as the world around me anticipates the arrival of your brother. Things are changing. Eleven months has made it easier to breathe, to dig and contemplate and sometimes find some semblance of gratitude for the experience we shared. But it has not made me forget.

In the middle of a nesting frenzy in which I barely stopped to breathe, I pulled out your memory box, held it in my lap, and just cried. As exciting and hopeful as these days are, there is still room to miss you. Even if only for a moment.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. I have lots to say, but have been having trouble expressing my thoughts lately. I can't count the amount of times I have had words begging to be written, only to be ignored and then forgotten. With all the focus on the new baby and the impending birth, it has been hard to find the energy to visit the darker thoughts, even when I probably should. Sometimes it is so much easier not to open that proverbial box.

So that's where I am. Forgetting, but not forgetting. Missing you, but also finding peace with that, somehow.

I don't know what else to say.

halloween 09

"Just think! Next year at this time you will have a little one to dress up!"

Someone said this to me yesterday, and I just smiled, swallowing the first response that sprung immediately to my lips...

That's what I thought last year, too.

In fact, one year ago yesterday, we had our first ultrasound. We watched you wiggle and bounce around on the screen, saw your little heart beating away, and left with the confidence that everything was just fine. For the first time, I let myself start to believe it, and though I didn't know anything about you yet, I wanted to buy something, anything. A vote of confidence, in a way. So I bought your Halloween costume for this year.

I remember sorting through the rack of little costumes, counting on my fingers the number of months between your due date and today. I decided on the 6 month size, and remember commenting on how small it was. I couldn't imagine that in one year, I would have a baby who would potentially fit into it.

But I didn't. I don't. You are gone and your little pumpkin sleeper hangs, unworn, in the closet, certainly forgotten by everyone but me. Like most things.

It sounds silly, but I feel like I am being a bad mother to you lately. If my only job is to honor your memory, I feel like I'm falling behind. Your brother has become the center of attention to the rest of the world. The question "Is this your first?" has become rampant in my every day life, and I find myself just saying "yes" more than I want to. There is no good way to answer it differently without the confused, sad, awkward silence that usually follows. People don't want to know. Is it any of their business, anyway?

The lilies we planted with some of your ashes on your due date have died, leaving behind a pot of lifeless soil. I can't seem to figure out how to feel about it. On good days, I just ponder what I can replant in their place. Other days I wonder if it really even matters. And on the really bad days, I think of course. Nothing else about this year is right. Why would the plant live?

The rest of your ashes are still in the stupid plastic box they came in, tucked on the shelf of my nightstand, waiting for me to do something better with them. Everything I think of feels inadequate. I want them with me, and yet an urn feels strangely inappropriate. And so they remain in their little baggie inside a flimsy box, waiting. It feels wrong. I suppose it is wrong, in a sense, to even have your own child's ashes. This isn't what I signed up for.

Winter is coming, faster than I am prepared for, and it's already beginning to stir memories in the deepest corners of my soul--the places that sickening, heavy darkness has retreated to. Every once in awhile, when it's raining in just the right way, I get a flashback of that terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I'm not ready to relive it all just yet.

I wish I could just accept that it all went differently than I planned, and that that's okay. I wish I could turn off the should's and would's and if-only's.

But instead I find myself wishing that you were here with me tonight, wearing your halloween costume.

I miss you baby girl.