Was That A Sign?

This past Friday, all of my professing about just being came to a head.  I had requested an additional appointment at 10 weeks from my OB during my last visit, even though during that last visit (at 8 weeks), I had an ultrasound that should have convinced me that everything was okay.  It was reassuring in the moment, but I knew it wouldn’t last.  My last baby left me somewhere between 8 and 12 weeks, but no one really knows when.  It wasn’t a dramatic departure, it was soft and silent, no bleeding, no cramping, no physical pain.  I can only imagine it was a gradual damping of a heartbeat, slowly fading, beating softer and softer, until it was gone, disappearing so delicately that I hadn’t a clue that anyone had left me.  But when I finally found out this fate of mine, fear softly and silently entered again.  This was the second time that I thought that life was growing and thriving inside me and instead it was dying inside me.  How could I have not known this?  How was it that I didn’t have a clue?  Why wasn’t there an indicator, a predictor, a red flag waving?  Why wasn’t I at least given a sign?  Where were the signs???

So, as Friday approached, I began anticipating that appointment, wondering what would be my fate this time.  I hadn’t let myself think about this upcoming visit too terribly much, I was living day by day and worrying about tomorrow would do me no good.  But tomorrow was now here and I was terrified.  What if she couldn’t find the heartbeat….again?  I’m not sure where the theory of signs or fate evolves from, but it seems that in many of our psychological ramblings, cultural influencings or spiritual speculating, we tend to attach ourselves to this phenomenon or obsession with looking for “signs”.  Signs that tell us that something is meant to be, something is not meant to be or that fate is looking out for us in one way or another.  I will have to say that I have always been one of these people.  Everything happens for a reason.  Nothing is coincidence.  It must be fate.  But sometimes my sign searching seems to come in times of desperation, in times when I am scared, in times when I have been scarred, in times when my mind lacks a certain sort of balance.  So throughout this day, this past Friday that I speak of, I find my mind searching for signs, but most of the signs surface as signs of doom and gloom and I can’t find a single one signaling good fortune.  My heart starts to race a little bit more.  I haven’t been feeling very nauseous today, and I’m worried that this is a sign that something is wrong.  I am running late to the appointment, I make a wrong turn, oh crap, is someone trying to tell me that this appointment is a bad idea, that maybe I shouldn’t be here after all?  I get to the office and wait almost an hour to see the doctor, ugh, maybe this is a sign, maybe I should leave, maybe I don’t want to know the outcome right now.  While I wait, I’m reading a novel for the first time in a year, it’s refreshing to read literature instead of research, it’s serving to being quite a distraction while waiting, but themes of death and dying are coming up too quickly and I find my mind wandering, worrying about the possible coincidence of it all.  Is this my sign?  Oh, my anxiety is escalating, peaking, climaxing.  Yearning for a sign to tell me all is well, looking for something, anything to reassure me and I can’t find it in this moment and I am scared for my baby’s newly formed life.

Ugh, this is really irritating.  I had let go of this sign seeking obsession years ago.  When I was pregnant with Wyatt, before I knew of our horrible fate, I was the queen of signage.  I was a nervous wreck during that pregnancy.  I had just lost my dad less than a year before and I was so scared of another loss of any kind.  I’m sure I was also experiencing some very typical mom fears for the first time in my life.  Throughout my pregnancy, I remember thinking that anything and everything that happened in my world was a potential sign.  Something I made for the baby’s room got broken….was this a sign that something bad was going to happen?  Every time I saw a kid with a disability of any way, shape or form, I was certain this was a sign of my fate to come.  I came across an article on SIDS in a magazine.  Oh no, is this an indicator that this will happen to me?  I was wrought with these potential signs almost daily it seemed, and I also found myself engaging in ridiculous superstitions to avoid any further bad mojo from coming my way.  I even told my therapist after everything was all said and done, that I was sure I knew all along that something horrible was going to happen to my son.  I just had a feeling.  She disagreed with me.  She didn’t think that was possible.  But what I didn’t tell her or anyone else at the time, is that on the day that I went into the hospital, the day that would change my life forever, the day when all the madness began, a song kept popping into my head. No matter how hard I tried to push it out. A song that I had not listened to for many years, a song that was stored high on a shelf in our basement, a song that I probably would have forgotten about forever if it weren’t for that day.  The CD was Robbie Robertson and the Red Road Ensemble’s Music for The Native Americans.  The song:  It’s a Good Day to Die.  If there was ever a time in my life when there truly was a sign, this may have been the moment.  Here I had been: looking for signs, asking for signs, begging for signs….and here I finally got what I was asking for, a sign that my world was about to change forever. 

And I will never know if this was truly a sign or who had sent it to me, but what I now know for sure is:  It didn’t matter. The outcome remained the same.  There was nothing I could have done to change it.  These alleged signs did nothing to prepare me, give me adequate warning or provide me with any instructions on what I was supposed to do.  Even if there had been a flashing neon sign to tell me my fate was on its way, there was nothing I could do to stop it, change it or stand in its way.  I was vigilant.  I told the doctors anytime I felt something was wrong.  I was making phone calls and surprise visits on a regular basis.   I felt for kicks every time I woke up in the middle of the night.  I did everything I could have and then some.  And so I finally came to the realization that even if these signs meant something, which I’ve almost convinced myself that they didn’t, they most certainly did not give me magical powers to fix or change anything.  I finally came to the realization that these signs were really my fears trying to disguise themselves as something more.  And after it was all said and done, I realized that I no longer believed that everything happened for a reason.  I had to accept that sometimes there was a thing such as coincidence.  And I finally turned my back on this thing called fate.  Because if there was such a thing, it had not been kind to me, and this fate was no longer my friend who was looking out for my best interests. 

So, when I got pregnant with Abigail, I fought these fears with all my might.  The idea of signs continued to pop into my fear-laden, demon-tainted brain but I had to make the decision that I couldn’t let them stay.  Every time I try to mutate a happening in my life into a fateful sign of some sort, I took that sign, redefined it as fear and ordered it out.  Sometimes it tried to linger, but most days I was strong, I was persistent and I was demanding.  I no longer had room for this added unnecessary fear, I had enough justified fear staking claim in my brain.  I had to make room for some hope and peace, so these signs just had to get out.  It wasn’t an easy feat.  I still had the thoughts, they still made me crazy, but I knew I just had to let them go as soon as they entered, moment by moment, day by day, week by week.  I had to release them into the darkness from which they came.  It was time for some light, I was deserving of some light, I’m so thankful that light entered my world and entered my heart.  She is one amazing light. 

So on Friday, as I sit and ponder the implications of potential signs, I begin remembering all of this again.  I remember how signs and fears once ruled my past and how they didn’t help me secure my desired future.  So, I take a deep breath, attempt to release the hold that these fearful signs have on my mind and my heart, and I step into that cold, dark room as I wait for the doctor.  My heart is still racing, my anxiety still high, but I hold hope higher as I remember that this time is different too.  This is not my last pregnancy, I am not reliving the same experience, I can find hope again and bask in the light that it brings into my heart if I so desire.  And then I hear it, the knock on the door and my moment is here.  At least this moment in this time and space.  She tells me that she might not be able to find the heartbeat, I’m only 10 weeks, but she’ll do a scan if she can’t.  Don’t worry.  She has no idea.  She says my uterus feels great, I am growing, which indicates a nicely growing babe.  I breathe a little.  She says it might take a while to find the heartbeat, that’s normal at this stage.  Don’t worry if she doesn’t find it right away.  She knows me better than I think.  Oh, there, oh, no.  Oh, wait, nope.  She laughs a little.  What’s going on?  I’m holding my breath again.  She then starts calling my baby names.  Ornery, a little stinker, oh, he’s going to be a wild one.  He (she’s predicted a boy already) won’t stay still long enough for her to catch it.  A smile just hoping for its chance to be released emerges and I begin to relax.  And then I hear it.  Oh the sweet music of a little baby heartbeat.  There is nothing that sounds better to me than this sound in this moment.  And I begin to settle into this new state of being, knowing that right now all is well, realizing that I was right to turn my back on those signs after all, understanding that this doesn’t mean that I am in the clear for the remainder of this pregnancy, but reveling in the reality that a slice of peace and a sliver of hope have found their way back into my heart once again. 

Commitment Issues

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in my advisor’s office.  If you don’t know about my “other” life, the one I complain out in other spaces opposed to this one, I am a full time doctoral student blindly navigating my way through academia in an attempt to build on my career in some way that still remains a mystery to me on most days.  Trust me, it’s not as glamorous as it might sound on the surface.  It’s a nice distraction from my reality at times and I am excited and passionate about it at least half the time.  So anyway, there I was sitting in her office trying to plan for my competency exams.  I just finished my coursework this spring and am attempting to move forward, just one more “little” step before moving on to the final frontier….dun, dun, dun…the dissertation.  So we begin scheduling my plethora of dates necessary for this mother of all exams. 

Let’s work our way backwards, she says.  September 12^th, oral defense.  Well, she says “discussion” but come on, we are Speech Language Pathologists, semantics are important, let’s not kid ourselves.  It’s called a defense for a reason.  September 12^th, check.  Then, how about August 19^th for your take home?  That gives faculty a good three weeks to review it before orals.  Fantastic, will put it on my list of things to look forward to.  Okay, then three weeks for you to work on your take home after your in-house written, that would put us in the week of July 25^th to schedule your in-house.  How does July 25^th sound? 

Soon, much too soon.  And then I begin to process the date, the timing, the other things thing going on in my life right now.  A lump in my throat starts to form.  Tears begin to well.  I start negotiating, backstepping, procrastinating, putting it on hold and trying to pause my life for a bit.  July 6^th is 12 weeks.  A milestone for most pregnancies, a potential doomsday for me.  I can’t commit.  I can’t put that July 25^th on paper, what if….?  And I lose it and I come clean.  The tears come much too easy these days.  They don’t flow or flood much, mostly they just drip.  And thankfully, this isn’t the first time I’ve sat in my advisor’s office and sobbed, and thankfully, she’s been through this whole journey with me, from being her employee when my dad died, when my son died and then being her student with this past miscarriage.  She’s all too familiar with my journey, my volatile emotions, my waxing pain, my multiple wounds.  Thankfully this is a safe space for me.  Thankfully she gets it and gives me the choice and lets me be noncommittal if that’s where I need to be today.  And that truly is where I need to be today.  It’s becoming quite apparent that I am having huge commitment issues. 

And this isn’t the first time this has come about recently.  I have been having these commitment issues anytime anyone tries to schedule anything during the month of July and even the rest of the summer.  One of Rob’s close friends is getting married out of town on July 16^th.  Huge commitment.   Booking a flight, reserving a hotel room, getting a babysitter, sending in that reply card that says we are most definitely coming.  What if….?  We finally sent in that reply on the rsvp by date, decided to drive and convinced ourselves (okay, me) that we could cancel our hotel if needed.  I finally let Rob make the phone call and schedule our reservations.  He hung up the phone, then got on the computer.  Wait, did you just book that through Expedia?  Yes, why?  It’s non-refundable.  Ugh.  Rob’s mom just asked us if we were planning on coming to the lake house on the 4^th.  My answer:  I don’t know yet.  Sorry, commitment issues.   And this madness even extends into the rest of the summer.  Rob desperately wants to schedule a vacation so he has something to look forward to this summer.  I keep putting him off, telling him to wait, changing the subject, unwilling to commit to planning an adventure just yet.  And I feel horrible, he is such a patient man, attempting to understand my irrational commitment issues, but I just can’t do it.  Not yet.   I mean, I can’t even commit to gaining weight.  Of course, I haven’t found a way around this one, I am gaining weight, and at quite a remarkable speed (hey, I’m hungry).  But I am struggling with it much more so than I have in the past.  I don’t want to gain weight.  I don’t want to put on these extra pounds.  Because….what if…?  I don’t want to outgrow my wardrobe in 3 short months and have nothing to show for it.  So, because I can’t seem to stop myself from plumping up, I will noncommit by buying larger sizes of civilian clothes and bypass the maternity section altogether.  With other pregnancies I began wearing maternity pants at 10 weeks (well, they’re comfy), when I started to expand my waistline.  But not now, I just can’t do it.  Not yet. 

See it’s been 5 weeks since I first told you I was pregnant.  In case you are wondering, I still am.  Right now.  And right now seems to be the only place I will let myself visit these days.  I am reluctant to let myself think about much beyond that because when I do, the thoughts are just a little too scary.  My mind likes to run a little too rampant.  I’m currently venturing through that window in this pregnancy where everything went down with the last one.  I had an ultrasound two weeks ago and everything looked great.  Perfect size, perfect heartbeat, perfect little mini-me.  This should be good news and cause me to release some fear and relax a little.  But I’ve been here before, had this same appointment, the same ultrasound, the same results and so cut me a little slack if I’m prone to anticipating the same outcome.  And if I let myself fully revisit that dreadful day on February 11, 2011, I remember an ultrasound of a different variety.  This one showed my baby who was no longer the perfect size, no longer had a heartbeat and no longer resembled anything like a baby, let alone a pint-size version of myself.   And things feel all too familiar these days.  I have had four pregnancies in the last six years and this one feels the most like the last one.  The one that didn’t make it past 12 weeks, the one that I lost right around where I am right about now.  I was so nauseous with the first two that I could barely tolerate it, I was so tired that I laid on the floor in the speech clinic in between clients.  My first trimester with both babies that made it to term (of course one not much past), were almost unbearable.  With the last pregnancy I was nauseous, but it was quite tolerable.  I was worried about it for a bit, but that eight week ultrasound gave me a sense of security.  All looked well, all pregnancies are said to be different, I was certainly deserving of having an easy pregnancy, so I was letting go of all fears, of all irrational thoughts, and letting that added bit of reassurance of an early ultrasound lead the way.  And just so you know, it really sucks when you choose to release fear, give up the fight, indulge a little and then that beast strikes again and you find yourself back on the floor, trying to pick up the pieces one more time. 

I think what scares me the most is that I don’t know if I can pick up those pieces again.  What if I can’t find the strength one more time and I just have to leave those pieces scattered on the floor as I lay my head down beside them and give in and give up once and for all?  This is what I fear more than anything.  Of course, the loss itself would make me crumble, but the not knowing what to do or where to go from there has the potential to break me forever.  I don’t know if I could do this all again.  I’ve told myself, told Rob and told my OB that this is the last time, I don’t think I could handle letting go of any more babies after this.  And, right now, I don’t know if I mean it, but I don’t want to find out if I do.  And I want this so bad, this dream, this second living child, this sibling for my singleton.   And I can’t even go on from here, I can’t let my mind travel too far into the worlds of “what-ifs”, this is where I stop for now, and this is why I have commitment issues.  I just have to reject the future for a moment and find my peace in my little world of today.  Today is good.  Today I feel sick enough to know I’m still pregnant.  Today I am hungry enough to know I’m feeding another life inside.  Today this baby is here.  Today is all I can handle and it is good enough for me right now. 

It might seem as if I am looking at things with my glass half-empty these days, but I assure you, this glass is not half-empty…..nor is it half-full.  Right now I’m pretty sure I just have a glass.  A glass that I carry around with me wherever I go, knowing I have to protect it with all of my might to be sure it doesn’t get broken.  A glass in which I am unsure of the contents just yet.  I know not whether this vessel will begin filling up with joy or if it will become empty with pain, and I try desperately not to think of the outcome of this glass.  I’m just grateful that I possess this glass in the first place.  I’m grateful that this glass is mine right now.  And right now isn’t such a bad place.  I’m not overly miserable or distraught or hysterical right now.  I’m developing mad skills in the process of just being.  I am okay with sitting here in my right now land.  It’s the rest of the stuff beyond right now that gets me all freaked out, crazy and weepy.  It’s the wondering, the guessing, the anticipating, the planning.  It’s all just a little too much for me.  So, forgive me for my lack of scheduling, be patient with my just being, understand that today is about as much as I can handle.  But today I am content, I am at peace, I am here.  I just can’t visit tomorrow.  Not yet.  Not until tomorrow arrives.  Not until tomorrow becomes my today.

Comparing Losses

I’ve tried to figure out this parenting thing to the best of my abilities.  I’ll even say I’ve had some obstacles due to grief that have gotten in my way.  But one of the things I have noticed that we tend to do as moms in our culture is engage in mass amounts of competition using our children to secure our gold medals.  Some moms on blogs have even gone so far as to coin this phenomenon “mompetition”.  There seems to always be a way to measure your child’s “progress”.   I swear it starts almost immediately when that child pops out with height, weight and Apgar scores.  Then the prize winning questions start flying from other moms out there, and I swear their only agenda by asking these questions is for the opportunity to tell you their kid is better.  You may know the target questions:  How is your baby sleeping?  (You must answer in hours.)  When did you wean your child?  What age did your baby give up a bottle?  Is he still not potty-trained?  Does she still have her paci? When did she walk?  When did he talk?  Can he say his ABCs?  My kid was reading at 3.  Does anyone not see the problem with trying to teach a baby to read?  It’s alarming to me that we have DVDs that persuade us that this is a must.  We are so consumed with all this measuring and comparing our children’s so-called successes that no one has even stopped to consider what really are the most important questions in shaping the ideal human being?  What about these:  How does your child deal with real life experiences, emotions, her own pain?  Does your child have empathy?  Does your child prioritize the importance of compassion towards others?  What does your child really know about kindness? 

So why I am talking about parenting on a babyloss blog?  Well, because I think this madness is so embedded in our culture that we moms engage in this behavior with our unliving children as well, comparing our losses, trying to secure at least some ranking as a mother in a game where everyone loses.  Maybe you have never played this game, but I know I am guilty.  I just recently pulled the “you have know idea” card with a well intentioned friend, who was trying to explain to me how she got through her subsequent pregnancy after a 12 week loss in an attempt to comfort me as I was sharing how challenging being pregnant again has become.  I was amazed at the simplicity of her “solution”, but more amazed that she thought she knew where I was because of what she had been through.  But I wrestle with this (and now wish I would have handled this situation more delicately).  See, ever since I started this blog as the product of my 12 week loss sending me into a tailspin, I’ve been trying to sort through and make sense of my feelings.  Having now experienced both a neonatal loss at 40 weeks and more recently a 12 week loss, my mind can’t stop trying to process the similarities and the differences between these two events.  I know, I know, I’ve already preached to you on how and why not to do this.  In a past post, I told you this:  “We shouldn’t attempt to judge the volume, intensity or magnitude of someone’s grief.  Who has more, who has less?  Who cares?  My pain is my pain and yours is yours.  If it hurts you, I care about it”.  And I am not attempting to dispute my own words.  But the reality is that things are different.  I have been through a full term loss and now a first trimester loss and can say that these experiences were very different for me, in ways that should be very obvious and in ways that were not so much.  I began my 12 week loss with comparing while I was still in that ultrasound chair, when the doctor was scrambling to find that heartbeat, when I knew it was no longer there, when I knew babyloss was no longer a freak happening in my life.  I “at least”-ed myself to no end with this 12 week loss:  At least it happened now.  At least you didn’t carry the baby longer.  At least you’ve been through worse.  At least it doesn’t hurt so much.  Bullshit.  At least not in that very moment.  Grief began rolling in and I will tell you, especially in those first few stabs, grief does not carry a ruler, a scale, or a measuring tool of any kind. Grief just blindsides you with all its force, consuming you with its bold intensity. 

One of the things that I have come to realize is that grief sucks.  And I don’t think grief can be measured, although I now know from experience that some grief clouds are a little easier to navigate through than others.  Case in point:  a dear friend of mine lost her four year old to brain cancer a year and a half ago.  And if we’re competing in our comparisons, I’m folding my cards, she is hands down the winner.  No contest.  But what I’ve realized in playing this comparisons game is that just because she trumps me, just because her hand is better than mine, just because she will always be crowned the winner, it doesn’t mean that I don’t hurt.  It doesn’t mean that my heart wasn’t ripped away from me, chewed up into pieces and spit back out.  It doesn’t mean that I didn’t love, that I didn’t lose, that I didn’t own that grief from beginning to end.  After Wyatt left our world, whenever someone would tell me about their loss, especially an early one, in the back of my mind I would find myself uttering, “if you only knew” as I scoffed at their ignorance with grief.  I now think differently, I now know differently. Instead of my own ignorant scoffing, I embrace their grief, as if it were my own, and the only words I utter are “I’m sorry.  I am so, so sorry.”  It hurts no matter how, no matter who, no matter what and no matter when. 

About 10 years ago or so, a good friend of mine lost her baby at 18 weeks.  I was young, naïve and frankly stupid and didn’t really get her pain.  She was devastated beyond words.  She has been following my blog these days and has sent me so much encouragement.  To the point that I have felt guilty about how insensitive I was with her grief during that time that I had to  recently express my apologies.  And here is what she said in her response:   

It's funny what I still remember.   You and I went to Judge's.  You weren't insensitive at all.  I remember telling you something my friend said on the lines of "At least you didn't carry the baby through a whole pregnancy because that would've been so much worse."  Your comment to me was "It was the worst you could've gone through at the time."  I'm sure you don't remember the conversation but I do because even though you didn't know how I felt you knew it sucked! 

I well up with tears just reading this again.  First, because I am so thankful that I didn’t come off as an insensitive jerk in a time where I was completely clueless.  I’m certain that I remember being much more judging in my own thoughts.   But also because I’m amazed at how much these words resonate with me now and how they cause me to realize that comparing losses is truly not possible at all.  These losses do not come in isolation.  They are not neatly packaged as an entity all on their own.  Our surrounding life circumstances impact the effect of our losses more than the measurements of weeks ever could.  My friend’s example makes this quite clear to me.  If this is the worst experience that she has had, then it is the most pain she has felt and therefore it should not be compared to a full term loss.  She only knows this one.  She only knows this pain.  It hurts, it sucks, it does her no good to imagine a worse case scenario.  No good at all.  Her current pain and grief are most certainly enough.  I have a friend who recently had a miscarriage at about 6 weeks, she has other living children, she’s only known successful pregnancies.  She wasn’t expecting it.  She hasn’t visited this world before and it crushed her.  She said she had no idea it would hurt this much, she was embarrassed that she hurt this much, she thought maybe she was over-reacting.  My former competitive-mom-self might have internally nodded in agreement, but now, now I know she has a right to this pain and I say to her:  own it girl, own your grief, and don’t let anyone tell you you do not have the right.  We all have the right to embrace our pain.  We all have the right to feel the way we feel. 

And we can also look at this from another direction.  I have a friend who has experienced more babyloss than I can even bear to imagine.  She said that she had so many early miscarriages that they almost didn’t even phase her anymore.  She had experienced so much worse and knew this pain just wasn’t the same, it was not comparable to her.  I have another friend who told me something similar, she had an early loss about 6 months after her full term loss and she also said it was almost no big deal.  But my experience was different.  My first trimester loss pulled me down and dragged me through the dirt.  I had experienced a full term loss and I knew this was not the same, but damn it, it hurt.  The betrayal of my body once again, the embarrassment of believing I could do this easily this time, the injustice of it all, it all came back to kick my ass and it hurt like hell.  In some ways I think that having a prior loss made things easier.  I knew a greater hell.  I had been in a darker place.  I had held a real baby with a real name while he was taking his last real breath.  This 12 week thing should be easy stuff.  But it wasn’t.  It jerked me back into my past and caused me to revisit the dark, a place I never wanted to visit again.  I had put this crap behind me and moved on.  But here I was again.  In some ways I think that having a prior loss made things harder.  I had nothing to define this loss.  This baby had no name, no known gender, I did not give birth, hell, it was vacuumed out of my body, for God’s sake, I never even caught a glimpse.  The intangibility has been a huge struggle for me.  But the reality is, I will never know if my past experience made this loss easier or harder.  This loss did not happen in isolation, it is all part of one great big package, all bundled up in quite a heap of a mess.  Even Wyatt’s loss wasn’t delivered on its own.  I was still grieving the sudden loss of my dad which occurred 9 months before I was pregnant.  These two grief experiences couldn’t be separated, they were tangled and mangled up together as well. 

So, I guess what I’m trying to say here is that comparing losses doesn’t do anyone any good, even if it makes us feel like we’ve at least won at something.  I believe that my experiences have been different, I believe that there are differences, however, I now believe that drawing that line in the sand is much too simple of an answer.  Where do you really draw the line?  When is a loss “counted”?  Eight weeks, twelve weeks, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty?  What about infertility?  That’s a loss all in its own right.  The reality is that our lives are much more complicated than all this calculating and measuring.  Most of the time we don’t know the entire story, we don’t know what else is impacting someone’s pain, we may not know where that person has been or where they are going.  A wise friend posted this timely quote on facebook today: “It is virtually impossible for one person to damage another by listening to him, by trying to understand what the world looks like to them…”.  And I couldn’t agree more.  Instead of focusing on our obsession with measuring and comparing, we should be listening.  When someone tells us they hurt, they know of pain, they have experienced grief, let us show them that we have learned something about empathy, compassion and kindness in our own lives.  When we have experienced our own pain, let us not resort to belittling our experiences because we know of something greater, let us be comfortable with owning how we feel in the moment.  Let us be better human beings because we have known pain, experienced loss, have wrestled with grief and not resort to competing in the one arena where there are ultimately no winners at all.  Victory is achieved only through love and understanding.  When I can reach out to others and find my compassion in the process, no matter when their loss occurred, this is the only way in which I may make sense of my losses and this is the only time I can say I haven’t lost everything in this horrible game of losing an awful lot.   

Right Where I Am: Five Years, Eight Months and Two Days

This week I am venturing out.  Pausing for a moment and answering someone else’s questions instead of teasing through my own with a fine toothed comb.  Let me give my regular readers the back story and then I’ll give any new visitors the real back story.  Regs:  (aka friends, family and FB followers) You may find this hard to believe but there are hundreds of moms (and dads) out there with a story very similar to mine and much to my surprise blogging about this said topic is not so unique to me.  A friend of mine, a fellow babyloss club member, who I only know because of my blog, recently introduced me to a much more well-established blog that has put out a project she has titled "Right Where I Am" in which she is requesting babyloss parents to write a post about where they are right now in their grief process, whether it's been one year or five years ago.  So, of course, I want to contribute, to be a part of this interesting project, however, I’m struggling with what to say since I feel like you kind of already know exactly where I am right now, since I just starting blogging right where I am right now, even though most of what I am blogging about started five years, eight months and 2 days ago.  See, I didn’t really know that blogging was all the rage back then.  Well, it’s quite possible that 5 years ago people weren’t blogging so much, and I’m not sure I even knew what a blog was way so long ago.  So, needless to say, my story was not on the world wide web since the “beginning”.  Of course I was doing the usual journaling and I even thought I might write a book.  I’m thinking I got to page 2 and threw in the towel.  But I digress…where was I?  Oh, yes, right where I am.

I guess the best way to define where I am right now is, if I had to state it in one word would be:  revisiting.  Revisiting a past place of hell mostly because I thought I was healed enough to reach for a future I’ve always craved.  (If you are new here, my first two posts: Enter at Your Own Risk, I'm Keeping It Real and Have You Met My Baby? will give you the quickest summary of my story).  It took us a good five years after losing Wyatt to finally feel like we had put most of our grieving behind us.  Five years to say that demon had finally gone.  Five years to find enough peace in our hearts to reach for a dream we’ve silently harbored.  A second living child.  We felt like we were finally ready, healed enough to release the beast called fear and begin our final journey in creating the family of our dreams.  We didn’t know if we would ever get here, but here we were, we had finally arrived.  Grief had exited and we were entering a new chapter in our lives.  Ah, the opportunity for new chapters.  We were thrilled we had finally found the courage to start a new chapter. 

Of course, my grief had settled enough for me to be this naïve again.  Or maybe I had just allowed myself the opportunity to let hope lead the way.  Regardless, when we lost that baby at 12 weeks, I was beating myself up that I had let myself believe that things would be easy this time.  I couldn’t believe that I had foolishly convinced myself that the odds were in our favor on this one.  I gave in to my worst fears and they came back in full force to find me once more.  So there I sat, beginning my newest journey called revisiting.  Blogging, reflecting, and frankly sometimes stewing, on how trying to create a family had become such a challenge for me.  Trying to sort through my past to help me deal with my present.  And now that we are pregnant again (8 weeks to be exact), revisiting has become my theme song.  My naïve ways have left me once again, but I am trying to let hope guide me in this journey once more.  However, history hasn’t been the kindest to me, so I am holding my breath and just desperately hoping for a miracle once more. 

But back to reflecting, what has led me to where I am right now?  How did I get here and what has the journey been like?  The grieving process seemed to haunt me for so long.  Of course, the first year or so had its usual suspects.  The shock, the horror, the shame, the pain….it was exhausting, debilitating, and brutal beyond words.  We got pregnant with Abigail six short months later, even though my therapist told me it was too soon.  I’m not sure she got many things right, but she might have been onto something with this one.  But it didn’t matter, I wasn’t listening, I didn’t care, I had to make this go away, I had to make things right, I had to fix this mess….or so I thought.  So, there I was newly pregnant and newly grief stricken all in the same turn.  I can’t imagine a time in my life in which I was more terrified of a reoccurring fate….or just more terrified.  The conflicts of losing a life and trying to bring another into this world almost simultaneously were close to unbearable at times.  But I’m not sure if I regret it.  I almost think that if I would have given myself more time to work through my grief, I might not have tried again at all.  If I was really thinking straight, I’m not sure the benefits would have outweighed the risks.  Of course, now I know that they did, but now I have proof.  And then she was in our arms and I was elated.  I had been waiting so long for that opportunity to leave the hospital with my baby, just for the opportunity to carry a baby in my arms and cross that threshold out the door.  I was not empty-handed this time, I did not have to leave my heart behind, she was with me and the only thing I was leaving behind were my demons of grief.  Or so I thought once again.  But not so much.

Although I was so grateful and fortunate to be bringing home this bundle of joy, I had no idea how challenging this parenting thing was going to be.  And one of the things my friend grief did for me was make me analyze each and every move that I took as a mom to see if I was really fit for the job.  As I look back, I realize how hard I was on myself.  How I let my shame and guilt take over and try to run the show.  I felt like I finally had the opportunity to prove to the world that I was capable of being a good mom, that I was competent in this department and I was able.  Every time things didn’t go as I thought they should (breastfeeding, sleeping, potty training, all the usual challenges), my grief told me I had failed once more.  This horrible ghost that wouldn’t stop haunting me, kept trying to convince me that I wasn’t good enough.  That I wasn’t worthy of this job.  That maybe I wasn’t deserving after all.  It’s taken me a while to even realize that this is what I was doing to myself.  I think it has been through much of my recent revisiting that I began to realize that it didn’t have to be this way, that this was the grief parenting and not me.  I wasn’t like this.  I didn’t care what other people thought, I didn’t have anything to prove, she was here, she was loved, end of story. 

So on that note, I’ll have to conclude that although revisiting would not have been my choice, that I would rather be giving birth to that baby in two short months, that I would have skipped the pain, the heartache, the grief once more, revisiting hasn’t been all bad.  First of all, this revisiting has helped me take on issues that I’ve now realized I hadn’t dealt with very well in the past.  Issues such as how I handled or hid my grief, how I’ve held onto shame, or how I have let this grief monster navigate my parenting at times.  Revisiting, but being further removed, has given me insight that I couldn’t have had with the freshness of my grief early on.  Through this blog, revisiting has also helped me find support where I didn’t know it existed.  Almost weekly someone has reached out with love and support, told me their story, how this blog has helped them, helped them to understand others, or has helped them understand me.  These things are so powerful to me and help me to heal in ways I didn’t know were possible.  I wish I would have known blogging 5 years ago, but I’m so glad it has found me now.  And finally, this revisiting has helped me realize that I can’t hide from my life, past or present, no matter what I project on the outside.  The reality is, I have grown to be a stronger, better person.  Not despite of what has happened to me in my life, but because of what I have been through. I was always determined to not let the loss of my son define who I was or to determine who I would become.  But I now know that he will always be a part of who I am, this experience has enhanced my being, and although it may not be defining, it is most definitely contributing in a profound way. I know I am not perfect, but I love who I am, who I have become, who I was meant to be because of the obstacles that I have had to face (although I am most definitely NOT putting a message out there that I would like more of these growing opportunities, I’m good for now.)  I appreciate life, love, kindness so much more because of where I have been.  There is more sunshine in my life because I have experienced darkness. I appreciate the light more now than ever.   So although I am ready to put this grief behind me once and for all, I also know that I will always carry a piece of it with me.  I’m beginning to accept this now, I’m finally coming to terms that this will always be a part of who I am, and I am ultimately realizing that it’s time to accept myself right where I am right now. 

It's Not Your Fault

And there I was, feeling just like Matt Damon in that scene with Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting.  You know the famous scene (if not, click here), “It’s not your fault…it’s not your fault….it’s not your fault….ad nauseum….  I was still sitting in the ultrasound chair during a recent visit to a high risk OB.  A new doctor I had not seen before, just for a consult, a just because appointment, a just in case visit.  Something to try to ease my mind that my two losses that looked really different, were truly different after all and not related in some strange way.  I just needed to hear someone say it.  And he said it, but something else he said caught me much more off guard.  I thought I was just asking innocent questions, still asking about what happened with either losses, what were the possibilities, what could have caused the outcomes, what was it that took my babies from me?  I don’t feel like I’m necessarily trying to solve a mystery about the past, but really wanting to prevent a repeated fate.  Was it something I ate?  Was it a dental issue neglected too long?  Could it have been…?  And what about….?  And that’s when he said it.  “No matter how many ways you look at this, there was nothing you did that caused this to happen”.  Or something like that.  I truthfully don’t recall the exact words he uttered, but essentially he was saying to me (in his best Robin Williams impersonation), “it’s not your fault…it’s not your fault….it’s not your fault…” 

And the flood gates opened and I was a weeping mess.  Damn it, did I really still feel like this?  Why did I still feel like this?  I mean if an incredible medical team of professionals could not do anything to save my baby’s life, why do I feel like I should have been able to?  Why do I feel so responsible for a situation I felt like I had very little control over?  And the answer is, I don’t know.  I mean, in my rational mind, I can tell myself a million times there is nothing I could have done to prevent his death, there is nothing I should have known to escape this fate, there is nothing I would have been able to do to keep him alive.  I can hold these thoughts in my mind intellectually, but my heart holds a different version of this story.  I vividly remember, even while lying grief-stricken and shock-laden in that hospital bed, the intense amounts of shame that I felt.  Out-of-town friends called and wanted to visit.  I wouldn’t let them.  Extended family drove hours to show their support and I ordered them out.  Please leave.  Even when I was able to return to work, I distinctly remember in those first few days that I couldn’t look anyone in the eye.  And there was only one single solitary reason for these behaviors:  Shame.  I was incredibly and intensely shamefully embarrassed.  Every other mother giving birth in that hospital that day was able to keep their baby alive, but me, somehow, I let mine die.  I didn’t know how I did it, but somehow I had to have been responsible.  Somehow, I, his mother, the only one who could have known, the only one who could have felt, the only one who should have sensed, didn’t do any of these things.  I felt I had failed as a mother before I was really given the chance to mother at all. 

And so there I was, sitting there in that doctor’s office last week, feeling like I was cast in a role for a sappy Lifetime made-for-tv movie, crying to a doctor that I didn’t know, a doctor that was once again telling me that it was not my fault.  And I’ve often felt this particular drama of my life was like a movie, the scenes often surreal and the flashbacks beyond reality.  But, the thing is, I had convinced myself this movie had ended.  I thought it had played itself out, I had worked through my issues, I had dealt with my shame, my pain, and my horror.  My daytime drama had finished with a happy ending, with the birth of my Abigail Rose.  It was finally over, I was done, we were now happily ever after.  Obviously, I have watched one too many of these made-for-tv movies.  Life does not work this way and I am not naïve enough to think that it does.  At least not now.  I’m finding myself in some sort of watered down sequel that has caused the scenes of my past to rise to the surface once more.  And I’m also not naïve enough to think that a doctor telling me it’s not my fault is going to finally heal my broken heart and convince me that I didn’t fail my child in some way, on some level.  I will have to find a way to do that all on my own, if it’s possible to do it at all.    

But I know that I am not alone in this line of thinking.  I am almost certain that most moms that have lost a child in some way, have had this response at one time or another (and if you haven’t, let’s chat, I need some of what you’re having).  Most of the time, I feel like I am actually a pretty well adjusted person.  I mean, I’ve had my crap, we all do in different forms, and I’ve dealt with it and worked through it all to the best of my abilities.  Seriously, we all know I have no problems expressing myself to anyone who is willing to listen (Public blog, sure, why not?). That’s gotta be good for something.  But shame is a hard one for me to deal with.  I don’t think I had told many people about these feelings of shame until I started blogging.  It just kind of came out, rose to the surface and exposed itself right out of the gate, and I’m not sure I even saw it coming.  So I guess the only way I know how to deal with this is to go public once again.  It seems to be working for me so far.  Maybe I need to present myself with a public affirmation of sorts.  I need to find a way to convince myself that it really wasn’t my fault and that I could not have done anything differently.  It’s time I try to let this one go.   

So, here it is Amy, and listen hard:  It is not your fault.  You did not fail your son.  You loved him with all of your heart and soul.  You nourished him and gave him everything he needed to thrive for 40 important weeks.  You ate healthy, you went to every appointment, you followed all doctor’s orders and then some.  You were an amazing mom and he was lucky to have you.  You read him stories every night.  You talked to him each time he kicked and told him you couldn’t wait to meet him.  You started a journal, telling him about his life before he even came to be.  It is not your fault.  You did not fail your son.  You would have done anything in your power to keep him in this world.  This was beyond any powers that you could have possessed.  You are still an amazing mom to him.  You haven’t forgotten.  You choose to remember him.  You choose to celebrate him.  You know he was and will always be your family.  It is not your fault.  You did not fail your son.  You were the best mom he could have had.  There was amazing love.  You are a wonderful mom.  Ask Abigail, she tells you daily.  You did the best you could.  You cared for him with all of your might.  It is not your fault.  It is not your fault.  It is not your fault…

How about you?  Have you had a similar emotional response that you have fought with all of your might and still can’t let go of?  Do you ever feel shameful about something you know you could not have been responsible for?  What brings you peace in these moments?  I’d love to hear about it…..