Time Marches On

Each new month is really hard.  Each new month adds more distance between the time I held you and the hell that has become my now.  It is no longer a surprise when I am more weepy than usual when each month comes to a close.  Before it would only dawn on me about midway through the day why I felt worse than usual.  Now, I just know.  Now, I just expect it.  The turn of this month has, however, been exponentially more difficult.  While most people are celebrating the "end" to winter and looking forward to warmer, more pleasant days, I am saddened that this will be the second summer spent without you.  I remember last year on the last day of school, I walked out the doors and just cried.  The tears welled in my eyes the closer I got to leaving.  I'm normally ecstatic on the last day of school, but I knew it would be the first summer spent without you.  All our plans for you - my expectation of getting to spend every day of the whole summer watching you grow, teaching you things, loving you up, and having so much fun with you was all gone.  As I walked through those doors, the tears flowed.  Will it ever get easier, baby girl?

So, March is here, and it has brought with it two new babies - both on the same day.  As if it isn't hard enough seeing many friends fall pregnant and have babies, March decided to hit us doubly hard.  I'm so done with Facebook.  Seriously, it should be called "Babybook" or "Gestationalbook" or "Hey-look-at-us-we're-pregnant-and-our-baby-didn't-die-like-yours-did-book."  It's torture.  If the Facebook page for Norah's Library wasn't attached to my Facebook, I'd just delete it.  I thought I had all the settings finagled just right so that I wouldn't see anything about all these new babies, but this morning Facebook was nice enough to let me know that a friend had posted something on another friend's wall, and that's when I saw it - the "Congratulations on the baby, and tell mom happy birthday too!" post.  Seriously, as if some peoples' lives aren't charmed enough, they also get to give birth to their living child on their BIRTHDAY?

Oh, and that's not all, folks.  No, the Universe decided that wasn't enough for us for one day.  So, it decided to bring our other friend's child into the world ON-THE-SAME-DAY.  Yes, we got a "two-for" deal this March.  It's just awful.  I'm already dealing with the requisite "new-month-blues" and now this.  Kevin is having a hard time too, I know.  He told me he had a bad dream last night in which he was really jealous about the one friend's new baby.  That's totally normal, but he feels really bad about it.  Honestly, this is just normal.  Anyone who wants to judge us for not being overjoyed for these people just doesn't understand.  This is hell.  That is all there is to it.  We are living in a nightmare.

Honestly, I can't take it anymore.  I can't take it.  I'm jealous, I'm angry, I'm bitter, I'm sad, I miss Norah like crazy every minute of every day,  I hate that it seems like everyone is having babies and everyone else's babies live, but ours didn't and it is all just NOT FAIR and I just want to throw a tantrum about it and I'm sick of everyone telling me to try to be positive because, really, did your baby die inside you and did you have to give birth to your dead child then attend her funeral five days later on the day your milk came in and it hurt every time someone hugged you to say how sorry they were yet here I sit just over a year later and can count on ONE HAND the people who still ask about her or who let me vent during moments like this? I am tired, and I'm sorry that I can't get far enough outside of myself and my grief to feel joy for these people. I cannot.  And I'm talking about the people who ask about her and mention her in REAL LIFE.  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the kind words and everything on Facebook, but it just doesn't replace having an actual conversation with a living, breathing human being, who really cares - not necessarily understands - but who cares enough to just let me vent and not try to get me to see things from another perspective.  Because, honestly, that's all people have been telling me lately.  I have people telling me things like, "Try to be positive about new life and surround yourself by it" - It may help you to move forward (i.e. conceive, get pregnant...because apparently no one wants to say those words to me either). I just can't do it. Every person I talk to says, in some form or another, "Look at things differently, try to see things from another perspective." I can't do that when my perspective is so permanent and blinding. Society sucks at dealing with death and it sucks even more at dealing with infant death.  So many people are telling me "not to put so much thinking" into having another baby. It is almost daily. That's not good advice for ANYONE who really wants a baby, and it's HORRIBLE advice for someone who has lost a baby. I'm so tired of this.

People say the most awful things with the best of intentions because they have not experienced this so they just don't know. I'm just tired of making concessions for peoples' ignorance! The woman who runs our support group says we just need to understand that people mean well and don't know what to say. Honestly, I AM THE ONE HURTING, why should I be making allowances for THEM!? People don't know what to say because we just keep allowing them to say stupid things!!! I am about to start being the change I want to see and start telling people when they say or do something hurtful. No one's ever going to figure it out if we just keep lying like dogs and taking it.  I wish people would just understand that this is NEVER going to go away. I'm NEVER going to be "cured" of this. A new baby will certainly help, but we'll always miss Norah. We'll never be the same. SO many people ask, "Are you still seeing your therapist?" I HATE THAT QUESTION!! Some people have even suggested we try to find a new therapist - presumably because I'm not "better" yet?  We really like our therapist. She does a good job, and it's not her job to CURE me, because this isn't something that can be cured; she can't bring back Norah, and she can't take away the pain of losing her.  She listens, and she tries to give us ways to deal with it.  That's all she can do.  That's all anyone can do.  People just hate to be around suffering and pain.  It's so lonely and isolating.  Not only do I miss you, Norah, but I also feel lonely because there are so few people who actually take the time to sit down and ask me how I am - I mean really ask how I am and care to hear the truth, because it isn't pretty.

I have friends who are newly pregnant, and everyone is showering them with congratulations, and "when the baby gets here..." statements. It is all lost on me. I don't understand any of that. Our society acts as if pregnancy is a guarantee of a living baby, and quite often that simply is just not true - it's just that no one really talks about all the losses that occur because it's too uncomfortable to think about for people who haven't experienced it. Well, it's our daily life, and I think people shouldn't have the option of ignoring it; we certainly can't.  

I don't know how I'll want people to handle our next pregnancy.  Sometimes we think that we won't be telling people about it until we absolutely have to.  It will just make things less complicated.  No one knows what to say or how to act now, and I'm guessing that's not just going to magically go away when we get pregnant again.  On the other hand, sometimes I feel like maybe we should tell people.  Who cares if it makes other people uncomfortable.  We didn't want this life, but we have no choice but to live it, so why should we try to make it easier for other people?  We're not going to know how to handle it until it actually happens.  Either way, I wish it would just hurry up and happen already!  This month it will be nine months since we started trying again for another baby.  NINE MONTHS.  We did get pregnant in August, but I had a very early miscarriage.  That was hard, but it's nothing like losing a baby full term.  It just isn't.  I've had blood tests to check my thyroid, an ultra sound to check my uterus, monthly blood draws to check my progesterone levels, a hysterosalpingogram to make sure there are no blockages in my tubes, and everything is normal.  The next step is to get Kevin's count tested.  Stress can definitely lower a man's sperm count, and we are both definitely under stress.  It's all just the worst.   We miss our baby like crazy, we want to have another baby, but we can't because we're stressed because we miss her like crazy.  I am telling you, it is HELL.  

So, am I happy for all these people bringing new life into the world?  Am I happy that they get to go home and do whatever it is new parents do with a new baby - because we don't know what that is, even though I gave birth to a full term, beautiful baby girl?  Am I happy that all my friends get to be part of the first-time parents club but we'll never be a part of it, because our first child died?  Am I happy that they get to snuggle with their baby, look into its eyes and feel the completion of that bond that was started in utero, that bond that was ripped from us when she died?  Am I happy that they get to go places to show off their baby, but we can't go any of those places because it throws me into horrible anxiety?  Am I happy that they get to stay up all night with their babies and have a good reason for being tired the next day, while I come to work tired from crying, tossing and turning, and having bad dreams?  I could go on, but I think I'm painting a clear picture...I won't say, "I could go on, but you get the picture," because unless this has happened to you, you don't get it.  You never will.  

So, here we are.  Another month, another breakdown.  It's become the natural cycle of my life, it seems.    Just something to be expected.  So often I wonder what it's like to live without grief.  I try to remember my life before it, but it was so long ago that I can't really get a good grasp on it.  This year will be ten years since my dad killed himself.  December 15, 2003.  I definitely haven't lived without grief since then.  My grandma died the summer between my junior and senior year of high school.  I loved her so much.  She was one of the only people who really listened to me when my parents were being unreasonable.  She never judged, she never told.  She just listened.  I loved her so much.  I struggled a lot when she died.  That was August of 1998.  So, there were about 17 years of my life where I didn't struggle with grief.  I often wonder, why me?  Why do I have to go through this when so many other people skim through life with what I would deem surface stressors.  I know no one's life is a walk in the park, but let's be real.  How many people do you know whose father shot his head clean off his body with a shotgun and whose full term baby died less than 24 hours before she was born?  Yes, that's graphic and probably hard for most to read.  Now imagine that it's your life.  It's your daily existence.  It is too much.  The Bible says "blessed are those who mourn...blessed are the broken in spirit."  I am so very blessed.  So very, very blessed.  

121212

Songs for my baby

These songs remind me of you, sweet girl.  I wish we could have had happier songs.

"Winter Song"
...this is one from your funeral.  
...

"This is my winter song

December never felt so long

Because you're not where you belong

Inside my arms."

"A Thousand Years"

I always imagine that this will be the song playing when I see you again in Heaven, baby girl. 

...

"I have died every day waiting for you,

Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you

For a thousand years."

*I'll add to this list as more songs come to mind.  

1

12/12/12 - Your first birthday has come and gone.  "Oh, how weird," everyone said of this repetitive date, the last of its kind until the next century.  Those comments are so trite to me.  The repetitive nature of your first birthday is nothing weird, in fact, it's strangely fitting.  It makes sense that the numbers repeat - my longing for you, for what might have been, has been the soundtrack of my mind, stuck on repeat all this long last year.  

We tried to make the most of your birthday, though we missed you terribly.  I held it together better than I suspected I would.  I'm attributing that to the fact that we stayed busy doing things to honor your memory throughout most of the day.  Your daddy had your memorial tattoo finished.  I could not bring myself to go with him.  I had planned to stay home and start to disassemble your nursery.  That room has become such a black spot on the house.  Despite my best efforts and intentions, I could not bring myself to do it.  It just didn't seem right to start to tear it down on your birthday.  I'm still trying to conjure the nerve to do it sometime over this holiday break.  We'll see if I can muster the courage to do it.  Something tells me that if I do get started, it will be a process, painful and slow, much like this past year has been without you.  

While your dad was getting his tattoo finished, I mulled about the house, feeling sorry for myself, as usual.  Maddy came over and I asked if she'd go with me to pick up a birthday cake for you and to get flowers to put on the stone at your tree. She did, and we were home within an hour.  After she left, I added the finishing touches to the grief boxes we assembled for the hospital for the parents who will inevitably lose babies in the coming year.  It felt good making those boxes, creating something in your memory.  

Your daddy got home after dark, around 6 o'clock, and we loaded the boxes into the car, drove to the park where your tree stands, so tiny, so bare.  We walked down the path to your tree in the dark, which is against the posted rules as the park closes at dusk, but I didn't care.  I like that it was dark, and I would have answered anyone questioning our being there with a full explanation of what you mean to us and how this is all we can do for you.  In fact, I want to continue the tradition of visiting your tree at nighttime each year.  It was private and peaceful - just what we needed.  We lit a candle for you and placed two purple roses at your stone beneath the tree.  Your daddy said a beautiful prayer, we hugged, cried, and left to deliver the boxes to the hospital.  That was Wednesday.  The following Sunday we went back to the park for a walk and were happy to see the roses were still there.  In fact, someone had rearranged them at the top of your stone.  They looked lovely and my heart was happy to see someone had taken the time to rearrange them, and had the decency to leave them there for you.  

After we left your tree, your daddy delivered the grief boxes to the hospital.  I stayed in the car.  I could not go up there, knowing there were living newborn babies and happy families who likely will never know the nightmare we live.  Jealousy still consumes me, and while I know I should be happy that most families don't know this pain, it still makes me angry that we were the ones made to endure it.  Erin, one of the nurses who attended me when we had you, called my cell phone as your daddy was delivering the boxes.  She was thankful and gracious and it felt good to know our efforts were so well received.  When your daddy came back to the car he was shaken.  When he arrived on the maternity floor, there was a couple with a newborn baby who exited the opposite elevator at the same time he did.   It turned out he knew the father of this baby and that he and his wife had also had a loss.  It didn't make it easier for your dad to be there, but it softened the blow a bit.  He is braver and stronger than I.  I would have crumbled simply entering that elevator.  

After that we had birthday cake at your Aunt Lisa's house and spent a little time there then we came home and went to bed.  It was nice to honor you on your birthday, but it would have been nicer to have you here.  To see you with your first birthday cake, all clumsily feeding yourself with sugary elation.  So many things I'll never get with you, sweet girl.  Such eternal heartache.  

Today is Christmas Eve, only by technicality.  There will be no Christmas for us this year.  We have made absolutely no preparations and will be doing absolutely nothing special.  It will be just another day.  I had a silent hope that, even though we aren't celebrating Christmas this year, we might get a Christmas miracle.  I started using an ovulation predictor in the past month or so and detected an LH surge on December 10th, which meant I was fertile for a span of two days, which serendipitously fell on your first birthday.  How wonderful, I thought, for us to conceive on your first birthday.  I held onto hope that I might be pregnant come Christmas; my next cycle was set to start on Christmas Day.  What a story to tell our next child, of how he/she was conceived on the day of his/her sister's first birthday and how we happily found out on Christmas.  I held onto hope, but in the depth of my being some voice kept whispering, "You're not pregnant."  It was a chiding, know-it-all voice.  I tried to ignore it and remain positive, but it continued to nag.  

Today I woke up praying my period would not come.  I showered and felt the faintest ache in my stomach.  "It could be the embryo implanting," I tried to convince myself, as though I'd actually be able to feel something so infinitesimal occurring within me when I didn't even realize a year ago that you had died inside me.  More dull aches as I dried and dressed.  I went outside and had that familiar monthly feeling of needing to use the bathroom, then a moist sensation.  "It's just moisture from the shower," I told myself.  "You mustn't've dried off completely."  Before I had gone outside I had turned on Pandora on the iHome.  As I was rationalizing the cramps and moisture, while fully knowing what they meant, I heard a single note and knew exactly what song was playing - a song we played at your funeral, by one of my favorite artists, Imogen Heap, called "Wait it Out."  Haunting and beautiful and so fitting at the time we lost you, and still.  Then, that voice again: "I told you.  You're not pregnant.  You got your period and how appropriate that it came at just the moment this song started playing."  I walked inside and to the bathroom to the soundtrack of that song where I found what that voice had been telling me all along.

I am not pregnant, and how completely stupid of me to think we'd have the opportunity to have any type of cute, sweet story about a serendipitous December conception to tell our future children.    Those type of stories are reserved for other couples, not for us.  

So, we will continue to live in this hollow in-between until we make you a brother or sister.  I miss you terribly, Norah.  Every single moment of every day I think of you and I miss you.  Forever is too long, sweet girl.   I long for the day we can be together again.  

All my love, forever and ever, 

Mommy

"Wait it Out" - Imogen Heap

December

December.
The blackness settles in.
The nightmares which haunt my soul,
They circle,
Threatening to swallow me whole.
Too much.
Too hard.
Too sad.
Let me go.
This place holds nothing more for me.
What I need can never be.
The blackness looms
My heart is laid open
Gutted.
Shuttered.
I sputter.
The effort to keep going,
Impossible.
This life - implausible.
Why me?
Where is the lesson?
What meaning lies in this?
December, so cruel.
I'm a carcass.
You've had your way with me.
Now leave me be.
This yearly curse,
Are you my destiny?
Eternal massacre.
What's next?
Why not take me?
But no, there'd be no fun in that.
You leave me to suffer.
Pummeling me flat.
The massacre of my heart
Never ending.
I hate you, December.
Just leave me be.

I love this woman's blog, "Born Still but Still Born."  Today I found the video she and her husband made which chronicles their pregnancy and the loss of their first born, Curtis.  As I watched this video, I could not believe how similar our stories are.  Nearly everything she describes is what happened to us.  Aside from the manner in which we delivered our babies, the similarities between our stories is uncannily similar.  Everything they experienced and felt was felt by us as well.  I hope that some day we too can create something like this for our future children so they know their older sister, Norah.  If you'd like a glimpse into what we experienced, watch the video Chantel and Craig created for their children in memory of Curtis.  It is beautiful and candid.


In Memory of Curtis

A note on thanks and giving...

Hi, baby girl.  It's been a long time since I've written you here.  I often want to sit down and write, but it feels so overwhelming.  Sometimes it's just easier to sit with my sadness, rather than put energy toward something.  Today, though, I have the energy to write, so I will.  

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  This holiday season seems as though it will play out as I expected it would back on December 12, 2011 when we learned we lost you.  Last Christmas we suffered through the motions with disastrous results.  Daddy wanted to be present for the festivities, but festive they were not.  I was in a haze, opening presents I loathed.  Everything seemed like such junk, so meaningless, when the only thing I wanted, I could not have...you.  

We discussed this holiday season and came to the agreement that we would not participate.  While I'll be cooking a turkey tomorrow and your aunt and uncle will come for dinner, we will not be going anywhere.  We will not be celebrating with daddy's family because, truth be told, it infuriates me to be around the kids that will be there.  Why were they all allowed to thrive when you were snatched so cruelly from us?  For me, it is best to remain in the safety of our home.  This has proven to be the case in so many instances this year, sweetie.  Sometimes it is just so traumatic for me to leave the house and be bombarded by the endless babies and little kids that seem to swarm wherever we go.  

I think of you incessantly.  From the moment I wake up, to the moment I fall asleep, you fill my thoughts.  I remember the first few months after you were born, how I'd wake up and realize what my life had become.  Such a cloak of darkness and sadness would envelop me that I'd have difficulty even getting out of bed.  When I finally did get up, I'd neglect to brush my teeth, comb my hair, or even change out of my wrinkled, stinking pajamas.  I'd begrudgingly let out the dogs then I'd eat a little of whatever leftovers were in the fridge from the many, many gracious people who brought us meals.  I'd climb the stairs to lie in bed the rest of the day, searching the Internet for some answers, some support, some glimmer of hope as to when we'd be able to try for another baby, but it would always lead to bitter tears of hear-wrentching sadness that this is what my life had become.  I would forever be a mother whose baby is dead.  How does a person get past that?  How does a person find light and hope and happiness after losing their darling child in such a way?  I still don't know.  Maybe I never will. 

As the weather turns colder and we near your one-year birthday, I have flashbacks of those first days, weeks, and months after losing you.  I sit on the toilet and am instantly transported to the moment my water broke in that same spot, in that same position.  I walk down the hall toward our bedroom and remember grasping the banister, my incision aching, my heart breaking.  I walk outside and the crisp chill in the air reminds me of the day of your funeral.  The first flurries this year sent me to tears, as I was transported back to the parking lot after your funeral.  Your daddy escorted me to the car, my incision throbbing, my breasts hard and sore (the day of your funeral was the first day my milk let down), as the first flurries of the season fell sadly from the sky.  A few weeks ago, one particularly difficult evening, your daddy was so worried as I sobbed and sobbed, having flashbacks from the hospital, where I begged him not to look at the ultrasound screen, "Don't look at it...don't look at it!" convincing myself that if we just didn't look, it wouldn't be true.  Being hooked to the IV, having the epidural administered, violent shaking from the anesthesia, seeing you, so beautiful and still, for the very first time.  Bathing you, dressing you, combing your hair, the sadness in everyone's faces, the complete helplessness of my sister, my friends, our family...  Finally telling the nurses to take you...knowing the next time we'd see you would be at your funeral, and after that never, ever again. 

How does a person move on from this?  When does the blackness dissipate?  How do I stop yearning for what should have been and start to accept it?  Time marches on, and because I have no other choice, I am ushered forward with it, but I feel myself kicking and screaming the entire way.  This journey of life is not one to which I look forward.  It is such a long, long time before I will see you again, sweet girl.  I know you are in Heaven being loved and adored by the Heavenly Father.  I do not worry about your spirit, as I know you are in Heaven.  I have heard it said that this time we spend on earth is fleeting, a microsecond in the vastness of space and time.  I am in the throes of grief for you and fear I will always be, which causes the time I am forced to spend on this earth to be magnified so greatly.  I remember how excruciatingly long the days were when we first returned home from the hospital.  Daddy and I would sit on the couch all day long, barely talking, consumed by sadness, just holding each other...crying.  We'd check the time and be so upset that only an hour or so had passed when it felt like four or five.  It took so much energy to make it through a full day.  I always thought of the line from Shakespeare's "Macbeth" about time creeping by at a petty pace.  That was certainly how it felt for us in those first weeks without you.

We are trying to give you a brother or sister.  It's proven to be more difficult than we imagined.  In August we learned were pregnant and were excited for three short days, before I miscarried.  I know that baby is being loved by the Father and that you are all together in Heaven.  I can't wait to be with you all.  Those few days were the first days of hope and light for us.  It was the first time we didn't feel completely STUCK.  The feeling of floundering and imprisonment that surrounds us is exhausting.  We want so desperately to move forward, but each month that is something that is denied us.  So many of my friends are pregnant or have new babies.  It cuts so deeply each time I learn of each new pregnancy.  Why them?  Why not us?  Haven't we suffered enough?  What have we done to deserve this?  What are we not doing that we should be doing?  The seething jealousy I feel for all those people makes me hate myself.  I hate not being able to be a good friend...not being able to be happy for the ones I love.  I hate the thoughts that run through my mind each time I learn that another person has had a living baby.  "Oh, it didn't die, " I think, while feeling hugely let down.  What have I become?!  How can a person be upset about the survival of her own friends' babies?!  This is what this grief does to a person.  It is so lonely, so isolating, that while I don't want anyone else to suffer as we have, the part of me that longs for companionship and a person who really understands just wants someone to be in the same boat as me.  I am so sick of doing this alone.  I am so sick of being so isolated.  I just want someone with whom I can commiserate, with whom I can cry and bitch and moan... someone who understands it all and doesn't judge me for any of it...who doesn't long for the time when I feel better...who doesn't worry about me because they know everything I'm feeling and they know that it's all normal.  Will it ever stop? 

I can't even put into words how much we miss you, how much everyone does, but especially your daddy and me.  Losing you has put a hole in my soul, Norah.  It won't be filled until I'm with you again.  I'll never be the same, but I don't want to be.  I can't go back to the way I used to be because I am your mommy now.  Everyone who has children says that they are forever changed.  I am forever changed because of you.  People expect that I'll get back to my old self some day, and that's frustrating. I'll never be who I used to be, because I was never a mom before you.  It is just unfortunate that, for me, being a mom means heartache, not joy.  

So, tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  It seems as though your daddy and I have little for which to be thankful this year besides ourselves, your brother and sister, Shadow and Lady, and the few friends and family who have been understanding enough to struggle with us through this grief and to support us in whatever way we need.  For them I am thankful.  Most of all, though, I am thankful for you, Norah, because you have shown me what true love is.  You have made me realize that I can be something I never thought I could be or wanted to be...a mother.  You have shown me that my heart can love beyond measure...that I can care more about another little person than for myself.  You will forever be my first born, my first love, and my last hope.  Thank you, sweet girl, for showing me a side of myself I never knew could exist.  Thank you for the privilege of being Norah's mommy.  I hope I can make you proud and that you know how infinitely I will always love you.  

Missing you always, my dear baby girl.  

Love forever, 

Mommy