Last week Leif and I went to Amsterdam to visit friends, N and M. It was kind of a last hurrah before I start work on Monday and before our friend delivers her son in another week or so. We probably won't seem them for another year so we really felt the push to make the trip while we still were able to do so. Our friends were troopers to have visitors there so close to the impending birth of their first child. Even at 38 weeks pregnant, N was pretty adept at keeping up with the rest of us.
The trip was very easy and incredibly difficult at the same time, as I am sure most of my "readers" can imagine. Easy to be with our best friends (including another couple who flew in from Hawaii for a 48 hour period just to hang out with the four of us since they get free flights) but difficult to be around an atmosphere of baby-ness for such long stretches of time. Hours and hours would go by and I would be having a great time, the way I always used to when together with old friends, only to be struck by some random thing and be immediately yanked back to my reality. I would recover from the jolt and the cycle would begin anew.
On the 31st of this month it will be ten months since George was born and then died. During this time I've done a fairly good job of creating for myself an insular world where the idea that other people frequently have healthy pregnancies and living babies does not often penetrate. I can't say for sure if that has been an entirely healthy way of living but I can say that for a long time it was a necessity for me. Yet living in such an insular world cannot last forever and I think it was important for me, in more ways than one, to make this trip.
Many times during our trip I felt completely separated from what was going on around me. I watched and listened to our friends have lively discussions about birth plans, birthing experiences, and parenthood but I don't think I was ever really engaged in any of these conversations beyond the superficial.* The pregnancy and birth experience that Leif and I had simply does not bear any resemblance to those of most people. I can't really relate in any meaningful way to their experiences and so while most times I was comfortable and at ease with these topics I never felt like a participant in them. An observer from across the great grief divide. Many times I just listened because what I could/would add may not have been appropriate to the discussion at hand.
An example...
I had a brief discussion with N about the American custom of baby showers versus the Dutch custom of sending out announcements only after the arrival of the baby. I immediately thought about how much I preferred the Dutch custom to the American custom because it circumvents the problem of what to do with all the gifts if the baby dies. Normally I keep such thoughts to myself, especially when it comes to sharing them with a very pregnant woman, but I blurted out what I was thinking and effectively killed the conversation. As much as N and M try to temper what they talk about in relation to the birth of their child, I also try to do the same. Usually I'm more successful than that.
But I learned through this experience -and here I am referring to both George's death and this particular trip- that I am never going to be able to look at things like pregnancy, birth and parenthood in the same light again. The pure joy and excitement associated with these things has been rinsed away and what is left is what I think of as a patina. I've weathered.
Leif finally sorted through all of our photographs from the trip. As I was looking at them again I was struck by how impressive it is that photographs are able to sum up experiences and emotions.
It never ceases to amaze me how many versions of myself exist inside.
Some, I'm sure, that are still left to discover.
*Important to note here is that our friends are all very cognizant of our feelings and make their best effort to always consider them. I can imagine how uncomfortable it must also be for them since they are probably never certain where our limits are. They do a great job and I try also to do the best I can for them. I am genuinely happy for them and wish them a very easy birth and nothing but joyful days ahead.
