the creep

Sleep is an allusive beast these days.  

Yes, it is partly because at nearly thirty-six weeks pregnant I am experiencing multiple awakenings to use the bathroom, sore shoulders, and a stiff neck.  But those are small items; nothing to complain about.  

I've been waking up, usually for good, around four each morning.  I try to force myself back to sleep.  I imagine bargaining with a little pipe-smoking man who lives inside the control deck of my brain.  Flip that switch, the blue one by your right hand, back to sleep mode and I promise I will go for a walk and let you operate the exercise panel after I get home from work tonight.  But after nearly 32 years he, unfortunately, knows me better than to accept my bargains, especially when it involves exercise. So I am left to stare at the spinning ceiling fan until my blood sugar drops low enough that it forces me to accept defeat and get out of bed.

I know it is because of The Creep.  That familiar fog of anxiety that starts rolling in over the hills.  It is slow and insidious but I've come to recognize it in its earliest moments.  It settles over everything, even though I know it has origins from a distinct place.  

This morning The Creep woke me up again at four.  I laid there thinking about an article I read yesterday about something particularly sad and random (which I won't go into specifics about because of just how sad and random it actually was) that happened about, I don't know, ten miles from our house.  It was something so completely unexpected that there wasn't anything really for the people it affected to have done in order to prevent it from happening.  A perfect storm of events.  A series of dominoes, that led them to be in the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time.

Life is full of bear traps.

I am scared for this little girl I am carrying.  I thought it was a dangerous existence inside of my womb but the world outside is so much more treacherous.  The sheer randomness of shit that happens makes even the mundane seem to hold so much peril.  Nothing seems safe to me anymore.  How do you protect someone from something no one could have foreseen coming in the first place?

Maybe all this anxiety about not being able to protect my daughter stems from what happened with George. No matter what we did for him we couldn't protect him.  We couldn't save him.  We never even saw coming the trap that swallowed him up.  Life went completely out of our control and that completely fucks with your mind.

Or maybe all this anxiety is just about being a parent, regardless of whether it is in the context of suffering a traumatic loss or not.  I think about my own childhood and the anxiety my father had about my safety and that of my sister.  He worried about us with a consistency of an olympic athlete in training.  I think he still does.

Maybe I'm not the only soon-to-be parent or seasoned parent staring at the spinning blades of the ceiling fan at four in the morning wondering what possible dangers to their children are lurking out in the world.

Maybe The Creep is universal. 

(un)fair

We went to the second and last birth class this morning.  The class concluded with a video of a c-section, complete with a screaming newborn baby at the end.  It was pathetic how much our experience having a c-section was the antithesis of what we saw on the screen.  While it looked almost exactly the same, at the end of our version we were not handed a crying baby but rather a silent, barely moving one, whose sweet little face was swollen because of his heart failure.  After watching the video I held it together long enough to get outside of the building before having to stop on the sidewalk to sob.

We did not go on the tour.

It never really stops, the trauma of living after the death of your baby. It just goes quiet for stretches of time.

Have I ever mentioned that when we were initially in the hospital with George a few rooms down from us a certain B list actor, who has been arrested for drugs and for abusing his (many) wives on multiple different occasions, was there with his girlfriend (25 years his junior) who had just delivered their healthy son?  Leif walked back into my room after getting me more ice chips, since at the time I was pretty much vomiting everything but ice chips up, and told me about seeing this guy obviously pretty excited while talking on the phone out in the hall.  I think I said something along the lines of how completely unfair it was that some fuckhead who drives drunk, has been in and out of rehab, who has been married quite a few times to women much younger than he, and who just generally seems to be a douchebag, gets a healthy baby while we get a dying one.

It wasn't fair.

Driving home from the class I kept thinking about that particular actor, his now 15 month old son, and the unfairness of George's short life and -eternal- death.  I came to the following conclusion. 

It isn't fair.  But life isn't fair.  It never has been.  I had just been lucky up until that point to have escaped rather unscathed from the unfairness of the world.  People worse than that particular actor have healthy babies all the time.  Murderers get away with murder all the time. Thieves call themselves business men, robbing from the poor while stuffing their own off-shore accounts, all the time.  Good people don't have enough to eat all the time.  

It isn't fair.

But neither is it fair that I have a wonderful relationship with my husband while some women are in abusive ones.  It is not fair that I have a good job while there are others who have worked equally as hard as I have, if not harder, who are jobless.  It is not fair that I live in a country where I am, as a woman, completely free to wear what I want and to go where I want, why others live under the thumb of oppressive religious patriarchies.  

It isn't fair that George died.  But it would not have been somehow more fair if my son had lived and the son of that stupid shit actor had died. Neither child deserved life more than the other.  George just happened to get the short end of the stick.

What is fair and what is not fair have no bearing in this world.  Fairness is the exception while unfairness is the rule.  We are surrounded by what is unfair and it is miraculous that there is any fair at all.  This is a concept that I have just now, just today, really begun to understand.  

George died and it isn't fair.  George died and while I can never accept it is as OK that he died, I can accept it is as OK that it isn't fair that he died. I don't feel like I need to rail against that concept anymore and believe it or not, that kind of helps.

we're actually getting stuff done

The Nursery Edition.

When we found out I was pregnant with a boy the first time around one of the first things I did was figure out how I wanted his nursery to look like.  It was all part of the expectation that our future was going to be exactly as I planned it would be.  This time around it has been a struggle for me to believe that we would even need a room for our baby because it was hard to believe we would even have a baby to bring home.  I still have my doubts but as we creep closer to her due date I've made the effort to start investing in her future as much as I did with her brother.

This time I went with something that, sans the crib, could be adequate for a guest as well.

We bought a Jenny Lind style crib through Overstock, payed 3 dollars in shipping, and it literally came two days later.  Unfortunately Leif was in New York all last week (sad face) so we, and by "we" I mean "he," assembled her crib on Sunday.

Leif decided to dress for the occasion.   Notice the watermelon sitting on the counter.  That is watermelon number two for this week.  We realized that one a week was not cutting it so this time we bought two.  Number one is 3/4 gone already and it is Tuesday.  At least it is mostly water, right?

The cabinet and the mirror we thrifted and fixed up (I'm kind of a thrift store junkie) but the mirror isn't staying because I think it needs something smaller.  The clothes in the cabinet are the full extent of the clothes that we have for her at this point.  The top shelf is still occupied by George's memory box and some other item's of his that are special to us.  Not sure where they are going to go at this point... 

The curtains were about as girly as I could go in this room, it does have pink in it though!  I'm just not a super girly person.  As a kid I was more interested in catching lizards than playing dress up.

The rocking-chair and the brass lamp were thrifted as well.  Initially both of these items were going to live in the living room but I think they look better in the baby's room.   Plus I recently thrifted an ottoman that I recovered with Leif's help and it now lives in the living room in place of the rocker.

I cut up some fabric that coordinates with the curtains and used embroidery hoops as frames, that is what is sitting on the chair in this photograph. They are super light-weight and so I think they will go up behind the crib so that if there ever is an earthquake (and living in Los Angeles that is a real concern) and they fall they won't hurt the baby.  

Crib, all assembled along with the fabric I used for the hoops.  Still need a mattress and about a dozen other things but we're plodding along. Besides, what does a baby really need other than a carseat, a place to sleep, diapers, and clothes?

Best part of the room; Husband, content with a job well done.

return

For the better part of a year I could not even drive by the hospital where George was born without my eyes welling up with tears.  When errands would take me to that side of town I would take circuitous routes to avoid the large buildings but occasionally I would have to pass by and thus I would find myself unable to look away from the glass windows, attempting to remember which one was ours.  In my mind the hospital had become a huge green and glass monster; hundreds of eyes peering at me and tempting me to remember everything.

At first, when I thought about having another baby, I was repulsed by the idea of going back to that hospital.  Every hallway, every door, every piece of equipment, every person seemed like a trapdoor to some unpleasant memory.  But another baby seemed so far away and it seemed so unlikely that we would even be in Los Angeles, since for a good while after George's birth we were still planning on moving to Portland.  Then things changed. I could not muster up the courage to leave the city in the wake of the trauma of losing George.  I was still learning how to live in a life that was never supposed to be my own and so the thought of trying to do that in another city and state was terrifying to me.

So we stayed.  Then eight months later I was pregnant again and now here we are, six weeks away from being back in that same hospital for the birth of our daughter.

I mentioned before in an earlier post how we had decided to take a birthing class at the hospital with the intention of a) educating ourselves about labor and delivery and b) dealing with any trauma going back there might expose us to before we have to go there for the real deal.

Our first class was this past weekend and walking into the hospital both Leif and I were expecting things to have changed in some way in the time since we were last there.  Instead we got coffee at the same Starbucks, walked the same hallway to the lobby and sat on the same couch and I cried, where I did the same thing numerous times before.  I think we had both wanted to see that something had changed here but instead it was just reinforcement that life (and death) had continued as usual.

There were eleven other couples and, of course, everyone went around and introduced themselves.  As it turned out we were second to the last and we listened as every single one of those couples said something along the lines of this baby being their first.  When it was our turn I just said our names, that were were expecting a girl and what her due date was.  I took the easy way out, I admit, but I couldn't bring myself to say that this was my first child or that I had a son who had died.

The class itself was fine, nothing too exciting or inspiring.  We talked about the stages of labor and the signs of labor and we practiced some breathing techniques.  At the end we watched a video of actual labor and delivery.  I was relieved we were in the dark because I was crying again at this point, watching and listening as everyone talked about how amazing it was and how much having their babies changed everything.  Words were used like, "perfect," and "beautiful," and "life-changing."  Tiny crying babies, filling up my vision on the screen.

As I sat there watching twenty-two other people watching the same video all I could think about was something I had read over at GITW during the early days after George's birth, which was this; "Birth Matters.  Until it doesn't."  An epidural matters.  Until it doesn't.  Birth position matters. Until it doesn't.  A birth plan matters.  Until it doesn't.  None of those things mean very much to me anymore while it seems like they mean so much to so many.  Perspective changes everything and while I don't fault anyone for placing emphasis on these things, I just don't feel the same way.  I'm not going into this experience with any expectations for what I want other than a healthy baby and a healthy me.  It does not matter to me if she comes out the usual way or the way her brother did- through an incision in my abdomen.

Three hours of class and I only cried twice.  Not too bad.  But next week includes a tour of the labor and delivery floor, which I am having some significant anxiety about.

When we left, we did so through the exit I had left two times previously. The first time, in a wheelchair, vomiting because of the digoxin, but pregnant and with a small hope that things might still turn out positively.  The second time we left, I was again in a wheelchair but sobbing because George was dead and we were leaving for good without him. This time I left walking on my own two feet and that felt pretty good.

we're actually getting stuff done

The Labor and Delivery Edition.

Today marks thirty-three weeks!

The last two or three weeks Leif and I have started to let ourselves believe that perhaps this baby is coming home with us.  For us, that has meant that we have finally started to actually prepare for that possibility, something we just had not been ready to do until recently.  So here is what we've done so far in regards to Labor and Delivery.
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We are delivering at the same hospital where George was born.  This was kind of a tough decision for us, for obvious reasons.  It is difficult for me to even think about going back there because the minute I do I am sucked back to that pre-op room, watching the last hour of George's life tick away on the clock, feeling utterly helpless and hopeless.  It scares me.  I don't want to end up in that same OR again.  But at the same time I know that it is one of the best hospitals in Los Angeles, which makes it one of the best hospitals in the country.  It makes me feel a little safer.  Ultimately what made us decide to deliver there again was the fact that our OB and our Perinatologist have privileges at the hospital and we wanted to stick with them throughout this pregnancy.  They're good people and excellent doctors and we didn't want to lose them.  Oh yeah, plus, in the hospital they bring all the moms in the MFC and post-partum units warm, fresh chocolate chip cookies and cold milk every single afternoon.

My doctor is letting me attempt a VBAC.  I know many hospitals and OBs aren't cool with this for liability reasons but my OB and the hospital are so that means I get a trial of labor (and from what I understand the words "trial" and "labor" are key descriptors for this process).  My OB seems to think that I am a good candidate since my c-section was not due to a failure to progress through labor.  So, yay for that.  This also means that I've had to come to the realization that I at least need a little preparation for what that is going to be like.  During school I saw maybe half a dozen deliveries while in my OB/Gyn rotation but as I was always with the doctor it meant I never saw someone actually laboring for any significant amount of time.

So we bought an instructional birthing video called something about Laughing Through Labor or Laughing and Laboring.  I can't remember the exact title and I am too lazy to get up and look at it sitting less than three feet away, but it implies something to the effect that labor and birth aren't really as traumatic as the world thinks.  I beg to differ, but whatevs, I guess for most people it isn't.  Mostly it has been pretty informative but we haven't got to the actual segment yet where they discuss the process of laboring, positions, pushing and all that good stuff.  Also the labor coach seems somewhat biased toward "natural" birthing, which kind of bugs me, but we've all got our opinions so I just tend to ignore the really preachy parts.  But I think it has been helpful at least to get us used to the idea of labor.

This weekend we start a two part birthing class at the hospital.  For a few weeks before we actually registered Leif kept asking me if I wanted to take a class and I kept saying "no," "nope," "not really," "I don't think so," and so and and so forth.  My biggest hesitation was that I was terrified of being in a group of first time parents and amidst all of their -what I imagine to be- blissful ignorance.  It makes me super uncomfortable.  Plus, I don't particularly like the idea that the instructor will want everyone to go around and introduce themselves and what not.  What am I supposed to say?

"Hello.  I'm Brianna and this is my husband, Leif.  No, this isn't our first.  We had a baby last year but he died right after he was born.  Nice to meet you all." 


Or do I lie?

"Hello.  I'm Brianna and this is my husband, Leif.  This is our first child and we could not be more excited!"

I don't really like either option.  I don't want to make things uncomfortable (for them and for me) by bringing up a dead baby in a birthing class but I also don't want to pretend to be someone I'm not.  Sometimes babies die and people really don't want to hear that, especially first time parents.


But then I spoke with my therapist about the situation and when I told her the class we were thinking about going to was at the hospital she thought that it might be a good idea for us to go.  Her reasoning was that it would be better to go and spend some time in the hospital prior to heading there for delivery so that any emotional trauma that might -will- be brought up by the experience would happen before hand and not during labor.  Can't argue with that logic.  I'd much rather have a meltdown prior to going into labor so that I wasn't in the thick of it while trying to give birth to my daughter.

As far as an actual "birth plan" goes, well, mine goes something like this:

I want to have a VBAC but if for some reason it becomes necessary to have a c-section then, by all means, do whatever you need to do to get my baby out alive, pink and screaming.  I'm not picky.  I just want a healthy baby.  No, really, I know everyone says that but I mean it.  A healthy baby by whatever method my doctor deems necessary.  Also I would like an epidural.  Thank you very much.
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So there it is; where we are so far in planning for her birth.  I welcome any suggestions or comments from folks who have done this before.  I would especially appreciate any insight from those who have done this before in the wake of a previous loss because I foresee things being really difficult in ways that they would not be for people who haven't had a loss before.

Next up...We're actually getting stuff done: The Nursery Edition.

picnic

Leif and I have developed a habit of grading our weekends together almost every Sunday night as we lay in bed together.  Admittedly they are always good, so we rarely ever have a B weekend but this weekend was extra great. An A, even.  Why?  No particular reason but I think our picnic had something to do with it.  It doesn't happen very often in Los Angeles that one finds oneself in a beautiful park, with pristine weather, and absolutely no one else around.  We had the entire place to ourselves until right before we left when two adorable little pooches and their friendly human came by to say hello.

You will notice the large mound of watermelon.  It has been my only craving this entire pregnancy.  I can eat an entire watermelon by myself in under two days.  I would, if Leif would let me, eat nothing but watermelon for every meal.  Interestingly enough, it was pineapple with George.

I miss drinking coke.  It isn't like a drank a ton of it pre-pregnancy but I still miss it quite a bit.  This "Vintage Cola" -it's vintage and cool and trendy and look at that old-timey label- is pretty tasty though.  Not quite the same as Mexican Coke but pretty close anyway.  It also fits nicely in my oxfords, which are also vintagey!  Who is too cool?

More watermelon!  I got watermelon juice on my shirt by the dubs and it doesn't look like it is coming out.  Bummer.  I liked that shirt.  Oh well, at least that morning I figured out that I could still wear a pre-pregnancy stretchy skirt.  You win one, you lose one.

Meet Paco and Lola.  Lola is the closer one.  Super friendly.  Super shaggy.  I don't normally like little dogs (Except, have you seen Brooke's Little Mac?  He's pretty darn cute too) with all their yip-yappin' but these two lovelies were undeniably cute and surprisingly unbarky.

 Lola really liked Leif...but mostly she liked the smell of the salami that lingered on his fingers.

Yep, it was fun.

How was everyone else's weekend?  Good or at least partly good, I hope.

stupid

I don't really expect random people out in the world to care about the fact that my son died.  I would like them to have some small amount empathy but I don't really expect them to care.  I mean, people are all wrapped up in their own lives and most of the time there isn't a lot of room for anyone else.  I get that, I really do and I can't totally fault them for that.  I'm often guilty of the same thing.

But...

Yesterday someone at work asked me for the third time if this baby was my first.  The first two times she asked I told her, "No, I had a son last year who died right after he was born."  This last time I said "Yup," out loud while in my head I was saying, "Fuck You!"  Is it really that fucking difficult to remember something like someone sharing that they had a child who died?  Really?  I remember that you like to go on a walk everyday at lunch but you can't remember that I've told you twice already that I lost a baby.

Thanks for that, lady.