work in progress

I make an attempt to weave the two together; the time in between and the now.  A need to make them make sense together, somehow, to learn to live in both at once.  My daughter in Chronos.  My son in Kairos.  I hold his pictures and trace his face and at the same time I feel my daughter stretching her life against my breast.  The two seem so very far apart and I wonder how it is ever possible to bring them together, my two children, without having to exclude one or the other.

One so undeniably alive and present.  The other so undeniably dead and missing.

I haven't figured this all out; how to be a good parent to my living child while simultaneously attempting to keep the memory of my dead one from also dying.  Sometimes the thought crosses my mind that I should do just that; let his memory die and go into the same oblivion that he did.  It would be easier to forget and to let the spinning of the world propel me with its forward momentum.  I look at my daughter and often feel the compulsion to clip her brother's name from my tongue when it hangs there, waiting to be said.  As if still longing for him somehow detracts from the love I have for her.  Can I really give all my love to this child wiggling in my lap while sometimes still wanting to live in that in between time when her brother was still alive.  Twenty-four minutes almost 18 months in my past.

There are still many times when I am in the shower when I cry out for him.  I beg and plead to have him back.  For just a day.  For just an hour.  To get to know him in the same way I know his sister.  Not as the sick and dying baby in the sterile operating room or as the cold and still one in the recovery room but as the pink and living baby I hold in my arms now.  A glimpse of what he could have been had things only turned out differently.  I cry out that I want to feed him, to bathe him, to feel him against my skin.

But I keep my cries to myself, mostly.  I fear judgment.  I've always feared judgment from people who maybe think I am hanging on too much or that I need to let go of the past.  I fear people thinking that I am incapable of mothering this living child because I can't tear myself away from the dead one.  I fear people thinking to themselves, "Isn't she over this by now? He wasn't even a real baby yet."  I fear people making a judgment that I must be depressed simply because I still miss my son when in actuality I am very grateful for the life I have with my husband and daughter.  As I said in my last post, they are my light and I know how very fortunate I am to have them lighting up my world.

The fear of judgment isn't totally unfounded as I have come to learn.  I hear the judgment in subtle tones from people we know.  It is often so subtle I don't think those from which it comes even would realize it themselves.

"Now that Clio is here you can move on from the pain of losing George."

I also hear it in the silence.  His name is hardly ever uttered.  I cannot recall the last time someone, other than baby loss parents, asked us how we were dealing with our grief over George since Clio arrived.  Her arrival and his absence are intwined for us in ways that other people just rarely acknowledge.

I fear even writing all this here for the possible judgment that some may have.
She has a living child now, why is she still writing about this?  She should be grateful for her daughter.

I don't want George's death to overshadow the life of his sister.  She is celebrated every moment I am breathing.  I love her completely and I recognize how fortunate I am to have her .  I take not a single cry or fussy moment for granted.  But I also don't want her life to negate the importance of her brother's.  How to keep that from happening I am not sure.  I guess it is just a work in progress.

the laughing heart

Yesterday Leif shared with me a poem by Charles Bukowski.  Seldom does it happen that I come across a piece of writing that strikes me so deeply to the core that I feel like I must memorize it so as to never forget its message.


The Laughing Heart 


your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.


Over the last two weeks I have felt much of that darkness again, not that it ever entirely left.  Having Clio here has been magical but it has also crystalized for me what exactly was taken away from us when George died and that has been difficult for me to internalize again.  I just miss him so very much and can't really fathom how I will never have him again.


Yet this poem has helped to remind me that I can choose to live out my days in the darkness of circumstance or I can choose to look for the light, wherever it may come from.  The darkness will always be my companion but I choose whether or not to let it consume me.  As Clio grows up I want to share with her the existence of her brother so that from his story and ours she will learn that even in the darkest moments of her life -and surely there will be moments that seem black as night- there will always be at least a small shimmer of light, even when it feels like all of the light in the world has been stolen away.  


And surely there is so much light.
My Leif. 
My Clio.  

My life is my life and I will know it while I have it.

afternoon nap

Clio is asleep, probably dreaming of flashing colors and lights; a shadow puppet show.

She is a rag doll after she eats, completely devoid of any concern at all. Peaceful.  A floppy doll with a milky face.

So beautiful.  So exhausting.  So perfect.  So worth it all.  

I watch her and can't help but find my mind drifting over the chasm of the absence of her brother.  I search for familiarity in her features.  I beg to see her brother there too.  My heart swells with love for my children and the tears flow in streams for missing the one who will always be forever gone.  

My babies.  My loves.  

she's finally here

About five hours after I wrote that last post I went into labor.  I woke up with mild and erratic contractions a little after midnight on Saturday, August 13th but within three hours they were coming every five minutes so we decided to head over to the hospital fully expecting that they would dissipate like they always have.

As it turned out they did not go away...

Our daughter was born wiggly and squealing later that same day after about twenty hours of labor and two and half hours of pushing.  She was 8 pounds 4 ounces and 21.5 inches long.

Right now we are all adjusting to having her home with us.  I'm having a rough start to breast feeding (ouch) and with the recovery from a pretty severe tear during the VBAC (ouch and ouch).  Leif is doing such a great job helping me, as well as doing the lion's share of work with our sweet girl.

We are completely smitten with her and every tiny little thing that she does.  Seeing her makes every doubt, every fear, every pain well worth it a thousand times over.

Clio Irene

August 13, 2011

Thank you all so much for the support you have given me.  Truly, I am so grateful for every one of you who has been with us throughout this journey with George and to get his little sister here safe and sound.  We only wish that we could have them both with us...

which way to go

I'm having a difficult time here, friends.  I do not want another c-section, I really don't.  It is not as if I have anything against them I just really wanted this shot at having a conventional labor and delivery. I have this vision in my mind of her being born and getting her plopped on my chest all pink and screaming, Leif by my side as amazed as I am.  You know, the exact opposite of our experience with George.  The closer we get to August 16th the less likely it seems like that is going to happen for us. Aside from some erratic contractions each morning that seem to fade away after an hour or so, I don't feel as if we've made any progress.  She is still sitting super high, just under my ribs, and I am wondering if she will ever drop.  Until she does it seems unlikely that I can dilate that much without the pressure of her head to move the process along.  No dilation means no induction.

Of course, then there is the added pressure of knowing that if I have another c-section it pretty much locks me into one for the next pregnancy, should there be one.  That really sucks too.

The thing is that it isn't as if I have to get a c-section at this point. It would not be an issue for me at all if I had to have one but right now I don't.  I don't have a breech baby.  She isn't in any apparent distress. I'm a good candidate for a successful VBAC and my doctor feels comfortable waiting to see how things go on their own as long as I start getting non-stress tests twice a week.  But I am terrified of waiting.  So, so scared that something bad will happen.  Being part of a community of people who have had their babies die you begin to see all the ways in which tragedy occurs.

I keep thinking, what if I decide to wait for things to go on their own and there is a cord accident?  What then?  Or what if something happens during delivery?  These things happen, sadly.  Most of us know this from personal experience.

So I guess I'm looking for your opinions.  If you have lost a baby late in pregnancy and were term with a subsequent pregnancy, how long would you wait after forty weeks before inducing (if that was possible) or doing a c-section?  A week?  Two weeks?  Would you even wait until forty weeks or try to get the baby out earlier?

We just want her to get here alive and healthy and maybe I am tempting fate by putting too much emphasis on the method in which that happens.  I wish I had some sort of guarantee about how this is all going to turn out...

being sick sucks

Getting sick when you're 38 weeks and 6 days pregnant is no joke.  In fact, it lands you in Labor and Delivery getting IV rehydration while watching cable television.

I'll spare you all the gory details but let me just say that I started feeling sick early yesterday morning and it quickly progressed into a full blown stomach bug by mid-morning.  By mid-afternoon I was on the phone with my OB and she was telling me to go to the hospital for fluids, since I was completely unable to even keep water down, and for monitoring since I hadn't felt the baby moving quite as much as normal.  By the time I got to the hospital it had only been twelve hours since I started feeling sick but because I was so dehydrated already they had an incredibly difficult time finding a usable vein to start the IV.  First the nurse gave it a try, then the nurse anesthetist tried, and finally they had to call in the anesthesiologist to get it going.

Of course, we ended up being placed in a room two doors down from the room where we held George after he died.  The rooms all look identical and before we were even inside I was crying, remembering that short amount of time we had with him.  I don't mean to sound dramatic but it was pretty horrible.  Possibly if I was there under different circumstances it would have been less traumatizing but as it was, being there sick and somewhat concerned about this baby, I had a difficult time for the first hour or so. It was impossible not to allow myself to go back to the afternoon of March 31st, 2010 and visualize everything that happened.

We did not have to stay long, only about five hours or so.  At first the baby's heart rate was on the higher end of normal but as soon as they got the fluids flowing her rate fell back to her normal and stayed that way. At one point I was having pretty consistent mild contractions three minutes apart but, again, as I started getting rehydrated they tapered off.  In some ways it would have been nice to just be admitted and get this party started but really I am glad to have the time to come home and recoup my energy.

At my appointment with my OB this morning she said that because I had an elevated white blood count she thinks that I most likely picked up a virus, either through food or someone else, although no one else I've been around has been sick.  I'm just that lucky, I guess.  At this point I am feeling better but I still have some of the same, albeit milder, symptoms I was having yesterday.  Mostly I've been sleeping and trying to drink as much water as possible.  Oh, and eating dry Cheerios, that seems to be working fairly well for me.

Also, in other unfortunate news, my cervix is still closed.  I was really bummed about that because I had hoped that the contractions last night had at least caused some movement in the right direction towards getting labor underway.  Not so much.  Sometime this week my OB will be calling us to schedule our appointment for the c-section for next week.  I had my heart set on trying for a VBAC but Leif and I are terrified of waiting until after her due date for too long and if my cervix remains closed they cannot induce me because of my previous c-section scar.  As each day crawls by my anxiety about a cord accident and/or a failing placenta climbs.  We could continue to wait, getting NSTs and ultrasounds twice a week after 40 weeks but I'm not sure that my (or Leif's) anxiety can handle that.

As for now we wait and hope that my body starts to make a move on its own sometime this week.

Please body, get a move on, please, please, please.

wakefulness

Hello 3:30 AM, nice to see you again.  It used to be that we only briefly saw each other in passing on my way to the bathroom and on your way to being 3:31 AM but not so anymore.  We've become much more intimately acquainted than I had ever hoped to be, although you certainly have your charms.  You're quiet; no incessantly yapping dogs outside.  You're cool; I'm not sweating profusely just sitting in your company.  You're peaceful; there isn't much to do besides be with my thoughts.   So you certainly have your charms but still, I'd rather be sleeping next to my husband right now instead of sitting on the couch writing about a time of day as if it was something animate.

I know I am beating a dead horse with this whole insomnia topic.  You get it world wide web (and I mean all twenty-something of you out there who read this on a regular basis), I am having trouble sleeping.  It isn't like I'm the first person in the world to suffer from this condition.  If you Google "Famous Insomniacs" you come up with quite an interesting list of people and an even more interesting list of home remedies.  Most remedies included the use of some "medicinal" aid such as sleeping pills (modern version and method of choice for most celebrity insomniacs) or a camphor-soaked pillow, as was the case with Vincent Van Gogh.   Poor Vince.  But my favorite remedy by far was the one purportedly employed by early 20th century actress Tallulah Blankhead (Never heard of her?  Me neither, had to look her up on Wikipedia.  Good ol' Wikipedia, has the answers to most questions in life.  Surprisingly enough though, no answer on how to keep me personally from having insomnia).  She hired "gay caddies" to sit with her and hold her hand until she fell asleep.  Personally, I love this novel approach but I'm not sure that it would work for me as I am too much of a hostess at heart.  I'd be asking my caddy every five minutes if I could get him/her a cold beverage. Besides our bed is too small for this kind of method.  We only have a queen size.  Maybe when we have a bedroom large enough to accommodate a King size this method will be one to revisit.  However, I can only hope by that time in the future I will have whipped this current state of sleeplessness.

I am not really the type to be super productive either during these stretches of sleeplessness, which if I were it would probably make this insomnia easier to bear.  I use the excuse that Leif is sleeping in the next room over but honestly, he's a pretty heavy sleeper and I could probably make a fair amount of noise before he would wake up.  Instead I like to lay awake, staring into the darkness of our bedroom until I can't take the boredom anymore, or the increasing sense of nausea from low blood sugar.  Then I relocate to the couch where I inevitably open up a new post for this blog, write for about an hour, save as draft (usually never to be published), and then walk myself back to the bedroom (with one stop at the bathroom for good measure) where I, again, lay awake for a significant amount of time thinking about God Knows What.

When I ask my patients, most of whom are over the age of seventy, how they are sleeping I would say the majority of them have some degree of insomnia, which for most human beings is an inevitable result of the aging process.  The older we get and the less energy we expend during the day, the less sleep we require at night.  But more so than the physiological aspect of insomnia I think its cause stems from the simple fact that the older we get the less simple our lives become.  Family issues, financial woes, work stresses...The space in the brain they occupy slowly spreads out and makes it more difficult to find a tiny corner of the mind to occupy at night in order to fall asleep that isn't also occupied by some of these stressors.

For me it is difficult, at times*, to find the headspace that isn't occupied by thoughts of WORST CASE SCENARIO with the birth of this baby.  My sister asked me the other day when she kindly came to visit in order to show me how to use the breast pump, if I thought that being around other people (and I am assuming she meant virtually and physically) who have suffered the loss of a baby was helpful or detrimental.  Well, I assume that was what she was asking because I think she was having a hard time getting the question out as she did not want to sound judgmental (she didn't).  My answer, probably equally as indecipherable, was the equivalent of a shoulder shrug.  Yes, it is helpful to be around people who understand that it is perfectly acceptable to bring up the subject of George even if I don't broach the topic first (God, it is tiresome to feel the burden of having to always be the one who mentions him because others are afraid that if they talk about him it will send me into convulsions of sadness).  Yes, it is helpful to be around people who have more of an understanding of what this experience is like.  No, it is not always helpful to be so keenly aware of just how many ways bad things can happen to an unborn baby.  There is truth in the saying, "Ignorance is bliss."

But not every bought of insomnia I have has to do with ruminating over all the possible bad shit that can happen before, during and after this baby is born.  More often than not I think it excitement that has me up a 3:30 AM (now 4:52 AM).  I am truly excited to meet this baby in less than two weeks.  I often wonder what she looks like (hopefully just like her dad except with my nose because a Hanson nose, although very distinguished on a man, is no nose for a girl) or what her temperament will be (also, hopefully like her dad who is on the whole much more mellow than I am).  Mostly I hope that she likes me.  I really, really, really hope that she likes me.

I think as close to a remedy for insomnia as I am ever going to get (at least one that doesn't involve ambien, lunesta or "gay caddies") is to stare at this computer screen and to write.  It may never see the figurative light of day but at least it isn't taking up valuable space in my brain and hopefully that means I can curl up in the newly empty area and make a go at falling back asleep.

I think at 5:06 AM,  it is time to give this whole sleeping thing another shot.

*Just a little note of reassurance here that I do not, in fact, obsess about this pregnancy ending badly.  I generally have a pretty positive outlook on how things are going and do not fixate on the possibility of lightening striking twice.  I have hope and I wanted to make sure anyone out there reading, whether family and friends or other baby loss people contemplating having a go at a subsequent pregnancy, knows that I really, truly am hopeful.