reclaimed; this box, my life, and George's death

Recently Leif and I were given an amazing hand-crafted box made from reclaimed wood made by our dear friend Josh.  It was made specifically for George and his initials are burned into the side- G.E.H.  It is a place for the few things in this world that are exclusively his; baby blankets knitted with love from grandmothers, ink prints of tiny feet, three photographs of his little face.  We had no special place for these things. They were stashed in a cabinet that has since become his sister's wardrobe and in a plastic bin stuffed in our closet.  When we mentioned this to Josh he offered to make something special to house George's things.  Special is what it certainly turned out to be.

In the days since it has been in our home I have traced the outline of his initials a dozen times.  G.E.H.  A gift for my son.

I am so incredibly grateful for the box.  For Josh and for Kari.  For their living daughter Stella, and for the one I never met, Margot.  Rarely in life do you find friends such as these.  Rarely in life do meet people who are just so fucking cool.

For a long time after George died all I wanted to do was clothe myself in grief and live in the shadow of his death.  It was the only way I knew how to feel close to him.  I couldn't imagine ever finding, let alone admitting to finding, positive things in my life that came as a result from his death.  How could anything good come from something so terrible and tragic as bearing witness to the death of my son?  But there were positive things, even then.  In the saddest days there were seeds of beauty being sewn into my life solely because he had died.  Now I find myself collecting and cultivating those beautiful things in the hopes that they make his existence add up to more than the 292,320 minutes he lived inside of my womb and the mere 24 he lived outside.

Nineteen months later those seeds are blooming everywhere in my life.  The strength of my marriage.  The little girl Clio who just yesterday learned how to roll over.  The deep sense of empathy I have for others in the midst of tragedy.  The strength of character I now have.  The bonds of friendship I have developed with people like Josh and Kari.  This human, the one who now occupies this more wrinkled and faded skin, is a direct descendent of his life and death.  I am who I am because he was who he was.

I miss George every day.  His absence still hurts and I don't think that will ever completely go away.  His death was ugly but my life from his death is beautiful and for that I am grateful.

welcome to the club

Some days I feel like an ordinary mother.  I go about my day as any other parent of an infant does; kiss her, change her, kiss her, feed her, kiss her, burp her, kiss her, dress her, kiss her, play with her, kiss her, put her down for a nap...you get my point.

Other days I'm reminded that I am not totally just an ordinary mother.  I'm also the parent of a dead baby.  I'm someone who knows too much about the subject of death and grief and infant loss.  I'm someone who knows what it is like to be completely incomplete.  I'm someone who misses her child with a wild intensity that few other people can ever truly understand.

Yesterday was one of those days...

The newborn sister of one of the toddlers at Clio's daycare died over the weekend.  It wasn't unexpected as she was born with a genetic issue that is considered "not compatible with life."  In fact, the parents had fully expected her to be stillborn but they made the choice to carry her to term anyway, a decision I can relate to since Leif and I basically made the same one after we had exhausted most of the medical interventions available to us.  But the baby surprised them all by being born alive and then staying alive for three weeks or so.  From what I understand -I have never met these parents so all of this is secondhand information- they were able to take her home from the hospital and spend those weeks together as a family.

Leif let me know as soon as I got home from work yesterday and I was immediately back in those early days after George died.  The despair, the chaos, the helplessness...I could easily imagine everything that these people are probably feeling.  And I thought to myself when I heard the news, now they are some of our people- the parents of a dead baby.  New members of one of the saddest clubs in existence.

I am trying to decide if, when and how I should reach out to this couple. I don't want to overstep my bounds as I have never met them.  Hell, I don't even know their names.  Do I give them a list of resources; online forums, grief support groups, my phone number?  Do I send them a card via the sitter?


"So very sorry for the loss of your baby.  Welcome to the club."

The Parental Bereavement Act of 2011 (S 1358)

Please take a moment to sign this petition in support of the Parental Bereavement Act of 2011.  Under the current wording of the Family and Medical Leave Act parents who experience the death of a child are not granted federally protected time off for bereavement.  This is, in my opinion, terribly egregious.

When George died Leif could only take two weeks off before he had to return to work.  I was left at home by myself for another week (until I myself had to return to school) to cry, curled up in a little ball in our bedroom, while Leif had to function like a normal person at work every day.  The fact that the death of a child isn't already included in this piece of legislature just goes to show how those of us who experience something like this are often marginalized in our society.

I ask those of you who are U.S. citizens, even if you have never experienced this type of loss yourself, to take a moment to sign this petition in the effort to give voice to those of us who so often feel invisible.  When filling out the petition I would also ask you to write a brief note to urge the addition of verbiage to the bill to include stillbirth as well, as this seems like a large oversight in its current form.

If you are reading here and have a blog, whether it is about the death of a child or not, perhaps you could help pass on the word as well.  Finally, I ask that you send this to your family and friends and also ask for their support by signing this petition.

This is what I wrote when I signed the petition:

Last year my son died twenty-four minutes after he was born. We loved him as much as anyone loves a child who they were able to bring home from the hospital. We grieved, and continue to grieve for him as any parent would grieve the loss of a child. In order to stay home with me after our son died, my husband had to use up his sick leave and vacation time. It would have been tremendous for him to be able to stay home for more time than he did. To have bereavement leave added to the FMLA would be a kindness to those experiencing the most tragic of all losses. I would also urge the amending of this bill to include bereavement leave for the stillbirth of a child as well.

http://www.petition2congress.com/3937/go

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off to work i go

What is that word to describe how you feel when you have to do something you really don't want to do?  Oh yeah, shitty... or dreadful, as in, full of dread.  Yes, I am feeling shitty and pretty full of dread right about now because come Monday morning I am back at work.

I don't think I would feel quite the way I do if I was going back to a job that I actually loved but that is most certainly not the case.  It was a huge and very costly mistake going into the profession I did.  I thought even if I didn't love what I was doing I would have great job security and I would at least kind of like it.  But aside from talking with my patients there isn't a single aspect of medicine that I like.  None.  How sad is that?  It isn't as if I can do something different at this point either.  My student loans are just too much to chuck what I am doing and go do something that would make me happy.  I simply make too much money doing this to give it up at this point.  If my soul wasn't tethered to Sallie Mae I would gladly never write another prescription in my life.

I guess I just have to look on the bright side of all this.  My coworkers are really great, I'll only be working three days a week, and, most importantly, we found day care for Clio that we feel confident in.  That has always been my biggest concern when it comes to going back to work; who will be taking care of Clio.  Ideally she would be with her grandparents but neither set lives close enough to make that possible so we had to settle on finding a day care to place her in.  Luckily, we did find someone that really like and trust, which has helped somewhat with the anxiety of leaving her.

Still, the thought of leaving Clio with a stranger, even one we like, three days a week while I spend twelve hours a day working a job that I don't care for is excruciating.  My heart literally feels like a lead brick in my chest.  If it is possible to preemptively miss someone then I am preemptively missing her.  Even when she is fussing and I haven't had an adult conversation all day I still am so happy to just be near her.  I am so very in love with her and so, so grateful that she is alive and thriving.   I cannot get enough of her.

Everyday she is learning something new and it kills me to think that someone else is going to see new things she does before me.  She is MINE -at least until she is old enough to be her own- and I want to be the one to take care of her.  But it just isn't possible and...now I've made myself cry.   

Already she is smiling so much and she is getting really close to being able to laugh.  Just two days ago she started to purposefully grasp for things on her play gym.  One day her arms were flailing around and literally the next day she was trying to grab for things.  She isn't very good at it yet but it is exciting to watch her develop new skills.  I just can't believe how much information is processed in that little, big head of hers every day.  She's amazing to me.

Any words of advice on how to make the transition from being at home with her everyday to going back to work easier (both for her and for me) is greatly appreciated because right now I feel pretty shitty and pretty dreadful.

searching for fall

Last year as the weather cooled and the fog started to settle in I can remember having the frequent desire to stop the march of summer into fall. It was the inevitable approach of the holidays that made me feel like the air was being sucked out of my lungs.  I used to love the fall and all the holidays that it brought along with it but last year was different.  All the things I loved about the season had morphed into all the things I hated about the season.

This morning I woke up and for the first time this year it felt like fall. The air had a crispness to it so that as I made my transition from the warmth of my bed to the living room couch to drink coffee and eat cereal, I had to pull our wool blanket around my shoulders.  Outside it was so foggy and misty that I could barely make out the outline of the houses on the hill below us.  It just felt like the corner from summer into fall had finally been turned.

With the feeling that fall was finally here came a tiny flicker of apprehension as well.  A little spark of anxiety that made me wonder how I was going to feel through these next few months as Halloween and Thanksgiving, and then the big one- Christmas, come barreling down the pipeline.  These holidays are rich with themes of family and togetherness and celebration; all themes that seem to emphasize George's absence.

Like I do every day, this morning I put Clio in the carrier, kissed her on her sweet little head, and we went for a walk around our neighborhood. Usually I just space out listening to music while Clio sleeps but this morning my mind wondered to George and what going on a walk would be like with him if he had miraculously lived instead of died that March day.  He would be nineteen months old now, old enough to be interested in all the things I would point out during our walk; red-orange leaves on the ground, spiderwebs outlined in dew drops, Halloween pumpkins and plastic skeletons hanging on fences...

Thinking about George this morning made my chest ache but it also made me smile a little bit too.  A fair haired boy with big blue eyes, wide in amazement and excitement, dressed in corduroy pants and a striped sweater. He would have loved this time of year, I'm sure of it.  Sometimes George is still alive in my imagination and sometimes it feels good to visit him there.

With the holidays approaching, how is everyone feeling?  Will you be including your missing child in your holiday traditions?  Are the holidays making you feel anxious or are they making you feel hopeful?

community does it better

Does anyone watch Community?  In my opinion, the best comedy -maybe the best television show of any kind- on air right now.  The episode last night was called Remedial Chaos Theory and it was exactly what I was just writing about in my last post.  Only it was better written and really, really funny, especially if you watch the show on a regular basis.  If you have access to Hulu I highly suggest spending 21 minutes of your life watching it.

You can find it here.

P.S. The actor who plays Chang used to be a doctor, which I think is really weird.  Also, it gives me hope that one day I can be something other than a slave to practicing medicine.

chaos theory

My university calculus professor was a poet.  Actually, he was a mathematician, a poet, and a philosopher all rolled into one grandfatherly type of a man.  I used to stay after class, nearly every session, and talk to him about philosophy and poetry, it was the only liberal arts education this science-oriented student was getting at the time.  In every other aspect of my academics I was eye ball deep in equations and periodic tables but I could talk to him about a haiku or the presence (or absence) of free will for ages.

But this isn't really about Grandfather Jerry.  This is about math and philosophy.  Grandfather Jerry just happened to be the person who I heard from for the first time that mathematics and philosophy are not really all that different from each other.  As odd as it may sound one needs a mind capable of thinking in the abstract to be good with numbers as well as to be good at expounding upon the great questions of life.  Someone who can excel in mathematics can certainly find a home in philosophical studies as well.

One place where math and philosophy intersect is in a concept called Chaos Theory.  The briefest technical explanation of this theory is that an outcome of a system is highly sensitive to its initial conditions.   Or to clarify, a small change in the initial condition of a system can lead to dramatic changes to the system on a long-term, grand scale.  The briefest non-technical explanation of Chaos Theory is what happens at the beginning, no matter how seemingly insignificant, can and will have a large effect on the eventual outcome of a situation.  Most people know Chaos Theory as The Butterfly Effect.  You know, a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and three weeks later and a continent away a hurricane is born.

In math, Chaos Theory is used to describe situations in which small miscalculations like those inherent in rounding numbers for computation lead to different outcomes.  One person rounds one way and another rounds the other and in complicated mathematical equations they will each get a hugely different outcome.  In philosophy, the theory plays out much in the same way but instead of a numerical figure you are looking at the progression of a life based on a few (or a hundred, or a thousand, or a million...I think you get my point) events that have shaped the course of said life.

Chaos Theory is what makes prediction nearly impossible.   There is no telling how minuscule variables will effect the overall outcome.  Numbers, life, whatever, there is no predicting.

I certainly could never have predicted that I would be here at thirty-two years old, married and the mother of two children; one dead and the other currently napping peacefully in her crib.

Looking back it is easy to see how circumstance or certain choices I've made have shaped my life to where I am now.  For instance, I can trace the origins of my marriage back to a fight that I had with my friend Natalie when we were only nineteen years old, five years before I even met Leif.  A million other little decisions during those five years made it so that when we did finally meet we were both single and, eventually, in the place in our lives where we were able to fall in love.

On a deeper level I can see how a myriad of seemingly innocuous events, decisions, and circumstances ultimately led to George's conception and death.  From the particular time Leif and I had sex; a moment earlier or later and who knows what sperm would have fertilized that egg.  Who knows, we may have conceived a completely different baby who had no health issues at all.  Or the moment I sat in a parking garage rescheduling the ultrasound that would eventually reveal George's rapid heart rate.  That appointment was originally scheduled a week earlier and for some reason I can no longer recall I made the decision to push it back seven days.  Maybe if I had kept that original appointment we would have caught the condition early enough that the medication would have saved his life.  On the other hand, maybe the appointment would have been a day or two before his heart sped up and it would not have been caught at all until I developed the Mirror Syndrome and became seriously ill.  Or simply, one day I could have walked into the OB's office only to have her tell me that our baby's heart had stopped.

But none of those things happened.  Instead Leif and I conceived George and I made the appointment when I did.  It all led to George dying, and, something I've just come to grips with, Clio's existence.  This, folks, has been a hard pill for me to swallow.  We waited to try and conceive the second time around because I could not come to terms with the idea that a subsequent child would only be alive because George was dead.  Originally we had planned on waiting six to nine months after our first child was born to try to conceive the next and so in my mind if we waited that amount of time after George died we would still be sticking to our plan.  I wanted to pretend that in some reality, somewhere, had different choices been made, I would have all my babies with me.  George and Clio.

In reality, though, Clio is currently sleeping peacefully in her crib because George is dead.  Had George lived I would have been ovulating on a different schedule, and even if I was ovulating on the same schedule chances are that Leif and I would not have had sex at the exact same time on the exact same day.  Things would have gone down a different path.  I never even would have known the possibility of her existence.

But that is all history, so to speak.  What happens next, the rest of Clio's story and my own, there is no predicting.  The other children I will have, the people we will meet and interact with, the person Clio will marry, the kids she will have...all of their lives different because one little baby boy's heart beat too fast.

It's all a crazy mind fuck.  It is all just a web of chance interactions. It is all just chaos.