this is not what i had planned

1460

2011-09-01T00:08:00.000-07:00

No cemetary, no grave, no hilltop or ocean to call your own. Just a shelf in my bedroom and, today, a table front in the entryway, that say you were here.

There is always a lull in the days before this day. Your sister's birthday falls a mere 3 days before yours and so the weeks before are filled with plans for parties, very important discussions of what kind of cake and what special meal will make her day feel uniquely hers and fill her with all things a young lady should have on the day that marks her entry into this life she has lived.

And we celebrate her.

And then the quiet. Eventhough it is a mere 72 hours later, even today, as I saw the date, August 31, I still found myself stunned.

It's tomorrow, I say to myself. A quick glance at my cell and I see that it is the 31st, and still I am somehow stunned. It's tomorrow.

And now it's today.

Today marks the beginning of another year I will live without you. Today marks the end of the fourth year that I have lived without you.

Today marks the fourth year that you have not lived the life you should have had.

Today marks the one. thousand. four. hundred. sixty. days. that I have missed you and the life you should have had. The life we should have spent, together.

No parties, no cake, no meal of all your favorite things, I can't give you any of those things. There is no way to to show you how unique you are or how you changed our world. How you continue to change our world. There is just the quiet.

There is just Today.

Today I will light a candle, I will trace my fingers over your name on the plate that reads, "Tiny fingers hold onto me, in my heart you will always be", and I will marvel over how you and your numbered days changed me forever.

Today I will stop. Today I will hurt. Today I will ache. Today I will cry. Today I will miss you.

And in that way, today will not be like any other day.

Except that

Today

is your day.

I love you baby boy. I love you Caleb.

Three

2010-09-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Once there was a way to get back homeward
Once there was a way to get back home
Sleep pretty darling do not cry
And I will sing a lullabye
Golden slumbers fill your eyes
Smiles awake you when you rise
Sleep pretty darling do not cry
And I will sing a lullabye
Once there was a way to get back homeward
Once there was a way to get back home
Sleep pretty darling do not cry
And I will sing a lullabye

And in the end, the love you make is equal to the love you take.

I am still here. You are still gone.

I love you Caleb and I will miss you forever.

In which 'them' = 'us'

2010-06-25T00:53:00.000-07:00

She was one of them.

She had other kids, both younger than mine and at the same time, the same age as mine. She was visibly pg with her third, when I was only hoping I might be pg with my fourth...after. She wore her pregnancy as a favorite old discarded t-shirt. She threw it on without any thought. It just was. She barked out orders to her other two kids, she was annoyed by their complaints, as much as she was committed, to her Turrets afflicted son's inclusion into all things 'normal'. She grew her hair long and then cut it off for kids with cancer, and no one really knew, unless you knew her. She wasn't overly friendly, in fact, to be honest, I never really got her. She seemed distant, and uninterested in anything or anyone other than her kids.

For the last four years, I saw her and her growing family, on a daily basis because her kids and mine, swim on the same team. We've never been introduced, we are not BFF's., but we know each other, if only for the hours we spend on 'deck', watching our kids swim. But, we don't talk. Beyond the regular "Hey," and "Hi" and "What's new?"...not a whole lot.

Then, she has a baby, a daughter, when I am half way through my pg with Cason. She literally delivers her daughter and then hours, maybe a day or two later, walks into a swim meet, baby Emily, tucked into a sling across her chest. I hated her. Because it all came too easily. For everything good she did, I would watch her with her kids and think, WTF!? She isn't a lifetime/Hallmark movie mom. She yells at them, she ignores them, she dismisses them. But, she mother's them. Her way. Her choice.

Months later, my mom fills in for me, taking kids to practice, after Cason is born. She comments on 'the mom'. I am so out of it, I can only tell mom, "Yeah, she's different.". My mom tells me that all the other moms are talking about how this mom and baby Emily are going to be on T.V. because she knows how to swim at less than a year old...

Come Spring, Cason tucked into his stroller, baby Emily is walking around the pool deck, un assisted. The collective group of moms help to watch her as her mom tends to her older brother and sister. I remember, so clearly, an afternoon last summer, when Emily had climbed underneath the bleachers beyond our eyesight, her mom, in a voice of sheer panic, screamed "Where is she?!" I knew where she was and told her, she's here, she's right here.

She scooped her up and took her away, never looking back at me.

And so our parallel lives continued. At the last swim meet I took all the kids to, end of last summer, Cason and Emily hung out together. It wasn't a love connection, but it was a peek into the world of, "hey, you(Cason) can have a play date while you are stuck in the middle of the aquatic hell your older sibs have rained down on you...) kind of moment.

My daughter, the one who required me to sit poolside, quit, swim, last September. So I no longer had to sit poolside. My son still swims. Swam all winter, all Spring. I am 'good' friends with many of the moms who sit poolside, but not good enough that we kept in contact with each other when my deck time was halted.

My daughter started up again last month. I am back on deck. Hanging out with the same moms, talking about what I did while away, what they did, what the kids are up to. Regular bull shit. Didn't see the other mom or her kids. Last week I did. Didn't really pay much attention. The other day her eldest(8 or 9) came stomping across the deck to yell at her mother that she was being put in a group with kids who DON"T KNOW HOW TO SWIM!! while yelling she also accidentally let some spit fly right into her mom's face. Mom yelled back. After it was over I told her, boy I see trouble in your future. I feel for you cuz I'll be there too. She kinda laughed, we did the casual chat thing and it was over.

She's been there all week, with just the older kids. Dad must be taking care of Emily now that summer is here. But it felt off to me. Yesterday, she was sitting next to me in a tube top like dress. She got up to go do something and I saw it. On her left shoulder blade, about the size of a greeting card, a precious moments angel tattoo, the angel is holding a banner that reads, "Emily".

What to do. What to do. What to do. I wish I could tell you that I manned up and asked her. But I didn't. I asked the one mom who I am friends with who was also there yesterday(everyone else is on vacation). I told her I hadn't seen the baby and now I saw this tattoo. Did she die? Yes. She. Died. Bathtub. Drowning. She doesn't know very much. I need to talk to my other friend when she gets back. She knows what happened and when.

I am lost. I am now one of 'them'. I have what she does not. Cason is a shadow baby. And I don't know what to do. I mean I know what to do, but I am afraid of it. I will do it. Because I know what it feels like when people ignore your dead baby. I know what it feels like to sit next to me and be forced to see what you no longer have. I know what it feels like to hate me. And I know what it feels like to lose your child.

My heart is broken for that family. For that beautiful little girl who did not live to see her 2nd birthday.

And now, her mother, she is one of us.

Words...unspoken....Published

2010-06-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

If you'd asked me back in September of 2007 or in the months that followed, what I hoped for my future, I don't know if I could have answered the question. At least not wholly. I might, on any given day, have answered, "To have it all go away." or "To have another baby." or "To be in a place where it doesn't HURT all the God Damn Time." or "To be in a place where I can talk openly and no one will judge." or "To be able to take this whole nightmare and find a way...out." or "To not be DEFINED by this, forever." Or some variation of one of those answers.
On any given day, after you birth your dead baby, I think any one of those sentiments may find itself flittering around your brain. They did mine. I never knew from one moment to the next which one would show up, but I knew one of them would.
And then I found this place.
The writing that followed once I set up shop here, was sometimes bad I am sure, hopefully sometimes good, but always, always, honest. And it helped me, more than any words I could ever hope to conjure up or pluck from the sky will ever be able to tell. But I imagine, for anyone who has been to hell and is fighting their way back, you know what I mean.

So I am profoundly humbled to share the news that sometime last year I was asked to contribute to a work in progress, a book that was being built, piece by piece, story by story, that would offer to others, what this place here, offered to me. Real life. And hope.
I did contribute as did many others, from very different perspectives, and this book, it is going to be published! Come November, "They Were Still Born" will become a reality.

I am but a small part of this project but am so damn proud to be there. The writing of my part was hard. Much harder than I thought or even anticipated it would be. (And I have no doubt that the makers of all things alcoholic are very grateful for that.) All (well, if any are left) who read here who pick up the book will know my real identity. I ask for your help in maintaining my privacy here. I kept my blog name out of the 'biography' for me so that should I decide to share this news with my IRL family and friends, they won't be able to find this place, my place, of refuge.

I don't know what the finished product will hold. I have only read a handful of the other contributors pieces, but I have great hope for it and for its place as another valuable resource for all of those who have joined our club.

2010-05-16T22:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, so FINALLY, after almost 18 months, he's decided to walk. Apparently, the hold up was all about how to take 'bear' with him. Now that he's got that all figured out, all systems seem to be "GO".

ETA...the pic seems small, so just in case, 'bear', clenched in teeth...feet almost firmly planted...world, look out:0)

T-Shirts Anyone?

2010-04-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

Cara at Building Heavenly Bridges is gearing up for SHARE Southern Vermont's second annual Memory Walk. They have created a beautiful T-Shirt for the event. The shirts are available for purchase on her site.

Go over and have a look. I'll bet you don't leave without picking up one (or more) for yourself:)

I left with 5!

Just in case anyone is actually still checking in here, I have many posts in the queue but just haven't been able to get them finished. I hope to have something new to contribute, soon.

Hoppy Easter

2010-04-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

But, if you really want some serious Easter Hilarity, hop over to Aunt Becky's place. She cooked up some of her own, personalized greeting cards. Hallmark, watch your ass, she's gonna kick it, hard. Here's my favorite:

My little Leprechaun

2010-03-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

In my mind, today is Cason's birthday. Yes, he was born on November 17th, 9 months from this date, but this date, March 17, St. Patrick's Day, this is the one where he was born in my dreams. This date was the date I found out he was a possibility. And even though I spent the next nine months biting my nails, closing my eyes to shut out the ever present fear and crying, lots of that, I still, at some point almost every day would allow myself to hope, that maybe, just maybe, a live baby was coming.

And he did.

And we named him Cason Patrick, because on March 17th, he, my very own little leprechaun, planted a tiny fleck of hope in my oh so weary heart, enough to begin to chase the snakes that had taken up residence there away and for the first time in months I began to dare to imagine that I really didn't know how the whole story was going to end. And that maybe, just maybe, a new chapter was beginning.

And as luck would have it, I did indeed, catch me a leprechaun.

The name game

2010-03-11T22:03:00.000-08:00

I was always in charge of finding names for our kids. I had my first sons name chosen, (almost) before he was born. Way before. Yes, I was one of those idiot types who picks out names for my imaginary kids long before they ever came to fruition. Hell, long before the guarantee of a second date was even in the picture. I look back at that version of self and both ridicule and stand in awe of my utter optimism.

But.

That being said, as time marched on and after the marriage thing and my fertility, our fertility, seemed to check out ok, I was in charge of the lists. Then we would go over the names and when we agreed, bingo.

First C., like I said, I had it all picked out. It was a favorite name of mine, uncommon, I never wanted to name a baby a name that I associated with anyone else, it was not easily turned into a nickname or shortened into something else and when I put my dad's name in the middle, they worked together. The husband liked the sound of it and the baby complied by being a boy, so we got our C.

Next up, C2. Not on purpose. I never intended to be a 'all my kids names start with the same letter' sort of parent. But we have an odd last name and the hard C or K sound flows well with it. We do like names that are unusual. Neither of us wanted our kids to be John H, or John W, etc in class. We had two great names ready for baby 2. I was really, really pulling for a girl because I so loved the girl name we had chosen. And we got to use it. I love saying it. I love hearing it. I love seeing the quizzical looks on peoples faces when they hear it. She carries a unique first name and my favorite grandma's nickname as a middle name which is also, to say the least, unusual. But it suits her. It's perfect.

We had only just decided on a name for 'the baby', at least a boy's name, the week before we lost him. It was another unusual first name. A "C" name and then the middle name was the last name of a very close friend who had died a few years before.

When we were told that our baby had died we were asked if we would want to name 'it'. We still didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl. We both, without even talking about it, said no, it will be "Baby _" fill in last name initial. And that was how we left things. Even after he was born, after I asked, "Is it a boy?" and the nurse said, "Yes, did you know?" (confirming my suspicions that indeed he was, a boy). We told her that on the birth certificate it should read "Baby Boy _".

It wasn't until after we got home that I changed my mind. I wanted him to have his own name. And so we named him Caleb. The story of why we chose that name is here.

I had never known anyone with that name before. That was one of my naming 'criteria', to not have another face to put with my child's name. The thing is, when you are so NOT religious, like me, you forget, that other people might actually name their kids names found in the Bible. And, even though our kids attend public school, turns out, those other people might not keep their kids at private school. And, as I so harshly found out, they might even have a little boy the same age as my daughter and he might just end up in her Kindergarten class. And as luck might have it, I might get to sit down at a tiny little 'phonics' station, in a tiny little kinder sized chair on my first day back to reality after my Caleb had died having come to fulfill my volunteer time in the classroom (xanax thankfully fully on board, although the next dose was stupidly left out in my car, 20 endless feet stretching between me and it, THAT would never happen again). My luck continuing, I would have to call children back to work with me individually, and the first name I would have to call, would, of course, be, CALEB.

I had to say it out loud. I had to call for this child. I had to beckon this child to come to me. I had to summon this little boy, who I had never seen, to come and sit with me to learn his letters. There was no avoiding it. I thought, seriously, about running out to my car and choking back a few more of the little pills tucked away in the console. But I didn't. I forced myself to say it. To say his name. And then I waited. And then I had to say it louder, maybe the first time I had only whispered. It's possible. And so I said it again. Louder. I fought the tears back, I swallowed the hard ball in my throat. I put on a happy face. Well, a xanax face anyway.

And a chubby little dark haired boy ambled his way back to the station where I waited. I so wanted to like him. I so wanted that soap opera moment. I wanted him to be perfect. I wanted to love him. I wanted to heap a lifetime of something onto this child. I wanted it to be magical. It wasn't. He annoyed me. He was irritating. He was not my Caleb. But he shared his name and I hated it. About an hour later, I left the classroom, got into my car, threw back a diet coke and several of the little white pills that had waited so patiently for me. I drove home and went to bed.

Two years have passed since then. And every one of them has brought the 'other' Caleb into my daughters class. Every. Single. One. His grandmother, who, small world, is friends with a good friend of mine, came to the surprise baby shower my friends threw me when I was pg with Cason. She made me an adorable diaper bag. I had never met her before that day. But she heard 'my story' and wanted to come and bring something for the baby. For me. I love her. I can't stand her grandson.
Ugh.
And now for the real point of the post. My very good friend watches the other Caleb, everyday after school. I came to know this friend 'after'. She has a son my daughters age and a daughter my older sons age. We became good friends during that darkest of years of my life. Such good friends that I never once talked about Caleb to her. I never told her and it made that friendship easy for me. She found out later. When I was first pg with Cason and people started to guess and then the whispering of "She isn't saying anything because of....' and then she heard. But we've never really ever talked about it. And that's on me, not her.
But I digress. She watches him. She can't stand him either. She calls me just to vent about him. And when she does, it's, 'Caleb this and Caleb that and Ohhhhh Caleb....' and it just kills me. Hearing his name over and over, hearing it linked to the words, 'is so awful' or 'is so rude' or 'is so slow' or 'is so gross when he eats'....the list goes on. And I hate it. To be fair, she's right. I have volunteered at the school for years with kids and even I have to say he tops my list as one of those kids you just have to work really hard at even tolerating, but still.

The name.

The name.

The name.

I hate hearing her say the name.

I hate that this little boy has taken hold of the name I so carefully chose for my son, for my baby. I hate that at times it is his face that comes to mind when I hear the name said out loud. I hate that others can utter his name and it goes unnoticed, that another tiny life also shared that name. Shares that name.
I want no one to ever say his name, ever. I want it to be mine and his, alone. I want for it to never be spoken aloud.

And yet, everyday I say it, I whisper it, I think it. And I miss him.

Caleb.

Never Turn Your Back

2010-03-08T17:07:00.000-08:00

I told Cason to wait just a minute and I would get him his breakfast.

He, being the SUPER helper that he is and in his endless pursuit to earn his independence, did it himself.

Take that Snap, Crackle and Pop. Cheerios are clearly the better choice.

Yea, I suck at blogging

2010-01-27T18:54:00.001-08:00

I didn't intentionally abandoned this place. I got caught up in some chaos here with my kids school, think David v Goliath, and have just been consumed by the entirety of it. I'm slowly making my way back. I have been following everyone, not always leaving word but still, quietly stalking.

And waiting, holding my breath, happily, with so many of you who have found yourselves daring to look forward, despite all efforts to keep the blinders firmly in place. Time marches on, no matter how much we might will it to stand still. So yes, now we wait. And even dare to hope.

For now, I leave you with these images. Because sometimes, it's better to, as Nik.e says, "just do it", rather than be bothered with the formalities of the little things, like ummm, actually lying down, when you want to make it happen.

Choices

2009-12-23T22:10:00.000-08:00

Truth be told, I never drink the white stuff, but, still, I think the message is clear...
Cheers:)

Should Old Acquaintance....

2009-12-21T16:53:00.000-08:00

There's just nothing like getting together with an old friend. Except, that is, getting together with an old, new, db friend. That is sooo much better.
It was like a rerun of an old, favorite tv episode. The characters were the same, (only slightly older and maybe a little rounder due to ummm, well, let's just say any pg after db changes a girl, some) the place the same, all of it so familiar and so perfect.
Yesterday afternoon I got to hang out with the lovely and much missed around these parts, C.,
She is the only dbl mom I have met in IRL. We got together almost two years ago, end of February 08 when she came to visit the happiest place on earth with her family. We had intended to drown our sorrows with cocktails but as it turned out I was in the middle of the tww and so she had to do my drinking for me. I was sure I wasn't pg but just couldn't risk it, just in case. As it turned out, I was, in fact, pg with Master Cason, and it was C., who was waiting on line to hear what happened after I POAS. And she kept quiet about the 'positive' results for weeks, until I outed myself.
So this time I was able to do the drinking, which you all know, I love me my drinks, and C., was kind enough to invite me over just as the hotel was offering a happy hour an Irish girl has gotta love, free drinks! I tell ya, that C., she rocks.
We got to sit and talk and giggle and laugh and share secrets like schoolgirls. And it was so great. I hadn't realized until sitting with her, that I really never actually TALK about db, being a db mom, about Caleb, about the whole thing. I only write about it.
It was a strange epiphany, really. As I told C., my personality has split as a result. It always feels as though there is something I am holding back, a barrier between me and whomever I am speaking with. The deep dark secret of the 'real' me.
But not yesterday. Yesterday, we both just got be, real.
She's on her way back to her own digs now. And even though we have always stayed in touch via email and the old fashioned thing called a phone, and I know we will still, I already miss her.
Like I said, there's just nothing like hanging out with an old friend.

Shadows

2009-12-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

Many people talk about how when they were young they had an invisible playmate. The friend they could count on when no one else was available to help corral wild ponies or create delectable mud pies or to save the earth from certain, imminent catastrophe. Perhaps it was for the more mundane, a buddy to share a bowl of Cheerios with, someone to sit next to while taking in an episode of Tom and Jerry, a friendly ear to bend on a long cross country car ride. Invisible friends always laugh at the right parts in movies, they never interrupt or argue and they are always, there.
I never had an invisible friend. I had 2 brothers and 1 sister, a myriad of dogs, cats, gerbils and guinea pigs and an entire neighborhood, well stocked with kids of all ages and both genders, to keep a growing girl busy. Truthfully, I never really understood the whole concept of an imaginary playmate. I never felt the need to invent or create another character to fill in a blank in my life.

But I have one now.

It only recently occurred to me that that is what Caleb has become to me. He is my invisible reality. I take him everywhere. Sometimes I don't even realize he has come along. He pops into my head seemingly from out of nowhere and hangs out for a while before disappearing into the depths of my soul.
He is truly invisible in that he has no image in my mind. I don't see him as a baby or a child. I can't picture him in my minds eye. His presence is enormous and yet I can not describe him in any way. I do not see him. I feel him.
I don't often talk about Caleb in real life. If he comes up at all it is more about the 'event' than about him. It's not as though people when finding out you have a stillborn child, ask you what your hopes or dreams were for that child. They don't ask what he looked like or how his kicks felt and they can't ask about his laugh or his cry because he never had the chance to have either. And later, years later, they can't ask what's new with your dead child because, obviously, nothing has changed. I suppose to the outside world he really is just something that happened to me. He is not real to most people.
In many ways I am to blame for that. I have held him so close and refused to share him with anyone in any meaningful way for so long that he has slipped farther and farther away into the past. I don't do anything to mark either his due date or the day he died. I don't bake cakes, or release balloons, light candles or release butterflies. My mom and dad bring flowers over every year to mark the date he was born but even then, we never talk about him. And really, I prefer it that way. I don't want to go 'there' anymore. I don't want to feel as sad as I do when I think about him, outloud.
So instead, I have wrapped him up and packed him away from everyone. His ashes sit on a shelf in our bedroom below a piece of card stock imprinted with his tiny hand and foot prints. No one sees him but us.
And yet.
I carry him with me always. I don't have silent conversations with him but I do have quiet moments with him. Quiet moments without him. With.out.him.

Life goes on, without him. I can't picture him in this life of mine in anyway other than how he is now, gone from it. I can't see him as a two year old, not even when I look at his cousin with whom he was supposed to share his birth week. When I see her and try to picture him with her, all I see is, nothing. A black hole of vacant space that should have been filled by a child. But isn't. When I hold Cason in my arms and look into his eyes, it chills me to my core to even think of him not being here, to try and picture another child here in his place. I remember when Cason was born, the moment I held him I thought to myself I can't ever think about wanting Caleb here again because then I will be wishing Cason wasn't here. I knew then that I had to let him go but it was one of the most painful moments of my life and time has not made it any easier.
I hate thinking like that. God, I hate it.
My life is what it is now. I don't have him here. I can't change that. I know that. But still, he is here. In the only way he can be. In my mind. On the corners of conversations. In words unspoken and in the newly planted flowers that bloom in my garden.
And on any given day, when I am driving in my car, my children in various seats beside and behind me, laughing or fighting, crying or sleeping, I can look into my rear view mirror and there in the periphery, I see him.
A shadow in the back seat. My imaginary playmate.
Caleb.

Happy Turkey Day

2009-11-26T01:56:00.000-08:00

I can't even imagine

2009-11-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

I came across this article tonight. It makes me physically ill. Wrong, doesn't even begin to say it.
But it is, just so wrong.

Milestones

2009-11-17T09:30:00.001-08:00

Happy 1st Birthday to my little Leprechaun. You are my pot of gold. I love you more than you, or words, will ever know.

Silence is golden...

2009-10-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

I was talking with a mom from my daughters school today. She doesn't know 'the story'. She met me last year, right around this time. I was 9 months pg. She saw me only as one of them, the shiny, happy them. Today she was holding Cason and commenting on how quickly a year had passed and she couldn't believe he was going to be one in just a few weeks. Then she started asking more questions, the ones we all dread. Questions that a few years ago would only have been idle chatter, how many, how old, what grade, smile, nod, smile, nod, go on with your day.
Now, of course, those questions trigger the inner dialog in my head. The 'outloud' answer and the 'inside voice' answer. And for me, even more sensitive to the ever prying nature of those questions is the age gap between my daughter and Cason. 7 years to those looking in from the outside. And I can see them wondering and wanting to ask was Cason an oops baby.
Most people don't ask it, but I know they think it. She had that look. Not a judging look, she is really a sweet lady from what I know of her, but still, I knew when she asked me the ages of my others, the thought had crossed her mind.
And before I could think it through I said, there was another one, a baby boy, we lost him in between her and Cason. He was stillborn. And I watched her face transform. And I watched the air disappear and I felt bad, I felt like I had to fix the damage I had just done. So I quickly blurted out,over her attempt to offer words of sympathy, "so Cason is our magic baby". I have no idea WHERE that phrase came from. And I hated the sound of the words as soon as they left my mouth. And I hated myself for trying to gloss over Caleb. And I hated even being in that room for another second.
I don't know what I expected, I don't know what I wanted, I don't know what was going on in my head. I do know, it will be a long time before I let myself go 'there' again.
Will I ever figure out how to answer those damn questions?

Stewing....

2009-10-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

For Niobe:)

It got even thicker overnight, but I promise you there is some tasty soup in that bowl!! The bread will be perfect with it.

What's on your menu for tonight?

11 months...already

2009-10-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

At least when he wakes me up at 2 in the morning to nurse because he STILL WON"T sleep through the night, he dresses for the occasion...What are your plans for the weekend????

I remember

2009-10-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I will be lighting a candle tonight at 7p.m. and thinking about all of the babies I have come to know since joining this db club, babies I will never meet, babies who should have been, here. They have all changed me, they all made a difference and they all are missed.

I love you Caleb.

Living with 'IT'

2009-09-18T14:24:00.000-07:00

Both Tash and Charmer wrote great posts this week about life after and perspective and how us db moms are seen through the eyes of the world. It struck me in the reading, how irked I get when people gloss over the grief, the whole process of grief.

At two years out, I am not anywhere near the same place I was that black September of 07. My life has evolved, moved on, continued. Really, when you think about it, there were only two choices, find a way to go forward or die. I chose the former. I had to. I had two other children who needed me to. I don't know, honestly, what I would have done if they hadn't needed me. I don't know how far I would have fallen, how deep the depression would have taken me. I have watched others who lost their first baby, find their way out. I like to hope I would have too. But none of us ever really know how we would carry someone elses burden. How we would react to any given situation. We know our own life, we take what is thrown at us and we try to figure out how to muddle through. We stumble, we falter, we collapse. And then somehow, we get up. Maybe it was a hand reaching through the darkness, or a voice calling out to us that reminded us we weren't alone. Maybe it was sheer force of will. Or a combination of all of it. The knowing there were others out there, the desire to start anew, the absolute determination not to give up. At least not yet.

And it is all of that, all of that hard work, that inner battle of demons, the taking on of forces beyond our control, the daily, sometimes hourly or even the minute by minute by second by second fight to survive, to continue, to exist, it is the all of that, that people don't see, they don't get, they can never understand. And it is in the missing of this part of the journey that makes it so easy for them to caricature a db mom into some sort of misfit, or episodic tragedy. "oh, she has a dead baby, that's why she is _____". It makes for a nice story line, a wonderful tragic event that turns the best, most capable woman into a weeping pile of compost, no longer able to function in a 'normal' world. Just last nite I watched last years season finale of 'pri.vate prac.tice'. I don't watch this show, I don't know the characters but, lucky me, one of the main characters, a psych of some sort, was pg and her patient showed up at her house with a needle full of some drug so that she(patient) could literally rip the baby out of main characters belly. Why? you may ask...because her baby died and that is what db moms do. We wander the earth seeking out other pg moms who must be carrying our db and then we slice them open and take what is rightfully ours...sighs.

I hate that that is how we are portrayed. I hate that the middle ground, where most of us reside, is so forgotten in the talking about child loss. We here throw the db moniker around so freely, we say the words, DEAD BABY all the time and sometimes it slips over into my other life and I *shudder* say it out loud. "I talked to my friend, my DEAD BABY friend about ______and..." and then the conversation stops because everyone has dropped jaws and wide eyes and argh how do we respond to that they wonder. Even my good SF friend said to me recently, "You have to find another name for your group." And I said to her, no we don't, it is a perfectly horrific name for us because what happened to us was HORRIFIC. It should make you cringe. It should make you stop and think. You should have to pause and for the tiniest of moments feel the least bit of awe and yes, maybe even uncomfortable, because MY BABY DIED. I don't want pity, I don't expect you to know or 'get' what I feel, I know you can't, but I do want you to stop for a minute and try and recognize what it is that I have lived through. What I lost and what I am living without.

There is more to baby loss, child loss, than the loss. There is the living with the loss. The loss, it kills you. And then somehow, you are resurrected. You find yourself within the shell of what you used to know, all things around you seemingly unchanged, life has gone on and you are standing in the middle of it, stripped bare, empty, and still the world requires you to be you. Sure there is the 'appropriate' grieving time, but after that, get on with it, move on, live, god damn it, live. And begrudgingly, most of us do. But it takes so much work to do it. But each day we rise and face the sun and we do, live with it. People have remarked, "I don't know how you do it, I could never have recovered from a loss like that" or some other variation of those words. And I think to myself, yes you would. You do somehow recover. It doesn't happen overnight, it doesn't even happen because you want it to. Truthfully, in the beginning, recovering doesn't even seem like an option. It is a concept that you can't even grasp. In the beginning you want the darkness to swallow you whole and never spit you out. But as the long, hard days and even darker, endless nights stretch out and become weeks and then months, you find yourself struggling to be free of the darkness once more. Is the daylight more appealing? Not really, but the cold, shadowy pit of grief has become less comforting and so you seek an alternate place of refuge. And you rejoin the world of the living because it is no longer the people you want to hide from but your feelings. All of them.
Those first few weeks of mingling between the night and the day, the dark and the light, were for me the most trying and exhausting days of my life. After the immediacy of the days surrounding losing Caleb had passed, the days when I buried my head and my heart, my former life beckoned me. My children cried out for me. And I went to them. And it took every ounce of energy I had to get up each day and function, even at the barest minimum. To talk with other parents, to drive, to attend meetings and sporting events, to plan, to execute, to grocery shop, to make any decisions at all, it sucked what little life I had within me, right back out of me. It wasn't until December, almost four months later that I stopped moving long enough to let myself breathe. And then I collapsed, physically and mentally. Auto pilot shut off and I went down. I needed to. I didn't stay there for long but it was enough to remind me that there was a lot more to healing than just waking up everyday. And there still is.
Two years later, my life has traversed many a road. All of our lives have. We may look mostly the same to the people who see us, we may even seem amazingly similar to the person we were 'before', shhh, our babies died. I can laugh, I can sing, (badly), I can do most any of the things I used to do. Just as all of the mothers I know who have also lost their babies are doing. It has been and continues to be, a mighty struggle to do this. Which isn't to say it hasn't gotten easier because it has, but nonetheless, it is a struggle, with some days, most days, infinitely better than others.
Which brings me back to what irks me. It has taken a lot to get here. It was, it is, a process. It is still happening. I didn't get here be accident or by design but I did get here. We all got here. Where is here? It is ordinary. It is day to day. It is nothing special and yet it is still extraordinary. It's not locked up in a padded room, it is not seeking out the pg woman who has somehow stolen my baby and tucked it away into her uterus and it is not a vengeful, unfeeling, demented woman. It is a plain wrapped, basic, sometimes witty and occasionally smart assed mom, it might be an accountant, or a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, a writer, a sports enthusiast, a computer guru, it comes in all shapes and sizes. It comes as you and me. I wish people could see that beyond the polar extreme of bat shit crazy there exists the lot of us. The db moms who wander in their world, our world too. And I wish that they would see us for who we really are.
Not fantastic, not superheros, not someone who has done something they could 'never' do. Nope, we are just db moms and we are living with it.

Caleb

2009-09-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

I've thought about what to say, what to write here after 2 years. Is there more to say? Have I left anything out? I've told his story, what little there is to tell. The real story doesn't have words and it continues on each day, even though he is long gone from me. Physically gone that is. I guess that is what becomes so hard. As each day passes he slips farther away from my physical self. The memory of his kicks and rolls within me dim and are overshadowed by the nightmare of his birth. The feeling of him literally slipping out of my body and away from this earth. The hollowness of my empty belly, the numbness of my legs and mind, they are what I remember.
I think from the outside to the casual and even not so casual observer, I appear healed. I'm not.

There is no real healing when you lose a child. There is no point in time where you are able to evaluate your loss and make peace with it. Not for me. It will never be okay, it will never sit comfortably in my cache of emotional baggage as something I have 'gotten over'. Yes, I have resumed my life, I have laughed again, I have been silly, I have thrown a party or two and I have even had another baby, but none of those things have made any difference in the loss of my son, Caleb. His absence is still enormous. I look at my three living children as they play together, the two older ones fawning over their little brother and I see him, not there. I even stop myself sometimes when I think how happy it makes me to see them all together and I think of him, not here, missing the tickles of his siblings, missing their light kisses on his head, missing their continuous antics to make a giggle erupt, and I think how robbed he was, how robbed we all were. My oldest recently said to me out of nowhere, "I wish we had them both here mom.", and I knew it is not just me who feels that his absence is so huge that it is palpable.

A day has not gone by where I haven't thought of him, missed him, yearned for him. I think people believe that losing a baby, a child, is like any other death. They acknowledge the greater tragedy, but not the greater grief. What makes the grief so hard for me is that there just isn't that point where I can look back and reminisce and share fond memories of him and his life. There is no past with which I can comfort myself in the future. His past is his death. His tiny, short life within me was just exactly that, within me. No one else shared it. No one else even saw him, only my husband and I. And his pictures are not ones that bring me comfort. They break me. They reflect a baby who had his life stolen away from him. A perfectly tiny baby with every tiny piece of his body in place, ready to face life only to have it choked out of him by a cord defect. I can't reminisce or look back fondly on our time together because it all wraps itself in the cloak of his numbered days with me. With us.

He permeates my being. He is such a huge part of who I am and yet to most people he doesn't exist. If he is acknowledged at all it is because someone might say or think, "Oh yea, she is the one whose baby died." which makes it about me and my loss not about him and what he lost.
I remember sitting with him at the mortuary telling him he was wanted and loved and trying to reassure myself that I told him all the things I should tell him but having no idea how to do it. My husband left the room, he couldn't even bear to look at Caleb, just as he doesn't talk about him now. Too much. Way too much. So I sat alone with him, just as I sit alone with his memory now, and I try to make sure I say the right things, that I tell him what he needs to know, that I do right by him.

Even now as he drifts farther away from me, I feel the need to pull him closer. To make myself remember the tiniest of details about him and his brief time here on this earth. And to make his life meaningful, to make it matter, to make sure that it is clear he mattered, that he still does and that he always will, matter. I never want anyone to think he is something I got over. I won't. I will live my life without him, everyday. And everyday I will think of him, I will miss him, I will love him and I will wish like hell he was still here. Because like my son, I want both of them, Cason and Caleb, here.

Two years ago, on September 1, 2007, I gave birth to my son Caleb. He never took a breath, cried or opened his eyes. He never felt my hand as I lifted his foot to look at his tiny perfect toes. He never heard my cries as I felt him leave my body. He never heard me tell him I love him. But I said it anyway and still do to this day. I whisper it to the winds and the skies and hope that he hears it. Hope that he knows, that he knew.

People say that there isn't a word to describe the pain you feel when you lose a child. In my head I say yes, there is, and I whisper,

Caleb.

Time

2009-08-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

2 years ago today, an ultrasound tech leaned over my belly and grabbed my hand. She looked into my eyes and said, "If it's bad, is there someone here with you?" And so began my journey into hell.
He wouldn't be born until the next day. And he would never take a breath outside my body.
2 years ago today, my world and my life changed, forever.
2 years ago today, my third child, my second son, a boy we would name Caleb, but who would never answer to it, began his journey into this world, even though he had already left it.
2 years ago today, I tried to prepare myself to meet my child and to tell him good-bye.
2 years ago today, I lay in a hospital closing my eyes to everything, gripping the handrail of the bed as my body contracted and I begged myself, screamed at myself, to wake up from the nightmare.
2 years ago today, I found out I wasn't sleeping and the nightmare was real.
2 years ago today, I met two db moms, they were my nurses and they held my hands as I joined the club.
2 years ago today, I heard the silence on a heart rate monitor and it was deafening.
2 years ago today, still feels like yesterday and I suspect it always will.

On my mind

2009-08-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

After Cason had his 'adverse event' (that's what the government calls it anyway) I ramped up my research on vaccines, vaccine safety and vaccine necessity. Let me preface this by saying I am not one of those tree hugging, government hating, yahoo's, who thinks all vaccines are the devil and that the medical advances like say, hospital births or vitamins are taking away my civil liberty.
BUT, I do have and have always had, a certain amount of suspect when it comes to the recent onslaught of drugs that have been rapidly approved for general use well before any significant safety testing is done on them. Long before Cason was born I was suspicious of drug companies and their cozy relationship with the FDA and the fat cats over there in that hub of politics known as DC. Way back in the last century in fact, I refused the live polio vaccine for my oldest (they were still giving it back then) and insisted he get all 4 shots in the inactive form. My doctor at the time wholly supported my choice and respected my research. Lo and behold, not too long after that the government 'decided' that indeed, shooting live polio into 2 and 4 month old babies wasn't good for them after all and the protocol was changed to the one I had insisted on for my son.
Flash forward to Cason and his shots. I still declined several of the shots 'recommended' for babies, even before his 'adverse event'. He hasn't had Hep B, (because he isn't an iv drug user, he isn't sexually active and I am negative for it myself which accounts for something like 99.9% of transmission of that disease), he didn't get the new version of the rotavirus(the last one was pulled after inadequate testing resulted in the discovery of intesussception or collapsing intestines as a fairly common side effect of that shot in the general population of kids) and I had a whole schedule worked out for how the remaining shots were going to be given but obviously that's changed now. My concern then was (1) this trend of over vaccinating and (2) the sheer speed at which these vaccines are pushed onto the market where the real 'testing' that goes on is on the general public (see the rota virus above for example) and then the drugs are pulled after the bad shit has happened to many, many kids or adults depending on the drug and on how quickly, cough, cough, the government and the drug companies move to pull a drug off the shelf. My general rule of thumb is that if a drug hasn't been on the open market for at least 5 years, without reported or questioned negative side effects, we don't take it. Which is why Cason only got the shots he got. All had been on the market for decades and had proved to be 'safe' but did have some RARE known side effects which to be perfectly honest I just assumed wouldn't happen to us. I was wrong. Almost deadly wrong.
While we still don't know what happened to Cason or why it happened and may never know depending on what we decide to do as far as testing on him to look for an allergy, at this point he is no longer a candidate for any vaccines. This does not make me happy. I don't want him to get mumps or rubella or whooping cough and die from a disease that was/is preventable. It's not a good place to be this fence I am walking on, believe me.
Sadly, my research has led me to another family who lost their beautiful 4 month old son just hours after he received his vaccines. The same ones Cason got. I can not tell you how many tears I have cried for that family. I have corresponded with the mom who has been kind enough to share the intimate details of the last hours of her son's life with me and my heart literally shattered reading her words. She and her husband did everything right for their child, they were there with him the whole time and the doctors could not save him. It has been decided by the government that indeed the vaccines did kill him. They will be compensated for the loss of their son, but really what $ amount can ever make it right or make them whole? There isn't any amount on earth that can fix them or bring back their healthy, beautiful boy. They have been told not to vaccinate any future children they might have or to at least wait until the child(ren) are 5 years of age. But fate, that bitch, has not let them get pregnant again since losing their son. It is just wrong, so wrong.
My quest has new meaning, my research, new drive. The only difference is that now you may hear about it here. I think we all need to be informed and to have all the facts before us when we make decisions that can literally have life or death consequences for ourselves and for our children. I am not planning on getting on my soapbox for too long but I do plan on sharing information that I think is relevant and worth hearing about.
And I welcome your feedback, no matter where you are on the issue. Just be polite and be informed, that's all I ask.
With the Swine Flu, shudder, shudder, coming our way, I especially want to make the point that the government is fast tracking UNTESTED vaccines for mass vaccinations of children this fall. Oddly, if you do the research the Swine Flu is no more dangerous than other types of flu, my oldest had it this summer, eek!, and yet the media would have you believe it was the second coming of Christ or the plague or some other terror, born out of a pharmaceutical companies profit ridden dreams.
Here's a link http://vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/2009/08/gardasil-swine-flu-vaccines.html
with some interesting information on that topic and on the whole Gard.asil debate, which btw, my daughter will never have.
Surprise.
What's on your mind?

9 months

2009-08-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

Be still my heart.

Flashbacks

2009-08-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

Where do the words start? I guess where the feelings end. Not really where they end but where they spill over and out of the not so quiet corners of my mind and finally garner enough strength to make themselves heard outside of my mind, outside of myself.
I've been having flashbacks. Bad ones. I didn't even realize that is what they were, until recently. I thought the constant replaying of the moments in the doctors office when I thought Cason was dead was just, (and I use the term 'just' so lightly it is weightless) me reliving it. And it is that too. But it occurs to me that these visions, popping into my head without warning and playing themselves out, over and over again, are more than that. I am, or at least I feel, powerless to stop them from happening. They come without warning, sometimes triggered by something someone says or asks about Cason, other times all on their own.
When it happens, I am sucked back into that room, I see Cason hovering over the exam table, his body dusty and gray and limp, I don't know who is holding him, I can't see the hands under him, are they mine, are they the doctors, I don't know. I can feel the room shrinking and all I can see is him, there over the table, lifeless, and in my mind, in my heart, in that moment, he is dead. Gone from me. And I think, "That is all I got with him and now he's gone." I am cold and I am resigned. Of course my baby is dead. That is what my babies do. They die. I feel myself letting him go, saying good-bye to him. I begin the fall back into the pit of which I thought I had escaped and I don't even try to stop it. I tell myself to just let go. It's what I have to do. It's the only thing I can do.
Then I come back to the present. I shut it off. I tell myself he's alive, he's here, he's o.k.. But still, the tears come, the sadness, the idea that I was so close to losing him. It overwhelms me. The idea that it could happen again, it paralyzes me. The mere thought of witnessing anything like that ever again, cripples me. Standing in a room, watching your child die, knowing you are helpless to stop it or feeling helpless to stop it, it's terrifying. Life. Altering. Terrifying.
Even with the living, breathing baby I have, the terror of that day, of those moments won't go away. Every time I leave the house and I check my purse and the diaper bag to be sure I have no less than 3 epi pens with me, every time he makes a funny sound when he sleeps, every time he looks like he might be getting a rash, every time someone touches him without asking and I brush their kind gesture away thinking have you eaten or touched something that might kill my son? Every time. Every God Damn Time.
That is what I see.
And I don't know how to make it stop.

Funky Town

2009-08-13T22:24:00.001-07:00

I'm in a funk. I've been reading but my comments have been lacking and for that I am sorry. I have taken so much in the way of support here and I hate to not be able to give back that which has been so tenderly and continuously and unselfishly offered to me.

I am not sure what has me so down. The summer has been good to me, to us, for the most part. Not too hot, not too unbearable. A few more trips to the beach than I imagined I'd get with Master Cason on board and even a couple of days away, him tucked safely with Grandma, while Grandpa and his older brother and sister and mom and dad went and played in the boat and baked in the hot Arizona sun(an annual journey that for the past two years I made with a baby in my belly, one alive and one...well...not, as it turned out.)And again I didn't think that trip would happen this year either, but it did, so I am happy as I don't know how many more trips I'll get like that with all three generations, many I hope, but you never know.

Yet here I am, in funky town. Cason turns 9 months next week. He'll be out of me as long as he was in me. Somehow that makes me sad. As if he becomes more a part of this world and less a part of me now. Which is a good thing, it is as it should be and I know that. It's what I want for him. Obviously, right? But still. As hard as that pregnancy was on my mental state and the emotional roller coaster it sent me on, I miss it. Maybe it is the knowing that those days are all completely behind me, finito, done, complete, but not. Not really. The final score doesn't add up. It is not a balanced equation. The sum does not equal its parts. They never will. I briefly entertained the idea of throwing another baby into the mix. Yea, you read that right. In the first weeks after Cason was born I thought about it. About trying to give him a sibling closer to his age. Given all that came before him, he is two years younger than we imagined our third being and that puts him 7 and 11 years behind his older bro and sis. So I thought to myself, with the help of some perco.cet and viocodi.n, quick, do it again and then everything will be ok. But then, of course I really thought about it and knew there was just no way I could handle another pregnancy. No fucking way. And certainly not another loss. So I closed the door. HARD.
And now here I am almost 9 months later, time enough for that pregnancy, and I think I resent having to make the decision the way I did. Which, I imagine, is the same for many who for whatever reason, some more painful, tenfold more painful, have 'decided' they can't do it again. It's not a "Hey, do you like the red shirt or the blue shirt better?" type of decision. It's a "hey how much more torture do you feel you can stand and how much do you really want to risk when it comes to your sanity and is what you have right now enough to hold onto so that you can let go of the idea of what you think you might get IF everything goes perfectly?" type of mental gymnastics question. And in the end it didn't feel like a choice, it felt more like resignation. Which is weird to me because I never wanted 4 kids ( and yes I know I have 4 but...yea that) so it surprises me to feel so conflicted and still not conflicted, if that makes sense.

And then there is the 2 year point, looming. And the days, the routine of summer and vacations to the same places, the jokes about how finally 'this time' I can do things I couldn't do before, not the last two times because I was pregnant. And while they are meant to be playful and I have even made some myself, they sting because, they do. Because it still does. He is not here. And then he was. I still hoped then. I don't now. And laughing at the inconvenience of his pregnancy just feels bad. It's all I had of him. Ever. So these days are both beautiful and bleak for me. I have so much and yet what I don't have looms larger as the summer winds down. People speak of Labor Day plans and I think of my labor day weekend two years ago where I labored only to give birth to death. It is hard to make plans to cherish the last days of summer when it coincides so perfectly with what were my last days with him.

I think what I need is to bury my head for awhile and look up only when I know it is all behind me. But then I realize it is all behind me and that, perhaps, is why, I remain here in funky town.

Lovesongs & Lullabies

2009-07-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

I used to think a good love song was the most sure fire way to evoke the strongest of emotions. What greater love is there than that of the unrequited, unfulfilled and irrevocably broken heart, I used to ask myself. At the time, of course, I was the not so proud owner of said lonely and shattered heart. I spent many a night pining away for the man I thought was the love of my life. It came to me much later, the knowledge that he truly was only a boy. I see that now, but at the time, oh so many years ago, and for more years than he was worth, I carried a torch and would gladly open my door, at any hour, if he came a calling. And any good love song with lyrics to soothe my aching heart, was worth listening to in my little world.

Me and the girls(friends not breasts) spent many a night over too many to count bottles of good, no wait, bad, really bad, wine, or if it had been a good tip week, some really excellent Stoli or even better, Bombay Sapphire, lamenting the ways of the world and our tired hearts. We had big aspirations, mind you, we were all career girls, college students and later graduate school too. Our school loans were not so wisely, or depending on your perspective, very wisely, used to fund many an international trip. We traveled, we worked, we played, we did it all. And through it all, one of us could usually be counted on to harbor a broken heart to lug along and make the trip a little more dramatic. We'd circle the wagons and commiserate together. And always there was music to accompany the saga. A chorus of "There's no sunshine when you're gone." or a few notes from Billie Holiday were sure to release a few tears, only after the liquid therapy had had a chance to free up those not so buried emotions.

And then slowly, we fell. One by one. Love. Marriage. The baby carriage. Life seemed to work itself out. For awhile.

I could still hear an old love song and hearken my way back to those days gone by, romanticized now, a bygone, the path not taken, the what ifs. Love songs were always good for a melancholy moment.

And even after I had my first two babies. Still the love songs would beckon. Invite me to reminisce. Indulge for a moment in what might have been. I'd let them take me away to the place I used to be. The place where there were no boundaries, where my dreams soared and my future was open and endless. A time when I thought I knew myself so well, when in reality, I didn't know myself at all.

I was young and neither my head nor my heart had even the tiniest of inklings of what they would one day learn and need to survive. I was naive in the most beautiful sense of the word. Everything I had 'lived' through was deliciously pedestrian. Not that I knew it at the time. And believe me when I tell you there was a time, a night of alcohol, good-bye love letters, broken glass and blood when I thought it was so much more dire and hopeless than it ever really was. But that's a story and a post, that may never be written....

As the days passed and the years accumulated, I still allowed myself that luxury of listening. I let the love songs tell their story and I found comfort in the verses. They told tales of longing I no longer knew, yearnings of young love and wishes of hearts wanting desperately to be loved. Something about those melodies was familiar and comforting to me. Fairytales is what they were. And everyone knows fairytales aren't real.

And then there was THAT day. The day where in a moment, it all changed.

I felt a pain that had never been told of in a love song.

Fairlytales didn't belong in this world anymore. Lost love would have been a relief. A broken heart over a non-committal suitor hardly seemed worth the effort. Was it ever?

Sitting alone at night in those first, long, lonely, dark nights after losing Caleb, I searched for comfort in music. The old standards didn't bring it. They could never speak to the loss of a child, the love a parent knows, the consuming pain of a parent who has just witnessed the birth and death of their dreams, of their tiny, lifeless, baby.

And then I started listening to lullabies. They were written for babies. They spoke to babies. They wished for babies. They longed for babies to have full lives, to know joy, to find comfort in their mother's arms, to play hard and sleep deep. To put their tiny hand into their father's larger one and walk together, to laugh at the sun and clouds, to dream of life and all it's possibilities, to imagine tales of dragons and growing old, to always know they are wanted and most of all... loved. Lullabies don't know the difference between a child born alive and a baby born dead. They sing the song of the heart of a parent, a parent who knows and wants these things long before their child is born, long before the world has defined them as 'real' or not. The lullabies may not have known my pain but they did know my yearning, my aching to tell my son these things, to have the chance to wish for him all the things he should have had.

And so it came to be that I would sit at night, again with a drink in hand, now always with good wine, although it could have been in a box and it wouldn't have tasted any different to my soured senses and how many bottles of good liquor were spent isn't a guess I'd like to venture....and I would listen to lullabies. I would let my heart bleed and my eyes drain until there seemed to be nothing left to release or sometimes just until the last ice cube had been resoundingly smashed between my teeth and the empty glass tucked away for another night. But those songs, oh those songs. Somehow those songs written to sooth and comfort did exactly that. And I remembered then, a cold winter day, years ago, standing abreast of my best friend from high schools graveside, huddled close to other friends as we sang "Puff the Magic Dragon" at his mother's request. And I understood now, so much more than I did then, why she wanted us to do that for him, for her, absolutely for her.

So many years later as I sat and listened and planned a funeral for my son, a funeral that we never had, (another post, maybe) all of the music I envisioned for him, for me, all of it, lullabies. Love songs have nothing on lullabies. They brought me comfort as I sat and felt my heart break wide open. Just as I imagine the chorus of young adults voices breaking over a cold and barren hillside on an early December morning brought comfort to my friends mom so many years ago.

I still listen to lovesongs. I think mostly they are silly. I often argue with them. If you love her/him, tell him. If they don't love you back, get on with it. Just get on with it.

I still listen to lullabies. They always make me cry. I often try to sing along, but can't. If you love your baby, you can't tell them enough. And they always love you back, if they get the chance. If they don't, you don't, get that chance, you have to learn, so gingerly, so painstakingly, how to get on with it. Just get on with it.

Caleb is my unfinished lullabye...I hear his song in my head but the lyrics are quiet.

And still, the other music will play on...the lovesongs and the lullabies. Always the lullabies.

Colors

2009-06-23T22:18:00.000-07:00

It's happened so many times now that even I have to admit it's odd. People often say to me or the husband or the grandparents or to whomever might be holding Cason, that he has very wise eyes. That he seems an old soul. I know it sounds corny. Really corny. But still. After hearing it over and over and over again from so many different and totally unconnected sources, it's become almost unsettling.

And today, another mom who doesn't know 'the story', came up to me, as I held Cason and we cheered on his big sister as she raced valiantly in the first swim meet of the summer, and said, "He looks grateful, it seems like he is so happy to be here.", (here meaning being alive, as opposed to being at a swim meet for hours on end).

Hearing it I wanted to give her the whole story but I didn't. I haven't been one to put much stock into the whole life after death thing. Although I think it was over at Niobe's, where the idea of a soul that is destined to be born might be transferred from one baby to another if the first baby doesn't make it. I like that idea. The notion of a spirit that lingers needing a body only as a vessel, a carrier, and that the spirit is capable of surviving even if the vessel does not.

Do I think Cason is carrying Caleb's spirit? Not really. I think Cason is his own person. I don't want him to be a part of Caleb. It diminishes both of them. It reminds me of watching my daughter mixing play dough colors. It always seems like a good idea and is fun to watch at first. Taking two brightly colored and beautiful pieces of clay and rolling them together, watching them as they begin to merge, each still independent but now winding together like a barber shop poll or a candy cane. Each color unique for a while and then before you know it, the colors start to blend, they lose their vibrancy and there is no going back. You can't separate the two and you have to mix them to make just one color, one that is not as pretty as the two were separately. You realize that the mixing wasn't such a good idea after all.

I don't want either boy of mine to lose his identity. They both deserve to be vibrant in their own way and for their own life's purpose. So I hesitate to put more meaning into the recurrent comments that Cason has wise eyes or an old soul. But it's hard not to want to believe that he knows, somewhere deep down, the whole story and that maybe, just maybe, he knows even more than I do.

Because not all dad's deserve a Father's Day

2009-06-20T20:56:00.000-07:00

I was all set to wax poetic about my husband and all that he's done to earn some rightful recognition on his parenting(letting C1 watch Chuckie at the ripe old age of 2 not included for obvious reasons...) but I thought I'd provide a public service announcement instead.

This, is not what Father's Day is all about. I remind all who tread on the hallowed grounds of spermiNation to remember it is not about QUANTITY. The mere fact that you may have millions of wee swimmers bound and determined to quick time it up to a lowly, waiting egg, does not mean you must use them all for such a lofty goal.
While your head and longing loins(are they one and the same I ask you?) may cry out for hasty gratification, let your wallet be your guide. If for no other reason then it knows, by simple addition, the price you can not afford to pay. For even when it is filled to the gils by the mere minimum wages and no doubt hard earned dollars you pack away, it fails to support the 20 something offspring created by your nimble nether parts. It is here we find that the old adage is not always true. You sir, have proven, that your sum is not greater than your parts. Congratulations. My how proud you must be.
And while I applaud you, (not really), for knowing or at least professing to know, each and every one of their birthdays and WOW, even their ever lovin NAMES, now there's a feat oft only accomplished by weaker, less fertile men no doubt, who strive to remember only a mere one or two, maybe even three or four names attached to living breathing children, I can not muster the strength to support your endeavors. I wonder, will they each come to visit you as you sit, on others dimes, in jail for failure to support them in other more meaningful ways, like maybe, I don't know, spending time with them, instead of, doing time for them?
I'm glad to read that you have stated "I'm done, I'll say I'm done.", I have to question why now? Why,after 20 or possibly 21 children, does it matter, really? Has the light suddenly bestowed some infinite wisdom on you? Why not go for the even two dozen? You're only 29, you have years of fertility left in which you might share more of yourself with the rest of us.
I doubt, call me crazy, it comes from some sense of moral certainty that your creative days are behind you. I suspect, instead, that you find it infinitely more difficult to procreate in an environment that refuses you conjugal rights. I shudder at the thought.
And so, forgive me, if I don't wish you a Happy Father's Day. Something tells me that the only folks who are celebrating you right now are the fat cats at Hallmark. But I could be wrong. Lord, I hope not.

unfortunately

2009-06-16T18:36:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Niobe I found a really productive way to spend my time....google yourself, well at least your name, beginning with "unfortunately________" filling in your name and see what pops up.

So here's what I have been 'unfortunately' up to:

"Unfortunately k@lakly has a bit of an injury history..." Boy that's an understatement.

"Unfortunately k@lakly does oppose contraception-an evidence based measure to prevent unwanted pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion..." Now that could NOT be farther from the truth but I had to laugh when reading it and considering where I was putting the words and given most of the people who read here are actively trying TO get pregnant...

"Unfortunately k@lakly failed to capitalize on even that slight advantage." Yea, that's me, fail to capitalize, all the fricken time.

"Unfortunately k@lakly attacks Sinatra with about as much grace as would result from you trying to take out the pit of a cherry using a pneumatic drill..." I LOVE that! But I have never attacked old blue eyes, even in jest.

So what about YOU????

One of a kind

2009-06-14T14:48:00.000-07:00

That's us. We met with the new doc again. (I call him Dr. Books, and I really do heart him). Here's the scoop. After all of his research and reaching out to all of the other allergy type minded docs he knows and even ones he doesn't, searching high and low for guidance on how to proceed with Cason, guess what? They can't find another baby who, at 4 months, had this kind of reaction to the vaccines. Not a one. Cason is in a world occupied by uno, him and him alone. Normally, I am all about unique and being your own individual but I gotta say, here, I would have liked some reassurance that this has happened before and here's how we handled it. That would have been useful. But, not me, not my child, not my life.

That being said, at least my doc has made it so that we don't feel as though we are all alone. He plans to see us through this even if our plan is, we don't have a plan. Which feels so much better than what the other doc, little Doogie Howser, whose mantra was, "lets just rush into this the same way we would any other allergy and start sticking Cason with things we think might trigger a reaction" wanted to do.

So for now, our plan is do nothing. No shots, no tests, nada. Cason is helathy. My elimination diet (now down to no dairy and no nuts with wheat and eggs back in) has really helped clear his skin up and settle his belly. He is healthy and developmentally on schedule. Dr. Books feels after conferring with a conference full of allergists and other immunoligists, which has to be a rip roaring good time, that waiting until Cason has a more established immune system and is older(maybe 2) and better able to communicate with us, IF we test him, is the best course of action. He doesn't feel any sense of urgency. The vaccines, while important, do not have to be given at this young age. It is unlikely(yes, let's all laugh as I type that) that he will be exposed to any of the diseases in the shots. We aren't big travelers(thank you fear of flying) and he won't be in daycare(thank you overpriced and sorely underused education ) so why not wait until we can more reliably test his immune system. The only hiccup in the plan is that we are waiting for the federal investigation to be completed. This is being headed up by a doctor at Joh.ns...Hop.kins and is part of a C>D>C Adverse Event investigation, that is looking into what happened with Cason. They will make a recommendation to us and it probably will include a particular blood test for one of the ingredients in one of the vaccines. The recommendation will allow Doctor Books to order the test which is not commercially available to him. This test he wants to do. It's 'only' a blood test so there is no risk that comes with it. Unless, of course, they screw it up and use a dirty needle or rip his vein out, but I won't go there.

So for now, we wait. I drink wine, in moderation...there's a term I rarely use in connection with alcohol, and skip the cheese. And Cason, he just eats, drinks and stays healthy. I hope. He is after all, one of a kind.

And good morning to you too

2009-06-10T08:05:00.000-07:00

Over breakfast, baby cereal and Diet C.oke this morning:

Daughter: "Mommy how many babies died in your tummy?"

Mommy: Pausing to swallow new lump in throat, "3."

Daughter: "You have SIX childs!!!!!, SIX childs!!!!!"

Mommy: silence

Daughter: "Bye, Mommy, I love you, see you after school."

Mommy: Out loud, "Have a great day, I love you too!" In my head, "I need some Capt. Morgan."

How did your morning go?

Umm, duh.

2009-05-22T10:57:00.001-07:00

My thinking is: If you've had enough that you have to test, you've probably had too much.

I'm going to go get shitfaced and test one or all eight of these bad boys out....

Happy 3 day weekend everyone!

Chasing Zebra's

2009-05-18T07:51:00.000-07:00

There is a saying that floats around in grad school, especially medical school.

"When you hear hoof beats think horses, not zebra's."

It's a simple concept really, seek out the ordinary not the extraordinary, when looking for answers. I suppose in the medical world it reigns in over-zealous, young doctors who are eager to diagnose every sniffle as malaria or every headache as a brain tumor. It makes sense in a horse filled world. If you live in one.

It's why the first doctor I wrote about wanted to dive right into scratch testing and other fundamental allergy type protocol. He's treating a horse.

It's also why I sought out a new doctor.

And found one. He's an educator, a leader and a practitioner. He heads up the regional allergy and asthma research group here. He has run hundreds of clinical trials. His resume is awesome. His knowledge seems omniscient. And when we went in for our appointment, he didn't disappoint. After taking a thorough history and answering every last question we had, going so far as to take the papers I had brought with me with all of my Dr. Google research out of my hands and reading it himself, he gave us his answer.

He told us, "I have never seen a case like this before or even read about one. I will not do anything until I have researched it myself. I am writing to every colleague I have and every publication out there to present this case. I want more information and answers before we do anything to your son." He said that even though he hasn't seen it, he knows someone else has and he wants to find that someone else.

He also told me to call my doctor and to get on Calcium supplements right away. (I've eliminated nuts, dairy, wheat and eggs from my diet because of the results of tests done on Cason in the hospital ) He treats the whole patient and right now, because I am still nursing, I am part of Cason.

No arrogance, no dismissing my concerns, no trying to fit Cason into a round hole with his right angle corners. No pretending to know what to do just because he is a doctor. He has more questions and he wants to find the answers.

So now we wait. And we try to catch this zebra of mine.

Scratching the Surface

2009-04-23T12:34:00.000-07:00

I hate medical research. Big words, lots of Latin(I sucked at Latin in high school) run on sentences and lots of contradictory information. My wee, overtired and rusty gray matter isn't used to all this smart people stuff. It's been awhile since I have had to use it for that purpose. And while I have amassed a number of degrees in my lifetime and am licensed, a scary thought, to practice all kinds of things here in my state, the big fat D- I got in anatomy my freshman year of college pretty much says it all when it comes to my ability to understand, let alone perform, medical procedures. And that is as it should be. Those who can, do, those who can't, teach and those who really can't, are patients, or in my case, the mom of a patient.
And even though my friends really do call me in times of medical need for a quick armchair diagnosis of many ailments, sadly I am not licensed to prescribe fun drugs or any for that matter, to anyone. I suppose the state knows I would hand out Vico.din like Halloween candy if given the chance. And the world would be a better place for it I assure you. But that's another post.
This whole allergy/anaphylaxis thing sucks. Bottom line is the docs want to find out why and what made Cason react like he did. So do I. But not at any risk to him. And guess what I have heard so far.
From my pediatrician, who I adore: "Cason isn't a good candidate for scratch testing because of his anaphylaxis." (Scratch testing is where an allergen is placed in a needle and then the patients skin is scratched with the needle to see if it reacts to the allergen) (Scratch testing can result in anaphylaxis).
Later that day from the allergist: "I want to scratch test Cason with the actual vaccines he got, diluted way back, to see if we can illicit a reaction."
From me: WTF?
Allergist then proceeds to use several phrases that generate a panic like response from my body. Phrases such as, 'highly unlikely", "very rare", "we've managed anaphylaxis in our office before", "we're equipped to handle that type of emergency here". He says these things to a woman, me, who in the past two and a half years has had a perforated uterus during a "routine' D & C and had to be rushed to the hospital because of this "rare" complication, a stillborn son, while not as rare as I thought, I later found out, it sure as hell wasn't on my radar either, and a son who according to the literature I've read, had a one in a million reaction to his vaccines. How am I supposed to take any comfort in a doctor telling me what he wants to do might, could, may, possibly, send my son back into a second episode of anaphylaxis? And I ask him, can you do it in a hospital and admit him for two days because anaphylaxis can take up to 48 hours to occur after an exposure to the allergen. He says that would mean he would have to stay at the hospital all day and he doesn't see how that would work for him. And I am in my head saying I don't see how exposing my 5 month old baby to something that can KILL him and just taking him home and watching him to see IF he has a reaction, works for me. Out loud I am trying to talk over the lump in my throat and I tell him just sitting in his office for a few hours for monitoring doesn't seem like enough, not near enough, precaution to me.
He tells me he understands my view. He knows it must have been very traumatic for me. He has NO FUCKING CLUE. I don't even know how traumatic it was for me because just thinking about it makes me want to vomit. The idea that I could have to watch it happen again. I can't even go there. The idea that it might be an acceptable risk to him and that he isn't willing to do anything more to protect against it than just watch and wait. Fucking nuts.
Allergist is going to talk to his partners about what I asked for. I doubt they will agree. My pediatrician thought it wasn't an unreasonable request. But of course, he saw the reaction first hand, the allergist didn't.
There are more blood tests they can do but none of them will conclusively tell us what happened. There is a theory that it was gela.tin, a binding agent in the DT.A.P vaccine but without eliminating the others we can't know if it was that or a combination of the vaccines or what. And if we want to have Cason vaccinated we need to know as much as possible about him and his allergies.
Which is why I am doing this medical research stuff. It is also why I need a vico.din. Damn D- in anatomy anyway.

What does luck have to do with it?

2009-04-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

Many people in the past few days have said to me how lucky I am that what happened with Cason happened the way it did. Meaning it happened at the doctors and that I saw the hives when I did, because without a doubt if I hadn't and had instead, just put him in the car and drove home, he would have died in the car. He would be dead now. I physically shrivel at the thought.

But for these past days I have been thinking, I'm not lucky at all. I had to stand in a room and watch, I thought, my baby die. Even though I know now he didn't die, I can't change the feelings I had at that moment and I can't change the memory of it either. The searing moment when I implored my ped to save my baby, when he looked into my eyes and forcefully said, "He isn't going to die, Mrs. K., I won't let him." And I looked right back and told him, "You can't know that, you can't promise me that." Because I know too much. I know there are no promises or guarantees and I knew, even though he was calm and direct in his actions, that he too, even if he will never admit it to me, was scared shitless that my baby boy was going to die in his office right in front of us that day. And to me, that didn't feel lucky. And even after, when Cason was ok and we were home, I still didn't feel lucky. I felt angry and pissy that I had to be that scared again. That my family had to go through it, that I watched my mom age a couple decades overnight, That I saw my dad cry, again, over me and my child. That my older son once more asked if his brother was going to die and that I could see in his eyes the lost confidence in the world doing right by us.
It just didn't feel lucky. Not one bit. To me lucky would have meant not having had to live through any of it. Lucky would be getting vaccines and going home without a life threatening and life altering medical crisis happening before I got there. Or at least that's what I thought until this morning.
When I read this over at Aunt Becky's place.
And now I have been humbled back into my place and reminded just how absolutely fucking lucky I am, we were.
Cason is home, healthy. Severely allergic, but healthy. And as my husband says, we can deal with this. And he is right. I don't know how I would ever have dealt with the other outcome. The final, rip your heart out and stomp it into bits, your child is dead, outcome. The outcome that the Spohr family is living with at this very moment.
And I curse luck, fate, charma, God, whatever or whoever it is that controls the world, that manipulates our lives like puppets on strings. I don't want to know about these things. I don't want to know that not everyone gets what they deserve. I want to pull the covers up and hide away from all things dark and frightening. I want to shield my children from fear, from knowing hurt, from tears. And then, when I stop to breathe I tell myself, that is what life is. It is uncertain and scary and unfair and messy. It is joy, it is elation and it is euphoric. It is what it is.
And it makes me wonder, what does luck have to do with it?

Hell...revisited

2009-04-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

It was supposed to be routine. I actually didn't even worry before. I never even thought of sensitization. What I did think of was that he had already had all of these shots before. I had researched vaccinations like a crazy person before his first shots. We had declined the Hep B in the hospital when he was born and weren't going to let him get it until he was older. We declined the r.ot.a.virus too. It's too new and its adverse effects were still being investigated. The last r.o.ta. vaccine was pulled from the market because it was causing babies intestines to telescope(intesusseption). So we only went with the 'routine' vaccines that had been on the market for years, well tested and for the most part(and of course that's the line we glossed over) safe.

I have had many conversations with our ped about shots. I even brought in the article that had convinced me and the husband not to go with the Hep B shots, for my ped to read that day. That day I also told him, when the time came, I wanted the MMR shots given individually, not bundled, especially given Casons reaction to eggs and nuts when I eat them. Which I had stopped doing because he reacts(eczema flares, gas, rashes) so clearly to them.

I felt good. My mom and my daughter were there. We were laughing with the doc about benign things. We told my daughter how we were going to look away when Cason got the shots and then as soon as he started to cry we would all come and hold him and comfort him so he wouldn't think we gave him the shots only that we were there to make him feel better when they were done. It was over in a flash. The nurse lightning quick with the four sticks. I had him in my arms and his crying lasted only a mere moment and he was back to smiling at his sister and grandma. We dressed him and put him back in the car seat and strolled him out of the exam room. Stopped at the front desk to pick up a prescription and copy of the bill for my insurance. It took the girl longer than it should have, she was distracted. We left the office and walked out to the car. As we were saying our good byes to grandma, I looked down at Cason to pick his car seat up and put it in the car. His head was covered in hives. I told my mom. For a brief moment it didn't register, what was happening didn't click. My mom asked me if I was going to take him back in. Yes I said, we should go back.

In the elevator I took him out of his car seat. I went ahead of my mom and daughter to the office. I told the girl at the front desk, he's having a reaction to the shots, get the doctor. Another doctor came out and started to look at him in the hallway. She didn't know we had just been there. I remember her starting to tell me in a clinical way what they look for and I interrupted her saying we had only just gotten the shots a few minutes ago then I told her again to LOOK at him, he's not right. He's turning red, he's covered in hives and then she took us to an exam room. She started to listen to his breathing. He felt different in my arms. Heavier. My doctor came in. Now everything gets fuzzy in my memory. I can recall snapshots, not sequence. because here is where I watched my son turn blue. His lips are blue I yelled. He's not breathing I yelled. He's not crying anymore. Doctor Ped HELP HIM I yelled. And then, the image that is forever seared into my brain, my beautiful Cason, turned gray, went limp, eyes rolled back and I thought he was dead. And in my head the voice said, "That's all I got. That's all I got with him. 4 months. And now he's gone." I felt hollow and empty. I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Things were spinning, the room felt distorted and at an angle. I can't even remember if I was holding him or the doctor was. I can only see his lifeless body, dusty colored, hovering over the exam table. And then I know the doctor had him, he turned him over and rubbed him hard and Cason cried. And I shouted at someone to call 911. There were other people in the room I don't know who. The other doctor. My doc said to give him Benedr.yl. The other doc said get the epi pen. They did both. The paramedics came. They hooked him up to heart and breathing monitors. He was on oxygen. They wanted to take him to K.ai.ser, I wanted Children's. They told me the other was closer. They decided he was stable 'enough' to make the farther trip and we were loaded into the ambulance and taken to Children's. The paramedics kept reassuring me of his breathing stats the whole way to the hospital but I knew he was deteriorating. I could tell by looking at him. I kept saying to him, "Don't leave me Cason, I love you Cason, stay awake Cason, fight Cason, I love you Cason, I love you Cason, I love you Cason."

When we got to the ER my husband was already there. My mom had called him. Cason was bright red and swollen. They put more oxygen on him and a breathing treatment, they put a big needle in his head and gave him a bunch of meds. Steroids, more benedr.yl, other things I can't remember. They had another epi pen standing by. I listened to the monitors, watching the numbers. Having an asthm.atic child, I know how to read the numbers. At some point my husband grabbed me and held me. I cried. We waited.

It took about an hour before the crush of medical people left the room. That's when I knew he was better. The numbers were stable before that but no one left so I knew they were still worried about a secondary reaction after the drugs wore off. After another two hours we were admitted to the hospital.

After two days of no sleep and lots of drugs, we came home.
And now we begin to unravel the mystery. Which I will write about later. But to clear up some confusion, my docs had heard of this type of reaction to the vaccines. None of them had seen it. Not to the shots Cason had. Not the Children's ped who had been there for 15 years either. They know it is a 'known' risk of any vaccine but none of them had actually seen it in a 4 month old with the four shots Cason got. So we have to find the component that triggered this. And until then, no more shots for Cason and we don't leave home without an epi pen.

Thank you to everyone who has offered help and information. I was well armed with data when the allergist came in to consult with us in the hospital. And it made a huge difference to know so many were holding us in your thoughts. A really big thank you to my lovely Aunt Becky for rallying the troops for me and for her ever lovin support the past few days. And to Coggy who kept me company over the wires. An unintended benefit of the time difference across the pond was that I could reach her at 2 a.m. when the hospital was quiet and I was freaking the fuck out and didn't want to wake my family who had taken over the kid duties at home. My other two were very happy to get to spend some time with their auntie who spoils them silly, even when there isn't a medical crisis.

I'm off to hide under the covers for a while. Maybe a long while.

Need Some Good Lovin' Here

2009-04-03T12:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here I am, Becky from Mommy Wants Vodka hijacking my good friends blog with some news and a plea for some help, oh wise Internet (why yes, I am buttering you up).

Yesterday k@lakly took Cason into his 4 month well-baby visit and part of that visit is the ever-dreaded shots (Amelia got hers this week and it about broke my cold, shriveled heart). Today, he got diphtheria/tetanus/(and)pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type b, polio, and prevnar.

Yesterday, he also ended up in anaphylaxis and stopped breathing. His momma (thank GOD) got him to the hospital in time and he’s stable now (thank GOD).

But this has stumped the doctors who have never seen anything like this before so his poor momma, k@lakly, asked me to post to the Internet to ask if anyone had seen this before.

So, wise Internet, rather than ask you to evaluate the size of my ever-widening ass, I beg your help. Has anyone, ANYONE heard of anything like this? Send her an email at kalakly (at) yahoo (dot) com or leave a comment here. Repost this, whatever it is that we can do to get this around.

And can everyone, EVERYONE send poor Cason and his momma some prayers and love today? They're in the hospital where she can check her email and her blog and I'm sure she could use all the kind words you all have for her.

The ties that bind

2009-03-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

I keep waiting to feel better. Waiting for the wound to feel less fresh, more healed. The other day my i*pod ran through to music I had loaded into it after Caleb died. I let it play to see if maybe now, listening to the songs would rest a little easier on my ears. Bring comfort, not pain.They didn't. This wound is a stubborn thing. No matter the time that passes, it will not scar over. I check it to see if maybe I only scratch at it lightly it won't bleed. But it still does. I don't even think a scab has taken up temporary residence over the gash. It's more like I have a tourniquet on it and if I let go of it, no matter how quickly, the freshness of the injury will be unveiled.
It's stubborn in its permanence. Tenacious in its grip. No matter how many days I put between myself and its arrival all I can do is grow accustomed to its vice like squeeze, learn to take shallower breaths, ignore its shadow as it lingers on the walls around me. Reminding me, sometimes quietly other times forcefully, that it is here to stay.
I can go about my days now with this unrelenting force hanging about and I am fairly adept at quieting it's almost melodic hmmmmm in the background. But eventually it will grow impatient with me and feel the need to shake me into recognition of its presence. A few days ago as I sat watching Cason in his jumpy seat he scrunched up his face, wrinkled his forehead and squinted his eyes, one eye drooping down as the other furrowed into his brow line. And he was the mirror image of one of the few actual pictures I have of Caleb after he was born. It took my breath away. As we, the husband and kids and I, laughed at the face Cason was making I wanted to say, I started to say, he looks just like Caleb in the picture I have. But the words stopped short in my throat. Caught by the lump that suddenly appeared and the rapid fire succession of thoughts that flew through my mind. If I mention the picture, the kids may want to see it. I don't want them to see it. Not being a full or even near full term baby, Caleb's pictures are not images I want my children to have of their lost brother. While I can see the baby I saw after delivery and his resemblance to his older sister, they will see a dead baby, who does not look peaceful and beautiful. Not to them. He looks unfinished and dead. Now in their minds he is a complete baby, a dead baby yes, but a baby that looks more like other babies do when they sleep. And if they have to have an image of their dead baby brother, that is the one I want them to have, not the other more real one that shows the horror of death, the rawness of life choked away too soon from an innocent baby.
I turned away to hide my eyes, to give myself the moments I needed to re-wrap the tourniquet, bind it more tightly, stop the fresh flow. One more time. Again.

And then I rejoined the living.

The hour I first believed

2009-03-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

A year ago today I stepped into my jeans and pulled my Claddagh t-shirt over my head. I thought about my family and my past. I looked at the calender and counted. I had counted the days in my head before. I thought I was supposed to wait one more day. I had one more day of holding out hope that maybe, just maybe this would be the month. But when I actually saw the dates laid out in front of me and ticked them off, one by one, my finger stopped on the 17th when I got to 28. I did it again. Same result.

I felt the hollowness in my stomach turn to a twisting and stretching of what few muscles still lived there after the past year. I was dizzy and light-headed. I went upstairs and logged on, not ready to see what might or might not be happening in the deep, dark cave of my body. There was an email from C., she wanted to know if I had tested yet. Despite my absolute aversion to 'signs' I took this to be one. It was the nudge I needed.

I did it. In the ensuing moments, long, quiet, tense filled moments, I alternated between wanting to throw up and needing to cry. My hands shook so violently when I picked up the stick I thought I was going to drop it. And then I saw it. (+)

And that was the hour I first believed.

Happy Birthday to my Leprechaun. I love you.

Oh yeah, that's why I left you.

2009-03-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

Just hearing about this travesty, so pardon me if I am behind the curve. After seeing it on the news and then reading about it, beyond all of the head smacking and genital bashing I would like to partake in at the moment, the only thing I can say is, boy do I feel good about my decision to walk away from that place.
My apologies to those of you who read here and are still members of that particular group. But it is actions such as these, piled on top of the YEARS of inaction and worse, deceptive actions in the molestation scandals, that have alienated so many, myself included, from them. Them being the powers that be, (yes, I am talking to you Mr. Pope and your cronies), that feel entitled to hold everyone, except themselves that is, up to some arbitrary, man made standards and laws, while calling it "the word of God" and then deciding whether or not one is worthy of worshiping with you. Hypocrites. Shame on you.
When I am done fuming I may write more about this. Right now I am far too angry to be constructive.

2009-03-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

Sophie took a trip away this past weekend. She was remembering her beautiful daughter Jordan, who took her last breath just a little over nine months ago. While she was there she also remembered some of our lost babies. And this is what I saw today when I went to read about her trip.

And I cried. Thank you, Sophie. Thank you.

Incomplete

2009-03-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

Before, way before, when my life was moving along according to 'plan', I used to walk by the extra room in our house and wonder if someday, maybe, I'd get that last baby. We never decorated the room, when we bought the house we moved each of the kids into their own rooms, put ourselves in the Master and then sort of left the definition for the last room up in the air. It became a junk room with a desk and a computer and all the crap I didn't know what to do with or didn't want to deal with, ever. Occasionally it became a guest room, for the husband...not for couples counseling but for sleep deprivation issues(mine not his) related to his snooooring. It was never painted and the wallpaper was half way torn down by me in a late night I'm not sleeping so I might as well get something done stupor(obviously before the idea occurred to me to throw the husband out when the snooooring was bad). I always had it in my head that maybe, eventually, it would be a room for another baby. I was waiting for the green light from the master snorer. Which came some 4 years later. Yeah, we move quick, don't we.

I've had three pregnancies since then, one miscarriage, a stillborn son and Cason. I guess in the card game of pregnancy you could say I have a Full House. In total, I've been pregnant six times, My two other C's and another miscarriage. Maybe that makes a Royal Flush? The room has been successfully converted into a nursery for Cason although he only ever spends time on the changing table, not sure when I'll let him sleep that far away from me, but that's a post for another day.

Back then, before, I thought once I had that third baby I would feel it. "It" being the knowing feeling that would come telling me we were done with babymaking. I expected a comfortable peace, a settled in sense of a job well done and maybe even some nostalgia for the end of my fertile self. I thought the third would finish the sentence, put an ending to the story, that the extra room would get an identity and I would feel complete.
Maybe that would have been the case if things had gone according to plan. I never got there so I will never know.
My third child is dead. My fourth child is here with me and still I feel the ache from within calling for another child. And it seems I will never really be able to finish the sentence. In the beginning, in the days right after Cason was born I thought I really wanted another child, to get pregnant right away and have one more, one whose existence wasn't wrapped in all things dead baby. Never mind how unbelievably terrifying the mere idea of being pregnant again was (and is) to me, I just wanted that other baby. Now, while I still like the idea of Cason having a sibling that is closer to his age (all this loss has created a pretty decent gap between him and his sister and more so his brother) I realize that the real longing is for the one who got away. I won't ever get to be finished because one will always be missing. There is no sense of peace, no feeling of that job well done and certainly no nostalgia about the state of my fertility. Instead there is a feeling that I escaped something, that I got away with something, that I am where I wanted to be but I don't belong there. My outsides don't match my insides anymore. I am a misfit. I am and will always be incomplete.

The eyes have it

2009-02-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

Niobe has an eye catching post up. Here's my answer....sorry about the sad state of my gazers. Went to an all '80's gala last nite and had to break out the purple eyeliner and the ridiculously heavy black mascara to go with all the Aqua Net. But, hey, they bring out the green in my hazel duo dontcha think???

Dead babies last forever

2009-02-17T07:56:00.000-08:00

"My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or laughter, none in the company of friends at the table or in the pleasure of love, none even in books or poetry...Where could my heart find refuge from itself? Where could I go, yet leave myself behind?"*

It was serendipitous, stumbling across this quote when I did, just after posting the picture of the tattered and dying rose** that has somehow managed to bear new life from the center of it's withering bud. It answers the question. From somewhere deep within, where no beauty can be seen, the potential for new life waits. What it will look like, the new life, that is the million dollar question. That is the mystery that is grief.

It's hard writing here now. I feel the need to be more careful with my words. To censor thoughts and feelings so as not to wound, albeit without intention, another. I am keenly aware of the divergence of our paths, those of us who have somehow stumbled our way onto the road of life with a live baby after, those who are well on their way to that path and those that are not, some by choice, some by cruel design, some a combination of the two, choice and design. And of course, none of these women got there because they happily decided, "Hey, no more babies for me, I'm done!". And really, for some the decision hasn't even been made by them, but for them and in direct opposition to their wants and hopes and dreams.

The idea that any of us really gets to choose our path is ludicrous isn't it? We all know, or think we know, which path we want, but the reality of it is that we end up on whichever road fate decides and the only real power we have is how we choose to live while we walk. It's not good or bad, it just is what it is.

A year ago today I was at my lowest. It was the end of a cycle, one where we had 'really' tried and still nothing. I had visions of the rest of my life, or at least my ovaries lives, being nothing more than rounds of trying and 2ww's and pissy trips to the store to buy tampons and alcohol, lots of it. I saw myself in DBL watching and reading as slowly each and everyone of the women who I had come to know would become pregnant and get her 'almost happily ever after' baby. I envisioned myself the ancient gatekeeper to DBL, welcoming the new members with my tale of woe, only to them it would be a cautionary tale, the story none of them really wanted to hear because I didn't get my live baby ticket out of Dodge. No one would want to be near me. Or at least they could explain me away by rationalizing that I was afflicted with that "AMA" syndrome, more commonly known as advanced maternal age, which must be why I didn't get the baby. She's all dried up they would say, she waited too long, that won't happen to us....we hope. I imagined it because it was what I did when I read. I tried to find reasons to explain to myself why someone else's tragedy wouldn't befall me IF I got there, you know, pregnant, again. Sometimes it worked, most times it didn't. We all know there are far too many more stories where there just is no reason why it happened than there are ones where we can blame someone or something, anything. And beyond that even, nothing is guaranteed, nothing certain, not when it comes to live babies anyway.

Off I went to the store, bought my industrial size box of tampons, vowing not to have to come back and do the walk of shame month after month, and I dove into a glass of 'make it all go away' when I got home. It was the last month I had to do it. And we all know what happened after that.

Now when I write, I find myself writing to that me. The scared, desperate and hopeless me. The me I was a year ago, not the me I am now. Because I can hear the chorus in my head of the ones who are 'there' when I write otherwise, either in a post or in a comment. "Easy for you to say, YOU have a baby now." "You don't know what it's like anymore, you got out easy." "Don't blow sunshine and glitter into my world, you didn't have it when you were here and you didn't want to hear it either." I can go on and on but there's no need. You get it. And maybe it's not what anyone really feels but it must be close on some level.

I suppose the dbl club is an evolving one with many rooms. We all go in and gather in the front room, our eyes moist, glazed and shell shocked. We cling to each other, fighting for every breath. We talk because finally we have found others who know. Slowly we find comfort, we get comfortable, we move, we explore our new surroundings, we seek out others who have been there longer, we look for ways out or at least other places to go, we gather information, we garner strength and we welcome those who come after hoping to show them the same warmth that we found when we entered. And after a while our stories change, our needs change, our voices change. We all still share that horror of a common bond but now we find ourselves different again, each one of us unique in our grief and our life after. There is a room for each of us to be sure, no one will ever be alone and there is comfort in that.

In a way I think that getting a baby after has inflicted a kind of survivors guilt in me. The feeling that I was a part of the horrific crash that devastated all of us but somehow I walked away less damaged or less entitled to feel damaged because I have a baby now. And in reality, having the baby does make it better. It just does. There. I said it. It doesn't make the grief better but it does make the living with it better. Infinitely better. And that's the part that brings the guilt. And I don't write this as a complaint or a whine or anything of the sort. It's an observation. A feeling. A way of being. For now. Something else I've learned along the way, everything is temporary around here.

Except for the dead babies. They last forever.

*St. Augustine

**See my last post

Valentines Day Hope

2009-02-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

I'm not a fan of roses on Valentines Day and certainly not red roses...way too cliche for me, BUT this one I had to share. It reminds me of me.

Honest Scrap Award

2009-02-14T12:43:00.001-08:00

Thanks to the lovely CLC for bestowing upon me this little ditty. I've been held hostage of late by a little volunteering commitment and am way behind on my blogging so I am going to skip the part where I actually choose more blogs to pass this on to as most of you have already had a chance to do this, BUT, if you haven't and you are here reading this, then consider yourself duly nominated!

The rules of the award:1) Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.2) Show the 7 winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with "Honest Scrap." Well, there's no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.3) List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

1. I love to eat in bed before I go to sleep. Diets be damned.

2. Sometimes after partaking in the aforementioned activity I will, shudder, skip brushing my teeth. Eee gads! I know. But I am obsessive about scrubbing them during the day, to the tune of 5-10 times a day so I figure I make up for it, right?

3. I love playing Puddle of Mudd, 'She hates Me' really loud in my car and always giggle when they get to the chorus. If you don't know it, find it:) and see how immature I really am.

4. In my last 'honest' list making post I wrote about the sad state of my not so sexy underwears. Now I will add the absolutely not sexy decades old sock collection to the list. I tried to clean out the drawer but decided I would have to buy too many pairs to replace what's in there, so I just put the forlorn, faded, and ever so shriveled foot covers back in to their cavernous home. I suspect one day all of the misfit toys will come to rest here too.

5. I will wake the husband out of a sound sleep to get a spider off the ceiling. It sucks for him as I am up ALOT at night these days and I am not always in our room either, so I have seen a good number of arachnids wandering the likes of our overheads and it isn't a safe place for them. Really.

6. I have become addicted to reruns of The West Wing and also replays of Mad Money and Remember the Titans. Why, I have no idea. Late night nursing and plot lines I can follow without too many functioning brain cells would be my guess.

7. I hate when police cars drive behind me. Could be the expired tags but more likely it's the leftover fear of a teenager who drove way too fast, way too often and didn't get caught nearly enough times to make her stop.

8. I am already one month behind with my new year's resolution to read at least one book a month. Which proves to me why resolutions suck. They make me stress out over things I don't need to stress out about and they put way too much pressure on me to do things that I would normally enjoy doing but now feel pressured to do which stresses me out and then I feel pressured....see where this is going.

9. I can't remember the last time my husband and I went out by ourselves. Seriously. Except for doctor visits and hospitals that is and really, that doesn't count now does it?

10. I want another baby. Can't decide if it's really another baby I want or if this is Caleb and the grief coming out, either way I am not going to have another baby so this is a new layer of longing and sadness I am learning to live with.

Somethings never really change do they?

Kate Bush- This Womens Work

2009-02-11T22:59:00.001-08:00

Thinking of Tash and her Maddy.
xxoo

The space between

2009-02-07T00:33:00.000-08:00

It's been raining babies here in db land. I'd like to say that all have had the happy endings but as we all know, that isn't always the case. A new member of our club joined up, I read about her over at Aunt Becky's place, her name is Cynthiaa and you can support her here. Striking to me about her was that she was already blogging before it happened. Her blog was full of the shiny happy pregnancy story. In fact, the post before it happened she had written about her last baby shower and shared pictures of the new crib and other gifts she had received in anticipation of her baby boy due in two weeks. And then the shit storm descended. We all know that storm, the shock, the disbelief, the unbelievable agony. I wondered tho as I read her blog, which has a pretty substantial following, what the impact will be on the unsuspecting readers.
Most of us here came here specifically to write about our loss. Our blogs were born out of the death of our babies. Our followers, for the most part, are other dead baby moms. For her, she had the ordinary life, the ordinary pregnancy and was expecting the ordinary baby all along. So were her readers. Now they all have witnessed the shattering of the illusion of ordinary. They have all seen that stillbirth does just happen out of nowhere. There are no warnings, no indicators, no "Oh yeah, I saw that coming." predictions. It just drops in and steals ordinary away from you, along with your stability and belief in the rightness of the world. And they all were there to see it happen to her. I know the outpouring of support has been enormous so that is one thing that she will have that so many of us didn't. So many people to reach out and talk to without having to explain any of it. They already know. And of course there's us. I know some of you have already left her messages and invited her over here, to the dark side. She'll find plenty of good company here, I know that.
I hope that for the people who were just following along, just reading her words and expecting the mundane happy ending they thought was a sure thing, that the idea of stillbirth happening only in quiet corners of the world to people who deserve it or to babies who must have been sick or to mothers who must have done something to cause it....is changed forever. While I know none of them have the first idea of what she is going through, I know they all know now how quickly the mundane can turn tragic. And I hope she finds her way to us so we can wrap ourselves around her and show her how we learned to live with that tragedy.

For me, as the days take me farther away from my "that day", I find myself grieving more selfishly. By which I mean I am grieving more for me now and it is exhausting. I think alot about how changed I am, about the sadness that is always lingering just on the outskirts of my consciousness. It's a dull fog resting on the horizon that I can always see, even when I am standing in the brilliant sunlight. I know it is there, waiting to creep it's way in, to slowly envelop me and cover me like a cool blanket, blocking the light and chilling me to the core. When I lived in San Fran.cisco I used to love to stand at my window and look out to the ocean where the fog came into the bay under the Gol.den Gate Brid.ge. It would sit out at the beach and then as the wind blew it would slowly cover the avenues, street by street, making its way up and over Gol.den Gate Park and then crawl up to where I was in my window and I would watch it blow past the antique street lamp on the corner, the mist of water reflected in the yellow cone of light that shone across my street, and marvel at its beauty. It had a calming effect on me, it was mesmerizing and beautiful. Not anymore.
These days it feels suffocating. Not so much the feelings as the reality that the feelings will never go away. That this grief is now a part of who I am. It won't ever become something that I am used to. It isn't like a bad break up where in a few years time you can remember the good times and smile at how devastated you were and see how far you've come. It isn't like when you lose a grandparent and it's awful and sad and you cry and you miss them but in time you come to terms with the natural order of things and you make peace with it.
There will never be a time when it feels ok. I still can be driving in my car listening to my kids laugh or sing or talk or argue, or cooking dinner, or holding Cason, or walking down the street, or breathing and I'll be fine but then something will trigger a memory of that day and the tears come, the tightening in my throat, the tensing of my muscles, the darkness. I've gotten better at hiding it, I've gotten better at riding it out and not letting it take me all the way down on a slow spiral out of control, instead I just leap, hit bottom and start the crawl back out. Because I know I have to and I know I can. But I hate it. I hate that it will last forever, that I will always have this crushing sadness that lurks around every moment in my future. And that is what feels so selfish. Because in those moments it isn't Caleb that is making me melancholy, it is the knowledge that I have to live with this, always, that does it. It's separate from the sadness over Caleb, it just feels all about me. About my life being different, about my happiness being dulled, about my joy being limited, not limitless, because there will always be this to fence it in.
I have my grief for Caleb and now I have my grief for me. They exist on opposite sides of my world. One feels sadly appropriate, the other, indulgent and greedy as though it minimizes his death and instead says look what you did to me, see how I have to live now because of this. But it isn't anger I feel, it's resignation. It's the exhaling and sighing and acknowledgment that this is who I am now and will be forever.
But I want to hope that even if I don't get to live in the sunlight anymore now that that fog is lingering there, that eventually, maybe, I will get to spend more time living somewhere in the space between.

My lips were sealed...

2009-02-01T22:02:00.000-08:00

Coggy has some news...and I am over the moon with joy for her. She was there for me when I joined this club and I am honored that she let me be a part of the last few days, even from all the way across the pond, as she truly labored, to bring something so beautiful into this world. Stop by and and take a peek. Bring a tissue and she'll provide a smile to go with it.

The perfect gift

2009-01-28T21:45:00.000-08:00

It was in a blue velvet draw string pouch. I could hear the delicate tinkling of the rattle before I let it fall into my hand.

A simple, sterling silver piece, fashioned as a bracelet almost. With a ball that connects the two ends of the ring.

I held it in my hand and saw on the rounded surface of the ball, Cason's initials engraved, tiny and perfect, just like him.

I started to thank her and she, a dear friend of my mother's who had brought this to me, told me to look closer.

I turned it over in my hand and there, tiny and perfect on the other side, were Caleb's initials.

Instead of saying thank you, I cried in her arms.

Survey Says

2009-01-26T07:55:00.000-08:00

A while ago, way back in the early days after I lost Caleb, I came across an article that referenced a survey being done in order to examine the experience of parents(mostly mothers) who had lost a child to stillbirth or neonatal death. The purpose of the survey was to give the medical community, i.e. doctors, nurses, technicians etc., insight into the impact of the loss, not only as a life changing experience, duh, but also what the importance of the actual giving of the diagnosis was/is. Simply put, the author of the study was looking to see how crucial the initial delivery, pardon the pun, of the news was to the grief process. Not just the diagnosis but how it was handled be the news giver, what information should be given, how the information should be dealt with by the provider and other issues related to the first part of the experience for the parents.
Additionally, she, the author, inquires as to the lack of information made available to pregnant parents as to the risk of stillbirth in pregnancy and how that affects the parents who later are on the receiving end of that diagnosis.
I participated in the study, taking the 25 minutes or so to answer her questions with the hope that my voice, my experience with an inept medical group, might one day help another mother escape the same shitty handling I had.
The other night I got an email from the author, asking for some follow up information and asking if I wanted to see the preliminary report. To be honest, I had completely forgotten I had even done it(thank you xa.n.ax) but her email recalled the memory for me. I answered her follow up questions and I asked to see the study. Her results are akin to what we all would have told her. That having a compassionate caregiver, who is willing to discuss, for as long as we need, the death of our baby, makes an enormous difference in how we grieve. Her results are a four page study with sexy graphs and other fancy data but the bottom line is that the medical community needs to reevaluate how they treat mothers, parents, of stillborns and neonatal loss babies.
She is still compiling data for the study as it is still a work in progress so she continues to collect data. Which is where YOU come in.
I offered to post the link to the survey on my blog for her so that she could gather more input from dead baby moms. I know so many of us were treated poorly by the medical people whose duty it was to care for us. Here is an opportunity for all of us to let them know what needs to change and how they need to do better when treating the families who are experiencing the tragedy of the loss of their child.
If you want to participate in the study you can find it HERE. And let others know on your blog too. Link back to me or post the link on your site.
The more of us who speak, the louder our voices become. Maybe they will hear us and actually listen.
A girl can dream, right?

I may look different, but I'm still me.

2009-01-24T16:50:00.000-08:00

Not so long ago, I wrote about sailing for another port, about the journey taken from dead baby land through pregnancy and into, as it was, hopefully, motherhood on the other side. Having reached what I thought was a destination, my destination, I now find that really there are no final stops, no place where you disembark. Yes, I arrived, but my pilgrimage continues. While it seemed to me at the time as though I had to choose, stay in the familiar or let go and embrace the unknown, it really was only for the crossing.
Upon reaching my other side, that 'place' we all look to as our ticket out of db land, I was made brutally aware that while I was given a beautiful child, he wasn't a pass off the ship but rather a passenger traveling with me. And as many may have thought or even noted at the time, a part of me would always remain steadfastly in the land of dead babies. There is no 'get out of db land free' card in this place.
And really we're all straddling the horizon, looking back and looking forward, sure of where we have been and so unsure of where it is that we are going.
In some ways I suppose the dead baby mom label has become quite comfortable. As the poem "Shoes" says, some of us will at some point have walked in these shoes for so long that we will go days and they won't even bother us at all. Reading that poem in the early days after losing Caleb, I couldn't imagine ever having a day pass where I wasn't consumed by his loss. But now, they have and they continue to. I don't feel like less of a dead baby mom because of it, I just feel farther removed from the shock of his loss. I have trekked many miles in these shoes and the wear is beginning to show.
I don't know who I would be now if Cason hadn't joined me. I don't know what my grief would look like or feel like. I know many IRL assume that because you get your live baby you must be complete, fixed, all better now. Even my husband said to me recently when I was talking about the goings on in db land, "Well , you can't really call yourself a db mama anymore can you?" He smiled when he said it and I know, having lived with him all these years, that he meant no harm in saying it, but I looked right back at him and asked,"Did Caleb come back to life? Is he here?" That wiped the smile off his face. But if even my husband thought it, him, the father of Caleb, I can only imagine what others who are farther removed from me must think.
I guess to almost anyone, even a fellow dead baby mom, my rights to the whole package of all things db may seem diminished by the live baby. That makes sense, it really does. Not that I am not allowed to grieve for my loss but that I do have something marvelous to cherish now. It has not gone unnoticed by me that not everyone here has gone on to have another baby, some by choice and some by shit awful circumstance. Even here in the world of dead babies, we all travel a different course. Even though we all deny the existence of the 'pain Olympics' it can't go unsaid that truly some of us have a harder load to bear, face a different challenge, bear the weight of different decisions for the future. And yet, we have this one shared thing, this life altering moment, a bond born out of motherhoods cruelest fate and because of it, we walk or sail, together, (choose your metaphor), always.
While I now carry a live baby in my arms, I will always carry my dead baby in my heart. And even though I may look different on the outside, I'm still here, I'm still me.

Scotch & Milk?

2009-01-22T21:13:00.000-08:00

He didn't even offer to share...

Jealous?

2009-01-17T16:50:00.001-08:00

Just to be clear, Cason does not go in the Moses basket when it is next to the fireplace...although he could since the weather here has been in the high 80's this past week. Ugh. The kitty, well, apparently he doesn't care where the bed is, as long as he is in it and not the squirmy new pet that has taken up residence in said kitty's house.

Speaking of, here he is at 8 weeks. I can't believe it.

Notes from the other side

2009-01-13T11:54:00.000-08:00

My coping mechanisms are failing me. The thing that I see now, now that my leprechaun has landed safely, is how much I was denying before. And what I mean by denying is not that I didn't realize that I had a dead baby, but more how much his death and the whole experience of actually delivering a dead baby, would impact me and my life forever. The more time that I spend here in 'live' baby land the more I see that I really was looking at the idea of having another baby as a 'fixer' for all of the things that having had a stillborn broke.

Guess what? Having a baby doesn't fix any of it. They are coupled together and yet they exist independently of each other. But neither experience adds or negates anything to the other one. Cason's birth was marvelous and cleansing and full of light and purity. Laying in the recovery room, him on my chest, surrounded by my family, holding my husbands hand while listening to the joy in my children's voices as they marveled over their new brother, the emotions and feelings that I had at that moment were euphoric. And it wasn't the heavy narcotics. It was love in its purest form. Unencumbered and unfettered it flowed freely and I reveled in it. It was, quite simply,the best moment of my life. And I wanted that moment to be my forever. I wanted those feelings of bliss, of perfectness, of relief and success to stay and inhabit my whole world, leaving no room for any of the other feelings or emotions that had haunted me for the past 14 months. I wanted good to win out over evil. I wanted the good to make the bad go away. I was counting on it, even if I didn't realize it.

Instead, what I have found almost two months out, is that I can recall that moment and cherish it, but it is a memory, it is not a permanent state of being. Rejoining the 'real world' doesn't afford me the luxury of leaving any of who I am behind. All of the loss and its accompaniments come with me. They always will and now I have to learn, all over it seems, how to live with them.

Seeing pregnant women still hurts. Despite having had a 'problem free' subsequent pregnancy myself, I still envy the innocent, shiny happy pregnant woman, because I now know, even if I had 100 more pregnancies that all ended well, they would not begin to erase or minimize the impact of the one that didn't.

The fear of having my world turned upside down at any moment still remains. I feel like all my children have targets on them now. My husband takes the kids out for a bike ride and I am convinced they will get hit by a car. I spend the entire time they are gone listening for sirens, the phone in my hand, my heart pounding, waiting for the call that will bring me the bad news.

Putting the leprechaun down to sleep, terror fills me. Will he wake up, will he keep breathing and not become a SIDS statistic? I want to hide him and my other two from the world forever with the hope that I can protect them from the invisible forces that came into my life and stole away my baby and my sense of security in my world.

Last weekend I went to that mecca of baby stores to pick up a present for my niece who was turning one. I avoided it the whole time I was pg with Cason because the thought of being surrounded by that much in your face "you're having a baby" merchandise made me physically ill. But I thought going now would be ok. It wasn't. It still felt like I was tempting fate. I still felt like a fraud. I didn't belong there with the many shiny, happy pregnant couples. I am not them. I felt like the grim reaper trolling the aisles, the reminder to all of the very bad things that can happen, the one who forces others to shield their eyes and turn away, to deny my existence and run in the opposite direction sure in their belief that it will not happen to them. The one true thing about our paths crossing, the intersection of our worlds being that they are not me and I am not them, for now or anymore, depending on your perspective of course.

I'm angry that even a simple shopping trip still evokes such horrible feelings in me. And on that particular trip, the longer I stayed the harder it got. Choosing outfits and toys for a one year old shouldn't be this hard I thought. Why is it this hard for me still? Why can't this be easy. And as I stood in the middle of the store, slowly sifting through the clothes and trying to pick something that would suit a soon to be walking, precocious one year old, the sudden realization of why it hurt so bad to be in there fell over me, bringing my reality back to me. I should have been shopping for Caleb's first birthday too. My niece and he were supposed to have this birthday, and all of their birthdays together. But it didn't turn out that way. Caleb will never be one or two or anything. He will always be the baby that died. And I can't hide from it anymore. And it isn't him that I am hiding from, it 's the 'it'. The pain, the ache, the missing, the longing for him. That's what I have been hiding from. The fact that I really wanted him, that I really miss having him here and that I hate knowing I will have to spend the rest of my life with these feelings. Because nothing will ever change what happened. Caleb is dead. I never get to see him or touch him or hold him or love him the way he should have been loved. And I hate it.

I spent the first year of his absence trying to fill the void with another baby. It was a hard year and there was grief to be had, tears that were cried and a baby that was missed. But I didn't really let the full impact of being a dead baby mom take hold. I was focused on something else. Now I have to see my whole reality for what it is. For who I am. Dead baby and all. I think somewhere in my mind I thought the grief would be easier to live with and process if I had that live baby. So I pretended that I could put off really looking at it until I had the baby in my arms. That way I would be shielded from the true effect it has had on my life. I existed in different worlds, a schizophrenic existence really and I was able to keep each piece of my broken personality separate pretty successfully. There was the old me, the face I put on for everyone IRL, there was dead baby me who existed in the blog world and there was pregnant me who focused solely on bringing the live baby to fruition. Somehow those separate and distinct personalities existed in a bizarre sort of symbiotic relationship. I functioned and survived my own life by having these distinct places in my head where I could keep my emotions parsed, where my different versions of myself could protect me. I didn't know I was doing it, it wasn't something I planned or contrived. I just did it.

But the act of delivering a live baby has made the managing of these parts of myself impossible. It is time to come to terms with the whole of who I am. I can't pretend that a part of me doesn't exist, it's too hard. I can't pretend that having a dead baby was something I had to get through, an obstacle I had to overcome on my way to having a live baby. And I can't pretend that I am the old me anymore either. I am not her. She is lost to me forever. I may look the same or similar to her but if you look closely in my eyes, you will see the scars, you will see the unmistakable void that tell you I am living my life without my son. And you will see that I am also living my life with my sons and my daughter. It is all in there. I just have to find a way to let it all exist together.

And it will start with me spending what should have been the second year of my sons life, learning to live my life, without him, forever.

VOTE!

2009-01-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

Wait the elections are over right? Well, that silly thing about choosing the leader of the free world is, but this election is much more important. Okay, maybe not more important but at least equally, almost.
Mel is up for Best Medical Health Issue Blog award over at the Weblog Awards. Mel, the Stirrup Queen and host of Lost and Found and Bridges. She has done and continues to do so much for this community of loss, life and hope.
A vote for Mel brings us closer to real recognition outside of our quiet world here in dead baby land. It is a chance for people not struggling with our issues to take a real look at who we are and what we live with everyday. In short, voting for Mel puts a face on all of us. And lordy, we all need a face and a voice too.
And here's a beautiful thing: According to the always delightful Tash, we can vote once a day until 1/13/09! That's a lot of talking by the db mafia! So if your reader is low and your looking for a worthwhile way to spend a few seconds, go over and VOTE!!!

News you can use:0)

2009-01-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

Our little friend Reese had an unexpected, well she was expected but not until next week, arrival. Hop on over and help her welcome in the new little Radha!!

Way to go Reese!!

Thinking of Sue

2009-01-03T16:11:00.000-08:00

I've been reading with Sue about the painful days of last year. She went through so much, she was so brave and still her sweet boys are gone. If you have a moment, please stop by and give her some love and support, I know she needs it. She is telling the day by day journey that she and C., and her family endured. It is heartbreaking and frustrating and I can only imagine the heaviness of her heart as she recalls those days of anguish.

I'm thinking of you Sue.

xxoo

New beginnings...and happy endings.

2009-01-01T02:25:00.000-08:00

I rarely go back and read my old posts. I'm not that brave. I think it's mostly because I don't want to remember how I felt. I'm afraid of those feelings. Even though I was the one feeling them and I have already lived through the days I wrote about, I just can't put myself back there. They were the darkest days, the worst days of my life...so far, ever, I hope.
As much as I like to pretend that I have dealt with all of the bad shit, I know I haven't. I know I skated. I kept myself busy, I spent alot of time pretending I was 'ok', to the outside world. It's a fabulous coping mechanism, really, if you don't mind sequestering the biggest parts of your self and then putting on a show, 24/7 for like, ever.
Truth be told, it's exhausting. I found that alcohol helped with the tiredness, at least at night when the tiredness seemed to evaporate and sleeplessness would take up residence instead. And really the tiredness isn't a sleepy kind of tired anyway. It's more of a physical and emotional tiredness that makes your body feel as though it weighs a ton and makes the idea of being around people for any length of time seem about as appealing as cleaning locker room toilets with your bare hands.
I remember going to lunch with my sister(hi sis) in January after taking my poor dead cat's body to be cremated and just hanging out and laughing. It was the first time I actually felt good being out, which considering the events of that day, you know, the dead cat, you'd think I would have fallen apart altogether. I had only recently shared the existence of my blog with her and so we were able to talk about it, something I never could do IRL since no one else knew about it. I remember her saying how she would never know how to keep a blog or what to write, except, "Woke up, got drunk again." and the way the words tumbled out of her mouth, the tone, the tenor of those words, it just tickled me and I started to laugh, a real from down in the gut laugh that made my eyes water and my sides hurt and I kept laughing long after she and I had said our good byes that afternoon. And it made me both happy and sad. Happy that I could still laugh like that, that I could still feel like that and sad that those feelings would forever come as a surprise to me now, given that they were buried so far beneath the heavier more omnipresent feelings of grief and isolation.
I guess the sudden awareness of the total compartmentalization of my emotions hadn't really occurred to me until then. I hadn't even realized how much effort I was putting into 'being me', into proving to everyone that I was 'fine'.
But here, in the blogosphere, I didn't have to do that. I could just be. I could write and spill what ever thoughts or feelings I was having. I didn't have to censor myself. And I didn't. Which returns me to my point. I rarely go back to see what I wrote, because I don't want to remember the feelings. Tonight, NYE, I made an exception. I went back to see where I was a year ago, to see what's changed.
Alot.
Obviously.
Okay, to be totally honest, I didn't read the whole post because it's about my son and his release of a whole ton of his grief and in keeping with my proven coping skills, I can't read it because I don't want to remember how fucking awful that was either.
But I did read the rest. This is what I read.
It was a year ago that I started to hope. Not just for the laughter that I would share with my sister, but for a new baby. The quintessential dream of a db mom. And so it was that we spent most of 2008 trying to bring that hope to life. As did most everyone here in DB land.
It wasn't easy. Not any of it. The trying, the failing, the trying again, the tests, the days it all seemed so all consuming, probably because it was, and then it happened. And it was nine months of pins and needles, of hopes and fears, of denial and reality all colliding, spinning wildly out of control and any attempts at managing it were futile. I spent the greater part of 2008 with my head in the sand, not only suppressing the db stuff but also the pg stuff. More and more of my life had become so overwhelmingly emotionally oppressive that I now pretty much ignored about 95% of my own existence. The result of which, besides my slipping mental health, lots more of those real fancy gray hairs we all love so much. Sigh.
BUT.
He's here now.
A year ago, I don't think, no I know, I would not have believed me or anyone else, if they had told me that I would have a new baby in my life come NYE 2008.
And I would have been wrong. Now he lays sleeping on my bed, making quiet cooing noises as his tiny hand flutters every once in a while, waving at some vision in his head perhaps. And better still, as of yesterday, well actually now two days ago, when he is awake, he will smile at me. A big toothless, all lips and eyes, smile. And if he really wiggles and kicks and waves his arms, he will even let loose the tiniest of baby words, surprising even himself, so much so that he immediately silences himself so that he can hear himself better, only to become frustrated that the sounds stopped. And all the while, I sit, mesmerized and tearful, that I got this miracle. That this tiny creature has fallen into my life. That the quiet hopes of a broken heart somehow led to this life. Words can never tell the whole story of him, at least not words I know.
2008 was a hard year. And it was a year of hope and miracles. And it was a year I will never forget. Not ever.
And now as I sit in the early morning hours of this new year, I wonder what 2009 will bring. I have new hopes for this year. Hopes for my 3 living children to be healthy and happy. Hopes for my heart to continue to heal. Hopes for more laughter than tears this year. And hopes for many healthy babies to be born to my friends here in this place. Hopes that 2009 will bring to them what 2008 brought to me and and to Ashleigh and to Julia and to Sarah...and many more.
I know there are no guarantees, but I have to hope.
And so I will.
Happy New Year to all of you. I hope it brings you all a new beginning and of course, a happy ending.

On birth announcements and anger

2008-12-28T19:34:00.000-08:00

I'm going to piss someone off here, I am sure. But, it's my space so here is where I get to dump my maybe petty, maybe serious, gripes with 'issues' that I am otherwise compelled to keep quiet about.

So here goes.
As surprising as this may seem, we actually kept my pregnancy with Cason fairly quiet. We didn't tell anyone who wouldn't actually see me during the nine or so months I was carrying him. The exception was some family, of course, and my one good girlfriend up in San Francisco. The reasons are obvious. It just needed to be us. I didn't want the cheerleaders or the questions. I couldn't deal with either or the inevitable,"Oh, everything will be fine." reassurances that were sure to follow if I actually shared my running fears with anyone who dared ask me how I was doing or how the pregnancy was going. It was hard enough dealing with it with the people who did know and did see me everyday, I didn't want to invite anyone else into the bubble.
Even my husband kept the secret from his colleagues at work until I was past the point where we lost Caleb and even then he only shared the information with a few close confidants. I think we all understand the anxiety that was so tightly wrapped around the disclosing of this little tidbit of information. And the obvious unwillingness to not have to untell this story should everything go wrong again.
Fast forward the nine months and the safe arrival of our beautiful boy. Now came the time to actually do the telling. The birth announcement. So much to be told in one simple piece of card stock. I wanted the whole story of Cason to be there, not just his vital stats. This was not an ordinary pregnancy and Cason is more than just another social security statistic. He is the 'happy ending', right? He is the punctuation of a story that has been unfolding for two some years. He is the ending of one book and the beginning of a sequel, but his birth was the overlapping of the two stories and it needed, for me, to be told just like that. I needed both my boys to have a part in the telling. They both needed to be there in the announcement because they were both a part of the story. I couldn't leave Caleb out. He was/is too important a piece of Cason's life to ignore him.
Turns out they really don't make birth announcements for babies born after a stillbirth. They don't have a generic, fill in the blanks for that. There isn't any sample wording or examples of others to choose from. I had to come up with it on my own. My husband and I talked about the wording, how to fit all of the details into a few small words. How to pay tribute to Caleb and also celebrate Cason. I took to heart the symbols that I have come to know that represent loss and babies after. And when it was all said and done I found the right words, after about a hundred different variations were eliminated, and I found a wonderful printer who was able to create the perfect piece for us.

Here it is:
I love it. I covered up our names, but they are the last two lines on the left side. I'm not sure, before I post it if you will be able to read the print. If not, it reads,

After the storm

came our rainbow...

Cason Patrick

November 17, 2008

seven pounds, twelve ounces

twenty inches

(Left corner)

Welcomed with love
and open arms by

(our names)

(Right Corner)

Always loved~Never forgotten

Caleb Robert

Born Still

September 1, 2007

Now comes the part where I piss people off, maybe.

Several things have happened since the announcements went out. First, alot of surprised people have reached out to us to help welcome Cason. Lots of gifts have been delivered, cards mailed, the usual baby things, for which I am grateful, don't get me wrong. Second, besides my immediate family and my one girlfriend in SF, NO ONE has mentioned Caleb or his inclusion on the card at all.

What's worse, I have received cards congratulating us on our 'third' child, I have also received cards and even a hand written letter on the 'grace and power of God' in bringing us Cason. One person, who I ran into in a store, who I only know from my sons sport, after seeing me and the baby (I told her the whole story months ago) said right off, "PRAISE GOD!" because you know, it's all about HIM.

And then there are the stalkers. The ones who never sent a thing when Caleb died but who want to be all over Cason. They call or stop by wanting to know all the details about Cason but overtly ignore that little elephant in the room named Caleb. Even still, there are no words of sympathy or compassion. It feels more like now they can be around me because I'm normal again. Or at least I don't make them feel uncomfortable anymore. I guess to them I don't look like a dead baby mom anymore. Idiots.

And the God stuff. Oh Holy Crap, that makes my skin bristle and my eyes burn. I mean, I am not a religious person, as you may have noticed about me, but I still do have enough faith in me that I wouldn't call myself agnostic, yet. So to suddenly send me a card or say to me, after losing my son a mere year and some months ago, that GOD somehow now decided to give me this baby instead, that GOD decided to let this baby live, that GOD is totally responsible for this, well, it makes me crazy angry. Unless, of course, you're willing to then let me blame Caleb dying all on GOD. As I said to one of my girlfriends after the run in with the sport mom, if it's "Praise God" now what was it a year ago? Hmmm, let me guess, "FUCK GOD", right? I know it's awful, they are awful words to write. And the thing of it is, it's not what I believe anyway. I don't believe, if there is a God, that she or he, micromanages us like that. I'm sorry, but if God has time to pick and choose which of my children are going to live or die inside me or outside me for that matter, what the fuck is going on with all of the children who are starving to death all over the world. Or the ones who are being tortured, raped, maimed, terrorized, suffering from terminal illnesses....the list goes on. And I know the answer to that too. At least I know their answer, "The Mystery, The Plan". Don't question the omnipotent OZ, ooops I mean God.

Come on, people. Open your eyes. At least, if only for my benefit, pretend for a while that common sense is some small part of your religion. If you can't, it's okay, but please, spare me the sharing then, of your beliefs, cuz they sure as hell aren't mine.

Can you imagine if I walked into a funeral for someones baby and announced to the parents, "Boy, God sure must not like you or your baby much. But Praise God!" But of course, the true believers will tell you that God called the baby home and that this is all part of that 'Plan'. And we can't understand it cuz we're too dumb.

I'm not dumb. I'm not evil. I don't even hate God. Unless of course that "Plan" thing is true, then I really do have some serious issues with God. I think bad shit happens to good people. I think bad shit happened to me, to my family, to Caleb. I don't need a bigger, universal reason to explain it. I needed a medical one and luckily I got a pretty decent one. Decent enough to allow us to try again being reasonably certain that particular cause wouldn't happen to us or another baby again. I don't blame God, much. I'm not enough of a lapsed Catholic to have released all of my Catholic guilt. It took years to drill it in to me, it's gonna take the rest of my life I suspect to get it out. So in my moments of weakness, I do call out to God and I have even asked for help. I immediately retract it, reminding myself that I don't believe that God has time for personal prayers, but I still do it.

Funny thing is, this summer when I was rushing my daughter to the ER and I was trying not to be hysterical after my son asked me if she was going to die, I screamed and raged in my head, "You're not taking another one, I won't let you!". Which was stunning to me because that normally would have been a time when I would have fallen back on my praying or more accurately, bargaining with God. But I was so scared and tired of being scared the only thing I had in me was the anger.

And still, it remains, the anger. But, I've kept it in. I haven't rammed my beliefs down anyone's throat.

Now, if everyone else could just show me the same courtesy. That'd be great.

Oh, and one more thing. Please, stop asking us if we are going to have anymore children. Seriously.

P.S. God, if you are reading this I want to tell you, well, you know cuz you can read my mind, right? Thanks.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T00:11:00.002-08:00

Through the years we all will be together if the fates allow...

That line always gets to me. Ever since I stood at the side of the grave for one of my best friends from high school as he was buried at the ripe old age of 21 on a cold December morning. Maybe I never paid attention to the lyrics before because I know I had heard the song, maybe it was the version I heard that made it clear, I don't know. But it was then that I realized the fates don't always allow us to be together and it's not a pretty thing. Especially when the one missing is young and beautiful and woefully short of the days necessary to complete a full lifetime.

We all know, too well, how cruel fate can be, how little control we have over anything really. We just have to muddle through somehow. It's what the song says. At least one version of it does anyway.

I'm thinking of all of you and your babies, those that are here, those that are gone and those that will make their first appearance in the near or even far future. And I am thinking especially of Emilie and her family who will never share another Christmas together, at least not here on this earth. I hope that the coming year brings healing to the hearts and hope to the lives of each and everyone of you.

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Pretenders - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

2008-12-25T00:11:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas my friends, near or far, I hope you all have yourself a merry little Christmas.

Silenced too soon

2008-12-24T10:38:00.000-08:00

I don't have the actual post to confirm this news but I have heard that brave Emilie has died. I have not been able to stop thinking of her and her boys all week. I think of her last post, not even a week ago, in which she says "I'll write more later." and I can not believe that her words, her voice, has been silenced.

Yes, tonight will be a silent night. Not the kind I wished for for her and her family. If there is such a thing, I hope that she is sleeping in heavenly peace.

ETA: The post from Emilie's husband is up now. Please stop over and offer what comfort you can so he knows just how much his family is being thought of now in these dark hours. My heart is shattered, the tears for someone I never met but felt so close to, surprise even me.

On grieving and gratitude

2008-12-20T23:46:00.000-08:00

It's hard to give voice to the thoughts. I want to write and say to everyone, "It's all perfect now. Once you get your baby, everything goes back to normal and all of the dead baby things just vanish, they slip away into the air carried by the cries of a new life." But that is just not the truth. Not even close.

In the moment of Cason's birth, it is true that I saw for the first time the permanence of Caleb's death. Maybe the more accurate thing to say is that I felt it. I let myself feel it. I had to stop holding onto the wishing this had never happened feelings and I had to embrace the reality of my life. I have a child who died. And now I have a child who lives. I have both. I have to live with both. Forever.

I want to tell you that having Cason has taken the sting, or more aptly the full body blow, of losing Caleb away. But it doesn't. Not even a little. I think I thought it would. I wonder if we all think that.

I was wrong. Having Cason didn't even quiet the noise, the running dead baby soundtrack in my head. It's all still there.

Maybe I thought or even believed that having another baby would somehow replace Caleb or fill the void left by him. I didn't think I thought that. I really didn't. I know I wrote during my pregnancy that I didn't want anyone to ever think that Cason would replace Caleb or that I would somehow be healed if I got the live baby. But I wonder if the biggest fool in all of it was me. I think somewhere deep down inside I thought, or maybe hoped, that that is exactly what would happen.
It didn't.

Which isn't to imply or even hint at the idea that having Cason is or was in any way diminished by having lost Caleb. Exactly the opposite is true. Having Cason is by far the best thing that has ever happened to our family, to me, since, well, ever. Do I love him more than my other two living children? No. But my love for him is colored with different emotions. My heart is in an entirely different condition than it was when they were born. Obviously, right? I am not the same anymore. One of my friends once said to me, "No two children are ever raised by the same parents." I always loved that idea because it does truly capture the uniqueness of every child's experience in a family. And never has it felt more true to me than it does now. For Cason is surely not going to be raised by the same people who raised his older brother and sister. We have nurtured two children and have survived the loss of a third. We have a humility and awareness of life and death that we did not know before. We have lived the very best and worst moments as parents. We are most assuredly not the same two people we were a decade and then some ago when we ventured into this thing called parenthood. Even if we wanted to we could not be the people we were before he was born.

And Cason, his very existence is illuminated by his lost brothers life. Can I tell you how many times my husband has called Cason, Caleb? No, I stopped counting a while ago.

And for me, every time I hold him, especially in the quiet late night hours when he and I are alone, him snuggled warmly against my chest, his body curved into an impossible "S" shaped bundle, as I imagine he must have been when he dwelled within me, I stroke his back, my hand now able to reach his skin and not be shielded from him by my belly, I implore him never to leave me. My love for him is so fierce it is almost frightening. The lingering fear of a dead baby mom always hovering around me, reminding me that nothing is certain, that anything can be taken away at any moment. (I sometimes try to shake the fear away with images of me doing an impersonation of Shirley McClain in Terms of Endearment. Early in the movie when she doesn't hear her baby daughter moving in the crib, she tells her husband that the baby must be dead so she climbs into the crib and shakes the baby enough to get her to cry at which point she says "there that's better" and leaves the crying baby and goes back to her own room to sleep. I don't shake Cason but I have been known to move him around a bit, to make sure he is still breathing, often waking him in the process.) I want not a second to pass without him feeling me loving him. I wonder does he know, can he ever know, how much he was wanted, needed in our lives. Will he ever be able to understand just what his life has meant to all of us. Will he feel burdened by his lost brothers legacy or grateful for it? I can't answer that question myself, I have no idea how I will raise a child to.

And then my thoughts are with Caleb and everything that he is missing. All of the love he never got to know, to feel, the life he never got to live. All of the things we will never know about him. Cason is an impossibly easy baby, would Caleb have been? Cason loves his baths, would Caleb have? Cason still has red hair and the beginnings of what seem to be green eyes, a true leprechaun, what color hair and eyes would Caleb have had? The list goes on and on. And it hurts me now more to think of these things than it did before. I think maybe the joy I feel experiencing these moments with Cason makes me feel as though I am somehow cheating Caleb out of something. I don't know how to parent a dead child. I don't know how to love him the right way, if there is such a thing.

It's as if the grief has started all over again. First you get to grieve the emptiness of your heart and your arms and then you get to grieve the fullness of them. I suppose it's not the fullness really, it's the awareness of the stark truth that one is always going to be missing. And while your arms and heart are filled they are never going to hold everything they should have.

My daughter seems to have grasped this reality easier than I have. She will often talk to me about the 4 children in our family, her and her 3 brothers. How if Caleb had lived she would have been a big sister to two brothers. I wonder if she will always include Caleb or if her memory of him and the loss of him will fade over time as Cason and his presence fill her daily life.

I guess I wonder that about me too.

I'll take it though. Living with this confusion is infinitely more bearable than the alternative. I know that. I am not whining. I know how lucky we are, I am. I know not everyone who gets a membership card to the db club gets a living baby afterwards. I remember the night and day I labored and delivered Caleb, two of the three nurses I had were members of this club. I asked both of them if they had a live baby after. Neither did. Hearing that from them was devastating to me. I was already trying to plan another baby and they both were crushing my hopes of the possibility. Getting here, to this place, getting my baby, I am beyond grateful. There aren't words to express the feelings or the emotions that come with the magic that is handed to you in a living, breathing baby when you have already lived through the devastation of being handed your dead baby. And when people see him, people who don't know the story, when they offer the standard congratulations or other baby type welcome words, I feel compelled to tell them everything. I want them to know this is no ordinary baby, he did not come easily, we didn't just decide to have a baby and get one. I want them to understand as much as possible that I am overwhelmed with gratitude for this little boy. I want them to see the magic in him too. But I don't think anyone can truly see it unless they have a membership card.

I see it.

There will never be a time that I look at him or think of him and don't see it. And for that I am grateful.
ETA: Blogger rotated my pic...sorry for any neck strain:)

Comfort & Joy...?

2008-12-19T12:10:00.000-08:00

As if any of us need reminding about the unfairness of life and the randomness of that evil bitch fate anyway...
I have posted here before about an incredible mom, Emilie, whose blog I follow quietly. She was diagnosed with cancer while she was in the early weeks of pregnancy with her second son. She braved surgery and treatment and beat the odds, delivering her beautiful, healthy son almost a year ago. The cancer then reoccurred and she has been fighting like a mother bear to save her own life and to spend as much time with her two children as possible.
Today, she posted this and I am heartbroken. For her, for her boys, for her husband and for her extended family and friends who have all been supporting her and helping her fight. It seems the time has come for her to stop fighting and to prepare for something no young mother should have to.
If you have a moment to stop by her blog and offer what ever support one can in an ungodly time such as this,please do. I can not wrap my tiny brain around this. I suppose because there is no way to understand it.
This is not the way it should be, for anyone.
What does that song say, 'comfort and joy'? Where is that now?

What's in a year?

2008-12-05T14:28:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that it has been one year since my first post. I had been lurking around here in db land for a while, somehow having found my way to a post by Ashleigh, appropriately entitled 'Bite Me' ( a great post btw, definitely worth reading) and later somehow found Niobe who had recently put up a post about the worst thing a medical 'professional', or other a**hole, had said to you, and my love affair with this place we call db land was sealed.
I started reading the blogs of women who commented on those spaces and found my way to C, Coggy, Charmed Girl, Olive Lucy, A., Julia, Tash, G., the list grew and grew until my side bar of favorites, formerly full of things like holiday cupcake recipes, places to take children and decorating ideas, slowly became a list of lifelines, a support network like nothing I had ever known before and certainly didn't know even existed. I never in a million years would have seen myself as a 'blogger', who could imagine that I would have anything of interest to share with strangers or that I would even be brazen enough to do it if I did. But as we all discover, once we get the chutzpah to actually comment on another's blog, it is like the opening of the flood gates. All of those words and thoughts we have kept to ourselves during the painful days, weeks, months after joining this G*dforsaken club, come spilling out, or as Janice would say, we vomit them all over the screen (I love that saying as it perfectly describes how I write) and pretty soon we need our own space to do it. As happened with me. And to my utter bewilderment, these lovely ladies who I had never met, never seen, never spoken to, reached out their collective broken hearts to me and began to help me heal. They encouraged me to keep spilling, keep talking, keep sharing. They offered me a safe place to be honest, brutally, painfully honest without fear of hurting someone else's feelings or offending someones idea of decency or worse. They offered solace, comfort, shared tears and even the occasional laugh, sometimes a hearty one, cuz even a db mom can laugh, sometimes.
In the beginning I told no one about my blog. I wrote late at night when the house was quiet, a cocktail or three at the ready (the only casualty in the creation of this blog I am afraid was a treasured bottle of Scotch my husband was saving for a really special occasion, which, turned out to be the writing of this blog, but as it worked out, I was the only one who was toasting....sorry honey).
I had no idea where my life was headed 365 days ago. It felt like I was in a downward spiral, hanging on by a thread, going through the motions, trying to hold things together for my children, trying to make life normal in a world that now felt so alien and cruel to me. I knew I was lucky, lucky to have two beautiful children already, lucky to have such a supportive family surrounding me and lucky to have many friends who stayed by my side as I struggled to regain my footing, trying like hell to find that new 'normal' we all search for after being handed our dead baby membership card. But lucky doesn't count for shit when you get handed your membership card, does it?
I wrote about wanting out of the club. The daily strapping on of the grief backpack was burdensome at best and suffocating at it's worst. I wanted to be finished with it. I know now, you don't ever finish, you just learn to live with it and someday's it really isn't heavy at all, it just is what it is.
I wrote about wanting another baby. I truly did not think I would get one. I did not think my husband would be willing to gamble again. He was much more inclined to believe the message was clear, you're done. A miscarriage and stillbirth back to back at our age...give it up. But I made my case, I told him I thought our marriage, our life would be altered forever if we just quit. That I didn't think I would ever recover if we didn't at least try. That I didn't want to walk away from my child bearing years with the awful memory of being handed my dead son as my last memory of the baby world. I told him, it's the tragedy you don't want again, a baby you would love. And somewhere in the pleading, he heard me and, well...we got supremely lucky. Unbelievably, mind blowingly, lucky. I still can't believe how lucky.
And through it all, you ladies stayed here with me. Even when you were dealing with your own grief, your own loss, your own disappointments and shit luck, you still stayed here and even cheered.
And I am humbled. I am awe struck and amazed. That out of this nightmare has come something so beautiful. If you had asked me a year ago to write that sentence I would have spit my drink out in your face. A horrible waste of perfectly fine liquor. But it is true. I am not going to wax on and blow sunshine up your nether parts because I know for some of you this last year has been more thorns than roses and for others it is still unfolding. But for all of you, I am hoping like hell that luck or whatever it is that brings happy endings or beginnings, depending on how you look at it, visits each and every one of you and soon, god damn it. Soon. Because I could not have survived this past year without you and I plan on hanging around here trying to lend the same comfort and shoulders that you have given me. And I'll do it forever and a day if that's what it takes.
I don't know what this blog will turn into now that Cason has joined our family. I still have plenty to write about but it is all wrapped up in this new place I am in and I don't know how to separate them. And this is a place where dead baby mom's should be able to go and not read about the musings of a mom and her newborn. Which is not to say that I don't have db things to say, because believe me, I do, I just need to find a way to do it that is right.
But I'll figure it out. It takes time. As all things do.
So thank you to all of you, new and old to this place of mine. Your friendship has literally kept me afloat and made the difference for me in ways I don't think I could ever describe. But I suspect you know what they are.
Happy Anniversary to all of us...I think...is that sick or what?
Now, be a good friend and go have a drink...on me:)
And make it a double.

Saying hello...and good-bye

2008-12-01T16:36:00.001-08:00

Laying on the operating table, I was unable to wipe the tears away as they poured from my eyes, my arms were securely fastened, crucifix style, to the outstretched shelves of the table, to aid the anesthesiologist in vein access. It didn't matter though, I lay there and listened to my newborn son, his cries were hearty and quivery, just as you might imagine they would be, just as I had hoped, for so many months, two years really, to hear one day. My husband kept saying to me, "He's here honey, he's here..." and I kept repeating, "Is he ok? Is he really ok?"
The nurse held him up so I could see him, really look at him through my tears, so that I could see he was indeed, really here. And really alive.
In the moments before he was born, laying on the table, paralyzed from the chest down, waiting for them to start, I was terrified. My body was shaking, not from the coldness of the room but from the crushing fear that still, something could go wrong. They had taken me off the monitors(the very same monitors that two hours earlier had failed to find his heartbeat when they first hooked me up. The universe, I guess, thought it might be funny to send in a nurse with broken, but brand new, equipment...needless to say I didn't get the joke and my stress level never did recover from that scary start to my delivery)and I could no longer feel anything in my belly. The assisting doctor was late and we all were waiting for her. And so I lay helpless, literally paralyzed and fear filled, thinking even now, my baby could die, please hurry, please get it out. We were delayed because of another baby in distress, not news a db mom needs to hear when waiting to deliver.
And then she came and everything started. Through my rattling teeth I chanted, healthy baby, healthy baby, over and over as I waited, my view obstructed by the blue sheet put between my face and my body. I held my husbands hand as long as I could. Then he stood up to take pictures and the doctor told me 'alot of pressure now' and she meant it, I felt as though an elephant had parked on my chest. I couldn't breathe. My husband told me, "...almost honey, almost, almost..." and then in unison a chorus of nurses and doctors yelled out, "Here it comes and it's a.... boy!" and then in a moment it all changed. I heard his cry. The sweetest sound I have ever heard in all of my life. And in that moment, a year and some months worth of grief spilled out of me, poured out of me really, my body wracked with uncontrollable sobs, my eyes blurred by the tears, my voice a whisper as I sought reassurance after reassurance that he really was ok.
And when the nurse held him up, and I saw his red hair, his long legs, his beautiful chest rising and falling with every cry, every breath, it was then that I saw Caleb. In that instant I held my two sons in my mind, one still and lifeless as I cradled his tiny body in a mortuary and the other filled with life, his daddy standing protectively over him as he is weighed and measured, cutting the cord and marking the moments with pictures.
I thought of these two boys, whose lives are so completely intertwined, and yet they will never know each other, never share a toy or a secret, never conspire to squeeze another hour of playtime before bed, never comfort one another or grow old together, these two boys shared my body, my heart and my love. But only one gets to share a lifetime with me. With us.
For that moment my boys were together. I let my eyes soak in the view of my new son and my memory called forth my lost son. The two were there in the room with me, as close as they ever would be. This new life, my Cason, born out of his brother Caleb's death. And I realized in that taking of a breath Cason changed the way I would see his brother forever. Never again would I be able to wish that Caleb hadn't died because that would mean that I would not have my Cason. I can't play the what if game anymore. Caleb is dead, he is gone from me forever. He didn't die so that Cason could be born, but Cason was born because Caleb died. And the only words that came to me were, "Thank you for him Caleb, I love you Caleb.".
And so it happened, when they lay sweet Cason on my chest and I kissed his tiny, perfect head, I said hello to one son and I said good-bye to the other. I cried tears for both of them, holding tightly to one, and like a child holding a balloon by a string, looking to the sky, beyond the clouds to the vastness of the heavens, wanting to hang on to that string forever but knowing the time had come to let him soar, I slowly opened my fingers and I let my other son go.

Happy Bird Day

2008-11-26T23:07:00.000-08:00

Thank you to everyone who left kind words, wishes and thoughts for me and my family this past week. It has been unimaginable the emotions, the feelings, the reality. I still wake up in the middle of the night (lots) and look at Cason and wonder if I really am awake. I hope to put to paper, well, internet, the words that might express it, but it is hard, harder than hard.

I have so much to write about but am having trouble finding my voice...things are good, really good and I guess that makes me suspicious. I wonder if I ever won't feel that the quiet is really just a precursor to a storm? Will any of us?

Meanwhile I continue to stalk all of you and keep you all close in my heart. I hope this Thanksgiving finds you with the ones you love, fills you with all sorts of yummy niblits and of course, for those of you who are able, I hope there is liquor involved:), lots of it.

2008-11-17T23:41:00.000-08:00

Here he is....CASON PATRICK!!!! 7lbs 12oz, 20 inches--mom and baby doing GREAT!!!!

Fw: You had me at hello

2008-11-17T21:14:00.000-08:00

Well, its a BOY! He was born @ 5:20 p.m. my time.
His name is Cason Patrick, 7lbs and 12oz and 20 inches long. He is absolutely beautiful with strawberry blonde hair and gorgeous pink skin.
I am drugged up but not so much that I can't tell you how completely over the moon in love I am. I just can not believe this. Ill try and post pix later but my sister may do it instead so stay tuned. And thank you so much for all of your support, it really made a difference in my heart.
I love you guys!

Words of encouragement from an 11 year old DB big brother...

2008-11-16T21:08:00.001-08:00

"So baby tomorrow mom?", "I hope this one's not a dud, I hated that."

Fuck.

Bowie - Under Pressure - Live

2008-11-16T20:46:00.001-08:00

I may be posting all night..

Nerves.

2008-11-16T20:22:00.000-08:00

It's crazy here. People have been here all day. Well, not people, my parents. Trying to help. Hanging curtains, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundering, cooking, directing children..."where do you want this?" "Where does this go?" "What do you want me to do with this?" all trying so hard to help. People are calling, wishing us good luck, reminding us to call when we have news. Ring. Ring. Ring. It's chaos.

I want to crawl under my covers, wrap my arms around my belly and fade away.

Inferno

2008-11-15T13:41:00.000-08:00

I live in hell. Seriously. Here are some snaps I took from my house this afternoon. I don't know what kind of national coverage our wildfires get but it's all we are hearing about here today. The city where I live is surrounded by not one, not two, but three burning out of control fires being fueled by wind and unlimited supplies of dry brush. The temperature here is in the high 80's to 90's. The relative humidity is about 4% or 5%. It's what we call a lovely fall day here in SoCal. I hate it. I want to move. Today.

In the second shot you can see the smoke from one fire at the top of the pic and then the smoke from the other fire at the bottom of the shot, we are hoping that the two fires don't meet up. The air quality is horrendous. There is falling ash the size of pennies and then debris being blown around by our not so beloved Santa Ana winds. Perfect for a pregnant woman. Needless to say I am house bound. Painting trim and breathing those fumes is actually refreshing compared to being outside.

Already homes have been lost, the count will only go up.

What a wonderful place to bring a baby home to.

Sigh.

Unfinished

2008-11-14T09:31:00.000-08:00

It's a bit unsettling, walking out of your doctors office after your last prenatal appointment. Knowing it was the last. I'm sure for them it's normal, "OK, see ya, good luck!" but not for me. It's the realization that you're on your own. They've done what they can now it's up to me and this baby to get through the next few days and show up at the hospital where my doctor will, hopefully, deliver a healthy baby into my arms.
Similar words were shared as I left the stress testing office. "Promise to bring the baby by after, o.k.?" they asked, while I thought in my head, "...if...". Out loud, "Sure thing." One of the most bold faced lies a db mom can make, right? "Sure thing." There's no such thing.

Even with all of the uncertainty, I still find myself feeling melancholy about nearing the end here. Before I entered this club being pregnant was one of the best times of my life. I've always had easy pregnancy's and I loved the transformation of my body and the feeling of a life stirring inside me. Amazing how carrying your dead child inside you and then delivering him can change that. The anxiety has taken much of that away, replacing it with anxiety over whether the kick I just felt would be the last or if I am feeling nothing at all spending anxious minutes or more desperate to provoke some movement to reassure me that there is still life within me. Now though, I am spending as much time as I can just sitting and watching my belly move. Feeling this life inside me, trying to burn the memory of it into my brain. Knowing I will never again feel anything like this. Knowing this is truly the end of my life as a pregnant woman. In the back of my mind I mull over the idea of it not being over. If I was younger, if...and then I realize, I will never feel like I have finished because I will always be one child short of where I should be. One child will always be missing and so this journey will never feel complete. Not even if I had 10 more kids. There is no way to fill the void left by a child's death. Anyone who ever says to a parent who has lost a child that by having another child you are somehow moving on and letting go has never held their dead baby or child in their arms, has never experienced the penetrating grief of burying a baby, has never had to live the life after, and will never understand that a life, any life, but especially a baby's life is not replaceable or interchangeable. The impact of a child's life is not measured in the length of days it lives and to believe otherwise shows only ignorance and callousness.
So here I sit, marveling in this little one as he or she moves inside me, seemingly unaware of all that has surrounded it's journey. I try to picture who it is that has occupied my body all these days, given me what would be considered an easy pregnancy by anyone who hasn't been where I've been. And yet it's been the hardest pregnancy I've ever had. I hope, along with all of the other things I hope for, that when this baby comes out, if everything goes right, I will be able to untangle this baby from all the strings and ties that are wrapped around it's very existence. But I wonder, will I ever really see this child and not think about Caleb.

It's a hefty burden from all sides. One I hope I am strong enough to carry for both of us. Which makes me realize, again, how grateful I am for all of the support I have received here. From those who have been here with me literally since my first post to those who we met along the way. We have all worked, worked like hell, to figure this all out. We get up and we go on and we fight on and sometimes we get knocked back down and still we keep fighting. Together. It is a woman's work, the fight to go on. And you all have shown me how to do it. Even when we don't know how, we at least have been able to look around and know that we are not fighting alone. Strength in numbers. Never has that made more sense to me than it has here. For all of you who have shown me the grace and fortitude of the will and strength of women, this one below, is for you.

Don't Give Up, Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush.

2008-11-14T09:30:00.001-08:00

Don't give up

Signs revisited.

2008-11-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

I'm at a loss for words. There is so much going through my head and yet I can't speak intelligently about any of it. We are mere days away from knowing how this will all turn out and I still can't picture that happy ending. I try to, I really do. But it just seems so unrealistic to me that I am reduced to tears almost immediately and have to change the subject in my head. Morbidly, it is actually easier for me to imagine how I will react to the bad ending, what I will do differently this time, how I will make decisions, what I want done for the baby. It's awful, really awful. Then, even when I can think about a live baby, there is something wrong with it. They missed Downs in the nuchal screen and 5 million ultra sounds I've had, or some other horrible, life altering disease or diagnosis that will be delivered to us along with our baby.
There is something in my head that has convinced me I don't deserve a healthy, alive baby. That I have been greedy and I should have stopped with the two beautiful children I have. Many months ago I wrote about "signs" and I pondered the notion that the universe was trying to tell me something with my miscarriage and then the f'ed D & C and then of course Caleb. I am back there now, wondering if I forged ahead, ignoring the warnings and on Monday, I will be handed a child who is so severely ill that our entire lives will be consumed by the care of this little one. And I will forever look back and say, I should have listened. I should have been happy with what we had. I deserved this because I was....I don't even know.
I'm not proud of what I have been thinking, but it is what it is. F'ed up. Kinda like me. I know it's too late to do anything and I should just let it go until I know, but it's hard. There is something about being a db mom that makes me, maybe others too, feel undeserving of anything good any more. I am always looking around the corner, waiting, knowing it is coming. Learning the hardest way that you can walk into a doctor's office a shiny, happy pregnant person and walk out an empty shell of the person you knew, never to be the same again. Never able to trust that anything good will come your way or that anything good ever lasts and isn't always topped off by a heaping dose of 'take that'.
Sometimes, if I am still and I feel the leprechaun moving, I just want to freeze the world and keep everything just as it is. Perfect for that moment.
I'm headed down another long dark tunnel, I don't know what is waiting for me at the other end anymore. But as I think I said before, I sure as hell hope that the light I see isn't a train headed straight for me.

How's that for a 100th post??

Caleb's Place

2008-11-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

He needed his own place. We've been making room for the leprechaun, clearing out the room that would have been Caleb's, redoing the kids bathroom, moving computers and old school crafts, papers from years gone by, photos, lots of photos have been filed away into boxes (I have visions of one day actually getting them into albums but realistically speaking....yea, never) and even daring to move some new baby things into 'the room'. But with all of this chaos going on around here, there he sat. Where he has always been. Quietly resting on my dresser. The tiny truck placed on his urn by his big brother would occasionally slide off and need to be repositioned, but for the most part, he is quiet. As any dead baby always is, right?

Every time I walk by the dresser, now more cluttered with things that have yet to find a new home, littered with dust and socks without partners, I see his hand print, his footprint, his name engraved on the silver top of the urn with just one date underneath. That's all he got. One date. September 1, 2007. That's it. And the sadder thing for me when I see that date, is that while to others it marks the date he died, to me it doesn't. I know he died many days before, maybe even almost two weeks before. The doctors knew he died the day before. August 31. September 1, only speaks to the day he left my body and slipped right through this earth and all that was waiting for him and went on to some other place. Maybe on the other side of the rainbows. Maybe.

He deserved more than that. He deserves more than a cleared space on my desser. He is not an afterthought, or a single date. He is my son and he is gone from me forever. I do not know what he would have looked like had he lived, I can not close my eyes and see his shining eyes or hear his voice or even his cry. I know so little about this tiny boy who has forever changed me and I can give him nothing to make up for the life that was denied him.

But I want him to have a place that is just his. A place where it is his story that will be told. A place that says you were important, you mattered, you are loved.

Last night, your dad and I built you a place. It's right above my desk where I can see you when I am writing about you. That is when I feel closest to you. I don't know where you are or what happens to babies that die. I don't know if there is a place that keeps you safe and loved while you wait for your parents and family to come. I don't know if that place on the other side of the rainbow exists. I want to believe it does. I hope it does.

I put the candles we lit at our wedding on the top shelf with the card that holds a single hand and foot print, prints I took from you at the mortuary. The card has your nameplate, made by a good friend and the date. Your date. The candles are there because when we took the two candles and lit one together, you became a reality. We didn't know it then, but that promise we made gave life to you. So it seemed the right thing to have them there with you.

Your two urns, the one with your name and the one with the cherub, the truck from your brother and a red glass heart all share the lower shelf.

While we lit the candles at our wedding there was quiet music playing in the background by a string quartet. People commented to us that they recognized the songs melody but couldn't place it without the lyrics. They said the song had made them feel melancholy, almost sad but not quite. It was a familiar song that brought back feelings of days gone by. Of things that are lost but hopefully not gone forever. Of dreams and beliefs and magic.

We chose the song purposefully, for all of those reasons. And everytime I see the candles, sharing your space with you, I hear it in my head and I hope it's true.

I am putting it here for you Caleb, in your place, so you can hear it too.

the rainbow connection

2008-11-10T12:44:00.001-08:00

For Caleb.

the rainbow connection

2008-11-10T08:27:00.001-08:00

For Caleb.

That day...

2008-11-08T14:29:00.000-08:00

I had to go over to sign some checks. That's what she said anyway. As Pres.i.dent of an organization, my signature is required on all of our checks, makes sense to me. We just finished up a huge event and now the piper had come calling. The checks needed to be signed. I fit in a time in between my fetal monitoring, doctor appointment and running a million errands trying to put my house together before next week. When I got to her house, in a hurry and anxious to be moving along to my shopping, she opened the door and before I could finish saying hello, about 25 of my friends shouted "Surprise!" and about scared the living daylights out of me. They had thrown a baby shower for me. I never suspected a thing. This compounded by the fact that I still haven't wrapped my brain around the whole actually bringing a baby home idea, my head was spinning and the tears were flowing.

These women, many of whom were at my doorstep last year with food, flowers and comfort, had again reached out and said to me, we won't let you not enjoy this, at least not for today, not for this moment. Just for these few hours, you will be a mom to be who is allowed to hope, to dream, to believe, that in a few days, you will bring a healthy baby home to love. Just for now, put the fear down, release the worry and revel in this child who is here, now. Just for this instant, let us surround you with our faith and our love and our conviction that this baby and you will be okay.

These women, many whom have known tragedy in their own lives very recently, a son's death, a grandson's death, a father's death, a son in Iraq, a brutal divorce and yes, even a stillbirth (which preceded Caleb and was only told to me after he had died, in quiet confidence but with the telling came the beginnings of the realization that I could survive and live despite my belief to the contrary), bestowed upon me and this baby, new beginnings, tiny new sleepers, tiny new slippers, quilts made by hand, each stitch its own gift, hangings custom worded for the wall wishing a little one Sweet Dreams, a diaper bag stocked with all the necessities for travel, at the ready and crafted by the fingers of a grandmother to a little boy named Caleb, (who was in my daughter's class last year and who was the first child I had to work with, on my first day back to volunteer in her class, after losing my own Caleb, calling that little boys name out that day nearly broke me but I told myself if I ran out at that moment I would never be able to return and so I sat with him and worked on phonics while holding back tears and visualizing the za.nax that waited for me in my car) each gift a small reminder of the women who have stood beside me in the last year and who have quietly but ever so strongly said to me day after day, you can do this.

So for a few hours I let myself be the happy(well, mostly, it was hard) pregnant woman, opening gifts, eating cake, sharing stories of being pregnant, and detailing the nursery developments and painting escapades. My Caleb wasn't far from my mind that afternoon, all the things that were never to be for him and me, our story will always be one of sadness and loss. But that day was not about him anymore, it was about a new life, a new beginning, a new baby.

When I got home I brought it all inside. I didn't leave it out in the garage, hiding it away until certainty was upon us. Instead it all sits downstairs, cards lined up on the shelves, gifts in neat piles on the floor, waiting patiently for the room to be finished so that they can take their place and wait, like the rest of us, for a new baby to come.

Feeling a bit brave and a little feisty, I took the kids and the ever growing belly of mine and we decided to mark the moment. No matter what happens, I want to remember that day. I want to remember the day I lived my life like a shiny happy pregnant person....even if it was only that day.

So this is what we looked like, the leprechaun and I...that day.

"Ironman"

2008-11-05T08:07:00.000-08:00

Many years ago I went with a bunch of friends to work the Ironman in Hawaii. No, for goodness sake I didn't compete in it, we volunteered to work the different stations/transitions in the race. First directing the swimmers out of the water and leading them to their bikes, then 'catching' their sweat and pee soaked bikes (yes, they really do pee right on their bikes while they ride, something I wasn't told until after I grabbed the first bike by the seat as the rider jumped off and made his way to the changing room, my coworker nicely said to me, "You might want to try for the bar, just in case...."yuck) and then finally waiting at the finish line, well into the late night hours, as each triathlete made their way across that coveted "FINISH" line. My job was to catch the runners as they crossed the line, handing them their towels and doing a quick but vital check of their state of awareness and consciousness, being trained by the docs to look for glossy eyes, incoherence and other indicators that the athlete was in trouble and in need of immediate medical assistance and interventions. The docs explained to us the power of the will of these athletes to finish the race, that they literally would at some point lose their mental faculties and go into an autopilot mode that would allow them to continue racing, well beyond what their bodies and minds could handle. They would stay in this state for as long as they needed to get to the finish line and then they would collapse. It was our job to spot those athletes and catch them before everything shut down and they were injured or worse.

In the early hours, they would jog across the finish as easily as if they had just finished a light workout, not a grueling, all day under the burning sun, triathlon. One guy even proposed to me, yes, I did think about calling for the medical team for him, knowing he was clearly delusional, but I let it slide....And then as the day wore on, the first athletes who showed the signs of trouble began to show. It was amazing to me, how strong they looked coming across the line, all the way up to the line even, good posture, measured stride, an outward appearance of total awareness of their surroundings. And then, as they crossed that line, when I would look into their eyes, I could see it, total vacancy. Nobody was home. And it was only a matter of seconds before everything would shut down. Sometimes they would even manage to utter a few words to me, seemingly able to converse, "I did it." and then I would feel their muscles go limp, their bodies literally collapsing on themselves, as I would yell for a medic and a stretcher.

The power of the human mind is an awesome thing. The ability to will oneself to a certain point. A finish line. To be able to mentally see a goal and then to, by sheer force of will, compel your body onward, even when every ounce of you has said no, it's too much to go on, it's stunning really. Because you do it, without even thinking about it. I wondered all those years ago if the athletes really ever knew when they had crossed over into that auto-pilot mode, if they felt themselves slipping and if so, what happened within them to coerce their mind into the takeover of the body. What was the difference between the ones who crossed the line and the ones who collapsed before they got there.
At some point I think, they must have stopped focusing on the steps they were taking, they just kept looking for that "FINISH", believing it must, surely be, just around the next curve in the road. Just keep moving everything the same way and somehow you'll get there. Don't stop, don't look back, don't think about anything else, just keep moving, just keep moving.
I never thought I'd ever see anything like that again, certainly never experience it myself. But I wonder, if I get to my "FINISH" line, will someone look into my eyes and see the vacancy, see that I am on auto-pilot, will someone be there to catch me when this is all over? Because even though I am no athlete, certainly no triathlete, I think I know now, why they call it the "Ironman".

the TWW

2008-11-03T17:00:00.000-08:00

So as it began, it ends, with the two week wait. That's where I am now. Back in March when I started the official tww I got to kill some of the time hanging out with the lovely Ms. C., my first ever IRL meet with a db mom. We talked for hours as though we'd known each other for, well, ever. She got to drink cocktails and I had a Spr.ite. I told her I didn't think I was pg but that I wasn't willing to risk the guilt of a few stolen alcohol laced beverages if I actually was and then lost the pg later. As we sat there late into the evening talking all things db, I never thought for a moment that some nine months later I'd be nine months into a pregnancy. It never did. I remember thinking what a shame it would be when the next week I had to shop for more tampons and how pissed I'd be that I'd missed a great opportunity to throw some back with the perfect drinking partner for a db mom, another db mom.
I left C., that night feeling better than I had in months. Lighter and almost giddy from being able to sit and really let it all hang out, no pretending, no covering or protecting the listener form the gory details of having a dead baby. I left her that night feeling happy. That happiness and new found friendship carried me over the next days and every time I felt a cramp or some other symptom, real or imagined, that told me there would be no need for a pg test that month, I thought to myself, it'll be ok, I have company, I have a friend who knows and who will be there when I need that cocktail...cuz everyone knows I love my cocktails.
I ran all the scenarios through my head. How I would react, what I was going to do if the news was bad. If I was going to go to the doc and seek intervention, if the husband would even want to go that far. Every plan I made had to do with how I was going to react to the bad news. Preparing myself for the negative outcome, not the positive. Then came the day. March 17th. I peed on the stick and got the shock of a second line. The tww was over and a whole new, much longer wait had begun.
And now, I am right back there again. Sort of. TWW. I'm scheduled for two weeks from today. I find myself right back where I was mentally in those days of March. Preparing myself for every possible bad outcome. Every negative result. I can't for the life of me imagine the good outcome. When I try to , I am so overcome with sobs and tears I have to stop. It literally is easier for me to plan how I will react to a dead baby than it is to plan how to react to a live one. My family and friends are all helping to get things ready, shopping and painting and running errands for me and all I can think is we shouldn't be doing any of this until we know, for sure. I am trying to keep things actually brought into the house to a minimum, the less we have to take back out is what my mind says. We've made a list of names, which I told myself, either way we have to have names, so this isn't like actually planning for an actual live baby. Not really.
Even when I do imagine a real live baby, I am convinced there will be something horribly wrong and I will lose it anyway. Or we will be forever challenged with a lifetime of guilt caring for this ill child, because we wanted to have another baby when the universe was obviously against it and us.
And then in the moments when the crazy isn't smeared all over my brain and I am able to imagine this baby, unencumbered by the legacy that created it, I think how awful it is that this tiny creature has done nothing so far but grow and thrive and blossom within me and still it is shrouded in the tragedy that preceded it. I wonder, if it does make it out alive, will cutting the cord relieve it of the enormous burden that is it's past? Will I be able to separate this baby from the loss of Caleb and let it live a life free from his death? If I can get this baby to a safe place outside of me, will that release us, all three of us, from the ties that now hold us so closely together that I can't extricate any of us from each other?
The mind games are exhausting. The waiting, eternity. It's enough to make a girl crazier than she already is, trying to explain to people how, "No, you're not excited yet." People don't get it. How can you not be excited with only 2 weeks to go?????? Oh, I can tell you how, you just won't like the story. You'll think I'm crazy. And you'll be right.
Let the countdown begin...

What if?

2008-10-31T10:51:00.001-07:00

He did it. My doc that is. He put the date back to the original date. The delivery date that is. He told me how many calls he had to make, who he had to talk to, and finally, that he changed the date back. He also told me that after yesterday, if I do go into labor, he's not stopping it. The nurse came in and gave me another gift bag. You know how when you are first pregnant they give you the goodie bag full of prenatals and formula sign-ups (although a certain company may be rethinking that thanks to the remarkably well written letter by CLC) and the magazines about your baby's growth...I have received that particular 'gift' bag 6 times, well, 7 actually, once I left it in the office on purpose and then this last time I never even took it out of my trunk. I didn't want another one to line up against the wall in my closet, like the others, filled with unfulfilled life and unused vitamins and a few ultrasound pictures that gave promise to a future that was not to be.

Yesterday I got this new bag. It's a diaper bag, it's filled with ice packs for keeping breast milk cool, a changing pad, a carry all that rolls up all tidy for holding and organizing diaper changing essentials, and some magazines about caring for your newborn. I didn't open when she gave it to me. She handed it to me and said, "Here you go darling, since you're at the beginning of the end of this whole thing." That one is still sitting in my car. Opened, thanks to my daughter who loves a goodie bag, but not brought in to the inner sanctum.

This weekend as we set our clocks back and attend soccer games and swim meets, we will be frantically trying to get our house ready for the potential of a live baby. We put it off as long as we could, waiting to see if the efforts would be futile. I know they still can be. But what if they aren't. What if?

P.S. Please go over and give my beautiful friend C., some extra love and hand holding as she remembers her sweet little boy Callum, lost to all of us one year ago today.

Come rain or come shine

2008-10-28T00:15:00.000-07:00

13 years ago I married the man I love. 13 years ago we stood together and imagined a future together, a future that was filled with all the hope and promise two young twenty-somethings with the world at their feet could imagine. We lived in a city we loved, we had careers blossoming in front of us, we had our families and friends standing beside us and in our minds we had it all.

So much has happened in the last 13 years, much we didn't expect or plan and yet we have walked, at times stumbled or crawled and yes, even allowed ourselves to be carried, as we made our way through it together. We left the city we loved and two good jobs because when you found out we were going to be parents you wanted to move close to my family so our child would know the love I had growing up, you wanted to give your child what you never had. You were already a selfless father, even before you knew your child. You respected my choice to stay home and raise our son, even though it meant camping out at the in laws a wee bit longer than expected, okay a lot longer than expected, before we could join the ranks of the landed gentry and home of the indebted.

You have stood beside me as we welcomed each new child into our lives, two who have brought more joy into our hearts than we ever could have imagined and one whose death has brought more pain than we have ever known. I have seen you look at your newly born children with both the awe and humility that a newborn inspires and the anguish and disbelief that stillbirth bestows. In the last thirteen years, we have celebrated life and we have endured death, together.

Thirteen years ago we vowed to stay together, through the good and the bad, never knowing how much of either we would have. We promised to love one another forever, no matter what the future held. We pledged to each other that from that day forward, we would always be there for one another, not just when it was easy and fun but when the days were dark and the future uncertain. We did not know then exactly what those vows and promises would mean to us. We couldn't envision a life of struggle or days, long days, of grief. Those are not the things you dream of on your wedding day. We dreamed of joy, of success, of children and a home. We dreamed of the things we wanted and never thought the bad the things would come our way.

Who does?

And in the last thirteen years we have been lucky to have had more of the good than the bad. While it hasn't always come easy, we have managed, together, to always make what we have feel like the best thing there is, for us. We still have dreams left to be fulfilled, we still have hopes that give us something to reach for, and of course, we still have each other.

I know now, more than I ever did thirteen years ago that the future, our future, holds no guarantees. I know it will be laced with good things and I know that bad things will thread their way into our lives. There is no stopping them. But I also know now, that you will be true to your words, that you will stand by me when the rain comes, that you will hold my hand when I feel alone and that you will hold me when I feel empty. I know that you will carry me when I feel I can't go on. I know now that you will tell me I can and I will believe you. I know that while you may not be able to find your keys or your shoes or your wallet, or your long lost wedding ring, you will always find your way home to me, to us.

So today, after thirteen years, I say thank you for all that you have given me and all that we have shared together. I look back and think to myself, so this is marriage. This is the real deal. I hope that this thirteenth year brings us more good than the last two years have. I hope that we have a respite from the struggle and can take a moment or maybe even two, to just recognize all that we do have and enjoy it simply for what it is, without thinking about what it is not.

I am grateful beyond measure for all of it, I would be lying if I said there is nothing I would change, but I can also say that even with the loss of our son I have been able to see things, good things, that I had not known before and never would have known had he not died. I do not believe this gives his death a reason or an explanation or his life a purpose, but I do believe that I can take some meaning, some measure of learning from the tragedy that his death was.

Thirteen years. Here's to the next thirteen times four or five. I still love you more and I will love you always, come rain or come shine.

ETA: I don't know what is up with the cartoon but here's our song....the one I will only ever dance to with you.

Come Rain or Come Shine

2008-10-27T18:14:00.001-07:00

2008-10-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

My puffy hearted friend G., tagged me for this meme. What a fun way to avoid doing all the crapola I am supposed to be doing, like organizing an event for Friday night for some 500 or so people. They can wait, the blog-o-verse calls:)

Okay so I have to answer these mind blowers with a single word answer and then pass the joy on to 7 others....Here goes:

1. Where is your cell phone? Table
2. Where is your significant other? Freeway
3. Your hair color? Auburn
4. Your mother? Giver
5. Your father? Hilarious
6. Your favorite thing? laughing
7. Your dream last night? Nada
8. Your dream/goal? Peace
9. The room you are in? Boudoir
10. Your hobby? Wine
11. Your fear? loss
12. Where do you want to be in six years? Someplace
13. Where were you last night? Bed
14. What you're not? Settled
15. One of your wish list items? Health
16. Where you grew up? CA
17. The last thing you did? Cook
18. What are you wearing? Jammies
19. Your T.V.? ??
20. Your pet? Catsssssssssss
21. Your computer? Precious
22. Your mood? Hectic
23. Missing someone? Everyday
24. Your car? Dirty
25. Something you're not wearing? shoes
26. Favorite store? Books
27. Your Summer? Unfinished
28. Love someone? Yep
29. Your favorite color? Green
30. When is the last time you laughed? Today
31. Last time you cried? Saturday

Ok, now you know more or less than you did before....Hmmmm 7 people., Let's see, how about Charmer, Rosalind, Kate, Sue, Sarah, Ange and Ya Chun.

Have fun ladies!!!

Seriously?

2008-10-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

I have seen commercials for this program for a few weeks now. I have debated mentioning it here because I really want this space to be about Caleb, about my journey in life after him. But this particular topic is so wrapped up in all that I have come to know here in db land, I felt the need to say something.
I am really angry about it. I haven't seen it yet, as it hasn't aired, but everything I have read so far, shows me a really irresponsible and heavily slanted perspective of what I can only say is a ridiculously naive decision by mothers who think they are doing right by their babies.
The US has a relatively high morbidity rate for childbirth given the 'development' of our nation. Some of this can be attributed to lower income, uneducated, young mothers who don't seek out prenatal care, who are substance abusers or who literally choose to ignore their pregnancy because they just don't know what else to do. In my state, where we have a very high percentage of illegal immigrants, many are afraid to seek out medical care because of deportation. But when their babies are born here, with a 'poor outcome' they become a part of the US birth statistics, good or bad. Another part of the statistic is us. The dead baby moms. We all know that for most of us, ending up here on the wrong side of the numbers, had nothing to do with the medical care we received. Not all of us, but most of us. In fact, as some of us here have managed to get lucky enough to have a subsequent pregnancy, we have invited, if not begged the medical community, for even more intervention in a desperate attempt of avoiding another 'bad outcome'.
What gets me so angry about this show is that it defies all of the medical advances made in bringing babies into the world safely. It encourages simple-mindedness and uninformed decision making. It tells women that the medical community is suspect and has nothing to offer in childbirth that they can't do at home. The women I have seen interviewed so far for this 'show' have said things like "I am the safest one to deliver my child into this world" or "I don't need any prenatal care from a doctor, I can do it at home". And while I am quite aware that in many cases you can get lucky and be right about either of those statements, there are also many cases where that is 100% wrong and the baby is put into far worse jeopardy because of the blind arrogance of the mother.
The irresponsibility of a program like this shakes me to the core. And while it remains to be seen I seriously doubt that they will do justice to all of the 'bad outcomes' that result from the 'free.birth' philosophy. They will not talk about mothers who lost babies because of undiagnosed GD, or other manageable blood disorders, they will not talk about babies lost to IUGR or babies born with undiagnosed congenital defects that could have been treated in utero or at least could have been born where a neonatology team was waiting for the baby. They will not, I am sure, feature any babies STILLBORN, to these 'mothers'. They will feature only successful outcomes, happy babies, happy families beaming proudly at how they 'escaped' the big bad medical community and all of its invasive technology and went and had a healthy baby anyway. They will encourage other mothers to make the same misguided decision. They will, intentionally or not, put other mothers and babies at risk by featuring this "birthing philosophy".
I wish they would produce a program that spoke to the issues of what can go wrong. A program that talks about what life looks like on the other side of the statistics. I wish that someone was brave enough to put our faces on a program to show that pregnancy loss, stillbirth and neonatal death happens to 'normal' people like us. We are not freaks, we are not drug abusers or impoverished, malnourished women living in huts. We walk by you on the street, we smile at you in grocery stores, we drive by you on the highway. We are not mothers who shunned the medical community and then had our babies die. We did everything we could that was available to us and still came home with empty arms and tiny ash filled boxes. I wish when they produced a show like the one I talk about here, they would show the real story, the real consequence of a bad decision like the one these mothers make. I wish they would talk about the real meaning of the numbers behind the statistics and instead of saying "Is this the right way to go in childbirth" they would say "Why this is such a ridiculously dangerous decision..."
I want to watch the show but I am already so jaded by what I have seen I don't know if I will be able to stomach it.
I get that sometimes babies die, I get it. I know we will never ever be able to eliminate entirely that horrible tragedy from this earth. But seriously, do we have to watch while others choose to make it more likely? Seriously?

Leprechaun Landing update

2008-10-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

I finally talked to my doctor about the delivery date. I had my 'speech' all planned out with point by point reasons why the new due date wasn't going to work and what all of my issues were with this delay and why I should be considered ahead of 'routine' C-Sections etc., etc., and I practiced in my head on the drive all the way to the office. When my appointment came and he was done with all of the regular measuring and poking, he helped me sit up and I opened my mouth to begin my rationed, well thought out arguments and out came "I don't' want this baby to die, please change the delivery date to something sooner, please." I did manage to say it without crying, that's always a bonus. I hate crying in front of people, it's like laughing in church, if I start I can't stop and it, the crying, is always worse than it would have been if I had been alone.
Today, the water works stopped short of spilling over and just brimmed the eyes as I begged, much more sophisticated right?
Kind doctor stopped what he was doing, writing his forever noted in my chart, he writes EVERYTHING down, (my friend who referred him to me or me to him however you look at it, said if you told him you found a $10 bill he'd write it down so he could ask you about it at your next appt., I think she's right) and he explained to me why his hands were 'tied' by the hospital as far as due dates and scheduled C-Sections. I guess my hospital has strict guidelines, set by the neonatoligists (we have a renowned Children's Hospital attached to where I deliever) that dictates 39 weeks. My chosen dates put me according to their 'wheel of gestation' at 38 weeks 5 days and 6 days. He told me about the studies on babies born by scheduled C-Sections, which I have read, that indicate a higher percentage of lung issues and NICU stays with babies taken out too soon, i.e. before 39 weeks, especially where there has not been any labor. He also told me he absolutely understands my anxiety and why I would not want to wait any longer than I have to to deliver.
He is going to call the hospital himself, not his scheduling nurse to try and get the date moved based on my history and see if the neonatoligists will waive the guideline. If not he also suggested as an option,, I like options, that at 36 or 37 weeks we can do an amnio and check the leprechauns lungs for development/maturity and if they are ok, then we could deliver even earlier, like right at 38 weeks or sooner, if I choose to.
He's going to let me know. I'm good with that.
So far everything else is still good. I've had my twice a week stress tests and all looks ok with the wee one. Heart rate is steady and reactive, movement is good. The only wrinkle are the contractions I'm having but as of now they don't seem to be to worrisome. I just have to lie down if they start and they usually mellow out. For now anyway.
Thanks for all of the support and words of wisdom, they really do help.
Keep your fingers crossed for the safe arrival of my little leprechaun, we both need it.

2008-10-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

Please stop for a moment at 7:00p.m. tonight and remember all of our babies. Gone from our presence but never far from our thoughts and always in our hearts. Light a candle and hope that one day, some day, no one will know the pain and devastation of stillbirth.

I miss you baby Caleb.

In which she tries to explain...

2008-10-10T17:43:00.001-07:00

Hmmmm, this one is a hard one. My last post may have given the wrong message. I am not leaving db land. Can anyone really ever leave? I mean, no matter what happens in our lives we will all still have our past right? Our children, gone from us physically, will never be far from our hearts or our minds and because of that will always be a part of who we are. At least that is how I see it.
So when I spoke of boarding a ship and looking forward I did not mean to imply or insinuate that I would be leaving everything here behind. Instead, what I find happening within me, is that the more I focus on what I lost and what we all lost, the harder it is for me to believe that any other outcome for me is possible. My own child has become a daily reminder of how quickly everything can go so drastically wrong. When I look at his tiny footprint or his small but perfect hand print, where I used to feel sadness and an aching deep within me that choked my throat, now I feel terror and I have to look away. I have come to a place where reminders of my own son actually terrify me. I fight this everyday. I don't want to fear my child. I don't want thoughts of him to cause me panic and dread. I thought it was enough to have to mourn and grieve and long for him. As hard as those feelings are to live with, they were natural, normal. They are a part of the love that I have for him, the part that misses him and who he might have been. They were sad but beautiful. They were pure and I accepted them as part of who I was as a mother to a dead baby.
These new feelings are raw and ugly to me. I don't like them at all. They feel unnatural and they feel like a betrayal, to him, to me, to every db mom out there. They are the feelings of someone who has never known this world we live in, and that is not me. It is the reaction of someone who has never seen a picture of a dead baby and looks away in horror and can not see the beauty that has been stolen from our world, who sees only the dead baby and not the life that was ripped away. I came to know a different view, being in the club. I could stare for hours at a picture of a dead baby and imagine all of the things that child might have known. I didn't see a dead baby, I saw a child, a life, a mothers love and heartache. I saw potential and promise and dreams and I never had to look away out of shock or denial. I never had to shield my eyes from the reality of what I was looking at. I knew their stories, I knew their names and I wanted to know their faces too. For someone who hasn't been here with us, the pictures are often too much for them. They don't want to see the reality of stillbirth. They don't want to know that indeed, those babies are very much, real. They have eyes and ears and mouths and hair. They have tiny perfect hands and feet, they have everything a living baby has, except life. Friends tell me even now, they can't imagine looking at a picture of a dead baby. "It's just too awful to imagine" they say, much less actually look at.
And now I find myself back there. I am afraid to look, afraid to acknowledge these beautiful babies. I don't want to know anymore, I want to pretend that they aren't here, that they don't exist, that they aren't real. Even though I know I am just pretending. Even when it comes to my own child. I want to look forward and say (and actually believe) "Those things almost never happen".
I want to be able to tell this baby, as I wrap my arms around my belly, "You are going to be ok." and instead I say, "Please, hang in there a few more weeks and then we'll get you out." Well meaning friends say to me, "You're good now, the baby is big enough to be ok if it comes out. Stop worrying." But they don't know what I know. They don't know who I know. And so I tell them. It's not all about dates and timing. I tell them about my reality. I tell them about C., and Callum, who at 34 weeks found out that things go wrong, I tell them about Charmer and Paige who found out at 40 weeks, or Christine and Olive Lucy who found out during labor, or Coggy and Jacob who found out at 42 weeks, or Tash and sweet Maddy who found out after delivery, I tell them about all of you, too many to list...I tell them, you can never know, until you know. The rest is all guessing and a hell of a lot of blind faith.
But some days, it is too much for me. I just want to look out beyond the horizon and not look back. I want to find a place where babies don't die and everyone gets a happy ending. But I know, boy do I know, that place only exists in fantasies.
When I speak of leaving, of disappearing from view, I speak of this strange place where I am. A place somewhere in the middle, somewhere along the horizon where I can see both db land and occasionally catch a glimpse of live baby land. And as I float here, I wonder who can really see me anymore. I think for those who have not yet been able to join me (and the others who have manged to get pg), we might seem gone to you, never to return. To those who have already had a baby after, you may see us coming but know full well that you can't say to us, "Don't worry, you'll get here too". Because we all know, we might not. And so we straddle this line, walking, floating, between the two worlds. Waiting to see, will our future take place in both or will we return solely to the one we want to leave, even though we know, we never really do leave.
So please, be patient with me as I try to navigate these unfamiliar waters. I still need the security of those who know where I have been and I desperately need the assurances of those who are where I long to be.
And at some point in the next 5 to 6 weeks, I want to find my way to the place where thoughts of my son don't terrify me to my core.
At some point in the next 5 to 6 weeks, I want to know that I am not failing any of my children, the two that I have here, the one that has gone from me and the one whose future is still unknown.

Invisible

2008-10-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, "There she goes!"
Gone where? Gone from my sight ... that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There she goes! there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"*

I have been thinking about these words a lot lately. They speak to me of this unbelievably scary journey I am on. When I first joined this club of ours, I was lost, I was alone and I thought I would never find another who understood all of what I was going through. And then I found you. All of you. And together, we stood on the beach as we watched our own individual ships disappear from sight. I took and take to this day, great comfort in knowing that beside me were others who knew the pain of watching that ship diminish from view. Others who could remember the beauty it once held, the promise it offered, the hope it once danced with on the waves as it made it's journey, a journey that we were never allowed enjoy.

As time has passed we have all taken steps to start to turn our heads away from the horizon. To stop the incessant fixation with the ship that has disappeared from our view. To look to something other than the empty sea for comfort.

For me, I have been walking a path, parallel to the beach, keeping the horizon firmly in sight for the last 33 weeks. Only now it seems that I am on the pier. I can still see and feel and talk to everyone on the beach but I have one foot stepping out onto another ship. To some of my friends here it may seem that 33 weeks ago I put both feet on it and left the port, but I didn't. I held on to all of you and dropped anchor right next to you, firm in my belief that this was where I belonged. That this was where I was safe. Embarking on another journey, pushing off from shore seemed more than I could bear or dare to even dream about.

But now I feel the pull, the need to completely board, to lift my other foot off the pier and let myself go into the unknown vastness of this other journey. The tides are too strong for me to hold her back, to keep her tethered to the pier. She needs to go. It is her time to travel and I am wrong to deny her her destiny. But as I stand on her, I am drawn not to the bow where I can see where she is headed but to the stern where I can look back and draw comfort from those that I have known, who know me and know why I want to stay. At the same time I know most of us have watched as other ships have sailed and wished that we were going with them. We know it isn't an easy ride, the waves come and threaten to destroy us at any moment. And still we long to know what is on the other side. Who is waiting for us there.

I think of Julia and Ashliegh who I know are on the other side. I wonder will I see them. Will I make it to their destination. Can I survive this journey, can we survive this crossing.

I am on the ship now. Destination unknown. I feel the quiet movements inside me of another passenger who begs me to look forward, who pleads with me to believe this ship will survive the passage and will deliver us both into the waiting arms of another group of women who have gone before us.

I look back to the beach and implore with my whole being, please stay there so I know where to go if I fail and then I look out to the vast horizon, desperate to see the tiniest fleck of land, the smallest light that says we are here, keep going, and I feel myself disappearing from view and at the same time not yet visible to anyone waiting on the other side. I can hear you say "There she goes." but I can not yet hear the words I so long for, "Here she comes!"

**A Parable of Immortality, Henry Van Dyke

Can't people just get it already???

2008-09-30T16:46:00.000-07:00

I'm annoyed. I'll warn you now this a whining post about the potential 'birth' of this baby. So feel free to look away and I'll understand.
I saw my OB today and he told me that the two dates I had chosen last time were not available when they called. The OR's were booked. So they rescheduled, without asking me, for the following Friday. There are many reasons why this is bothering me. One, I don't want to deliver on a Friday because that means I will spend the weekend in the hospital. What this means at my hospital, is that it will be crowded, loud, noisy and the nurses will be understaffed and over busy. This is the best hospital in the area. It has a Children's Hospital attached. It has everything you want as a high risk OB patient both for my care and for any potential complications for the baby. But it is also right in the middle of a 'not so nice' area and serves the uninsured and the indigent population that surrounds it. My experience with the Ob floor is that the nurses spend a great deal of their time chasing large families who defy the visiting rules, i.e no children, no more than 2 visitors per patient at a time etc.. off the floor. On the weekends this is many, many times worse. Many of these families bring sickly kids, lots of them and then have them running around on the floor, "just for a few minutes" while so and so says hi, blah blah blah. It's loud, it's annoying and I don't want to deal with it. It boils down to any needs of mine or any other patient coming second to having to ask for the nurses to first act as sheriff and then, please bring me my baby. Preferably down a hallway that isn't littered with kids and germs and strangers. Also, if you do the math, that Friday happens to be the Friday before Thanksgiving. Which isn't that big of a deal but it does mean that I'll be released the Monday before and will be the most neediest the week of Thanksgiving, not so great when your husband is in the Hotel industry. Finally, pushing the delivery back to that Friday, puts me at almost 40 weeks. I DID NOT want to go that far. I wanted the baby out at 38 weeks. My doc says that isn't the "current medical standard" for scheduled c-sections. So he offered up the early dates that I went with last time, which were a Monday and Tuesday. Now I am Friday. And I am pissed. Shouldn't I be at the front of the line? Shouldn't they have pushed me in, for Christs sake, what do you have to do to get a little preferential treatment? Wasn't my baby dying enough??? Should I really have to beg for this???? I was so stunned I didn't say anything in the office because the news was followed up with the "OK, we are starting your stress testing today, twice a week and the amniotic fluid level checks. Come with me to the nurse who will schedule everything". I followed along and it wasn't until I was done scheduling all of that, that I really had time to think about the new date.
Now I have and I don't like it. Does anyone have thoughts on the 38 week 'standard'? I know I have to make a phone call, I just hate having to fight over stupid shit like this. It's hard enough for me to even wrap my head around believing my baby will be born alive much less having to battle over when that day might be.
God, I am so tired. I think the stress is getting to me and the closer I get, the more worried I have become and everything is setting me off. Why do I have to keep explaining that to everyone. Why does it seem like I am the only one this has ever happened to, otherwise wouldn't the doctors office have pushed to get me in on the dates I chose? Can't people see how hard this is? Do they not get that everyday longer is another day that this baby might die? Even if they don't see it that way, can't they at least see why I might feel like that?
Fuck. Why can't people just get it already????

I don't do normal...

2008-09-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

I made it the last four weeks without really thinking about it. "It" being the swollen kidney's on the last ultrasound, baby kidney's, not mine. I went crazy that first day, calling Dr. Goo.gle, looking up everything I could about fluid in fetal kidney's and what it could mean. The answers were all over the map, from nothing at all to the catastrophic. And so, after a long Internet chat with a friend, I decided to go with the 'what's the use of worrying now when I have no idea if anything at all is wrong" approach.
I was pretty calm this morning going into the doc's. I even texted same friend about how annoying it was that the Dis.ney Channel was on the t.v. in the waiting room, which was filled with grown-ups, not a child in sight. Are you kidding me?
Going back down the familiar hallway to the u/s room the leprechaun was thoughtful enough to give me several big kicks, as if to say, 'Don't worry mom, I'm still ok.'. So when I got up on the table I at least knew they weren't going to tell me my baby was dead. That right there is a good day for me.
She scanned everything for me, not just the kidneys, and everything was, normal. NORMAL. Baby is even measuring a bit big, but all the parts are there and they are normal. Which meant my heart rate went back to normal too. How about that.
I calmly waited for the doctor to come in to the exam room and go over everything with me. Continued texting my friend, did the pee in the cup thing, waited, waited. Finally, in he came, he said in his heavily laced accent, "Eveyting nohmal, babeee good". Showed me all the tests, baby weighs 3.9lbs, measuring about a week ahead, my stuff, all good. So I asked him, when do I come back? 2 weeks. Then we start stress testing, every two weeks till 36 weeks then every week. And then out of nowhere, he says to me, "What day you want to have your baby?" I sat there stunned. I must have looked confused because he repeated it to me and then told me he was going to book the day now because I am at 30 weeks. He showed me a calendar, gave me some options and said, you pick, is there a date you want for the baby to be born? So I looked and picked a day.
Then I scheduled my next appointment and walked out of the office. I almost made it to the elevator before the tears started. I held my breath until I got into the parking garage. Then I started hyperventilating and sobbing. I walked blinded by the tears to my car, fumbled with the keys, opened the door and sat down. It took a few minutes for my breath to catch. I was on the verge of calling someone to come help me, I've never had an attack like that before. Finally, it was just the tears, lots of them, spilling out of my eyes and making trails down my cheeks, as I sat in my car, alone, contemplating the idea that I might actually have a baby that lives. That I had just picked a birthday for this little one. That my doctor was calling the hospital to schedule a delivery for what looks like a healthy baby.
I think my body reacted to an overdose of normal.
Apparently, I don't do normal anymore. At least not well.

The masquerade

2008-09-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

First, thank you, so much, to everyone who remembered me and my Caleb last week, both in comments and in personal emails. I don't know how the day would have been without the openness of dead baby land that let me just say what I needed to say and not worry about the tears. We didn't do anything as a family to mark the day. My husband didn't even remember that it was the anniversary. He just asked what was with all the new flowers (my mom had brought over a new baby rose plant and another of mums, she bought one for her and my sister and sis in law too), so I had to remind him. He felt bad, I know, more I think that he felt like he had let me down than about actually forgetting, but I could read on his face the guilt. What was weird for me was the night before we had been at a BBQ at a friends house and he was sitting talking to the wife of a casual friend, meaning a friend we really only see when our other friends have a BBQ, but anyway, they were talking about kids and pregnancy and all of sudden my husband was talking about how we had lost a baby the year before. I about fell out of my chair. He NEVER talks about Caleb, ever. Not even to me, unless I bring it up. And suddenly here he was, unloading on this woman we barely know. Meanwhile everyone else stopped talking and I just sat there, stunned, not knowing what to do. It makes me think he didn't really forget the anniversary, he just buried it deep enough that he didn't acknowledge the date but all of the feelings were brimming there, just waiting for the right time and, to be honest, the right number of beers, to come out.
I didn't mention anything to the kids. Maybe I am a coward. I just felt that they don't need to be 'made' to feel sad because a certain date has come. They both have days where they talk about Caleb and to me, those are the best days for us to remember him because the feelings they are sharing are genuine and are not summoned to attend an occasion. It feels real to me not contrived. One day, I hope to take them to the beach, do a balloon release, write Caleb in the sand and say what we need to say. But I guess for now, I am just not ready to let him go. Not yet.

So now the kids are back in school and my duties as an over committed volunteer have resumed. It's weird to think back to last year, this time, when I was tucked away in my home, buried in the loss. Now, as I am seeing many people for the first time in my obviously pg state, there are a lot of shocked faces. Last year, only those who knew me well knew I was pg and so only they really knew about Caleb when he died. It all happened the weekend before school started and by the time I came back to the world of the living, heavily medicated I might add, I didn't look like I had been pregnant at all, so none of my more casual friends or other parents who knew me to say hello to, ever knew what had happened. It made it easier and harder at the same time. I wasn't the same person anymore but I didn't want to be treated differently, at least not by people who I knew didn't understand. And certainly not by those who I knew were merely slowing down to stare at the wreckage of a horrific accident and then would drive off and talk of the gore they had been witness to without any regard for the real tragedy that was mine.
In a strange way, this all feels oddly similar. Except that now they all want to share the excitement of the pregnancy, one even had the nerve to insinuate, well, that's being generous, she flat out asked, "was this an oopps?". to which I would have loved to go into, detail by detail, exactly how much this baby is not an oops baby. Instead, I just said, no we planned this baby. And to the others, I smile and nod and answer all of the routine questions. "November", "No we don't know what it is", "Yes the kids are very excited", "We really just want a healthy baby, the sex doesn't matter, really""No it wasn't a surprise"...."I'm doing great.". And in my head the real answers, "The doctor wants the baby out at 39 weeks, I want it out at 38 because I have no faith in my body and while he thinks everyday it spends in me is more time for it to grow and get healthy, I think everyday it spends in me is another day that my body could kill it." "Really, when I am in for the ultrasound the only organ I am ever interested in is the heart, is it beating, looking for a pen.is or not, that just doesn't enter the equation, it's the least important organ for me right now." "Yes,the kids are excited but it is tempered and measured, they don't ask when is it coming out, they ask, is it still moving, is it alive?" "No we had a miscarriage in December of 06 and then a stillborn son last September, so no, not a surprise at all, we have been trying for over two years for a baby" and lastly, "I'm doing great by taking everything a moment at a time. I am not worried about stretch marks but I am worried about stretches of time where I don't feel movement in my belly." I have all of my maternity clothes in a bin in my room, not in my closet or in my drawers, that way if something goes wrong it's easier to just get rid of the bin and I won't have to deal with packing everything up. We have finally, started to clear out the extra room and contemplate, shhh, a nursery, but it is a subtle, slow process. I have chosen a dark brown for the walls, neutral and easily convertible, if, you know, well...you know. I even thought about names, daring myself to believe this one will actually hear us utter his or her name, will feel our arms, will know our love.
But to the outsiders, the casual observers, the ones who smile and offer congratulations and hugs, I give them what they need to hear and the rest I hold inside, tucked away with the other part of me that is a different person now, the part of me that isn't who they know, and isn't what they want to see or hear about. They want to know of happy things and healthy babies and pregnant women whose babies don't die. What they want I have been giving them for a year, it's not even hard anymore, it is my second nature and so I give them what they want. The masquerade.

The Water Is Wide(Traditional)with lyrics-Karla Bonoff

2008-09-01T07:52:00.001-07:00

We named him, Caleb.

2008-09-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

When we first found out that you were going to be born still we chose not to name you. We had, in the week before, chosen a boy name, but for some unspoken reason that day when we were asked if we wanted to name you we both said no. You were going to be "baby boy or girl K", that was it. We also said we did not want to see you after you were born. I felt as though we were imitating the three wise monkeys, and that if we just looked away long enough, we could walk out of that hospital and pretend that nothing bad had ever happened to us in that building.

After you were born, everything changed. I immediately wanted to know if you were a boy and then I wanted to see you. Your dad, too, came to see you but the pain was so great he walked away. I looked at your face, trying to memorize it, to burn it into my brain so that I would always be able to see you. Today, all I can see are your nose and your lips, tiny and perfect, and exactly like your sisters. And it was then that I knew, you had to have a name. A name to take with you wherever it was you were going and a name that we could call you to make you Real to everyone who asked about you. I didn't want you to just be "the baby' we lost. You needed to be a whole person, someone outside of me, someone who had a name all his own.

I began searching for names when I got home from the hospital. And while nearly everyone who knows me will tell you that I do not seek refuge or comfort from anything religious, ever, I knew there were great stories of faith and strength and courage and hope to be found within the pages of the Bible. Those stories, whether true or not, had always fascinated me just as Greek mythology had, and I hoped that somewhere in those pages I could find a name that would tell your story for you. And I did.

There are actually many versions of the story of Caleb*. But while the details change, the traits and characteristics of Caleb the man remain constant. He was chosen by many to lead them on an expedition to the Promised Land. Of the 12 spies who undertook this journey, 10 of them, after seeing the Giants that would need to be conquered in order to take the land of 'milk and honey', returned to their people and to God and said that the task was to great for them and that they should all give up the quest. Only, Caleb and Joshua, believed that they could conquer the Giants and claim the land that God had promised them. Only Caleb had faith that if they believed in what they wanted they could achieve it. According to the story, God punished all of the spies and their people for being cowards by forcing them to wander and live in the deserts for 40 years. Only Caleb, after completing that punishment, without complaint and with continued faith and hope that every journey, no matter how hard, was worthwhile and should be taken without wasting time complaining about the fairness of it or the harshness of it, was rewarded at the end of the 40 years. When he finally arrived at the Promised Land, despite being 85 years old, he was bestowed a body and spirit of a man 40 years younger. He was granted his youth because his heart had remained pure and his faith in the justness of completing an act well, for no other reason than always doing the best that you can, no matter what the obstacles, remained steadfast.

In choosing this name for you, I believed that it would always tell your story, our story. That our journey together would last for many years, that we would wander an ugly unforgiving territory, for many years, without any reassurance that our journey would ever end or that we would be together when it was over. But, my hope, my need to believe that maybe, one day, we would be, would remain constant. And by giving you the name of the first true conqueror of horrible odds and terrible trials, you would be able to take with you, wherever you went, that same courage to lead where no one else wants to follow, that same faith that in the end the journey would be worthwhile and the belief that when it is all really over, despite the time that has passed, you will be young and strong and your heart will be whole. And maybe, we will be together.
And that is why, we named you Caleb.

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that I once had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

*Many name books / websites list the meaning of CALEB as "Dog". However, a simple look in a Hebrew / English dictionary one will see that "dog" in Hebrew is CELEB, not CALEB. **Note** the first vowel is different.CALEB is actually a compound word in Hebrew - something that is quite common in ancient Hebrew. Col (Cuf + Lamed) = all or whole. Lev (Lamed + Vet) = heart. Therefore, CALEB (or COLEV as pronounced in Hebrew) actually means "whole hearted". Faithful could be another translation. However, if you read in the Hebrew Bible the exploits of CALEB (as in one of the twelve spies who went into Caanan Numbers 13:6 & 13:30), one will see that he wasn't simply faithful, but that he served the God of ISRAEL with his whole heart. IE: He was the first to speak up and say, "let's go and conquer this land," (paraphrased). It wasn't JOSHUA (the leader of the 12 spies), but CALEB who was encouraging Israel to follow God in spite of the opposition from the other 10 spies.Therefore, the ancient meaning of CALEB is: "whole hearted".