I almost couldn't walk in the door of the hospital. I was overcome with anxiety and fear and grief. I was not prepared, could not be prepared for this. Face red with tears we sat at the admissions desk and filled out benign paperwork and answered simple questions but I could barely think. I just kept running through various scenarios. Would the baby be born alive, would he cry, would he need to go to the NICU, would I actually get to hold him? Was it too early to take him out at 37W5D?
We had a very friendly nurse in the pre-op area and things got underway with talk of anesthetic options, the IV, my OB arriving, being introduced to all of the nurses and Drs... everyone aware of what had happened to us last year and insisting that this would be ok but I couldn't believe them. Even with the very apparent differences between an emergency and a scheduled c-section, I felt like I was in the same place at the same time of year to have the same thing happen. My poor husband had to sit on the same little couch outside of the OR in the same silly yellow scrubs waiting to be able to come in, those same moments when Saersha's heart stopped.
In such an intense situation as this I go inside myself, clench deeply to feel something solid in all of this that is beyond my control. My OB tried for some chit chat with me and one of the anesthesiologists and she held my hand while we waited for the spinal to kick in. Finally my husband was allowed to come in and then my OB told me when the surgery was already underway. Things happened fast and she told me she saw a head with brown hair, then moments later this tiny animal sound emerged and I cried. It was so beautiful to hear him. I almost couldn't believe it could have turned out like this. He was examined and had all 10 apgars and my husband held him and brought him to sit by me as they stitched me back together.
We went to the recovery room and the nurses helped me latch the baby on and he nursed for a long time. It was all that I could have hoped for.
We decided to name him Stellan, which is a Swedish name and means calm. I hoped that he would bring some calm to our lives which have been so dark and tumultuous over the last 3 years of loss and heartbreak.
I thought the having Stellan might be healing and in some sense it has been. We finally have the life that we have been hoping for over so many years. That feeling of being locked out of something that comes so naturally to so many other people has lessened. I have moments where I am totally overcome with love for this little creature.
None of this makes the loss of Saersha any easier though. There is still a hole in my heart that is exactly her shape. Now my heart has grown with my love for Stellan, but the hole is still there. We have even more of a sense of what we missed with Saersha and I so wish that both of our children could be here with us now.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Saturday, November 17, 2012
He's here!
I don't have it in me to make a proper post but for those few of you reading this: he's here, he's healthy, he's as sweet as can be! He was 7lbs 9 oz and hearing his cry at birth was the most amazing thing! I am so overjoyed I can barely handle it. Thankfully he didn't need any interventions or NICU time and now we're home and getting settled in together.
Thank you all for thinking of us.
Thank you all for thinking of us.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Random thoughts on getting through a subsequent pregnancy
With 6 days left in this pregnancy, and inspired by the blogs that I read of fellow baby loss mamas, I have been thinking about some of the ways I have gotten through this pregnancy so far. When I say "gotten through" of course that doesn't mean that it has been easy. I have been at a high anxiety level pretty much the whole time, but these are some things or thoughts that have helped.
1. First of course is this baby himself and all the love and joy that I have in him. This can be a double edged sword as the more you love the more you fear that it will be taken away, but in the first trimester I did a lot of visualizations about sending love and positive energy to this baby and telling him how I would nurture and accept him if he would only just make it out alive! I will admit that this took more the form of pleading rather than anything more confident or hopeful. This was my mantra: Be My Baby
In the second trimester I was able to hear his heart beat with my doppler and later in the pregnancy the baby has given me his own assurances with his thankfully regular movement and healthy development.
2. Denial. This may seem to contradict what I just wrote, but there were times when I just needed to forget about this pregnancy.
3. Going back to work. I was really nervous about this but I am very fortunate to work in a very supportive office and while I mostly just dove back in I knew I could take some time when I needed it. There were some days that it was tough to be there and there were some insensitive people and experiences I could have lived without but I think if I hadn't gone back I would have gotten lost in my anxiety and grief.
4. Projects. I am really terrible at it because I have zero attention to detail but I took up sewing. I had been given a sewing machine about 15 years ago and I never really learned how to use it. Before going back to work I took a beginning sewing class through the school board and I learned how to make a basic pair of pants, so then I made 3 over the course of the pregnancy. It was good to have something else to focus on in the evenings that had nothing to do with loss or with pregnancy or work.
5. Reading. This too can be helpful in many ways but can also bring up more worries as the more you know, the more you know about what can go wrong. My top books on loss have been:Finding Hope When A Child Dies An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination When a Baby Dies
But maybe even more of a lifesaver has been losing myself in silly fiction. I usually would save myself for more literary options but over this pregnancy I read a fair amount of fun crap. I easily read twice as many novels as I normally would over this time period.
6. Realizing that I can go forward without real hope. Most of my strategies have not centred on hope but on determination and survival. I am not sure how to make the distinction between hope (believing that events will turn out for the best) and what I feel (being willing to give it a shot because there is no other option) but I feel there is one. I did not get pregnant because I thought it would work out, I did it because there was no other way I continue to live after Saersha died. I now feel like it's ok to doubt that it will work out and not feel confident and hopeful as long as you can still find ways to get through.
So, those are my thoughts on this for now. I think this is something I will keep chewing on and maybe I will need to come up with even more strategies to get through the next 6 days.
1. First of course is this baby himself and all the love and joy that I have in him. This can be a double edged sword as the more you love the more you fear that it will be taken away, but in the first trimester I did a lot of visualizations about sending love and positive energy to this baby and telling him how I would nurture and accept him if he would only just make it out alive! I will admit that this took more the form of pleading rather than anything more confident or hopeful. This was my mantra: Be My Baby
In the second trimester I was able to hear his heart beat with my doppler and later in the pregnancy the baby has given me his own assurances with his thankfully regular movement and healthy development.
2. Denial. This may seem to contradict what I just wrote, but there were times when I just needed to forget about this pregnancy.
3. Going back to work. I was really nervous about this but I am very fortunate to work in a very supportive office and while I mostly just dove back in I knew I could take some time when I needed it. There were some days that it was tough to be there and there were some insensitive people and experiences I could have lived without but I think if I hadn't gone back I would have gotten lost in my anxiety and grief.
4. Projects. I am really terrible at it because I have zero attention to detail but I took up sewing. I had been given a sewing machine about 15 years ago and I never really learned how to use it. Before going back to work I took a beginning sewing class through the school board and I learned how to make a basic pair of pants, so then I made 3 over the course of the pregnancy. It was good to have something else to focus on in the evenings that had nothing to do with loss or with pregnancy or work.
5. Reading. This too can be helpful in many ways but can also bring up more worries as the more you know, the more you know about what can go wrong. My top books on loss have been:Finding Hope When A Child Dies An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination When a Baby Dies
But maybe even more of a lifesaver has been losing myself in silly fiction. I usually would save myself for more literary options but over this pregnancy I read a fair amount of fun crap. I easily read twice as many novels as I normally would over this time period.
6. Realizing that I can go forward without real hope. Most of my strategies have not centred on hope but on determination and survival. I am not sure how to make the distinction between hope (believing that events will turn out for the best) and what I feel (being willing to give it a shot because there is no other option) but I feel there is one. I did not get pregnant because I thought it would work out, I did it because there was no other way I continue to live after Saersha died. I now feel like it's ok to doubt that it will work out and not feel confident and hopeful as long as you can still find ways to get through.
So, those are my thoughts on this for now. I think this is something I will keep chewing on and maybe I will need to come up with even more strategies to get through the next 6 days.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
a year...
That it has been a year feels completely surreal. This year of grief feels like a blur now. It feels like Saersha was just born but then it feels impossible that any of this even happened.
I woke up at about 9 AM on November 4, 2011 thinking that my water had broken. I quickly realized that it was actually blood and thought, maybe this is bloody show. As is often my habit I went to the computer to research and found that the amount I was bleeding was way more than that. Trying to stay calm, I called my midwife and had to leave a message and then several minutes later she called me back and said she would come over.
I hadn't woken my husband up yet but with the midwife on her way over I told him what was happening.
The midwife listened to the baby's heart rate and was very concerned as it seemed extremely low and she told my husband to call 911. Things were panicked and confused as we threw a few more things in the bag we had packed.
The ambulance came and they were under the impression that this was a home birth transfer and that labour was well underway. I got on to the stretcher and into the ambulance and things felt very chaotic, I didn't know where my husband or midwife were and despite my insistence that I was not in active labour the paramedic said he had to check my cervix and feel for the baby's head. The head was still very much inside of my uterus and I think this check was embarrassing for the paramedic but I was too freaked out to really feel anything about it other than that it was unnecessary.
I assumed that since we were in an ambulance that they would try and go faster and put the siren on but they told me that it can actually slow things down as people drive more erratically when they did. It felt like the most excruciating drive but it was probably less than a 1/2 hour. When we arrived the driver took us to the wrong part of the hospital and that lost us another several minutes and added to the stress. We would have gotten there faster if we had driven ourselves.
I was wheeled into labour and delivery and set up to a monitor which showed that Saersha had a heart rate of 140. Soon after arriving, and in front of a nurse and the OBGyn resident who were working with us, I had a huge gush of blood when I sat up. It was so massive I remember hearing the spat as blood fell to the floor.
I don't know why but the Dr didn't recognize that this was a placental abruption. Her supervisor didn't come to see me himself and he thought perhaps it was cervical bleeding. They gave me the option of being induced with a monitor in the baby's scalp or of having a c-section. At BC Women's there is a pretty big campaign to have fewer c-sections and I think this is part of the reason that they didn't just get on with it but gave me this choice. I was so out of it from losing blood and from the stress and I had been so biased against c-sections in my birth class that it was a hard decision for us to make. Ultimately I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to relax enough to push this baby out and I signed the paperwork for the surgery.
We had to wait for a bit as the Dr who would perform the surgery wasn't available right away. It was about 12:30 when we went into the OR. My husband was getting into scrubs and waiting outside while they set me up with the anaesthetic. All this while Saersha was still holding on with a steady, although not dynamic heart rate. I still thought this would work out. We were in the right place, we were almost done, she was almost here.
It was as soon as they put in the spinal that they lost her heart rate. The surgeon was not yet in the room. I found out later that he was out side washing his hands with my husband and saying to him that he would have his daughter in his arms in about 10 mins.
The speed of everything changed then, they got the Dr in the room and the surgery began before they were even certain that the anaesthetic had kicked in. The anaesthesiologist said "Let me know if you feel anything and we'll put you under". Thankfully I did not feel anything.
It was probably only about 10 mins before she was out. I am not sure if it was because it was an emergency or whether c-sections are always like this but the force they had to use to get her out was surprising and uncomfortable. I was overwhelmed and weak and I tried to close my eyes and deal with what was going on. My poor husband thought I was losing consciousness and he was very worried. He had his head down next to mine and extreme fear ran through both of us.
They told me that she was out but there was no cry to give us any reassurance. Her Apgars were 0. The paediatric team worked to resuscitate Saersha for 20 mins and we could hear someone say something about "calling it" when finally she was revived. She was a strong one.
After a few moments when they probably wiped some of the blood off of her, they wheeled her over to me and I saw her limp body. She was bigger than I pictured her and she had so much hair. My first impression was that she looked both like my mother and like my husband. Saersha was a pretty big baby at 8 lbs 7 oz and while she wasn't measured she was probably about 22 inches. They only took a few seconds with us before bringing her to the NICU and my husband went with her.
The recovery room was like hell. I was shuddering from the anesthetic and very weak from all of the blood I had lost and the other women in the room had their babies with them, making little squawking newborn sounds while I was not sure if my baby was even alive. It was the first time I cried for you Saersha.
Over the next day they ran tests to see how severe the inevitable brain damage was. She was having seizures constantly despite being on several medications. She had almost no reflexes at all. She was breathing with support but really that was it. For a period of time that was enough for me. I was so desperate for her to live I didn't care about the details. Saersha was somehow alive against the odds. My husband has worked with severely disabled children though and he, along with a caring but matter of fact Dr, painted the picture for me of what her life and our lives would be like.
It was excruciating but given her prognosis we decided to take her off the machines and spend her final hours together just the three of us. We had about 6 hours together where we lay with her and tried to make her as comfortable as possible as she slowly stopped breathing. I so wanted her to feel the love I have for her in the brief time we had.
Today I was looking at the mementos we have, casts of her hands and feet, a lock of her beautiful hair. I am grateful to have them but they are not enough. It still hurts so much to see these plaster feet which look like miniatures of my own and to feel the huge chasm between what is and what should have been. How can these things, a few photos and a tiny bag of ashes be all that is left of her? In a sense I guess I have accepted this loss and in a sense I can not even wrap my head around it even a year later.
I woke up at about 9 AM on November 4, 2011 thinking that my water had broken. I quickly realized that it was actually blood and thought, maybe this is bloody show. As is often my habit I went to the computer to research and found that the amount I was bleeding was way more than that. Trying to stay calm, I called my midwife and had to leave a message and then several minutes later she called me back and said she would come over.
I hadn't woken my husband up yet but with the midwife on her way over I told him what was happening.
The midwife listened to the baby's heart rate and was very concerned as it seemed extremely low and she told my husband to call 911. Things were panicked and confused as we threw a few more things in the bag we had packed.
The ambulance came and they were under the impression that this was a home birth transfer and that labour was well underway. I got on to the stretcher and into the ambulance and things felt very chaotic, I didn't know where my husband or midwife were and despite my insistence that I was not in active labour the paramedic said he had to check my cervix and feel for the baby's head. The head was still very much inside of my uterus and I think this check was embarrassing for the paramedic but I was too freaked out to really feel anything about it other than that it was unnecessary.
I assumed that since we were in an ambulance that they would try and go faster and put the siren on but they told me that it can actually slow things down as people drive more erratically when they did. It felt like the most excruciating drive but it was probably less than a 1/2 hour. When we arrived the driver took us to the wrong part of the hospital and that lost us another several minutes and added to the stress. We would have gotten there faster if we had driven ourselves.
I was wheeled into labour and delivery and set up to a monitor which showed that Saersha had a heart rate of 140. Soon after arriving, and in front of a nurse and the OBGyn resident who were working with us, I had a huge gush of blood when I sat up. It was so massive I remember hearing the spat as blood fell to the floor.
I don't know why but the Dr didn't recognize that this was a placental abruption. Her supervisor didn't come to see me himself and he thought perhaps it was cervical bleeding. They gave me the option of being induced with a monitor in the baby's scalp or of having a c-section. At BC Women's there is a pretty big campaign to have fewer c-sections and I think this is part of the reason that they didn't just get on with it but gave me this choice. I was so out of it from losing blood and from the stress and I had been so biased against c-sections in my birth class that it was a hard decision for us to make. Ultimately I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to relax enough to push this baby out and I signed the paperwork for the surgery.
We had to wait for a bit as the Dr who would perform the surgery wasn't available right away. It was about 12:30 when we went into the OR. My husband was getting into scrubs and waiting outside while they set me up with the anaesthetic. All this while Saersha was still holding on with a steady, although not dynamic heart rate. I still thought this would work out. We were in the right place, we were almost done, she was almost here.
It was as soon as they put in the spinal that they lost her heart rate. The surgeon was not yet in the room. I found out later that he was out side washing his hands with my husband and saying to him that he would have his daughter in his arms in about 10 mins.
The speed of everything changed then, they got the Dr in the room and the surgery began before they were even certain that the anaesthetic had kicked in. The anaesthesiologist said "Let me know if you feel anything and we'll put you under". Thankfully I did not feel anything.
It was probably only about 10 mins before she was out. I am not sure if it was because it was an emergency or whether c-sections are always like this but the force they had to use to get her out was surprising and uncomfortable. I was overwhelmed and weak and I tried to close my eyes and deal with what was going on. My poor husband thought I was losing consciousness and he was very worried. He had his head down next to mine and extreme fear ran through both of us.
They told me that she was out but there was no cry to give us any reassurance. Her Apgars were 0. The paediatric team worked to resuscitate Saersha for 20 mins and we could hear someone say something about "calling it" when finally she was revived. She was a strong one.
After a few moments when they probably wiped some of the blood off of her, they wheeled her over to me and I saw her limp body. She was bigger than I pictured her and she had so much hair. My first impression was that she looked both like my mother and like my husband. Saersha was a pretty big baby at 8 lbs 7 oz and while she wasn't measured she was probably about 22 inches. They only took a few seconds with us before bringing her to the NICU and my husband went with her.
The recovery room was like hell. I was shuddering from the anesthetic and very weak from all of the blood I had lost and the other women in the room had their babies with them, making little squawking newborn sounds while I was not sure if my baby was even alive. It was the first time I cried for you Saersha.
Over the next day they ran tests to see how severe the inevitable brain damage was. She was having seizures constantly despite being on several medications. She had almost no reflexes at all. She was breathing with support but really that was it. For a period of time that was enough for me. I was so desperate for her to live I didn't care about the details. Saersha was somehow alive against the odds. My husband has worked with severely disabled children though and he, along with a caring but matter of fact Dr, painted the picture for me of what her life and our lives would be like.
It was excruciating but given her prognosis we decided to take her off the machines and spend her final hours together just the three of us. We had about 6 hours together where we lay with her and tried to make her as comfortable as possible as she slowly stopped breathing. I so wanted her to feel the love I have for her in the brief time we had.
Today I was looking at the mementos we have, casts of her hands and feet, a lock of her beautiful hair. I am grateful to have them but they are not enough. It still hurts so much to see these plaster feet which look like miniatures of my own and to feel the huge chasm between what is and what should have been. How can these things, a few photos and a tiny bag of ashes be all that is left of her? In a sense I guess I have accepted this loss and in a sense I can not even wrap my head around it even a year later.
Monday, October 29, 2012
October 29
October 29 was Saersha's due date.
I had actually not been thinking about it, focussing much more of course on her birthday later this week. It has hit me in the guts now though thinking about how long I anticipated this date last year, how alive she was inside of me on that day. On that day I remember feeling very patient about her arrival. I wanted to give birth soon of course but I had a hunch anyway that she wouldn't be born until her due date at least.
At that time I had a level of happiness that I am not sure I will be capable of again. I was reading Spiritual Midwifery, watching videos on natural birth and practicing visualizations. I was very into trying for as un-medical a birth as possible, knowing that I was going to one of the best maternity hospitals in the country. I was thinking about whether I could labour in a tub and how I could manage pain without drugs.
These are all totally appropriate things for me to have been doing but I can't help but think of myself with some derision for not considering that there is no safe zone, even the best doctors are not omnipotent and that even with very good care and preparation full term healthy babies die. I was thinking so much about trusting my body and the natural process of birth and I can't help but feel angry at myself for focussing on all of the wrong things.
I have again picked up Finding Hope When a Child Dies: What Other Cultures Can Teach Us and it does help a bit with the guilt and anger that is so much with me right now. This book tells a bit about how in other cultures (Yoruba and Hindu) the fate/karma of the child is accepted, in these incomprehensible losses the supernatural decides what happens to each soul and it is not for anyone else to consider themselves responsible. The author suggests that people in Western Judeo-Christian traditions identify more personally with god and then take responsibility for what has happened to their children to a greater extent. Aside from some dabbling in Buddhism and being forced into Sunday school a bit as a child, I am not very religious. I do however appreciate viewing loss through another cultural lens. For a moment I try to slip into that kind of worldview where none of our actions or decisions would change a painful outcome and where this loss is not about me but about what Saersha's soul needed to do.
I had actually not been thinking about it, focussing much more of course on her birthday later this week. It has hit me in the guts now though thinking about how long I anticipated this date last year, how alive she was inside of me on that day. On that day I remember feeling very patient about her arrival. I wanted to give birth soon of course but I had a hunch anyway that she wouldn't be born until her due date at least.
At that time I had a level of happiness that I am not sure I will be capable of again. I was reading Spiritual Midwifery, watching videos on natural birth and practicing visualizations. I was very into trying for as un-medical a birth as possible, knowing that I was going to one of the best maternity hospitals in the country. I was thinking about whether I could labour in a tub and how I could manage pain without drugs.
These are all totally appropriate things for me to have been doing but I can't help but think of myself with some derision for not considering that there is no safe zone, even the best doctors are not omnipotent and that even with very good care and preparation full term healthy babies die. I was thinking so much about trusting my body and the natural process of birth and I can't help but feel angry at myself for focussing on all of the wrong things.
I have again picked up Finding Hope When a Child Dies: What Other Cultures Can Teach Us and it does help a bit with the guilt and anger that is so much with me right now. This book tells a bit about how in other cultures (Yoruba and Hindu) the fate/karma of the child is accepted, in these incomprehensible losses the supernatural decides what happens to each soul and it is not for anyone else to consider themselves responsible. The author suggests that people in Western Judeo-Christian traditions identify more personally with god and then take responsibility for what has happened to their children to a greater extent. Aside from some dabbling in Buddhism and being forced into Sunday school a bit as a child, I am not very religious. I do however appreciate viewing loss through another cultural lens. For a moment I try to slip into that kind of worldview where none of our actions or decisions would change a painful outcome and where this loss is not about me but about what Saersha's soul needed to do.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Just more questions
In August I wrote about the season being wrong, the sun being too hot and bright, now there is no avoiding the red leaves and the wet sidewalks. Saersha's season is here. I thought this might help me feel closer to her. Instead, while I find myself reminded of her and thinking of her often, my overall feelings are more of shock, disbelief and anger that she came and was taken from us almost a year ago. There is no peace in it.
Saersha's brother's season is also here. As we dare to discuss what the plan will be for this baby's birth, we can only draw from that experience and remember all of the points along the way, from the ambulance, to admitting, to signing forms, to the OR, to the hospital room without her and leaving with aching arms. These thoughts bring up angst filled questions that I had put aside. Why did the freaking ambulance driver go to the wrong entrance? Why didn't they appreciate how serious it was? Why didn't they just take her out right away while her heart was still beating? I had convinced myself that none of those things would have saved her but now here they are again these angry questions.
I look at the first photos of her in the operating room and the NICU and it's unreal that my baby had to endure these medical interventions and this violent emergency birth. I see in those photos my own pale and expressionless face and I still feel the numbness, shock and despair.
How will it be this time? Can we even imagine the baby crying as he is brought into the world? Could he really just be held by his dad and not rushed from resuscitation to NICU? Will we really have him in our room to be visited and admired? While on a practical level I try and make these plans it's still hard to believe that I am not going to the hospital just to have the baby die.
These babies will be only a year and 10 days apart. I feel like half of me is still with Saersha not having really gotten over anything and the other half is trying to be here and strong for her brother. There is no cohesive whole that has healed and grown stronger but a dichotomy. I guess that will have to do.
Saersha's brother's season is also here. As we dare to discuss what the plan will be for this baby's birth, we can only draw from that experience and remember all of the points along the way, from the ambulance, to admitting, to signing forms, to the OR, to the hospital room without her and leaving with aching arms. These thoughts bring up angst filled questions that I had put aside. Why did the freaking ambulance driver go to the wrong entrance? Why didn't they appreciate how serious it was? Why didn't they just take her out right away while her heart was still beating? I had convinced myself that none of those things would have saved her but now here they are again these angry questions.
I look at the first photos of her in the operating room and the NICU and it's unreal that my baby had to endure these medical interventions and this violent emergency birth. I see in those photos my own pale and expressionless face and I still feel the numbness, shock and despair.
How will it be this time? Can we even imagine the baby crying as he is brought into the world? Could he really just be held by his dad and not rushed from resuscitation to NICU? Will we really have him in our room to be visited and admired? While on a practical level I try and make these plans it's still hard to believe that I am not going to the hospital just to have the baby die.
These babies will be only a year and 10 days apart. I feel like half of me is still with Saersha not having really gotten over anything and the other half is trying to be here and strong for her brother. There is no cohesive whole that has healed and grown stronger but a dichotomy. I guess that will have to do.
Monday, October 15, 2012
October 15
"Breaking the Silence. I had a Daughter." by Franchesca Cox | Redbubble:
This is my third year marking Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day and the first that I have experienced both.
I had a daughter. It doesn't feel real sometimes, but I did.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Capture Your Grief: Jewellery
I had this necklace made on Etsy very soon after Saersha's death. I know many people have necklaces like this for their living children but I don't think that I would have had it made if I didn't yearn for any kind of physical connection to Saersha possible. I love seeing her name written anywhere or hearing it said. This necklace also can offer a rare entry point for people in my life who want to say something about what has happened. It puts it out there in the world a bit, which also feels like a brave act to me. Sometimes I just don't want to have to tell people but this necklace can make me do it.
I also like this necklace because it reminds me of a dog tag and often I feel like I am a veteran. I am not sure who I have been at war with, death, the universe, myself, but I feel like I have seen a kind of darkness that people don't often see and come back to try and live amoungst the civilians.
Friday, October 5, 2012
October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month and Capture Your Grief is an initiative where babylost parents are sharing photos with a theme for each day.
It's already the 5th so I am behind a bit, but I do want to participate in some way. I'll catch up with the themes that speak to me the most so far.
Before Loss Self Portrait
Of course, who doesn't say this, but our wedding day was one of the happiest of my life. I felt sure that our next step would be to have a baby within a year or so. I choose this photo rather than one of my pregnancy with Saersha because even though that was an extremely happy time, Saersha was already a rainbow baby after 3 early losses. When I think back to our wedding, that is when I was last naive about loss.
After Loss Self Portrait
After Saersha died I felt washed out like this. I wasn't recognizable to myself. I was in shock and I didn't know what to do with my feelings. I am someone who needs to feel purposeful and my whole purpose was supposed to be to care for Saersha. I was ready to dedicate my life to her. I was so sure it would work out this time and things would finally get back onto a positive track again. My body was so ready and needing to nurture and feed her but she was gone.
Most Treasured Item
Saersha took half of this pendant with her and I have the other half. I wore it everyday and felt it connected me to her. About a month after she died I dropped my half and it broke. I was so distraught and panicked. How could I break this talisman of my child!!! Would she ever forgive me? Where we not connected now? What did it mean? In an attempt at denial I glued it back together immediately. If it wasn't broken for long then I could pretend I never broke it. After fixing it, time passing and calming down a bit I realized that it was even more symbolic. My heart really was/is broken forever but I still have to carry it around and carry on.
Memorial
We didn't have a memorial service for Saersha. We didn't think we could grieve the way we needed to with people around. It was just the two of us saying goodbye to her for the last time. The crematorium staff were very kind to us and gave us enough time and space to do this. I can't bring myself to post a photo of that, but this is the cedar box that we made (with a lot of help since our grief-addled minds could not handle anything but the most basic functions). Many First Nations believe that cedar is sacred and when burned it drives out negative forces. This box was so fragrant with cleansing cedar and it meant so much more to us than the options offered by the funeral home. We sent her off wrapped in the blanket her Nana had knit for her and I filled a small wooden container with breast milk for her. My body was making it for her even though she couldn't use it but I wanted to give it to her in some small way regardless.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Today is my birthday.
Working at a university, it's such a busy time of year that I haven't felt the date approach at all and now here it is. It sucks but I can't stand being wished a happy day when this is yet another day that Saersha is not here. This is my first birthday without her and a reminder that I keep pushing through time and she does not.
Working at a university, it's such a busy time of year that I haven't felt the date approach at all and now here it is. It sucks but I can't stand being wished a happy day when this is yet another day that Saersha is not here. This is my first birthday without her and a reminder that I keep pushing through time and she does not.
Monday, August 20, 2012
The body
While I have never really fit societal ideals, I have, for most of my adult life, felt pretty good in my body. I cycled everywhere, I ran 10km races and then completed 4 half marathons. I took yoga classes and did outdoorsy stuff. I felt strong.
Then through these last 3 years of pregnancy, miscarriage and baby loss that feeling of strength has slipped away. It's not just that I have added 20 pounds to my non-pregnant set point, it's that I don't feel confident that my body will do what I need it to.
During my pregnancy with Saersha I kept up with fitness as well as I could. After I passed the first trimester and it seemed I might actually not miscarry, I attended prenatal aerobics, water exercise classes and yoga. I didn't feel the same as before of course but what I lost in actual fitness I gained in pride that my body was growing a new life, a daughter who I hoped to inspire to do things that made her feel strong.
Then my body proved even more cruel than I could have imagined. It let her go right when she was ready to be born, it failed us both right at the critical moment. Other BLMs have described feeling like their body is a crime scene and I can relate to that. Why would the placenta detach prematurely after working so well for months and building a beautiful 8.7 lb. baby girl? In this case no one has an answer.
Now this body is playing host again but I can't feel any of the pride I felt before. So now I am just feeling awkward and huge and all of the negatives of pregnancy without the glow of body love for the work that it is doing.
We were just away on vacation at a near by island with no electricity (i.e. no distractions). It was great in many ways, but it was time spent more aware and present in my body than usual. I realized I have been trying to ignore it in my everyday life but I feel ugly and I am stressed when I do anything physical or strenuous. Is it OK to ignore myself in this way while still of course eating well and maintaining health?
How can I love this body now? How can I keep from self-loathing on a physical level?
How can I trust my body to do what I need, and more importantly what this little boy needs?
Monday, August 6, 2012
I feel like the next most logical thing to do is write the story of Saersha's birth and death but I am not ready to do that yet. In the thick of grief I did write the story in a journal as far as I could, as far as the point where we had to decide to turn off the machines.
I have not written about holding her and having our only moments together as a family, or about the time we spent with her body after she died or her cremation. I have not written about being given the tiny handful of ashes and bone, with their little metal ID tag. I will write about these things, but not today.
Saersha's time is when the leaves change colour and when there is a crispness in the air, then when it's dark and wet. Right now it's warm and sunny and life is focussed outwards, not in. But part of me is not engaged in all of that. Part of me is always in winter. Losing her has changed the meaning of time. I am drawn to do this writing but the season is wrong.
At the same time this new life is squirming inside of me and if it is indeed possible that he will live (which I am starting to believe) then I need to make the most of the time I have now to think of Saersha and write. Again I am thinking of the time until vs the time since.
So baby girl, know that I am thinking of you now and always, even though I haven't carved all of the memories into words yet.
At the same time this new life is squirming inside of me and if it is indeed possible that he will live (which I am starting to believe) then I need to make the most of the time I have now to think of Saersha and write. Again I am thinking of the time until vs the time since.
So baby girl, know that I am thinking of you now and always, even though I haven't carved all of the memories into words yet.
Monday, July 30, 2012
To Begin
It's been almost 9 months since my daughter was born and died, why start blogging now?
Other baby loss bloggers have noted the significance of 9 months growing their babies and then 9 months grieving them. It's a very painful symmetry of time.
The babies that were conceived around the time that she was born are now coming into the world. Anyone who has experienced the interminableness of pregnancy can appreciate that span of months.
Really now I am just starting to feel like I can possibly write about what happened. It's taken 9 months to gestate my grief enough to put it out into the world a bit.
I wish that this blog could be beautiful enough to represent her, to be worthy of her, but I don't think I will be capable of that. Saersha deserves graceful and poetic writing, amazing you with wisdom. This will certainly fall short.
She was our so desired and loved daughter. It took us almost two years and 3 early losses before we were blessed with her. Finally things were right with the universe again. We were being reconciled after all the struggles and rewarded with a perfect healthy girl, until the morning that she was born and it all fell away.
I will write about what happened in more detail later, but in the simplest terms, the placenta detached too early and left her without oxygen when labour started. How could things have gone so wrong just on the day she was finally arriving? The pregnancy had really been textbook until that day and its blood and panic. Injustice doesn't begin to describe it.
In the insanity that is immediate loss all I wanted was to be pregnant again. It wasn't something that can be easily described. It was like a primal force. It was my fingernails digging into the cliff. It was the only thing that would help even a little bit.
On the fourth month it happened. Now I am blessed again with a healthy pregnancy and a normal baby so far. This will be Saersha's brother, who will be born almost exactly a year later and who I can sometimes convince myself will actually arrive screaming with life, get to sleep in the crib his sister never saw and share her things and our love.
This is also what has inspired me to write now. For all of the counting down I do to this baby's arrival, I am aware that it is also counting away from her. I yearn to go backwards and forwards at the same time. Only one way is possible of course and that will take its creeping pace, so I need to be present and to remember. Thinking forward and backward for my babies.
Other baby loss bloggers have noted the significance of 9 months growing their babies and then 9 months grieving them. It's a very painful symmetry of time.
The babies that were conceived around the time that she was born are now coming into the world. Anyone who has experienced the interminableness of pregnancy can appreciate that span of months.
I wish that this blog could be beautiful enough to represent her, to be worthy of her, but I don't think I will be capable of that. Saersha deserves graceful and poetic writing, amazing you with wisdom. This will certainly fall short.
She was our so desired and loved daughter. It took us almost two years and 3 early losses before we were blessed with her. Finally things were right with the universe again. We were being reconciled after all the struggles and rewarded with a perfect healthy girl, until the morning that she was born and it all fell away.
I will write about what happened in more detail later, but in the simplest terms, the placenta detached too early and left her without oxygen when labour started. How could things have gone so wrong just on the day she was finally arriving? The pregnancy had really been textbook until that day and its blood and panic. Injustice doesn't begin to describe it.
In the insanity that is immediate loss all I wanted was to be pregnant again. It wasn't something that can be easily described. It was like a primal force. It was my fingernails digging into the cliff. It was the only thing that would help even a little bit.
On the fourth month it happened. Now I am blessed again with a healthy pregnancy and a normal baby so far. This will be Saersha's brother, who will be born almost exactly a year later and who I can sometimes convince myself will actually arrive screaming with life, get to sleep in the crib his sister never saw and share her things and our love.
This is also what has inspired me to write now. For all of the counting down I do to this baby's arrival, I am aware that it is also counting away from her. I yearn to go backwards and forwards at the same time. Only one way is possible of course and that will take its creeping pace, so I need to be present and to remember. Thinking forward and backward for my babies.
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