Sunday, November 29, 2009
I spent a good part of the day reading other blogs. Not that I ever thought that I was alone in losing an infant, but it turns out that there are an awful lot of people around the world blogging about their experiences and their pain. In some sick way it is comforting to read about the stories of other unfortunate souls who truly know my pain. Intimately. Not that I want the sympathy, per se, but in some ways I wish everyone knew what I am going through right now. When I go out in public I wish I could explain that I just had a baby a few weeks ago, and that's why I have the shelf under my belly button. I wish I could explain why my eyes are puffy from crying. I wish I could truly answer the question "how are you doing?" from the check-out person at the market. Sometimes I want to say how shitty I'm doing. Because my baby died. Yes--I'm the one who was pregnant a few weeks ago, and now I'm not. Don't you wonder why I'm back here without a huge belly AND without a baby? I wish I could scream it from the mountain tops. Not that it would do anything to ease my pain.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Blogging for my life because hers was lost.
"Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday."
-Mary Schmich
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
I'm a worrier by nature, but I never worried about this happening, and I still can't believe it has. This pain is intolerable. It's not like the anxious depression that always followed a break-up. It's just a solid depressed feeling--like a huge boulder that is weighing me down. I have to relate my pain to a break-up, because before this experience, that was the main source of previous pain in my life. In that situation, the pain could be resolved if somehow you could manage to work something out with the other person. Or if you met someone new and realized that person was a better match for you. In this situation, there is nothing to work out. There is nothing that can be done. Addison is gone. She is dead. She is not in a better place. The best place for her was here--with me and Chris and Calvin. See that box up there on the bookcase? That's where she is. She was born and then she died. And she never saw me or knew me. I can close my eyes and imagine myself with her in my arms. I can imagine exactly how it felt and smelled to have her cheek against my nose and mouth. I breathed her in every chance I got because I knew I would want the memory. But when I allow myself to feel her, it opens up my pain to that fresh level all over again. When I play the slideshow of our family photos and I hear that music, it breaks me down. I can't stop crying. It just sucks so bad, and I can't imagine being in a place where it doesn't hurt like this. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with myself, quite frankly. Yes, I have Calvin to take care of, but when I got laid off in March, I didn't care if I got another job because my job was going to be taking care of Calvin AND Addison. I viewed this past summer as my last summer alone with Calvin before he became a big brother and my time was divided between him and his sister. So now that Addison was born and has died, here we are. It's not that I'm not happy to be with Calvin, but my anticipation for her arrival grew so strong, and I wanted her so much, and she was taken away from us--from me--and I'm just so sad. Maybe our lives were just too perfect. Maybe something had to be shaken up. But more likely, it was just shitty luck. The stats say that brain damage has to occur in a certain percentage of babies. It was the luck of the draw, and it was our turn. It would be so much easier if I believed that this was part of a God's plan--but I don't believe that. I don't believe in a God--and certainly not a God who has a specific plan and/or purpose for each person. There is too much suffering, pain, and terrible things that happen in this world for me to believe that. Ironically, it is those exact things that make so many people believe in God. There must be SOME sense to the madness, they think. There must be a reason and a purpose and a plan and some kind of judgment after all this in order to make everything in life turn out "fair." But there is no fairness in life. It's all just a bunch of random acts--some good, some bad, some lucky, some unlucky. We all take our turn. I just feel so robbed because Addison was a perfectly healthy, perfectly formed baby at 7lbs, 4 oz. She was full term. The perinatologist checked her brain development and it was fine. It was just a terrible accident in the womb that snatched it all away from me. And from my family. And it sucks. And I'm sad. And I wish I could reverse the clock. Addison was born exactly 4 weeks ago. Addison died exactly 3 weeks ago. In many ways it feels like yesterday. I'm wondering when the pain lessens. I don't want to lose that exact memory of holding her, but I wonder how I can remember that so perfectly and still feel "okay" with losing her. It seems unimaginable.
-Mary Schmich
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
I'm a worrier by nature, but I never worried about this happening, and I still can't believe it has. This pain is intolerable. It's not like the anxious depression that always followed a break-up. It's just a solid depressed feeling--like a huge boulder that is weighing me down. I have to relate my pain to a break-up, because before this experience, that was the main source of previous pain in my life. In that situation, the pain could be resolved if somehow you could manage to work something out with the other person. Or if you met someone new and realized that person was a better match for you. In this situation, there is nothing to work out. There is nothing that can be done. Addison is gone. She is dead. She is not in a better place. The best place for her was here--with me and Chris and Calvin. See that box up there on the bookcase? That's where she is. She was born and then she died. And she never saw me or knew me. I can close my eyes and imagine myself with her in my arms. I can imagine exactly how it felt and smelled to have her cheek against my nose and mouth. I breathed her in every chance I got because I knew I would want the memory. But when I allow myself to feel her, it opens up my pain to that fresh level all over again. When I play the slideshow of our family photos and I hear that music, it breaks me down. I can't stop crying. It just sucks so bad, and I can't imagine being in a place where it doesn't hurt like this. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with myself, quite frankly. Yes, I have Calvin to take care of, but when I got laid off in March, I didn't care if I got another job because my job was going to be taking care of Calvin AND Addison. I viewed this past summer as my last summer alone with Calvin before he became a big brother and my time was divided between him and his sister. So now that Addison was born and has died, here we are. It's not that I'm not happy to be with Calvin, but my anticipation for her arrival grew so strong, and I wanted her so much, and she was taken away from us--from me--and I'm just so sad. Maybe our lives were just too perfect. Maybe something had to be shaken up. But more likely, it was just shitty luck. The stats say that brain damage has to occur in a certain percentage of babies. It was the luck of the draw, and it was our turn. It would be so much easier if I believed that this was part of a God's plan--but I don't believe that. I don't believe in a God--and certainly not a God who has a specific plan and/or purpose for each person. There is too much suffering, pain, and terrible things that happen in this world for me to believe that. Ironically, it is those exact things that make so many people believe in God. There must be SOME sense to the madness, they think. There must be a reason and a purpose and a plan and some kind of judgment after all this in order to make everything in life turn out "fair." But there is no fairness in life. It's all just a bunch of random acts--some good, some bad, some lucky, some unlucky. We all take our turn. I just feel so robbed because Addison was a perfectly healthy, perfectly formed baby at 7lbs, 4 oz. She was full term. The perinatologist checked her brain development and it was fine. It was just a terrible accident in the womb that snatched it all away from me. And from my family. And it sucks. And I'm sad. And I wish I could reverse the clock. Addison was born exactly 4 weeks ago. Addison died exactly 3 weeks ago. In many ways it feels like yesterday. I'm wondering when the pain lessens. I don't want to lose that exact memory of holding her, but I wonder how I can remember that so perfectly and still feel "okay" with losing her. It seems unimaginable.
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