She would be 8 1/2 months now. Maybe starting to crawl. Eating solid foods. We would know her preferences well. She would smile and have chubby baby legs.
I will share what I do know about her for sure, from my pregnancy. She did not like meat of any kind. I could eat the most bitter vegetables all day long with her. I'd have an over-easy egg on a bed of dark greens with balsamic vinagrette for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I drank gallons of lime-ade mixed with coconut milk. Some mornings I'd have a lime-coconut popsicle before breakfast. I had never done that before in my life. And grapefruits every day. And greek yogurt. She was an efficient and healthy eater.
She would always move when I sang Shane to sleep. I was singing to Shane the last time I felt her move, actually.
She was super active. My nickname for her was "Kicky." Early on in her movements she seemed to be searching for the exit. "Buscando la Salida," I used to say. I knew all along that I was in for a huge challenge with her. I told a friend recently that she will ever be my most challenging child. I had a sense that she was very strong-willed and independent. Not the type to put up with fences.
Over the summer I got this impression of her, like a teenager exasperated with me, "Mom, when are you going to stop being mad at me for dying? Get over yourself, mom, I didn't mean to!" She's a no-nonsense, in-your-face kind of spirit. Then again, I sense an impish side. After all, she's part of this family, and we are an irreverent bunch.
So, that's my baby. I wish there was more, but I'm grateful for what there is. In a way that I wouldn't understand otherwise, she is alive to me, in her way.
Oct 14, 2010
Remembrance
This is the eve of the international Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It is suggested that we light a candle at 7pm in all time zones to create a world-wide wave of light. Apparently I missed The Walk to Remember in my area, which was on October 2nd. I figured I would have been alerted by one of the people or groups ... There's always next year.
I meant to write sooner. It's not for lack of things to talk about. It's more that Life has become very confusing and I like to be at my highest and best here, in order to honor Brynn. My subjects for discussion as of late are a little too real, even for a blog about a dead baby.
Noah's 28 weeks in utero, doing well. We're all fine, sort-of.
I had a dream awhile back that I was living alone in a hotel, some kind of transient life, and a stranger, or someone I had met once at some sort of women's group placed a marker on my lawn that signified that I was the mother of a child who had passed. It meant a lot to me. I asked her if I could hug her, and I started sobbing, but even in my dream I would not allow myself to say the words that were burning in my throat. Simply, "I miss her so much."
Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to be burdened with my ongoing longing that they can't fix. But keeping those words in is unhealthy. And so today I say to you, I MISS HER SO MUCH.
I guess after any traumatic event, when you get back to your busy life, the trauma has a way of sneaking its way back in from time to time. Say, in a tick, or an act of violent rage that really seemed to come out of nowhere. Our family has gotten out of sync, each member attempting to withstand the normal pressures of life whilst under the pressures of grief for our daughter and anxiety for our new son's well-being. Not to mention dealing with a house full of other crazy people under the same intense pressures. We're starting to crack, as a unit.
So, I am finally engaging in the luxury that is mental health counseling, with a counselor who has personally been down this road. This to me is a great blessing, and for me there is already a high level of trust and understanding for eachother. It always urks me when people say things like this, but I will allow myself to urk some of you because: Unless you've been through as devastating a loss, you can't really guide a person through the process. I've had grief counselors and well-meaning friends in the counseling profession attempt to encourage me by essentially telling me what chapter in the book I'm on. I was told, "You're meaning-making, that's great." Thank you, that's helpful. Reduce my efforts to honor my daughter to a multiple-choice answer on your mid-term.
So far, my girl Emily has given me super simple advice that has really helped. Read this book. Take Unisom when you can't sleep (It's approved for pregnancy, and WHY didn't anyone tell me this sooner, like 2 years ago??). Add structure to your day, schedule breaks for yourself. Duh. But I wasn't doing it until she told me to.
So, slowly, we begin to rebuild our fragile selves, and from there our fragile relationships, with less than three months before adding a newborn into this mix. We can most certainly use your prayer. And we are feeling more hopeful.
I meant to write sooner. It's not for lack of things to talk about. It's more that Life has become very confusing and I like to be at my highest and best here, in order to honor Brynn. My subjects for discussion as of late are a little too real, even for a blog about a dead baby.
Noah's 28 weeks in utero, doing well. We're all fine, sort-of.
I had a dream awhile back that I was living alone in a hotel, some kind of transient life, and a stranger, or someone I had met once at some sort of women's group placed a marker on my lawn that signified that I was the mother of a child who had passed. It meant a lot to me. I asked her if I could hug her, and I started sobbing, but even in my dream I would not allow myself to say the words that were burning in my throat. Simply, "I miss her so much."
Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to be burdened with my ongoing longing that they can't fix. But keeping those words in is unhealthy. And so today I say to you, I MISS HER SO MUCH.
I guess after any traumatic event, when you get back to your busy life, the trauma has a way of sneaking its way back in from time to time. Say, in a tick, or an act of violent rage that really seemed to come out of nowhere. Our family has gotten out of sync, each member attempting to withstand the normal pressures of life whilst under the pressures of grief for our daughter and anxiety for our new son's well-being. Not to mention dealing with a house full of other crazy people under the same intense pressures. We're starting to crack, as a unit.
So, I am finally engaging in the luxury that is mental health counseling, with a counselor who has personally been down this road. This to me is a great blessing, and for me there is already a high level of trust and understanding for eachother. It always urks me when people say things like this, but I will allow myself to urk some of you because: Unless you've been through as devastating a loss, you can't really guide a person through the process. I've had grief counselors and well-meaning friends in the counseling profession attempt to encourage me by essentially telling me what chapter in the book I'm on. I was told, "You're meaning-making, that's great." Thank you, that's helpful. Reduce my efforts to honor my daughter to a multiple-choice answer on your mid-term.
So far, my girl Emily has given me super simple advice that has really helped. Read this book. Take Unisom when you can't sleep (It's approved for pregnancy, and WHY didn't anyone tell me this sooner, like 2 years ago??). Add structure to your day, schedule breaks for yourself. Duh. But I wasn't doing it until she told me to.
So, slowly, we begin to rebuild our fragile selves, and from there our fragile relationships, with less than three months before adding a newborn into this mix. We can most certainly use your prayer. And we are feeling more hopeful.
Aug 24, 2010
In Dreams
It's been raining for three days straight. I do miss the sun, but the rain is my weather now. It reminds me that we wait and hope for our rainbow baby after the storm.
I've been dreaming about Brynn for two nights. I remember only having one dream about her before, an untouchable sleeping newborn swaddled tightly on a hill of blanket. These past two dreams have been wierd. In both, Brynn's body was ours to keep, not decaying, just lifeless like a doll. In the first, it was bed time and her lifeless doll body was sqwaking until Jimmy jostled her slightly and then she was silent and I asked him to put her away. Apparently we had a box to keep her in. In last night's dream, I had memories of carrying her around when she was alive, but in the dream "now" she was again lifeless, and she had this full head of hair cut into this really bad mullet haircut, and she had big flakes of baby dandruff, which I attempted to clear away, wondering what on earth posessed me to have her hair cut like that. That was it.
During these same nights, Shane has dreamed of Noah. We sleep in the same room, and he talks in his sleep. The first night, in his sleep, he asked me why my new baby had fins when he first came out of my belly. Last night, in his sleep, he asked to touch my belly, and when I put his hand on it Noah moved around wildly, as if he was in on it.
Last night I also dreamed that there was a disturbance outside our bedroom window. I thought it sounded like a moose, but Jimmy bent down to look out and said it was a democrator, which was some kind of large, wild cat. About an hour or two after waking from this dream, I heard yelling outside my window. I got scared and woke Jimmy who bent down to see a man and a woman fighting loudly in the street. Watching that image from the bed jarred me, I had seen the exact same thing in my dream hours earlier.
I don't know what any of this means, but all the same it seems significant.
Before bed last night, Shane and I were talking about Heaven. It's a huge and heavy concept for a little boy, and I remember how anything religious seemed to make no sense at his age. But, nonetheless, his sister lives there, and he's curious. He asked if we were going to die someday. I said yes. He said he was scared, and I said it seems scary because we've never seen what heaven is like, but for the people who have died, they find out that it's pretty awesome, and better than here. I told him how there is no sadness, no tears, and no pain. And no crusty blood (his words). And no hormones (mine).
He asked if God was dead there. I said no, and he said, understandably, "Oh, I thought that everyone in Heaven was dead." Hmmm. I told him the people in Heaven were more alive than we are, and that God is alive here, we just can't see or touch him like we could in Heaven.
It occurred to me that in reality, if you believe in the heaven of the Bible, that that is actually the real place and this is the dream world. It's been around far longer than Earth, and we will live for eternity there, when we're only here for a short time.
So take heart.
I've been dreaming about Brynn for two nights. I remember only having one dream about her before, an untouchable sleeping newborn swaddled tightly on a hill of blanket. These past two dreams have been wierd. In both, Brynn's body was ours to keep, not decaying, just lifeless like a doll. In the first, it was bed time and her lifeless doll body was sqwaking until Jimmy jostled her slightly and then she was silent and I asked him to put her away. Apparently we had a box to keep her in. In last night's dream, I had memories of carrying her around when she was alive, but in the dream "now" she was again lifeless, and she had this full head of hair cut into this really bad mullet haircut, and she had big flakes of baby dandruff, which I attempted to clear away, wondering what on earth posessed me to have her hair cut like that. That was it.
During these same nights, Shane has dreamed of Noah. We sleep in the same room, and he talks in his sleep. The first night, in his sleep, he asked me why my new baby had fins when he first came out of my belly. Last night, in his sleep, he asked to touch my belly, and when I put his hand on it Noah moved around wildly, as if he was in on it.
Last night I also dreamed that there was a disturbance outside our bedroom window. I thought it sounded like a moose, but Jimmy bent down to look out and said it was a democrator, which was some kind of large, wild cat. About an hour or two after waking from this dream, I heard yelling outside my window. I got scared and woke Jimmy who bent down to see a man and a woman fighting loudly in the street. Watching that image from the bed jarred me, I had seen the exact same thing in my dream hours earlier.
I don't know what any of this means, but all the same it seems significant.
Before bed last night, Shane and I were talking about Heaven. It's a huge and heavy concept for a little boy, and I remember how anything religious seemed to make no sense at his age. But, nonetheless, his sister lives there, and he's curious. He asked if we were going to die someday. I said yes. He said he was scared, and I said it seems scary because we've never seen what heaven is like, but for the people who have died, they find out that it's pretty awesome, and better than here. I told him how there is no sadness, no tears, and no pain. And no crusty blood (his words). And no hormones (mine).
He asked if God was dead there. I said no, and he said, understandably, "Oh, I thought that everyone in Heaven was dead." Hmmm. I told him the people in Heaven were more alive than we are, and that God is alive here, we just can't see or touch him like we could in Heaven.
It occurred to me that in reality, if you believe in the heaven of the Bible, that that is actually the real place and this is the dream world. It's been around far longer than Earth, and we will live for eternity there, when we're only here for a short time.
So take heart.
Aug 9, 2010
BOY!
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| Guess what this is ;) |
I'll start out with a little foreshadowing to show how serendipitous my prenatal care has been this time. In that first week after I peed on that most serendipitous of pee sticks, I sat in front of the computer and said aloud, "Guide me."
I didn't know where to go for care. It was clear to me that my previous midwife didn't have the technological or the mental/emotional resources to deal with my post-stillbirth pregnancy. I wanted someone strong, someone who could walk this delicate line with me between natural midwiferous care and high-risk options. Glory be for google once again, I googled high risk midwife south shore. One practice came up over and over, with glowing recommendations. I called and the receptionist even said Sorry for your loss which may seem run-of-the-mill to some, but in my experience with healthcare professionals, it is unusually nice. I got a call right back, from a midwife, who low and behold grew up a missionary kid in Africa and graduated from my small, private, Christian college in Wheaton Illinois!
So today was my 18 week ultrasound, sandwiched in between a genetic counseling appointment and a consult with a Maternal Fetal Medicine Doctor (aka high-risk OB). BOTH of these professionals had late losses. I KNOW!! In my strange new world this is good news. And Dr. Achilles Athanassiou is obviously Greek, which means that there's a 99.9% chance that he's Orthodox Christian, which means even more to me in terms of being in the same club.
They are taking such good care of me and my baby Noah Matthew, and he made sure to point out that not only is that a penis, but that it's fully erect.
PS - Please don't ask me if I'm sad or mixed that it's not a girl, or that this child's life is precipitated by Brynn's death. I will hate to answer it, it will bring me down. Baby gender is the small stuff that bereaved parents just can not sweat. It is what it is and it does absolutely no good to dwell on what could or would have been. Nobody knows, and it doesn't matter. My feelings for Brynn and my feelings for Noah are not intertwined in my head. I think of them as my Irish twins.
PPS - Jimmy already promised that if we have a boy this time we get to try again for a girl, which is the only way in this life I could get 3 living kids out of him, so don't you be sad either.
Aug 8, 2010
Milestones
If I have attended your party or other such gathering in the last 6 months, please understand how important you are to me. As I've stated recently, social situations are still hard. Small talk with casual acquaintances is anxiety-producing, and there's almost always a baby there who reminds me of the little girl I didn't bring. If I've had a bad week, I usually cancel.
Thanks be to God, via Amy, and Jen, and Erin, and Melissa, and so many others for all the support around the Mary Madeline project, (You bring honor to God, to my daughter, to all things good) this was a good week, and I am very proud to say that yesterday I attended my first baby shower since the one my neighbors and close friends threw for me just days before Brynn died.
I ended up having to bring Shane, which I was at first sorry about and ended up being glad for, as he was the only other person I knew there other than the guest of honor. I channeled my inner socialite that has been buried for some time, and both of us had a great time. I won too many of the games, and was also rewarded with little kicks from within. Shane was well-behaved and brave enough to go to a playground with the dad-to-be for most of the party.
It felt so good to be so normal that I spent time at our neighbors' cookout that evening, and I even held a baby boy named Lucas while I casually talked about my three pregnancies and how different they all are.
I've discovered that when I'm talking to an acquaintance I know who knows, it helps to just bring Brynn up. Just to say something about her, nonchalantly allowing the subject to enter the conversation.
Tomorrow is my 18 week ultrasound, and I need to talk about another milestone before I find out if I'm carrying a boy or a girl. In the beginning, I so boldly announced that this is a girl and shall be named Zoe. As the weeks progressed, I slowly realized that just because I lost a girl, and this child is a miracle, and I really want my girl back, that I am not owed or guaranteed a girl. And, if I'm honestly comparing pregnancies, signs point to a boy.
I have become more than fine with that. I just can't wait to know! I have beautiful and meaningful names for either. Zoe's middle name will be Noel, which means on the day of birth, so appropriately her names together mean Life on the Day of Birth. Never to be taken for granted again.
My boy names are equally powerful. In my little community of pregnant-after-stillbirth moms, our new, live babies are called our rainbow babies. This term represents the gift of beauty after the long and tragic storm, God's promises of mercy. It's funny, but we had already picked the name Noah before I knew any of this. The name also means comfort, so appropriate for who this child is to me. His middle name will be Matthew, after Jimmy's grandfather who is the salt of the Earth.
Reading Angie Smith's book, I Will Carry You has inspired another recent milestone for me. She so boldly just kept on loving her child full force, even when she knew she couldn't keep her, that it really convicted me. I had been trying to balance appreciating this baby in the now, knowing this is all I may get, while maintaining a protective emotional detachment, you know, just in case.
Guess what I realized? This is so important. Detaching emotionally does not decrease pain. In fact, an emotionally detached life may be more painful to live. So, I have decided to lean into it. This week I put up the mobile above the changing table, I'm making a special frame for my 12 week ultrasound picture, I'm creatively and actively loving this child as dearly as I possibly can. This feels like bold relief. I feel closer to this baby than I did to Brynn in my womb, through the lessons I learned from her. My daughter has many lessons to teach me, and I'm so grateful that death does not stop her.
I want to leave you with a passage from Psalm 139 that I've always loved, but holds much more meaning for me now:
For you formed my inward parts;
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Marvelous are your works O Lord, and that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, and
skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
Thanks be to God, via Amy, and Jen, and Erin, and Melissa, and so many others for all the support around the Mary Madeline project, (You bring honor to God, to my daughter, to all things good) this was a good week, and I am very proud to say that yesterday I attended my first baby shower since the one my neighbors and close friends threw for me just days before Brynn died.
I ended up having to bring Shane, which I was at first sorry about and ended up being glad for, as he was the only other person I knew there other than the guest of honor. I channeled my inner socialite that has been buried for some time, and both of us had a great time. I won too many of the games, and was also rewarded with little kicks from within. Shane was well-behaved and brave enough to go to a playground with the dad-to-be for most of the party.
It felt so good to be so normal that I spent time at our neighbors' cookout that evening, and I even held a baby boy named Lucas while I casually talked about my three pregnancies and how different they all are.
I've discovered that when I'm talking to an acquaintance I know who knows, it helps to just bring Brynn up. Just to say something about her, nonchalantly allowing the subject to enter the conversation.
Tomorrow is my 18 week ultrasound, and I need to talk about another milestone before I find out if I'm carrying a boy or a girl. In the beginning, I so boldly announced that this is a girl and shall be named Zoe. As the weeks progressed, I slowly realized that just because I lost a girl, and this child is a miracle, and I really want my girl back, that I am not owed or guaranteed a girl. And, if I'm honestly comparing pregnancies, signs point to a boy.
I have become more than fine with that. I just can't wait to know! I have beautiful and meaningful names for either. Zoe's middle name will be Noel, which means on the day of birth, so appropriately her names together mean Life on the Day of Birth. Never to be taken for granted again.
My boy names are equally powerful. In my little community of pregnant-after-stillbirth moms, our new, live babies are called our rainbow babies. This term represents the gift of beauty after the long and tragic storm, God's promises of mercy. It's funny, but we had already picked the name Noah before I knew any of this. The name also means comfort, so appropriate for who this child is to me. His middle name will be Matthew, after Jimmy's grandfather who is the salt of the Earth.
Reading Angie Smith's book, I Will Carry You has inspired another recent milestone for me. She so boldly just kept on loving her child full force, even when she knew she couldn't keep her, that it really convicted me. I had been trying to balance appreciating this baby in the now, knowing this is all I may get, while maintaining a protective emotional detachment, you know, just in case.
Guess what I realized? This is so important. Detaching emotionally does not decrease pain. In fact, an emotionally detached life may be more painful to live. So, I have decided to lean into it. This week I put up the mobile above the changing table, I'm making a special frame for my 12 week ultrasound picture, I'm creatively and actively loving this child as dearly as I possibly can. This feels like bold relief. I feel closer to this baby than I did to Brynn in my womb, through the lessons I learned from her. My daughter has many lessons to teach me, and I'm so grateful that death does not stop her.
I want to leave you with a passage from Psalm 139 that I've always loved, but holds much more meaning for me now:
For you formed my inward parts;
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Marvelous are your works O Lord, and that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, and
skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
Jul 29, 2010
Buried in a T-shirt!!??
Diving deep into the wreck this week, friends. I didn't intend to be such a mess but it feels fine to me. I'll make this quick so I can stop ignoring my son, left alone to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse once again. I've needed this week to do/have something tangible for Brynn, and someway of connecting with her as well as the baby in my belly, who both feel just like figments of my imagination lately. I've become increasingly curious about what Brynn was wearing to be buried in, one thing that did not occur to us in all our shock and grief during the week between her birth and her burial, six months ago today.
I've been meaning to contact that beautiful soul of a funeral director, Matthew O'Neil of Middleboro MA, and ask him if I could buy the same gown she had worn. He was gracious as he always is, but he said he didn't provide anything. The hospital had provided an "outfit." He didn't know the name for it.
No problem, I'll just call the hospital and ask them. It's almost comical, when I call the maternity ward and introduce myself as Teresa Foley, whose daughter was stillborn there on January of this year, "Uh, can you please hold?" I got transferred around to a voice mail, and called back. Once again, I was immediately put on hold. Clearly, nobody wants to talk to the dead girl's mom!
Finally, a nurse got on and I was able to ask what theydress stillborns in. She said all they would have are T-shirts. ARE YOU SURE? Yep. What about a diaper? Maybe. Now, most people don't know this but stillborns still poop. Brynn did all over the blanket they initially wrapped her in. A Mother F-ing t-shirt.
I keep telling myself it's just more thing I have to let go. I could have bought her something, I could have given them her take me home outfit I had packed and with me at the hospital. Brynn, I'm sorry. I know you don't care but I do.
Thanks be to God for google. What did we do before google? I looked up baby burial gowns and found this wonderful project http://www.marymadelineproject.org/ that takes donated wedding dresses and volunteers lovingly make burial gowns for premies and stillborns, and they are right there at hospitals ready to go, no need to contact anyone, think about anything. I contacted them, joined their cause on facebook, please consider doing this, which is what they need more than anything right now as they are close to having the coveted status of 1500 supporters, and I'll be sending them my wedding dress.
I got a reply over the weekend - they will send me a gown for whatever comfort that will bring me, and will put Brynn's name in the tag for any and all gowns made with wedding dresses donated in Brynn's honor.
As one of my fellow pregnant-after-stillbirth moms told me, It's not enough but IT HAS TO BE.
Amen.
These ladies sent their wedding dresses in Brynn's honor. I know of others who have sent dresses, too, and I'm sure there are those I don't know about still. Thank you, you have alleviated some pain in the world.
I've been meaning to contact that beautiful soul of a funeral director, Matthew O'Neil of Middleboro MA, and ask him if I could buy the same gown she had worn. He was gracious as he always is, but he said he didn't provide anything. The hospital had provided an "outfit." He didn't know the name for it.
No problem, I'll just call the hospital and ask them. It's almost comical, when I call the maternity ward and introduce myself as Teresa Foley, whose daughter was stillborn there on January of this year, "Uh, can you please hold?" I got transferred around to a voice mail, and called back. Once again, I was immediately put on hold. Clearly, nobody wants to talk to the dead girl's mom!
Finally, a nurse got on and I was able to ask what theydress stillborns in. She said all they would have are T-shirts. ARE YOU SURE? Yep. What about a diaper? Maybe. Now, most people don't know this but stillborns still poop. Brynn did all over the blanket they initially wrapped her in. A Mother F-ing t-shirt.
I keep telling myself it's just more thing I have to let go. I could have bought her something, I could have given them her take me home outfit I had packed and with me at the hospital. Brynn, I'm sorry. I know you don't care but I do.
Thanks be to God for google. What did we do before google? I looked up baby burial gowns and found this wonderful project http://www.marymadelineproject.org/ that takes donated wedding dresses and volunteers lovingly make burial gowns for premies and stillborns, and they are right there at hospitals ready to go, no need to contact anyone, think about anything. I contacted them, joined their cause on facebook, please consider doing this, which is what they need more than anything right now as they are close to having the coveted status of 1500 supporters, and I'll be sending them my wedding dress.
I got a reply over the weekend - they will send me a gown for whatever comfort that will bring me, and will put Brynn's name in the tag for any and all gowns made with wedding dresses donated in Brynn's honor.
As one of my fellow pregnant-after-stillbirth moms told me, It's not enough but IT HAS TO BE.
These ladies sent their wedding dresses in Brynn's honor. I know of others who have sent dresses, too, and I'm sure there are those I don't know about still. Thank you, you have alleviated some pain in the world.
Jul 27, 2010
Isolation
This is not going to be a "feel good" entry. I usually wait until I'm out of a funk like this before I write, but I've already waited awhile and maybe sharing this with you might help me through it.
Where do I begin? With the thing that hurts the most. At first I didn't string anything together, but in the past few months, I have lost contact with some previously very close friends. These aren't my only friends, thank God, but they made up the majority of my inner circle. These friends had all been there for me fully in the early weeks after Brynn's death. They don't know eachother, they don't even all live in the same state, but one by one they each stopped returning calls, and last week I couldn't help but notice this pattern.
I've asked other moms in my position and this is a very sad but typical side effect of surviving a tragedy. It's not just that people get back to their own lives. We had been a part of eachothers lives for 10 - 20 years already. I've started to feel like they are deliberately distancing themselves from me. I know I've changed. Maybe I became aloof. Maybe I scared or offended them. I suspect I may have gotten a little too real once or twice in my coping process. I suspect that possibly they are coping with my story by removing themselves from it. It feels unfair.
Now more than ever, I value and protect my self esteem too much to attempt to maintain a friendship that's not reciprocal. I truly wish you all the best, I love you, I forgive you, I cut you loose. I work with the willing.
(Editor's note: Ahem, it occurs to me after finally hearing from a few of those afformentioned distanced friends, that I may have jumped to conclusions about why I hadn't heard from them. Turns out summer can be an extremely busy time if you're used to having kids in school, and perhaps not everything is about me all the time :)
All that, plus my sleep and work and parenting a very active four year old schedule, affords me little time to socialize, even with my husband, and our marriage has grown strained as it did in my last pregnancy. And socializing with anyone other than my closest friends is still exhausting. Exhausting because I have to pretend to be fine. Because I feel like I have to protect acquaintances from thinking about my dead baby, and it feels too restrained to purposely avoid talking about her, she is as much my life as my son is. So, this leaves me feeling very alone.
I've lived in Massachusetts for ten years now, and I will always feel like an outsider. I'm reading a book now called I Carried You by Angie Smith, who's daughter Audrey Caroline was diagnosed "incompatible with life" at her 18 week ultrasound, and lived for 2 hours after she was born. Angie felt like it was wrong not to tell her whole story to any stranger who may have innocently inquired about the pregnancy, or the occassion for the dress she was buying for Audrey's funeral. She must live in the South or the Midwest. I think that I would like to try to do that but I just don't think the people I encounter here in Massachusetts could handle it. I feel like it would be rude to do that to them. There are so many mysterious codes for small talk here, and such a general fear of depth, especially too soon, that I have infered that this is something you just don't do here. I started working at a school in April, and no one there knows my story. When I consult for my home party business and people ask me if Shane is my only child, I say yes. But he isn't. And every time I say it, my lonliness compounds.
There is a strength to showing how vulnerable we are, and I think if I could embrace that more, I'd do better.
Today, on my commute to work I was crying, pleading with God for some relief. I could harldy see the road through my tears. I gave in to my sorrow, to my lonliness and isolation, and I let it all out in the only moments of the day I had to be alone. In the same moments I slowed on the highway as traffic built up behind an accident. Then I stalled out. Then my car would not start. I grabbed my things and started walking toward the accident to wave down a police officer and ask that they push my car over. I snapped back into confidant mode and handled the ordeal bravely, not even letting the state cop bully me into taking a tow truck he called when my freebie was on the way.
What was the point of that? I don't know. I'm good at that sort of situation. I'm good at holding back my tears, my hurt. But I don't want to be good at anything anymore other than authentically me, broken, lonely, grieving, heart broken, and crazy. It is far far too exhausting to pretend to be anything else.
Where do I begin? With the thing that hurts the most. At first I didn't string anything together, but in the past few months, I have lost contact with some previously very close friends. These aren't my only friends, thank God, but they made up the majority of my inner circle. These friends had all been there for me fully in the early weeks after Brynn's death. They don't know eachother, they don't even all live in the same state, but one by one they each stopped returning calls, and last week I couldn't help but notice this pattern.
I've asked other moms in my position and this is a very sad but typical side effect of surviving a tragedy. It's not just that people get back to their own lives. We had been a part of eachothers lives for 10 - 20 years already. I've started to feel like they are deliberately distancing themselves from me. I know I've changed. Maybe I became aloof. Maybe I scared or offended them. I suspect I may have gotten a little too real once or twice in my coping process. I suspect that possibly they are coping with my story by removing themselves from it. It feels unfair.
Now more than ever, I value and protect my self esteem too much to attempt to maintain a friendship that's not reciprocal. I truly wish you all the best, I love you, I forgive you, I cut you loose. I work with the willing.
(Editor's note: Ahem, it occurs to me after finally hearing from a few of those afformentioned distanced friends, that I may have jumped to conclusions about why I hadn't heard from them. Turns out summer can be an extremely busy time if you're used to having kids in school, and perhaps not everything is about me all the time :)
All that, plus my sleep and work and parenting a very active four year old schedule, affords me little time to socialize, even with my husband, and our marriage has grown strained as it did in my last pregnancy. And socializing with anyone other than my closest friends is still exhausting. Exhausting because I have to pretend to be fine. Because I feel like I have to protect acquaintances from thinking about my dead baby, and it feels too restrained to purposely avoid talking about her, she is as much my life as my son is. So, this leaves me feeling very alone.
I've lived in Massachusetts for ten years now, and I will always feel like an outsider. I'm reading a book now called I Carried You by Angie Smith, who's daughter Audrey Caroline was diagnosed "incompatible with life" at her 18 week ultrasound, and lived for 2 hours after she was born. Angie felt like it was wrong not to tell her whole story to any stranger who may have innocently inquired about the pregnancy, or the occassion for the dress she was buying for Audrey's funeral. She must live in the South or the Midwest. I think that I would like to try to do that but I just don't think the people I encounter here in Massachusetts could handle it. I feel like it would be rude to do that to them. There are so many mysterious codes for small talk here, and such a general fear of depth, especially too soon, that I have infered that this is something you just don't do here. I started working at a school in April, and no one there knows my story. When I consult for my home party business and people ask me if Shane is my only child, I say yes. But he isn't. And every time I say it, my lonliness compounds.
There is a strength to showing how vulnerable we are, and I think if I could embrace that more, I'd do better.
Today, on my commute to work I was crying, pleading with God for some relief. I could harldy see the road through my tears. I gave in to my sorrow, to my lonliness and isolation, and I let it all out in the only moments of the day I had to be alone. In the same moments I slowed on the highway as traffic built up behind an accident. Then I stalled out. Then my car would not start. I grabbed my things and started walking toward the accident to wave down a police officer and ask that they push my car over. I snapped back into confidant mode and handled the ordeal bravely, not even letting the state cop bully me into taking a tow truck he called when my freebie was on the way.
What was the point of that? I don't know. I'm good at that sort of situation. I'm good at holding back my tears, my hurt. But I don't want to be good at anything anymore other than authentically me, broken, lonely, grieving, heart broken, and crazy. It is far far too exhausting to pretend to be anything else.
Jul 12, 2010
Her Feminine Influence
I have a friend who is, what's the word without sounding too woo-woo, well, I'll just show you. She met a lady at Target shopping for baby swings about a year ago. Somehow, they exchanged numbers and became fast friends. When their friendship was still new, She asked her Target friend who Ann Marie was. Her Target friend was taken aback. My Father's wife, why? My friend was receiving messages from this woman's father, who had died a year earlier. She somehow knew secrets that only her Target friend and her father knew, up until then anyway.
No joke.
So since Brynn died I was hoping for some kind of exchange like that with her. I finally got one. At Shane's party, and at a playdate the week prior, my friend told me that it was like Brynn was attached to me like a koala. As if I was wearing her in a wrap. Brynn has felt closer to me as of late. I find myself casually mentioning things to her, "this is yours, Brynn," or "where's my earing, baby?" When I feel her near, I take more care in my appearance.
Actually, I've embraced her influence in my appearance since the first week. I wanted to look as good as I could for her at her burial. I wore makeup, jewelry, and a pink overcoat. I was overwhelmed with this instinct that girls like their mommies to look pretty.
I remember kind of fighting the color pink when I was pregnant with her. I didn't understand why EVERYTHING for a girl was pink. It seemed oppressive to me in a way. What occurred to me after hours of observing little girls was that they do it on their own. Little girls embrace the inherently feminine. This is something I fought against for most of my adult life, but now, that's changed. To honor Brynn, or simply to go with what feels like her influence, I wear jewelry, a little makeup, and my prettier tops that hardly got any wear last year. I bought pink mary janes. She is in my thoughts now for every accessory purchase. I adorn myself to honor her, and all that she would have shown me. It feels like a relief to cease fire on the color pink.
No joke.
So since Brynn died I was hoping for some kind of exchange like that with her. I finally got one. At Shane's party, and at a playdate the week prior, my friend told me that it was like Brynn was attached to me like a koala. As if I was wearing her in a wrap. Brynn has felt closer to me as of late. I find myself casually mentioning things to her, "this is yours, Brynn," or "where's my earing, baby?" When I feel her near, I take more care in my appearance.
Actually, I've embraced her influence in my appearance since the first week. I wanted to look as good as I could for her at her burial. I wore makeup, jewelry, and a pink overcoat. I was overwhelmed with this instinct that girls like their mommies to look pretty.
I remember kind of fighting the color pink when I was pregnant with her. I didn't understand why EVERYTHING for a girl was pink. It seemed oppressive to me in a way. What occurred to me after hours of observing little girls was that they do it on their own. Little girls embrace the inherently feminine. This is something I fought against for most of my adult life, but now, that's changed. To honor Brynn, or simply to go with what feels like her influence, I wear jewelry, a little makeup, and my prettier tops that hardly got any wear last year. I bought pink mary janes. She is in my thoughts now for every accessory purchase. I adorn myself to honor her, and all that she would have shown me. It feels like a relief to cease fire on the color pink.
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