New Year New Blog

I started this blog a few years ago when I started my FB page to help express my grief and share experiences with others. This last year I wrote a total two whole posts! WOW! It's not that I haven't wanted to write but it just doesn't feel right. My grief has evolved. I'm not sure lessened is the right word cause truly I'm not sure it lessens or if the joy that is found is able to over-power it. I don't believe there is any way to completely be grief free because there will always be times on the calendar that are harder than others. Heck, there are just moments sometimes that catch you off guard and there you are again standing in the middle of Walmart's baby section with a tear on your cheek.

My grief is not all-consuming. That is a good thing, it means my heart is healing and the things that used to rip into me don't anymore, or at least with the depth they used to. I have joy, and hope, and faith, in my heart again. I choose to celebrate my life as a survivor, a survivor of the worst pain imaginable. In that, I celebrate my babies too! When I do, it's like I have given them life all over again. They get to experience the joys I experience and not watch me in pain. I know they do not want that for me.

So I find myself wanting to update the blog. I want it to be more of a celebration of survival than a gloomy place of despair and wallowing. It will still be centered around the loss of my babies but not all about them and my grief. Not that I necessarily believe any of you will be jumping to hang on my every word but I hope that you will be able to relate with a life that has known pain and darkness but has chosen to seek light.

I will be changing the look of the blog and maybe the title. HA once I figure out how to use Blogger again. And I hope you will join me. My FB page will always remain a place of hope to the babyloss community. Sure I could have just started a new blog but I figured this transition is about me and my grief and so just like I can't just start a new life without my grief, I can not start a new blog either. My grief is always present just not so in my face.

Look for changes coming soon. Look for posts about all kinds of different things. I hope you will see there is joy and peace to be had in this life without losing that part of you that connects with your baby. You are a survivor too!

October Again

October again. I thought I would be in bed by now and I'd wake up to October 1st but here it is after midnight and I'm still up. Welcome to everything PINK! October being famous for Breast Cancer Awareness month everything turns pink on the 1st. Don't get me wrong, I am an avid supporter of breast cancer research and awareness and even as big as it has become, women are still getting it. Young women are getting it more and more, and gladly many are surviving it. The pink is necessary.

October is not just for pink though, it's for pink and blue too. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan designated the month of October as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. It's hard to fight everything pink but bringing awareness to the grief of losing a child is just as important, and more so to those that live with that grief. It kind of gives those that have a hard time talking about their loss a pass to bring it up. 

Often, those of us that have lost a baby to miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death are only "allowed" to grieve by family and friends for a short while. Sometimes they come right out and say, "Get over already!" or maybe, "I sure do miss the old you.". Most of the time, they just act uncomfortable and change the subject when we speak about our babies. Having an entire 31 days that a president has proclaimed as a time of remembrance gives us the opportunity to share our little ones with the world and bring awareness to the highly taboo subject of babyloss. In case you didn't know, all 50 states have yearly proclamations making October 15th Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day too. 

October 1st also marks what I lovingly refer to as Christian's Day. For those of you that don't know, my last pregnancy ended in an early miscarriage. October 1st was the last day I knew for sure I was pregnant before I started to miscarry. An agonizing 5, almost 6, weeks of birthing my newly formed baby. I always felt as though that baby was a boy. We decided the next year around the time he would have been due to name him. He was our baby and he deserved a name and so we called him Christian Erin. Erin is the more feminine version of that name but we thought the name could pass for either gender and since we were unsure except for a feeling, we decided to go that direction. Had I carried him to term, he would have been born around June of 2006 and would be eight years old now. It's hard to imagine what having an 8yr old and a 13yr old would be like much less add in our two other losses for a soon to be 19yr old and 24yr old. Wow, that makes me feel a little old. 

When I wake up this morning, I'll welcome in October and all it brings to my heart. Lots of grief, lots of tears, some happiness, and lots of sharing my losses and helping others share theirs as well. October is busy from beginning to end and believe me when the end rolls around, I'm ready to let it go for another year. But for this year, it's here and I'll manage what it brings the best I know how. Every year is different. This year marking my daughter's 19th birthday on the 30th, not necessarily being a milestone birthday, but the thought of last holding her NINETEEN years ago does something huge to my heart. Next year will be horrible I can already tell you but this year, well we'll see how my heart handles this year as it unfolds. Either way, good or bad, the grief of her loss will never fully go away, nor should it. Neither will that of Christian's or Alyssa's because attached to that grief is the undying love of a mother with dreams for a future for all of them. 

Starting tomorrow I will wear my Origami Owl necklace with the new Pregnancy and Infant Loss ribbon charm in it. I will publicly announce that PAIL is near and dear to my heart and to so many of my friends' hearts too. I will wear it proudly for all the babies!

I dedicate this October to my babies - Alyssa, Bailey, and Christian. My ABCs. Their souls are with me and I am forever grateful that one day I will hold them all. Until then, it is my honor as their mom to be the voice for them. To speak of love and loss in the same breath; to help others find the peace in their hearts to do the same; to let it be known they lived, for as little of a time as it was, they lived! The depth of my grief has nothing on the breadth of my love for them. Therefore, I will always speak of them. I will not care that someone is uncomfortable with that conversation. I will not apologize for how my grief makes you feel. I have a right to speak my babies' names aloud and proudly because I am their mother and that will never change.

Leaving for good ALONE

I posted on the FB page a bit ago about an article I saw posted on a friend's page, that showed up in my newsfeed. I can NOT shake it! and I am torn!

The article was The hidden, human cost of 'distressed' babies: NICU parents suffer PTSD symptoms
and while not reading the article, I was upset by the comments left on my friend's post. She was talking of how awful it was when her twins were born prematurely and had to stay in the NICU weeks after she was released. Many of her friends offered support as they too experienced extended NICU stays. I however while reading them could not think anything more than "Stop your friggin whining, so your kid had to stay in the NICU for a few weeks, YOUR KID CAME HOME!" 

Part of me feels crappy like I'm negating her feelings. I know this woman, I know how being away from her babies was hard on her, I know this in my heart. But still another part of me wanted to so bad to write on her post "At least your baby came home!" But then that is so much negating her feelings and making it all about me. I still wanted to though! I wanted to say that I could relate to how they were all feeling. How scary a time it is in the NICU. How there is so much uncertainty. How the nurses are like family. How like you have a need to know everything little thing happening to your child and yet it is still not enough. How you feel helpless. How you leave cause you have to, and every time you do it a piece of you breaks off at that doorway. I get it! 

Remember in the darkest hours of the night, when your mind went to those places. The places you never want them to go but they did anyhow, and you couldn't stop it. The what if places. How absolutely terrifying it was to have those thoughts and then you would close your eyes tight as you could and shake your head and say out loud, NO! Everything's gonna be ok, she'll be ok, he'll come home soon and we can be a real family then. That scary place where just maybe your baby wasn't ok, and he didn't come home. That imaginary place was my reality. Mine and many many others who would never ever leave that cold, dim-lit room and go to our happy place. 

I will say that I don't think there is a good reason to have your baby in the NICU but obviously some stories are more serious than the others. Obviously if your baby is there then there's a need for it. The woman in the article had a long road of uncertainty with her child born at 24wks. Maybe I feel a little less crappy about her journey. Having my daughter born at 26wks, I completely understand the struggles she faced. They were much much different than that of the mother who's baby had less serious road. But see I still feel that is crappy of me to say cause I am negating the severity of their needs. You see what I mean though right? Someone's baby that was born 3wks early may not have the struggle, they may not necessarily have anything wrong with them but size and weight, all of which a short stent in the NICU can help with. That is not something that can compare with someone's baby that has no viable lung support. There are definitely specific circumstances to each story and I may be trying to generalize all babies that come home and those who don't. I think that is wrong but my heart still yearns for the Momma who deep down in her soul knows she will never leave the hospital with her baby and no amount of  "I had to leave them there for 5wks while they gained weight" can compare to that kind of pain. 

So now researchers say that these parents, the ones with the happy endings, have PTSD. Really! Yes it was hard! It was terrible! So why do the parents that lost everything get hushed? Why are they forgotten? You think we don't have PTSD, OH and maybe still do, and will, FOREVER! Because guess what, losing your child, a piece of your being, is extremely stressful. And what's even more stressful is trying to figure out what your life is meant to be afterwards, way more stressful! A life long battle of what ifs, what should have beens, and what could have beens. You think you're over protective with your grown up NICU child, try having a baby after a loss and see what over protective is.

The woman in the article says this,

“The emotional impact of leaving the hospital without a baby in your arms and seeing the other happy moms leaving with their balloons and flowers…it’s just a very different reality for parents of preemies,”  

 In this woman's story, there was probably several times when she wondered if she would ever have that chance. I left the hospital with a balloon and flowers. I left with a "cough pillow" and a plastic baggy of pamphlets on grieving on my lap . I left with everyone I passed seeing my tear stained face as I was rolled through the lobby with said balloon and no baby in tow. I left knowing she was not coming with me. She would be with a stranger, in a box, in the back of a cold car, and I wouldn't see her again for several days, and then, forever more.



PS If it sounds like I'm all over the place, I am. I am having one of those mind vs heart struggles cause frankly sometimes I want to strangle people who show no empathy because they can't see past their own pain. There lies the struggle because I try to see other people's point of view and validate it. I hope to not sound like a complete bitch, but I know the pain they speak of could have been so much worse and frankly I'm glad they don't know it the way I do. I do wish they would recognize it.

Thanksgiving Perspective

Happy Thanksgiving!

As I was about to start getting ready this morning I came across a post that burst my blessed bubble. It's something I've been holding in for a few weeks now and I just can't hold it in any longer. I'm not saying that you should agree with me or even like what I'm saying but at least take what I'm going to say with a little perspective.

For weeks now I have seen graphics that say "I pledge not to shop on Thanksgiving" and "If you shop on Thanksgiving then you're part of the problem". OH and then there's the "Only in America can you trample people in a store the day after you give thanks for all you have".

I have successfully restrained myself from saying anything publicly, until now.

FYI - there are a ton of people that have to work on Thanksgiving. You may not see them and sometimes luckily so, but they are there, away from their families working on this Thursday. Nurses, police, fire, rescue, airline workers, etc. They give up their Thanksgiving to do their job just like they do everyday. They don't miss out on spending quality time with their families, they just do it at a different time then the rest of us.

I know what you're thinking, those are people that HAVE to be at work, they are not working for greedy big box stores just out to make more money. That's true, but while you're watching that parade or football game today think about all the people behind the scenes. The television people, the concession stand people, and more. They all have to take time away from their families today so you can sit back and enjoy a little tv viewing. Lots of people I know go to the movie theater on Thanksgiving and again those people selling tickets, selling popcorn, cleaning up after the masses are not at home with their families either. Yet, many of these people have volunteered to work because they need the money, or maybe because they have no family to spend with today and being at work is better than sitting at home alone.

So while jumping on the "let's ban the greedy retailers" bandwagon seems like the noble thing to do, remember all the other people that have to work today for your enjoyment, so you can sit home happy and fed with your family and root on your favorite team. Also remember that these stores being open give the opportunity for people that need the money to volunteer to work and get more money in one day of work then they might in a whole week of pay.

Oh and as far as the other graphic, I'm pretty sure the majority of Americans are thankful for their families on this day and not the abundance of crap laying around them. Our economy drives the need for people to volunteer to work today and also the need for people to sit in long lines to be able to get the best deal they can. I know I need to save every bit to get a special present every year. That's not to give my child the biggest most expensive toy out there, it's to see that giant smile on his face on Christmas morning when he gets something he thought he would never get because of the price.

I'm sorry if this seems not well composed or just rash because it is really.  A spur of the moment need to get something off my chest. Like I said, you don't have to agree with me but please say a prayer and be thankful for everyone that works on Thanksgiving so you don't have to and so you can enjoy all the special time with your family you are used to. Happy Thanksgiving!

Painful Reflections

Today is a sad day for so many people. Emotions come rushing back especially for those personally affected by the events of 9.11.01. Every single moment of this day twelve years ago they feel again as the seconds tick off the clock. That's what grief does, it reminds you. Not that they need a reminder, every day without them does that.

There were years and years and years that I relived the days leading up to and after my daughter's birth and death. It started October 27 until November 4. As the years have passed, I don't have that deep craving to relive those moments any more. I remember but not like before when I recreated the timeline in my mind over and over. Many people feel like I "dwell" on the death of my children, that if I don't think about it so much, it would just go away. Obviously those people have never lost someone so ingrained in their soul. For the record, I do not DWELL, I remember!

I think the same could be said of today. I've seen the comments. Why do they replay these tragedies every year? Why do these people go there and read names every year? These same people don't get it. Remember, these people say these things because YOUR grief is uncomfortable to THEM. They are making your loss about them and not about the person or child gone, as it should be. Don't let them take the voice of your loved one out of your mouth!

They are reading off the names as I type this. This is real for them. It is fresh. It is important that they know their loved one is not forgotten. Same for the parents of a baby no one ever got to meet. Bottom line, all these were lives, even the briefest if that's a word. They were all loved and they all deserve to be remembered and respected.

It hurts to feel that pain again, in that way, like it was yesterday. But you know what that pain does for me? It makes me remember. I will watch today and I will remember. I will pray for those who are left behind. I will pray for them because I know they will never be whole again until they are reunited. That doesn't mean they, or I, can't be happy, it just means there's a hole that used to be filled with a special love. No measure of happiness and joy can fill that hole, it is reserved for the one it once belonged to. So I will force myself to feel the pain of loss and remember that love. I would rather endure the pain of grief than to forget altogether.

I challenge those that think my grief is uncomfortable. Those that can't stand to watch yet another time as those airplanes crash. Those that choose to think this is just another day. Look on. Remember. Those names are people, real people, that touched the lives of others. That daughter of mine that very very few got to meet, she was a real person too, and it is in her death that she touches other's lives. I didn't know any of those people personally but I know them now, through the stories their loved ones tell, they live on in death too and they have touched my life. God bless them all that have gone before, you are not forgotten.

Learning to Bend

In the beginning, right after Bailey died, I was so numb. I felt like I was in a fog. I could kinda see what was around me but at the same time everything seemed so out of reach. I was in denial. I didn't want to believe what had just happened really happened however I had tell-tale signs that I had just had a baby and yet there was no baby to take care of. I was broken.

I was broken for many many years. Over time the fog lifted and reality set in and there was no denying what had happened anymore. I was living a nightmare and at some point I would have to acknowledge it. You know that was hard. It was hard accepting that my baby was gone. She wasn't just gone, she was dead. And just as I was accepting it, there seem to be reminders all over the place. The crying baby at the store, the seemingly endless baby stories on tv, cute baby clothes, holidays, food I craved while I was pregnant, bills from the hospital, and all those magazines and books that I had signed up for when I fully expected I would need them at the end of my pregnancy. Just everything. And with every reminder, I was broken again.

Even now, more than seventeen years later, there are moments. I'm not talking about days like her birthday or due date or even Mother's Day. I'm talking about the everyday mundane things that seem to rock my core. Don't laugh! Really, don't laugh. But things like the printer won't print the way I want it to. When my computer browser locks up in the middle of trying to locate something. You know stupid things that people deal with everyday that certainly won't cause the world to end. These are the things that break me. I get stressed and I find myself angry and bitter and asking "Why do things have to be so damn hard all the time?". It seems to me that anyone who has endured the unimaginable pain of losing a child should be given a pass to cruise through the rest of life. Unfortunately that's not the case and deep down I get it, it's life. Life is hard and we make the best of it we can but it's those stupid breaking times that I just wish I could deal with this crap in stride. I mean really, I have buried my daughter, my piece of crap printer should not have that kind of control over me.

So these days, I'm learning that prayer is the peace I need. Prayer is relying on faith that there is something better than this temporary set back around the corner. So when I'm on a deadline and my internet drops out for no apparent reason, I don't cry to ask WHY anymore, I pray that it will come back on soon. Then I realize that maybe God is telling me to stop what I'm doing because we need to talk. Where I was angered because I felt like my pain was an easy out to the problems in everyday life, now I turn to prayer to settle my soul and bring peace back into my heart.

I have buried my daughter and that has changed me forever but I can not use that pain and anguish as my crutch to limp through life begging for the easy way out. I will use prayer to let God further heal my heart with a hole that will never quite be filled. To seek days where I am angered less and filled with peace more. And to teach me how to bend where I once would have broken.

She is always with me

Today is February 7. It's Thursday. It's Bailey's due date.

I may be the only person in the whole wide world who remembers how special this day is, or was supposed to be. It's been 17 years since this was to be the happiest day of my life. And it's still bittersweet for that reason. Today reminds me of the plans I had for her. I remember hoping she would be late even to be born on her Daddy's birthday, although that would have been 10, TEN days overdue. What in the world was I thinking with that one! However now, the thought of keeping her with me for all that extra time and being able to bring her home would have been soooo worth it.

I know she's with me on days like today. Especially on days like today. I miss her a little more than normal and she knows. I don't mind that nobody remembers this day, not even Daddy. It's like our special today for just the two of us. We have a bond that I will never have with my son. She is my first-born, she is my daughter, she is my saint. She guides me through my days and lays with me at night. She is always with me.

Happy 17th due date day to my sweet Bailey Noel. Love you!