sucks
that’s all. it just sucks SO BAD! i don’t understand how i can feel so much better and then hurt so much all over again. i understand now what people mean when they say it doesn’t necessarily get better, it just changes and you learn to live with it. if constantly having tears just under the surface yet continuing to function is learning to live with it is then i suppose i am doing just that. i have gotten accustomed to the near constant mild headache, lump in my throat, heartachey feeling.
i just read the birth story of a mom who was due shortly after i was. she was using my same midwives so i have sort of followed her pregnancy even before i lost Matthew. her baby is just fine. she has the beautiful pictures to prove it. why does it upset me so much that MY midwives were with her. they rubbed her back, whispered reassuring things to her. they did that with ME too. but my baby is dead and gone and hers is warm and cuddled up to her breast, no doubt.
i am so JEALOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i want to touch Matthew’s warm chest and feel his heart beating, watch his chest rise and fall, smell his milky-sweet breath in my face. WHY CAN’T I???????????? there are not enough exclamation points and capital letters to express this.
i think i’m going to have to sleep with his hats tonight.
shock
remember that mom i wrote about several weeks ago, the one that i ignored at our homeschool group? the one who sat next to me and nursed her toddler and i turned my head and tried to hide my tears? well, i had been feeling like i needed to tell her my story. i can’t stand that she doesn’t know. i felt annoyed that she thought i had only four kids. it wasn’t that i wanted to chat with her about it but i needed her to know that i wasn’t who she thought i was. i wanted her to know that i DESERVED to be aloof and bitchy.
so at the last lake day, i sat next to her and told her about Matthew. i told her that my weird behavior when she nursed her toddler wasn’t because i disapproved but because i had been thinking about the baby that i would never nurse.
WELL… she put her hand on her toddler’s head and looked right into my eyes and said, “Wait, i have to tell you something. This little guy had an identical twin brother. He died shortly after birth. So I understand. You don’t owe me any apologies.”
i was in such SHOCK that here right in front of me was another dead baby mama. she has been the focus of so much of my resentment lately and here all this time, she has been grieving her OWN dead baby. i clung to her the rest of the day. we traded stories, tears and even jokes. so much time went by and i was hardly aware of anything else. i have been searching for a real life friend and i found one in the most unexpected place.
We made it this time
… to the art class, that is. I’ve been wanting to write about it sooner but I’ve been avoiding my blog the last week. I hate every post I write as soon as I publish it. I compare my blog to the multitude of baby loss blogs out there. Am I the only one who seems to think that most of the dead baby mamas out there also majored in creative writing? I have got to get out of my own head!!! This blog is supposed to be for me. Why do I care so much?
Anyway, the assignment for the week was for each child to bring a momento of their deceased loved one and share it with the class. Clara brought a picture of Matthew and also his rainbow knitted hat. While I gave her a few minutes to adjust to the classroom and get settled in her seat, I scanned the room and tried to pick out the dead baby parents. I was still holding onto hope that I would find my new best friend here. After bonding so quickly to the loss mamas on MDC, real life people would only be that much better. No one made eye contact with me! I watched in disbelief as the other parents went to their cars and turned the engines on, windows rolled up.
The class was held in a conference room just next door to the hospital. THE hospital, the one where I had Matthew. I hadn’t really considered this fact until I sat in my car, unable to engross myself in a book. I abandoned my book and began to retrace my steps that I made on May 29th. I walked slowly through the parking lot, remembering how I parked right next to B’s truck and how we hugged before going in. I stopped and sat on the stone bench just outside the doors. This is where we sat and waited for the midwives. I remembered telling him, I don’t want to be here.
Inside the hospital, I walked the halls, the same halls I paced in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep. I found the chapel and even discovered the scrawled note I didn’t even remember writing. That long night where I searched through the Bible on my knees, desperate to find some verse that would speak to the unbearable pain. Eventually, I made it to the birthing center. My room had been directly across the hall to protect me from hearing the living babies’ cries, such a stark contrast to the silent baby in my arms.
I sat in the small waiting area about 20 ft away from this room for 45 minutes. It didn’t take long for me to realize that there was a new baby in MY room. I had been hoping I could walk into that room and touch the bed and look out the window and remember. Honestly, I was disgusted that my room was occupied. How dare they take a living baby in that room and try to erase my Matthew’s memory. I was hoping to redeem the trip by at least running into one of my nurses. I sat and planned my little speech. I would remind her who I was and she would instantly burst into tears at seeing me again, remembering Matthew. She would ask me how I was doing and I would tell her that while this was the darkest time in my life, I was coping. I hadn’t shirked my responsibilities at home. I was making it… and she would be so proud of me.
I probably don’t need to say that none of that happened. I didn’t recognize any of the nurses who raced past me, undoubtedly to tend to a laboring woman or new mother doting on her baby. I decided I hated my nurses anyway and would never go back to the hospital.
Gosh, it’s almost 2am. I have to stop this!
Matthew's name in the sand on a beach in Australia
