I suck today
I have been trying SO hard, SO unbelievably hard. I’m eating good even when I want to stuff my face with crap. I’m getting up earlier when I want to stay in bed and be dead to the world. I’m even exercising every single day when I would rather sit at the computer and read really uplifting blogs about dead babies. *snort* I even printed out my Motivated Moms chore list to try to get the house in order. There is one little problem I’m having. I have these four children that I just can’t stand right now. I know I should be so grateful that I even HAVE children. I know some of my loss friends have no living children yet and I’m sure I sound like a monster.
Today, I snapped at them while out driving and grocery shopping. When we came home, they were all squabbling so I yelled at them and sent them to their rooms for their own good so I wouldn’t lash out at them.
Then… THEN I hear them fighting again and I look over at them and my 5 yo, Clara is holding our dog’s choke chain up to her 8yo brother’s neck.
“We don’t choke people!”I screamed at her. “What is wrong with you?” I was holding her arms too tight and I knew I was. All I could think of was Matthew, trapped inside of me, the cord strangling him. He choked. I could see the white outline of the cord around his neck in my mind. My baby choked and here Clara was trying to choke Nicholas.
I sent her upstairs and told her to just stay up there, that I couldn’t believe her behavior. She crumpled to the floor and sobbed. I knew that the remorse would wash over me later but at the time, I was just enraged.
I came back downstairs and the three boys just stared at me, wary. They looked on-guard, unsure of what I would do next. Christopher looked up and said, “You’re screaming at everyone today”.
How unfair this whole thing is! What a piece of shit I’ve been dealt! This anger is different too. In the beginning, I would feel furious that someone, somewhere took my baby. I hurled old fruit at the trees on our property and screamed for my baby. But I understood that anger. It made sense to me.
This new anger scares and confuses me. I will think that I’m feeling better; I may not even be conscious of Matthew thoughts and then bam, it knocks me over, leaving me and everyone around me rattled. I try to analyze it afterward. Was I angry at the thing I thought I was, or was it anger that was misidirected? Will every feeling I ever feel for the rest of my life always be about my dead baby in some way or another? Does it even matter? I just don’t know.
Now I’m sitting alone while they all sleep, bitterly thinking that Matthew is better off without me, a screaming banshee of a mother. Of course I know this isn’t really true. But it fills my head and so I mull it over long enough to punish myself.
Fire
I signed my youngest daughter (5) up for a Children’s Bereavement Art class. She has really been looking forward to this class. I’ve felt really nervous watching the date get closer and closer. Just this horrible realization that instead of getting a baby brother, she’s getting an art class because he died. Yuck.
We live out in the mountains. It’s a popular place for camping, hiking and boating. Lots of trees, hot summers. We get several forest fires every summer.
Yesterday, while preparing for the art class, I noticed ashes falling down on the house and lots of smoke in the sky. Not an especially big deal around here. We weren’t being asked to evacuate so I wasn’t too worried.
My GPS in the car calculated our trip to the art class as taking 29 minutes so Clara and I left the house, giving ourselves 45 minutes. This was not something I wanted to be late for. It occurred to me while driving that I would not only be dropping my girl off to draw and paint with other kids who have just had a death in their family but I would be meeting their parents. What if one of the moms had a stillborn baby too? My excitement turned into certainty that I would meet a mom just like me; someone I could cry with and become fast friends while our children drew pictures of dead babies and discussed their feelings with the art therapist.
There is only one road in and out of our little town. A beautiful, winding road with drop-offs that go straight down to the canyon floor. Ten minutes into the drive, I came around a curve in the road and saw parked cars, orange cones and CHP cars with their lights flashing. I came to a stop behind a FedEx truck and sighed. My GPS said we were 11 miles and 18 minutes away from out destination.
It’s ok, I told Clara. We’ll get there, we have plenty of time.
Cars turned their engines off, people got out and milled around. This is a town with very little traffic so it took quite some time for there to be an actual traffic back-up behind me. I let Clara get out of her carseat and sit next to me. She looked worried and tears glistened in her eyes but I reassured her. We would make it.
We watched the orange smoke billow in the sky, we watched canoers get evacuated from the river and we watched traffic escorted in the opposite direction. Not once did I have a concern for the fire eating up acres and acres of wilderness. I just needed to get us BOTH to this class.
Finally two CHP cars pull up in front of our long line of cars. Happily, she rushed back into her carseat and I restarted the car. “It won’t be long now!” I told her.
One of the CHP cars starts driving slowly along our line of waiting cars, shouting something on his speaker. What the hell was he saying? Come ON, just get us out of here!
“Forty-five minutes! We will be escorting you past the fire in approximately forty-five minutes!”
Clara’s face crumbled and the tears fell fast; she pounded her firsts into the sides of her carseat. “But I need to get to my painting class! It’s not fair!”
I know that losing Matthew has been incredibly hard on me but oh, to see my child suffer for it too just kills me.
“It’s not fair!”
I smacked the steering wheel hard and looked at my GPS again. 11 miles, 18 minutes. Damnit, we came so close, so CLOSE! And then I was crying too.
“It’s not fair, Mommy!”
I know, baby girl. It’s not fair. Life’s not fair.
I give up!
I’m starting to feel scared that I’ve crossed the line into crazy. This was my fear all along, going insane with grief.
I’ve been working really hard; this grief is a full-time job. I try to get enough sleep, eat good, drink water, exercise daily. I read about stillbirth, write about it, try to be helpful to other moms who are going through the same thing. Proactive. That’s what I’ve been. Trying to stay one step ahead of my grief. Because if I run fast enough, it can’t catch me.
It was working for a while. Yes, I felt horribly devastated but I felt that I was progressing, moving through this sea of emotion and I thought I could see some light at the end of the tunnel.
But I’m slowing down. I’m so tired now. SO TIRED. I just want to lay down and take a rest. I can’t run anymore. I feel like standing out in the street and screaming, “Come get me, grief! I’m right here, you fucking bastard! Go ahead and beat me down into the ground! I don’t care anymore! You win!”
Tonight, when we came home from a day at my mom’s, I was feeling really angry at my dh. I’ve decided he doesn’t love me anymore and the fact that he didn’t call me today just proved that in my mind. I went to bed, determined to be strong and sleep far away from him and hurt him the way I feel hurt.
That lasted all of five minutes and instead, I shook him awake and started to sob. He put his arm around me and assured me that he does love me and he will help me if I just tell him what I need. That just made me even more angry. I don’t KNOW what I need. I just know that I need someone to fix me. This went round and round for a while. Him wanting specifics from me so he could support me and me stubbornly refusing to tell him anything concrete because I needed him to prove that he loved me by reading my mind.
At this point, it was after midnight. I went outside and sank to my knees in the gravel and cried, wishing I had the guts to get in my car and drive it off the nearest cliff. I think this was the first time since Matthew died that I seriously, seriously wished that I could just end it all. I WON’T, I know that I never would.
I know that I can’t have Matthew back, I really do get that. Right now, I just want to be completely and totally understood by someone else. And I want that someone to be dh… but he can’t get inside of my head, much as I wish he could. I don’t know how to forgive him for not being what I need him to be.
I wish I could get a handle on this grief too! Just when I think I’ve got a foothold, it morphs into something completely different. What ‘works’ one day does not necessarily work the next day. I just can’t keep up.
Due Date
Today is my due date. It’s past noon. I haven’t showered. I’m sitting here at the computer in my sweats and my kids are being neglected. I have no baby; rather, my baby is dead. I had a baby and my baby is dead.
I haven’t imagined him living much at all since he was born. Every time I think about him, I remember him cold and lifeless. But last night, I sat down and allowed myself to imagine what his live birth would hvae been like. I saw myself in the living room, laboring in the birth tub, my midwives murmuring support. Dh would have sat quietly watching me, like he always does, wishing he could do something. I imagined the end; feeling like I couldn’t go on but then his head would come out and then the relief. oh, the relief. lifting his *warm* body up to my chest and hearing him gurgle and cry.
“I did it! I did it!” I would have said.
He would have moved, he would have weighed more than his 4lb 9oz.
Would have.
It’s so strange that I never saw his arms and leg move, never saw his eyes open, never heard his voice.
A new, but dear, friend said that sometimes it feels like there is this alternate reality. And she’s right, that’s exactly what it feels like sometimes. That’s why sometimes when we’re eating dinner, I will glance down at the floor and think, he would be gurgling in his infant seat right now while I tried to scarf down some food as quick as I could.
Or I turn around in the car and think, his car seat would have been right there.
People would be rushing to greet me and get a glimpse of his face. Now, I can see the dread in their eyes when they realize they have to talk to me.
And in this alternate universe, there is a completely different ME too, a me who tends Matthew and moves through life completely unaware that babies die. I don’t even know that person.
But I wish I could be her again…
An Adventure
It was about 5 PM. I was lying reclined on the table, having already been changed into a hospital gown. My iv had already been started and we were waiting for the anesthesiologist to arrive. We were at a rural hospital and things didn’t happen very fast.
Brennen sat holding my hand on my left and my midwives sat a few feet away. We were all waiting. The room was so quiet. I tried to focus on one of the little holes in the ceiling but they all blurred together.
“Christie.” It was almost a whisper. Marlene, one of my beloved midwives was talking to me. She had already told me about the baby that she lost 18 years ago, right after we found no heartbeat back at their office.
“Christie, you’re about to experience something that most women never will. You can almost look at it like an adventure, an adventure that only those who have been there will ever understand.”
Now, she wasn’t making light of it. Her voice was so soothing, so filled with love. It might sound like she was being uncaring but somehow, at that moment, it was exactly what I needed to hear. I clung to her words and thought that yes, somehow I would be able to look at this from a different perspective.
Sometimes, I think this is like being on a big ship, on a cruise that I NEVER signed up for. I’m on this ship and the skies are dark and cloudy. The storm tosses my ship recklessly and I cling to the sides, terrified that I will fall in the water and be sucked under.
Sometimes, when I’m not even expecting it, I will pass another ship like mine. Weather-beaten and sad looking but still afloat. Her passenger will stand out on the deck and wave at me and I will desperately wave back, rushing to the side to get as close to her as I can.
“How have you survived so long out here?” I ask her.
“It’s hard, there’s nothing easy about it. But it does get easier, I promise you. There are beautiful things out here too.”
We share only a few moments but they are golden to me. I feel something; a glimmer of hope, perhaps?
“Just hold on. Don’t give up. There are other ships even farther ahead of us. The water is calmer up ahead.”
“Where? I can’t see anything!” I struggle to see where’s she’s pointing but there’s too much fog.
“I promise you.” She grasps my hand and I’m struck by the intensity of her touch.
I want her to save me. I want her to bring me back to where I lived before, away from this sea. But she can’t, she has to keep going. She’s working so hard to keep herself afloat.
And the amazing thing is sometimes I CAN, sometimes I DO see something beautiful. Sometimes when the skies clear and the water is calm, I can step out on the deck and see the most beautiful rainbow; vibrant, radiant colors that I could never have imagined. Then I cry tears of relief, even happiness, stunned by the depth of my own emotion.
I’m going to hold on.
Gravestone
Matthew still has no gravestone. He has no marker. I haven’t seen this because I haven’t been to visit him but my mom tells me that you can tell where he is because you can still see the slice of the grass. I hope that no one is stepping on him.
My mom is buying the gravestone and she reminds me every week to just let her know when we’ve decided what we want it to say. I’ve looked at pages of designs and I don’t really care for any of them.
And what on earth should it say?
In God’s Hands; I see this one a lot. I don’t like to picture him in anyone’s hands though. I don’t like the vision of him being held by granite hands.
Our Baby; this would work, he is our baby. But I want something *more*.
How about this?
I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you’re dead and that it’s my fault. I’m sorry I didn’t do kick counts. I’m sorry that you died by the cord that was supposed to be your lifeline. I’m sorry that you died while I went grocery shopping, sat through 4 dentist appointments, drove for miles and didn’t even bother to fucking notice that you weren’t moving? I’m so sorry and I hope that it wasn’t painful. I hope you really did just go to sleep because I can’t bear to imagine that you suffered. My heart is broken and I will never be the same again. Every day is black and I somehow manage to fake it through but really, I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. No, I want to wake up and then be wherever you are. I hope you can forgive me and that you know that I love. I’m just so, so, so sorry.
Love,
Your Mommy
Blah
I’ve been sitting here for a very long time, trying to put words to how I’ve been feeling. I feel so empty and lifeless yet without tears.
I had my check-up with the ob who did my c-section. The receptionist asked me for my insurance card so she could make a copy and I sorted through the cards in my wallet, not finding it. Beginning to panic, I dumped my purse contents on the counter and looked up at her, my eyes filling with tears. “I can’t find it!” I hadn’t been aware of feeling especially sad about Matthew at the time. I just felt like everything hinged on this, finding my insurance card… and it was GONE! Oh my God, what the hell was I going to do? No insurance card, how could I go on?
The receptionist shushed me and assured me that it would be ok, to go sit down with a box of tissues. Thankfully, I was the only one in the waiting room.
Whenever I try to push my grief aside and avoid Matthew’s pictures, leave his knit hats lying on the headboard at night instead of clutched in my hand, stop reading the babyloss blogs, despair will descend on me in the guise of something meaningless… like an insurance card. Grief is ruthless and unavoidable.
Anyway, the ob was very kind and sympathetic, like she had been in the hospital. My incision is healing nicely but my uterus had barely gone down since the surgery. She suggested the possibility of fibroids causing the swelling and then told me not to worry. Ha! She also said that while she wouldn’t consider me high-risk for a future pregnancy, she would recommend against me having a vbac anywhere but a major hospital and would most definitely not be able to recommend that I have a homebirth. While I understand why she would tell me this, I left her office in shock.
I can’t even be pregnant in the same way as before, how unfair! I have never taken homebirth risks seriously until now. Shoulder dystocia, cord prolapse; I’ve signed the consent forms numerous times but I never considered that they could actually happen to me! But now I don’t know that I can ever believe that the worst will NOT happen to me. Right now, my biggest concerns are another cord accident, obviously, and uterine rupture. I know that I have plenty of time to research this but I have this deperate need to find answers as soon as possible.
Dream
I didn’t remember any dreams the first couple of weeks. Those three nights in the hospital, I would fall asleep for just a moment and get a scary image in my mind and wake right up. Then after coming home, I remembered nothing. I would hit the bed and fall asleep almost immediately. It didn’t seem that my sleep was deep enough for dreaming.
Last night, I dreamt that I went to a public swimming pool. The pool was empty, save for me, and I sat in the corner of the deep end. After deciding that I would swim across to the shallow end, a few people started arriving. I dove down and started swimming across.
I could see that these people were all up higher than me, watching me swim lower and lower to the bottom. They looked a little concerned and I tried to avoid their gazes. I noticed that the bottom of the pool was all gravel, like in the bottom of a fish tank. Halfway across the pool, I realized that I was coming up to the spot where I had given birth to my dead baby. I was at once terrified of and drawn to this spot. As I drew closer, I could see objects in the gravel. I hoped that they were somehow little bits of memorabilia that I could get and take home to put in my memory box. I swam faster and could now see that these objects were just little bits of garbage, water bottle tops and miscellaneous pieces of plastic. I dug through the gravel and came up with nothing related to my baby.
I could see the other swimmers over me, apparently wondering why I wasn’t coming up to the top for a breath. So, I tried to finish my way across the pool and show them that I was ok. But I was so heavy, the water weighed a ton and I couldn’t get my arms to work. I kicked my feet but made almost no progress. I was slowly, slowly moving closer to the shallow end but my chest was in the gravel. This is when Clara woke me up and I tried to hide my tears in my pillow.
I’ve read enough about dreams and I used to listen to a radio show about dreams every weekend. Water usually symbolizes emotion and we know I have plenty of that. Being weighed down, stuck in one place and unable to take a breath is exactly how I feel most of the day too.
When will the positive dreams come? When can I have a dream where Matthew is an angel and comes to tell me that he is safe and happy and waiting for me?
The Zephyr Song
It’s funny how almost every single song I hear now was written for Matthew. Even the most unexpected ones. I spent so many hours driving the kids around while I was pregnant. I would switch off my 70’s favorites and let them listen to their alternative rock. So now as they surf iTunes and play their music on the computer while I spend hours working on puzzles, I cry at the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Maroon 5 and Papa Roach.
I wish I could go back. I can almost feel the weight of my belly right behind the steering wheel, the heartburn occasionally coming up. Turning down our mountain roads while the music became a part of my pregnancy memory forever. I’m just so grateful that I enjoyed the pregnancy so much. I really did, I loved it.
This part of the Zephyr Song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers has been stuck in my head the last few days.
Fly away on my zephyr
I feel it more then ever
And in this perfect weather
Well find a place together
In the water where the scent of my emotion
All the world will pass me by
Fly away on my zephyr
Well find a place together
I relive those few days in the hospital just holding my baby while the world did indeed pass us by.
I wish I could fly away with him and forget the rest of the world, forget all these fools who mistakenly believe that my baby’s dead. How could he be dead?
Fly away on my zephyr
Were gonna live forever
Forever
Forever means something different to me now. My baby will be dead for the REST OF MY LIFE. He is dead FOREVER.
oh my god, i don’t know how i’m going to get through today.
Matthew's name in the sand on a beach in Australia
