This past Wednesday I got to hold my dear friend's 3.5-week old baby for the first time. He is a perfect, precious, tiny little bundle. He felt so good in my arms. This little guy, as I've mentioned before, was conceived less than a week before Aliya and Bennett were, and, had my babies lived to be born when I wanted (January 18th, at 38 weeks) instead of way too early, would have been a week and a half younger than the twins. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was very surprised how natural and peaceful it felt. I wasn't overwhelmed with sadness or should-have-beens. Rather, I was able to stay in the moment and love every second of it!
This feels like huge progress for me, especially given our nephew, Finn, might arrive as early as the day after tomorrow, weeks before his due date, because of his mama's complications. If you had talked to me just a month ago, you would have probably heard a lot of anguish and fear in my voice around the impending arrival of baby Finn. What I've noticed in the last couple of weeks, though, is now that all my trigger dates have safely passed (at least for now...more will come soon enough), my emotions have mellowed a bit. The edge is gone. What felt like someone digging a knife into my very soul now only stings a little bit.
The edge was even slightly dulled at his baby shower. I really wanted to be there, but was filled with hesitation and a bit of worry for myself...just what was that experience going to feel like? I have to admit, it was really, really hard, but not for the reasons I would have expected. What hit me was a physical longing and sadness. The newborn girl I was warned about ahead of time was there. Part of me had hoped to ask to hold her, to get that out of my system, but in the end I never really got a chance, and that was ok. I tell you what, though, sitting across from that baby girl, seeing her physical size, and then holding Finn's newborn onesies in my hands as we passed the gifts around, that's what really hurt me. I could see, between my two hands, the size Bennett should have been. He should have been wearing a onesie like that, in my arms, at that baby shower. And Aliya should have been the size of that newborn girl. I cried all the way home, but was still glad I'd gone, happy to have been able to celebrate my sister-in-law's pregnancy and the baby we were praying for.
Paul and I plan to be in the waiting room with the rest of the family when Finn comes. This is a big deal, as any babyloss mama can recognize. We've made the very conscious decision to welcome Finn into our lives, and we're truly really excited to meet him. Paul has one niece, nearly old enough (well, technically old enough!) to be a mom herself. Finn will make me an Auntie for the very first time. I'm thrilled!
I can't say that when Finn makes his debut and the tears of joy come, as I'm certain they will for both of us, some of those tears won't be out of grief for what we've lost, for the babies we so desperately miss and wish were here, right now, a month or two older than their baby cousin. I don't think anyone would hold those tears against us.
I'm so grateful, though, to have already test-driven what it feels like to hold another beloved newborn in my arms, so that I can be sure of the love and pride and awe I will feel upon holding my nephew in my arms for the first time next week.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
The body remembers
Some time ago, I shared that I'd finally gotten on the waiting list for Molly Bears for my babies. If you don't already know, Molly Bears is a non-profit organization that makes and sends free teddy bears that are weighted to our lost babies' birth weights. The waiting list for these special bears is so backlogged that it only opens the very last day of every month, and only for a certain amount of time, to give folks a fighting chance of landing on the list without totally overwhelming the folks who make the bears. At the end of August, I think, I got up extra early before work and logged onto the computer, hoping to find the sign up form open, and it was!! I expected to not receive my bears until right around the first anniversary of losing the twins, August 2012. (I think I had numbers 1296 and 1297 on the list.)
Then, in December, I made a donation to Molly Bears through a posting on their Facebook page, helping them reach their monthly goal. This donation put me in a drawing to get my bears early, and I won!
Our precious little bears arrived on January 19th, delivered and left on our front porch despite the wicked snowstorm we were dealing with. The bears are very fuzzy, with funny smiles and velvety patches on their feet, and little stubby tails. I was expecting them to be teeny tiny, like my babies were, but they're actually 8 inches crown-to-rump and 11 inches crown-to-heel (in comparison, my little 14 weekers were about 3.5" CRL each, and 5" and 5.5" crown-to-heel). They're adorable.
What's so amazing, though, is my physical reaction upon holding them together to my chest. My body remembered the exact feeling of holding my babies' minute weights in my arms in the hospital, and I immediately started to cry. In fact, I cry any time I hold them (and I try to remember to pick them up daily from their perch in the living room). It's so weird, but also so amazing. Bennett Bear is the tiniest bit heavier than Aliya Bear, since Bennett weighed just a tiny bit more than Aliya at birth. It's truly, truly amazing, and I'm so grateful to have these warm, cuddly gifts to hold and cherish. (Plus, they're just so darned cute!)
If you've lost a baby, even if it was long ago, you might consider signing up for a Molly Bear. They can make them as light as my kiddos (1.3 oz and 1.2 oz), but I've read of bears made weighing over 11 pounds. They are free of charge to the mommies and daddies who need them, but they'll warm your heart forever.
Then, in December, I made a donation to Molly Bears through a posting on their Facebook page, helping them reach their monthly goal. This donation put me in a drawing to get my bears early, and I won!
Our precious little bears arrived on January 19th, delivered and left on our front porch despite the wicked snowstorm we were dealing with. The bears are very fuzzy, with funny smiles and velvety patches on their feet, and little stubby tails. I was expecting them to be teeny tiny, like my babies were, but they're actually 8 inches crown-to-rump and 11 inches crown-to-heel (in comparison, my little 14 weekers were about 3.5" CRL each, and 5" and 5.5" crown-to-heel). They're adorable.
What's so amazing, though, is my physical reaction upon holding them together to my chest. My body remembered the exact feeling of holding my babies' minute weights in my arms in the hospital, and I immediately started to cry. In fact, I cry any time I hold them (and I try to remember to pick them up daily from their perch in the living room). It's so weird, but also so amazing. Bennett Bear is the tiniest bit heavier than Aliya Bear, since Bennett weighed just a tiny bit more than Aliya at birth. It's truly, truly amazing, and I'm so grateful to have these warm, cuddly gifts to hold and cherish. (Plus, they're just so darned cute!)
If you've lost a baby, even if it was long ago, you might consider signing up for a Molly Bear. They can make them as light as my kiddos (1.3 oz and 1.2 oz), but I've read of bears made weighing over 11 pounds. They are free of charge to the mommies and daddies who need them, but they'll warm your heart forever.
Bennett Bear and Aliya Bear
Monday, February 6, 2012
Stung
Grief is so weird. I thought I'd made it through our "big" anniversary weekend pretty much unscathed, save for a few errant tears. FAIL! I awoke this morning feeling off and with a headache, so I stayed home again. It's a good thing, too, because the waterworks started big time first thing. I got to the point in my sobbing where my head was throbbing worse and I felt that icky, sticky teary face thing...I actually had to get up and wash my face because it started to itch from all the tear streaks. Nice. Better I fall apart at home than at my desk on a new team where my supervisor is aware but has never seen me lose it, and I'm not sure yet my new co-worker even knows what's up with me (we haven't talked about it, although he was schooled in the chaplaincy, so perhaps I should open up?).
Sigh.
I guess two things hit me hard today. First, I checked my e-mail and saw I had an anonymous comment on this blog. I swiftly exercised the power of the Delete button in Blogger, and then changed my settings to no longer allow anonymous comments. I also removed this blog from Google's "Next" feed, where folks who no nothing about me or our loss can randomly land here, read and form an opinion. I'm hoping that's where this particular commenter came from, because if the opinion expressed was from someone I actually know in real life, they'd get booted OUT of my life faster than greased lighting. The actual comment was something to the effect that my blog is horribly negative, but apparently that's the "beauty" of free speech. I hate that this bothered me. Why should I care what some uncaring, incompassionate person thinks of my life and my writing? I shouldn't...but today, I did, I guess because I was already feeling fragile. I've actually been blogging for nearly 4 years now, with (what was, up until our loss) a very active farm blog. I have 75 regular followers there, most of whom I don't even know. Until today, I've never had a crappy comment. It really stings that I would get one on this very personal - and duh, not very positive - blog. So. Security is slightly tightened once again, in hopes of thwarting cowardly anonymous comments in the future. And, I hope this person decides not to come back here again. I don't need that kind of "support," the same kind I've gotten a bit of from a particular Facebook "friend" who is on the verge of being unfriended.
Anyway, back to the crying. (Just kidding! Keeping it light, ya'll.) The second thing is that today is the six month anniversary of being discharged from the hospital and leaving our babies behind, of me being wheeled out with only our satin memory box, the babies' little handmade isolet mattress, and a green plastic bag of my things in my lap. That day was so, so terrible, and haunts me nearly as much as the day my water broke. I miss them so much. I miss old me so much, the me that had never known this type of pain, couldn't comprehend how badly something could hurt, that feeling, too, that perhaps I'll never really be ok. I'm trying not to let that latter thought wheedle its way into my subconscious too deeply. I don't want it to be true, but man, sometimes it sure feels like it is.
I did go out and buy a couple of things at Michael's today to make Paul and me a framed photo of our babies, the same thing I gifted to my mom for Christmas. It will consist of a copy of the black and white photo featuring our hands with our babies faces and hands visible beneath their blanket, with a light green ribbon stretched across the top of the frame, from which two sterling silver teddy bear charms will dangle. I colored the bow ties on Mom's bears with paint pens, pink for Aliya and blue for Bennett, and I'll do the same for ours. I can't bear to part with any of the original photos, and in fact, they're stashed safely in our fire-proof gun safe, where they'll stay, tucked in with our Calvin's Hats and my medical records. It's a bit of a pain to have to unlock the safe, pull out the envelope containing the folder holding the photos, and then opening the folder, just to look at my little darlings. (They really were so very pretty and precious, nothing sweeter in this world than those two little faces and tiny hands, perfect ears, little bodies, positioned so they touched.) There are equally precious things in our memory box - plus our two Molly Bears, which I'll post about later - that aren't under the protection of the gun safe. No, those have been out in our living room since the day we came home from the hospital. I'm not sure at what point I'll feel ok moving them somewhere else. I need them close so I can easily go through our things, and I know Paul unties the ribbons and goes through the box sometimes, too.
I'm really trying hard to find that sense of hope I had in the latter part of January, acquired after a great meeting with my hypnotherapist. Perhaps it was a fleeting feeling, one that couldn't have lasted long on its own. My next appointment is on February 20th, another day off for me, and I'm really looking forward to it. Meanwhile, the book "Spirit Babies" is finally waiting for me in the library, ready to pick up and devour tomorrow. It was suggested homework reading for me, and now that I've heard more about Spirit Babies and sensed my own (who I have actually sensed twice before), I want to know more. And I want to understand what it could mean that MY babies left me, because that is a gaping hole and a giant question in the pretty hypothetical package that is the concept of Spirit Babies. As I read and learn, I'll post about it. The whole concept seems to "woo woo" (to quote a friend) to get into quite yet.
And with that, this big anniversary passes, to give way to those other months in the future that aren't so "big" but still signal a lot of time between us and our babies.
Sigh.
I guess two things hit me hard today. First, I checked my e-mail and saw I had an anonymous comment on this blog. I swiftly exercised the power of the Delete button in Blogger, and then changed my settings to no longer allow anonymous comments. I also removed this blog from Google's "Next" feed, where folks who no nothing about me or our loss can randomly land here, read and form an opinion. I'm hoping that's where this particular commenter came from, because if the opinion expressed was from someone I actually know in real life, they'd get booted OUT of my life faster than greased lighting. The actual comment was something to the effect that my blog is horribly negative, but apparently that's the "beauty" of free speech. I hate that this bothered me. Why should I care what some uncaring, incompassionate person thinks of my life and my writing? I shouldn't...but today, I did, I guess because I was already feeling fragile. I've actually been blogging for nearly 4 years now, with (what was, up until our loss) a very active farm blog. I have 75 regular followers there, most of whom I don't even know. Until today, I've never had a crappy comment. It really stings that I would get one on this very personal - and duh, not very positive - blog. So. Security is slightly tightened once again, in hopes of thwarting cowardly anonymous comments in the future. And, I hope this person decides not to come back here again. I don't need that kind of "support," the same kind I've gotten a bit of from a particular Facebook "friend" who is on the verge of being unfriended.
Anyway, back to the crying. (Just kidding! Keeping it light, ya'll.) The second thing is that today is the six month anniversary of being discharged from the hospital and leaving our babies behind, of me being wheeled out with only our satin memory box, the babies' little handmade isolet mattress, and a green plastic bag of my things in my lap. That day was so, so terrible, and haunts me nearly as much as the day my water broke. I miss them so much. I miss old me so much, the me that had never known this type of pain, couldn't comprehend how badly something could hurt, that feeling, too, that perhaps I'll never really be ok. I'm trying not to let that latter thought wheedle its way into my subconscious too deeply. I don't want it to be true, but man, sometimes it sure feels like it is.
I did go out and buy a couple of things at Michael's today to make Paul and me a framed photo of our babies, the same thing I gifted to my mom for Christmas. It will consist of a copy of the black and white photo featuring our hands with our babies faces and hands visible beneath their blanket, with a light green ribbon stretched across the top of the frame, from which two sterling silver teddy bear charms will dangle. I colored the bow ties on Mom's bears with paint pens, pink for Aliya and blue for Bennett, and I'll do the same for ours. I can't bear to part with any of the original photos, and in fact, they're stashed safely in our fire-proof gun safe, where they'll stay, tucked in with our Calvin's Hats and my medical records. It's a bit of a pain to have to unlock the safe, pull out the envelope containing the folder holding the photos, and then opening the folder, just to look at my little darlings. (They really were so very pretty and precious, nothing sweeter in this world than those two little faces and tiny hands, perfect ears, little bodies, positioned so they touched.) There are equally precious things in our memory box - plus our two Molly Bears, which I'll post about later - that aren't under the protection of the gun safe. No, those have been out in our living room since the day we came home from the hospital. I'm not sure at what point I'll feel ok moving them somewhere else. I need them close so I can easily go through our things, and I know Paul unties the ribbons and goes through the box sometimes, too.
I'm really trying hard to find that sense of hope I had in the latter part of January, acquired after a great meeting with my hypnotherapist. Perhaps it was a fleeting feeling, one that couldn't have lasted long on its own. My next appointment is on February 20th, another day off for me, and I'm really looking forward to it. Meanwhile, the book "Spirit Babies" is finally waiting for me in the library, ready to pick up and devour tomorrow. It was suggested homework reading for me, and now that I've heard more about Spirit Babies and sensed my own (who I have actually sensed twice before), I want to know more. And I want to understand what it could mean that MY babies left me, because that is a gaping hole and a giant question in the pretty hypothetical package that is the concept of Spirit Babies. As I read and learn, I'll post about it. The whole concept seems to "woo woo" (to quote a friend) to get into quite yet.
And with that, this big anniversary passes, to give way to those other months in the future that aren't so "big" but still signal a lot of time between us and our babies.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Six months gone
I can't believe that today it's been six months since Aliya's water broke, since my body failed us, since we learned our babies were going die. I am so raw today for so many reasons...for my broken heart, for the babies I can only remember in my thoughts and in a single photograph, for life going on anyway, for our continued struggle, for the poignant posts of others, those I've read and those I've posted for others. For the nephew who will be here soon, probably sooner than expected, who I will help celebrate as I should - unlike last weekend - this afternoon. I've shed so many tears already today...I hope they're done before the shower. It's supposed to be a happy time. Yes, I'm forcing myself, but I figure it's for my own good: What would be worse, choosing to be easy on myself and not go, or regret not being more involved for the rest of my life? Seems pretty simple to me...I have to accept that yes, my babies should be here, they should be the older cousins to my coming nephew, but they died, and he did not...he will be here and in my life, and I don't want to resent him, even though *that* would be very easy and not unexpected. I don't want *that* to be my reality. And so...I will go, I will shower the mama-to-be and her husband, Paul's little brother, I will force myself to be near the newborn I have been warned will be there. Maybe it will do me good, help in some way, or maybe I'm completely insane and about to do some major emotional damage to myself. I'll let you know.
*****Today is a beautiful day...really cold so far, pale blue sky with whispy clouds, the birds chirping and searching the bare ground for tidbits to eat. I looked at the sky this morning and instantly remembered the clear, deep blue of August 6th, the day we came home from the hospital, and how much that clear sky broke my heart. How unfair that it should be such a beautiful day. How unfair that I had to live on that beautiful day. How unfair that any of us mommies who lose our babies have to live at all. But it is what is, and somehow our lives will go on, forever changed, a little broken (or a lot broken, depending on how we heal and the support we have or don't have), cobbled together, picked up and carried sometimes like an armful of tattered rags, and other times like a pale balloon held by a string, aloft but delicate and fleeting...one instance and it can disappear.
*****I feel resigned to unfairness sometimes, like the fact that my period would start - signalling the failure our latest IUI cycle, the one I held some hope for (why??) - the day before today, that I would be bleeding when six months ago I was nearing the end of 7 weeks of bleeding. Our medical due date, February 1st, came and went, yet another day not without major drama as my sister-in-law landed in the hospital with preterm labor. (I'm so over ever being pregnant at the same time as anyone else I know, because when things go to Hell for one party, the reminders are constant. My experience has really made me question my karma...what the Hell have I ever done to deserve the pregnancy crises of another landing on our important dates - twice? Even still, I begged my babies to somehow protect their baby cousin and keep him safe until it's time.) I held it together pretty well that day, but spent the next home sick, vomiting with a severe headache behind one eye. Bad karma? Bad luck? What??
*****Paul and I are feeling fairly sure that we will postpone our next superovulation IUI cycle until April instead of March. We have financial catching up to do to pay off December's disappointing and stupidly expensive attempt, and those discounted overseas meds are still really costly. The upside of this decision is that it would give more time for the DHEA and the Royal Jelly with Bee Pollen (which we'll both start taking next week) to work. Paul has put out to the Universe that he's hoping I have so many healthy follicles next time that we have to convert to IVF again and end up with embryos to freeze for later. I just hope I respond better, that's all, that I have normally-rising estradiol and plenty of antral follicles this time, to ensure a fighting chance. I decided, and he has to accept, that I don't want to do another unmedicated cycle while we wait. Why waste another $450 on something so unlikely to work, something that so disrupts and controls our marital relations that he actually bet me the other night that we've only had sex no more than 20 times in the last year? He may be right. I really hope not...it's one of the major downsides to ART when the man has male factor infertility issues; intercourse has to be so carefully timed that when it's time to give a sample for IUI or IVF, he hasn't "wasted" any swimmers to too-recent sex. It sucks. Lucky for me, I have records of every time we've had sex in almost the last 4 years, thanks to my dedication to my Fertility Friend chart, so I can pretty easily go back and prove him wrong or right...but I'm afraid to know the answer, because, yeah, he might actually be right....although, I will point out that I couldn't have sex from May to September of last year because of my prescribed pelvic rest due to the bleeding and Aliya's abruption and then recovery from miscarriage. (Edited to add: I just proved him wrong...by two. How sad is that?)
*****
*****
*****
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