April 21st - the day my baby was predicted to enter this world. Up to this point, I have been living with the haunting fact that technically, I should still be pregnant. And even for days after this due date, I still could have been had things unfolded differently...
The sun is shining today. A beautiful day for a birth day. This is the day I might have heard my daughter's voice and thus begin the days and nights of mothering.
This day has been looming on my horizons ever since the knowledge of my absent daughter beset me. These last few days have passed in apprehension. What could this day mean? Perhaps a turning of a page and the closing of one season of grief to give way to another? I've imagined that this day would mark for me the end of the haunting knowledge that I should still be x number of weeks pregnant.
A father's grief is different from a mother's. While I had the beautiful opportunity to feel our daughter move in me and respond to me, Jesse wasn't able to make that same connection. As a result, there is a mystery surrounding what fatherhood could have been like for him and Shaely. Nonetheless, he was a good daddy to her. He would sing to her and tap three-two clava pattern on my belly. She knew his voice and the sound of it made her happy. Somebody told me several weeks ago that we could take some comfort in knowing that our daughter had a happy dwelling inside me - void of things that would harm her whether emotional or tangible. It both breaks my heart and comforts me to know that our daughter was happy and alive in me.
This day is a turning of a page. How do I turn that page? It is by doing seemingly simple things such as taking down and reading each condolences card we have received. These cards have served as a memorial to my baby. In taking them down, I am letting go a little bit to the sorrow that has bound me from moving forward. They have, in a way, kept me suspended in the state in which I was first told of my daughter's passing. Moving forward doesn't mean forgetting. To me, it means allowing life to enrich me again, allowing hope to rise. I must do this for Jesse and I and for Shaely.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Without reason?
It's been almost six weeks now. I'm still supposed to be about 38 weeks pregnant - there's a mind screwer. What to say about where I am now? Depends on the day...who I run into, what I read on facebook, where I am... perspective is saving me a lot these days. Perspective that I'm not the first person this has happened to and perspective that I have friends who have experienced worse. This is a part of my story, my life's journey. People before me have overcome their tragedies and heartache. It never fully leaves, but they learn to live again - to hope again and be truly happy again.
But then there are days...
... like today, where perspective dissolves in my angry tears. How is it that people pop out babies who will never grow up with two loving parents and instead might have to learn to love one "dad" after another. How is it that some mothers give birth to living, breathing children despite living decaying lifestyles corroded with bad eating habits and even drug and alcohol use? And how is it that they keep having these babies and we don't get even the chance to hear ours use her lungs?
I know God sees the full picture. I just wish he would give me a glimpse at what the picture is though. Because, although I cling to the belief that my baby didn't make it for a reason and that my husband couldn't be there when it happened, I find myself desperately seeking for answers and something to rest my sorrows in. It'll always hurt - but can it not be for me wondering if this happened for no better reason than to challenge me and test my faith? Must something so painful happen for one to prove their faith? Maybe it's not even about me and Jess though. But if that's the case, who is it about? Is it someone I'll meet five or more years up the road who will suffer the same loss and I'll be there to cry with them? Somehow, that doesn't comfort me right now. I must sound terribly ungrateful for those who have cried with me and suffered a similar loss. But I just feel that while I have felt understood by those who have felt the pain in loosing a child, my pain hasn't been lessened by their tears. Nothing, I think, but time and faith can help one to slowly heal this wound. Is there more to it than this? And if so, what is it? I want so much to have something I can lay reason with. I feel haunted by thoughts of my baby dying because of some negligence either on my part or outside forces. Was I ever in control or has God been overseeing the course of events and weaving a plan in the midst of it?
So many questions...they catch in my throat and take my breath away. I feel like I'll never be able to lay my baby to rest. She's what I think about when I wake up in the morning as I clutch the purple quilt she was wrapped in. Will I ever be able to think about her and feel at peace? I know she is at peace, but I am tormented by what went wrong that my daughter should not be here in my arms with me today.
But then there are days...
... like today, where perspective dissolves in my angry tears. How is it that people pop out babies who will never grow up with two loving parents and instead might have to learn to love one "dad" after another. How is it that some mothers give birth to living, breathing children despite living decaying lifestyles corroded with bad eating habits and even drug and alcohol use? And how is it that they keep having these babies and we don't get even the chance to hear ours use her lungs?
I know God sees the full picture. I just wish he would give me a glimpse at what the picture is though. Because, although I cling to the belief that my baby didn't make it for a reason and that my husband couldn't be there when it happened, I find myself desperately seeking for answers and something to rest my sorrows in. It'll always hurt - but can it not be for me wondering if this happened for no better reason than to challenge me and test my faith? Must something so painful happen for one to prove their faith? Maybe it's not even about me and Jess though. But if that's the case, who is it about? Is it someone I'll meet five or more years up the road who will suffer the same loss and I'll be there to cry with them? Somehow, that doesn't comfort me right now. I must sound terribly ungrateful for those who have cried with me and suffered a similar loss. But I just feel that while I have felt understood by those who have felt the pain in loosing a child, my pain hasn't been lessened by their tears. Nothing, I think, but time and faith can help one to slowly heal this wound. Is there more to it than this? And if so, what is it? I want so much to have something I can lay reason with. I feel haunted by thoughts of my baby dying because of some negligence either on my part or outside forces. Was I ever in control or has God been overseeing the course of events and weaving a plan in the midst of it?
So many questions...they catch in my throat and take my breath away. I feel like I'll never be able to lay my baby to rest. She's what I think about when I wake up in the morning as I clutch the purple quilt she was wrapped in. Will I ever be able to think about her and feel at peace? I know she is at peace, but I am tormented by what went wrong that my daughter should not be here in my arms with me today.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Learning to Breathe
I stop breathing sometimes. Perhaps I'm trying to hold back the wave of pain rising in my chest and throat and prickling my nose. I feel rather lost - as if I am bobbing about in a vast ocean of grief, waiting for my feet to touch the ground again. Life around me goes on. People go to work, girls plan a girls only night, the coming of spring is anticipated, babies are born... I try to keep busy, try to occupy my thoughts so that the waves of grief don't wash over me and fill my lungs. Inevitably though, there's a point in the day when I don't risist and I go to that barren place in my heart. It's a place that's filled with memories of how my daughter's skin felt - her soft velvety head, the way she smelled so sweet. It's a place where I remember how she moved in me, tapping against my abdominal wall to let me know she was excited to come out and meet me face to face. It's the place where I remember saying goodbye to her and watching her being wheeled out of my hospital room and down the pale hallway.
They say that time is the best healer. Yes time...time in which this heartache must ache hard. There's no quick fix for this one. It's the path I am on and there is no detour. It's relearning how to live - learning to breathe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVlnHT8OkQQ
They say that time is the best healer. Yes time...time in which this heartache must ache hard. There's no quick fix for this one. It's the path I am on and there is no detour. It's relearning how to live - learning to breathe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVlnHT8OkQQ
Friday, April 1, 2011
Shaely Rose - forever in my heart
The last photo I snapped of myself with my baby girl alive inside me was only a day before her little heart stopped beating. In it, I'm happy - the epitomy of a glowing expectant mother. My blue top stretches over my bulging belly, threatening to ride up and expose my nipple-like belly botton. I was seven and half weeks away from meeting my little one and had never been more happy. I lived in on a beautiful island, was surrounded by good people, a loving husband, a house that we had recently moved into all to ourselves and a thriving plumbing business. Life was good.
I started feeling poorly around 11 that Tuesday morning. By around 3, I resigned myself to the couch with a blanket and my phone. The contractions didn't start til 5 but there was no gradual build-up like I had heard and read about. They began at two and a half to three and a half minutes apart. Being my first, I wasn't sure if this really could be labour. After calling my mom and my midwife for advice, I realized that I needed to get to the hospital. I called Jesse home from the dance lessons we were scheduled to teach that night and we hurried to catch the last ferry out. As we pulled up, it was just leaving the dock. I was in immense pain by this time and we went for plan b. Plan b ended up involving me being helicoptered off the island, prevailing against a wind storm that had kicked up. The paramedics told us that they couldn't risk taking Jesse with us and that he'd have to catch the next boat out in the morning.
The next few hours are hazy in my memory. I remember the doctors saying they couldn't find a heartbeat. I don't know if I knew deep down inside, but all I could think at the time was that their equipment must be broken or my baby was hiding behind my liver or something. They told me they had to perform a c-section to get her out as soon as possible. I cried as they wheeled me to OR. In my delirium of pain and drugs, I didn't really understand anything other than this was not how I had planned it. Neither was the outcome of the surgery when I woke up in the early hours of March 2nd.
"Where's my baby?" I asked. Nobody responded. I could see my mom, my midwife and a bunch of people in blue. I asked again and then a third time. Finally my midwife started to attempt to form words for me - words that I didn't comprehend. Then the doctor told me what I can only see now as a nightmare.
She had not been born breathing. They had worked on her and tried everything they could...
"Can I see her?" They brought her to me. She was surprising a good size for her age. I could see right away that she had my nose and Jesse's ears. Her little mouth hung open - no air passing through. Her chest did not rise and fall like I always imagined it would. She was still and growing cold as it had been over an hour since they had delivered her. Despite the obvious, I was confused. She couldn't actually be gone. If I held her to my chest, she'd feel my warmth and start breathing on her own. It must have been the tubes coming out of her mouth and nose that left me thinking she was being assisted in pumping her heart. I coaxed her to come back. I asked God to make her breath again. My thoughts then flashed to my husband, my Jesse who was still at home. I called him, waking him from an uneasy sleep.
"She's not breathing, Jesse. You have to pray that God brings her back."
Together we prayed, believing that our God could and would bring her back. It wasn't until about five hours later that I finally realized that He wasn't going to. She was in Heaven and I was left holding her bruised, precious little body.
It has been four weeks and two days since that nightmare of a day. And the nightmare continues. I wake up every morning, feeling broken and void. I wonder about all the "what ifs," about how I should still be pregnant, about how I want so much to hold my little Shaely Rose and nurse her but I never will. I miss her so much - miss her moving in me, miss that I won't ever get to watch her grow-up...I grieve for the life that I left behind, when I knew nothing of the pain there is in having your child die before you.
I started feeling poorly around 11 that Tuesday morning. By around 3, I resigned myself to the couch with a blanket and my phone. The contractions didn't start til 5 but there was no gradual build-up like I had heard and read about. They began at two and a half to three and a half minutes apart. Being my first, I wasn't sure if this really could be labour. After calling my mom and my midwife for advice, I realized that I needed to get to the hospital. I called Jesse home from the dance lessons we were scheduled to teach that night and we hurried to catch the last ferry out. As we pulled up, it was just leaving the dock. I was in immense pain by this time and we went for plan b. Plan b ended up involving me being helicoptered off the island, prevailing against a wind storm that had kicked up. The paramedics told us that they couldn't risk taking Jesse with us and that he'd have to catch the next boat out in the morning.
The next few hours are hazy in my memory. I remember the doctors saying they couldn't find a heartbeat. I don't know if I knew deep down inside, but all I could think at the time was that their equipment must be broken or my baby was hiding behind my liver or something. They told me they had to perform a c-section to get her out as soon as possible. I cried as they wheeled me to OR. In my delirium of pain and drugs, I didn't really understand anything other than this was not how I had planned it. Neither was the outcome of the surgery when I woke up in the early hours of March 2nd.
"Where's my baby?" I asked. Nobody responded. I could see my mom, my midwife and a bunch of people in blue. I asked again and then a third time. Finally my midwife started to attempt to form words for me - words that I didn't comprehend. Then the doctor told me what I can only see now as a nightmare.
She had not been born breathing. They had worked on her and tried everything they could...
"Can I see her?" They brought her to me. She was surprising a good size for her age. I could see right away that she had my nose and Jesse's ears. Her little mouth hung open - no air passing through. Her chest did not rise and fall like I always imagined it would. She was still and growing cold as it had been over an hour since they had delivered her. Despite the obvious, I was confused. She couldn't actually be gone. If I held her to my chest, she'd feel my warmth and start breathing on her own. It must have been the tubes coming out of her mouth and nose that left me thinking she was being assisted in pumping her heart. I coaxed her to come back. I asked God to make her breath again. My thoughts then flashed to my husband, my Jesse who was still at home. I called him, waking him from an uneasy sleep.
"She's not breathing, Jesse. You have to pray that God brings her back."
Together we prayed, believing that our God could and would bring her back. It wasn't until about five hours later that I finally realized that He wasn't going to. She was in Heaven and I was left holding her bruised, precious little body.
It has been four weeks and two days since that nightmare of a day. And the nightmare continues. I wake up every morning, feeling broken and void. I wonder about all the "what ifs," about how I should still be pregnant, about how I want so much to hold my little Shaely Rose and nurse her but I never will. I miss her so much - miss her moving in me, miss that I won't ever get to watch her grow-up...I grieve for the life that I left behind, when I knew nothing of the pain there is in having your child die before you.
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