Heavy Heart

FORWARD:  This is a hard post.  It is not a positive or happy post.  It is me at a moment of weakness in a bad place.  I have already finished it, and I already feel weight lifted having gotten these feelings out.  I do not wish my blog to be a place of despair.  If you think that my feelings and ranting may bring you down, please skip this one, or at least save it for another time when you think they are less likely to discourage you.  I truly do not want to wallow in a place of misery or to encourage anyone to be miserable.  I do want to bring honesty to the table, however, and to share that even though I try to stay positive, I have my moments too, just like everyone.  It is in the spirit of honesty, not in the spirit of woe-is-me-misery-loves-company, that I share this post.  My prayers are with all of those in the baby loss community.  I pray that your hard moments become fewer and farther between and that you are able to experience peace, comfort, and even joy more and more each day.  I am truly blessed with many blessings, and I count those of you in the community among those blessings.  Love and hugs to you all!

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I try to keep a positive frame of mind most of the time.  I don't believe it is very productive, helpful, or healing to stay in a bitter place or to grumble about the injustices of life...of death.  I work hard to keep my focus on the blessings in my life, even in respect to Elena.  I want to smile when I think of her.  I want to remember her simply as a blessing.

It takes a lot of energy.  It's not something that comes naturally.  Focusing on the positives is hard work, worth it, I believe, but hard nonetheless.

I am tired.  I am sleep deprived.  I am feeling grumpy and grouchy.  I don't feel like I am doing a good job as a mother, neither for my living children nor for my baby in heaven.  It frustrates me and makes me angry.  I know this primarily comes from a place of exhaustion.  I try to remember that so as not to get too discouraged.  However, for the moment, I just want to vent.  I need a place to complain, to cry about how unfair it all is, to moan and groan and let it all out so that I can purge it for a while, so that I can have a good cry, feel better, and go about the hard work of focusing on the positives and keeping the blessings at the forefront.  Please indulge me for a bit and forgive me for my bad attitude.  I promise not to stay here too long.

It's not fair!  IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!  So much love went into that baby!  So much time and effort, and we wanted her so badly!  And she's gone, and I can't do anything about it, I can't change it, I can't fix it, I can't stop it, I can't bring her back.  We planned for her, we wanted her, we prayed for her even before she was conceived. 

I weaned my first child for her.  I am still angry about that.  We were very comfortable and happy with our breastfeeding relationship.  Wanting to do everything to protect my pregnancy with Elena, I stopped nursing my first.  Yes, he could use a cup, and yes, he weaned quickly and was okay, but that aspect of our relationship stopped while we still were enjoying it, and for what?!?  She died anyway.  It's not fair!

I was so sick while pregnant with her.  I had terrible nausea, especially at the beginning.  So many people said that was a good sign of a healthy pregnancy.  Well, you know what, SHE DIED ANYWAY!!  I got a stomach bug or the flu or something while my husband was out of town, and I had to send my firstborn to stay with my mom because I was so sick I couldn't even take care of him.  I was absolutely miserable, and being pregnant, I couldn't take any medications that would help ease the symptoms a little.  And that was okay, because as long as I could protect her by not taking meds, I could suffer through it.  And for what?  She still died.  It's not fair!

I was exhausted during the first trimester.  I think most moms can relate.  So incredibly tired, I encouraged my first to start watching TV (he hadn't really shown too much interest before) so that I could just lie on the couch for a bit, maybe even sneak a little nap.  I did that too much, missed so much time with him, and she died anyway.

I had multiple checks when the complications began, several ultrasounds and appointments where everything looked fine.  My cervix was long and closed.  She was perfect and healthy, and my body just gave up on her and changed so rapidly, and things when downhill so fast.

I went to the hospital.  The nurse kept apologizing over and over.  My doctor and MFM encouraged me to stay positive.  I just wanted that nurse to shut up already.  My baby was alive inside of me, why did she keep saying how sorry she was?  I was so happy when her shift was over.  I was so hopeful for my unborn daughter's future.  I prayed, and I hoped, and I prayed some more.  I probably prayed more over the course of the next several days than I had prayed in my entire life.  I spent ten long nights in the hospital, away from my husband, away from my toddler son.  To this day, it's still the only time I've been away from him so long.  The hospital almost began to feel like home, and I was determined to live there the entire summer.  I didn't even make it to summer before she was born.  And then she died.

She died, and I was a wreck of a mother to my precious little boy.  I cried, and I poured him a bowl of cereal wet with tears.  My son lost his little sister.  He kept touching my stomach and asking for her for months.  He still talks about her, asking why she is in heaven.  He is 4 years old, and he talks of heaven and of death matter-of-factly over breakfast as if it is normal to have a dead sister.  It's not fair! 

And he also lost the mother he had always had, the one who did not have an intimate relationship with death, the one who had never cradled a dying child in her arms, the one who had never let go of her baby only to watch her be carried away in a Moses basket, covered by a blanket, taken by two polite strangers in black suits from a funeral home.  She went to a funeral home in a Moses basket, not to our home in a car seat, and I became a different person, and I am forever a bereaved mother now.  IT'S NOT FAIR!

There is a gap of three and a half years between my living children.  We wanted our children close in age.  We planned for that, we did everything "right" to ensure that would happen.  We wanted somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 years between each of them, and that is what it should have been, that is what it actually is if Elena is included, but no one sees her, no one "counts" her, and instead there is this enormous gap between them where she should be.  I can't help but see the gap and know she is missing.  No one else seems to notice the immensity of the gap.  They even comment about how perfect the spacing is.  It's NOT perfect - it is IMPOSSIBLY huge, there is an entire person in that space between them, but no one sees her.  It's not fair!

I know some people see my rainbow as her replacement.  That somehow he makes it better.  Even that we wouldn't have him if it were not for her death.  He is his own person, and I did not have him because she died.  He was in the plans from the beginning too!  He is not just a baby to fill empty arms or to mend a broken heart.  And one child can never replace another, even if that child would not exist had it not been for a sibling's death!  I don't understand how people can think like that!  It's not fair to anyone!

One week in Sunday School we were talking about our dreams and wishes for our children.  It was a smallish class and no one really volunteered to share out loud.  The leaders of the class (a couple I recognized by face but not by name, and I know they didn't know our story or at least didn't know that we were "that" couple whose baby died, and I know they meant no harm in their comments) tried to prod us along.  The wife said one of her prayers was that they would not outlive their children.  Then she went on (and on) about her work in a hospital and how most people take their children for granted and how we don't realize how lucky we are to have them here and healthy and how they are not guaranteed.  I wanted to yell at her to speak for herself, that we have already outlived one of ours, that was my prayer for my children too, and it remains my prayer for the ones we have left, but one of ours died, and I know from experience they are not guaranteed and I don't for a second take any of their breaths for granted.  Instead, I reminded myself that there was no malicious intent, and I fought back the tears and just stared down at my paper until Bible class hour was finished.  I wasn't supposed to outlive my child!  It's not the natural order of things.  I am supposed to go to heaven before my kids!  I just wanted to protect her and to give her a chance at life.  I would have given her my life and taken her death away from her if I could have.  It's not fair!

I hate when people ask if I am going to try again to get a girl.  I despised it when I was pregnant with my rainbow and people would ask, "Oh, you already have a boy, are you hoping for a girl this time?"  No, I am hoping for a LIVING baby, and I will treasure whatever baby God gives me!  And I already have a girl!  (I don't scream this, of course, and I know people don't mean to offend, but on the inside my heart is screaming and breaking all over again.)  I do DESPERATELY want a girl- her name is Elena and she was here but she's gone now.  It's not fair!

IT'S ALL SO HORRIBLY UNFAIR!!!!!

I stare at the computer screen through a veil of tears.  No, it's not fair.  No one said it would be.  And honestly, as a Christian, I am thankful that God is not fair...because I know I don't deserve his love or his forgiveness.  And I know that He still loves me and forgives me even when I rant and rage, even when I question his plans and complain about them.  I would much rather have His mercy and His grace than justice and "fairness," any day.  I miss my daughter, I am sick with heartbreak over her absence, but I will continue to rejoice in the promise that I will see her again.  To that reassurance I cling.  "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21

a July afternoon

The days keep ticking along.  I don't blog enough.  It's not that I'm not thinking of her.  I am always thinking of her, as constant as my heart beats...all of my children are in every breath.  I feel as if I have nothing remarkable to write, nothing worthy of saying...except that I love her.  I hope she knows.