Counting down the days

/ ktpayn / Leave a comment

I’m now 31 weeks and 5 days pregnant with our rainbow.  Both my DH and I have said that if there were any way he could be born healthy without any complications right now, we would go for it.  I initially thought that the further along I got in this pregnancy, the more reassured I would feel – that he is strong, growing well, moving lots, and big enough to have pretty good chances of survival if I were to go into premature labour.  But instead, it’s been just the opposite.  I’m constantly waiting for something to happen.  Something with no warning signs, and so sudden that by the time I realize anything’s wrong, it will be too late for this baby too.  Terrified doesn’t even begin to describe what I’ve been feeling lately. The fear is with me every moment of every day, and the knowledge that there is nothing more I can do (beyond the kick counts, heart monitoring, and healthy lifestyle that I already do each day) to ensure this baby’s safe arrival leaves me feeling more and more incompetent as a parent each day.  The exhaustion of growing a big, healthy baby is only being compounded by the stress and anxiety, and most days sleep seems to be the only escape from it all.

My only option for now is to anxiously wait out the next few weeks until his arrival.

Wishing for a take-home baby

/ ktpayn / 1 Comment

I’m 21 weeks pregnant with our rainbow, another little boy.  It’s incredibly hopeful and terrifying all at once.  Every day I wonder if he’s okay.  Every day I wonder if he will still be alive tomorrow.

My doctor told me that there’s nothing they can do until 30 weeks into the pregnancy, but I know this isn’t true.  Rationally, I know that I can’t prevent something bad happening.  Rationally, I know that they can’t treat a lot of conditions in utero, and if something were found, it would still be a waiting game to balance the risks of an early delivery versus the risks of whatever complication was found.  In my heart, I feel that with ultrasounds and non-stress tests, we should be able to at least detect if something is wrong.  The problem is, the ultrasounds only tell you how they have developed up until that point, they don’t predict future problems.  And because of that, I would like one every week to catch any complications before they are fatal if possible.  I don’t want to find out there’s a problem after its too late again.  There is too much technology available to accept that as a reasonable answer.  I can’t accept that we don’t have the funding/resources available to save a baby before it is born, but we have entire hospital units to save babies born alive with complications.

I feel like I have an uphill battle for the next 4 months against the huge, powerful institution of medicine, and its exhausting to even think about it.  I just want to put my energy into growing a healthy baby, not worrying about getting the medical attention that my baby and I want and need.

Shadows

/ ktpayn / Leave a comment

There are shadows walking amongst us
Shadows of women
Who hold onto shadows of babies
Who never knew the light of day

The shadows haunt them
Until they become shadows themselves
Of the women they once were
Holding onto their shadows of hope

A little while

/ ktpayn / Leave a comment
For just a little while,
You shared my every breath.
I carried you inside of me,
Dancing out the rhythm
Of the same sweet song,
Our hearts beat in harmony.
For just a little while,
I held you deep within.
I nurtured you with body, mind and soul.
 
 
When you slipped away,
The absence of your presence
Took a wrenching and tormenting toll.
For just a little while,
Our dreams and hopes
Grew right along with you.
But they came crashing down
When you slipped away from me
And there was nothing anyone could do.
 
 
If, for a little while,
I could hold you once again,
And we could share the
rhythm of our hearts,
If we could say hello, good-bye,
Like loved ones do,
When one of them departs,
If, for a little while,
We could have precious moments
Stopped in time
I’d tell you that I love you,
And I’d share my joy
In knowing you were mine…
For just a little while.
 
 
~ Gwen Flowers ~

Just Breathe

/ ktpayn / Leave a comment
Sending a balloon up to my sweet boy.

Sending a balloon up to my sweet boy.

Live this moment,
It’s gone too fast,
The present is a gift,
The past has passed.

Just breathe.

Let the light in,
To fill the void in your heart,
Time does heal,
At least it’s a start.

Just breathe.

One little step,
Ahead of the last,
Each moving forward,
So slow, yet too fast.

Just breathe.

The spaces between,
Each blink of an eye,
Are the times I want,
You by my side.

Just breathe.

The life I knew,
Before tragedy struck,
Has disappeared,
I’ve run out of luck.

Just breathe.

I close my eyes,
Aching for sleep,
But even the sweetest of dreams,
Offer no relief.

Just breathe.

Poem & Photo by Kate P.

Grieving the past, the present, and the future

/ ktpayn / Leave a comment

Every day without Gabe I think things will get better, easier.  Every day I hope that the pain will be less (then feel guilty for wishing away the pain, because that is what reminds me that he was here at all). Every day things don’t get easier.  There is simply more of his life that has been lost with each passing day. There are more memories of him I will never have, more things he will never do.  He will never breastfeed or be weaned.  He will never learn to roll over, crawl, walk, run or jump.  He will never tell me baby-babble stories that turn into words, then phrases, then become non-stop.  I will never have to worry about him climbing trees or playing sports. He will never unwrap a Christmas present or put on a Halloween costume. And even besides these big moments, are the thousand little moments every day that will never happen – every little smile or cry, every dirty diaper I don’t get to change.  The longer he is gone, the more of his life I have missed.

So many days it feels like this should all be a bad dream, like my baby is just somewhere else, not really dead but just missing at the moment.  I wish that were the truth.  It feels like every day, there are a hundred little moments lost, a hundred little moments to grieve for. How could this grief possibly end, when the what-should-have-been’s never will?

The last time holding my sweet boy.

The last time holding my sweet boy.

The difference between grief and depression

/ ktpayn / Leave a comment

The thing about grief, is that there is no end in sight.  Depression is something that seems treatable, maybe even curable, it is temporary and eventually passes. With grief, there is no treatment.  While there is an identifiable cause, it feels more similar to losing a limb – it’s easy to see that it’s gone, and know what caused it’s loss, but there is no way to get the limb back.  You are changed forever – you just have to learn to live with the loss, make adjustments, and change how you go about day-to-day life.

Losing Gabe, a piece of me will forever be missing.  Even today, more than seven months after his death, I had a classmate ask me how my baby was.  I don’t know whose face showed more shock and sadness – mine when she asked, or hers after I told her “he died.” I don’t like making people feel pity, or uncomfortable, or regret.  I would just like people to give me as much compassion to match the amount of pain I feel.  I feel so many days like I just need room to breathe, that I just want to be left alone.

With depression, I was able to tell friends and teachers that I was “doing better” or that I was getting the treatment I needed.  With grief, there is no treatment.  There is support to help you through the rough parts of each day, but there is no end, no closure, no sense that “it will all be ok.”  It is forever not going to be ok.  I just have to figure out how to carry on being a supposedly responsible adult, while simultaneously not caring if things get done or not, and not wanting to talk to anyone or be around people.  I know that I can’t make people understand how incredibly hard it is to grieve your child, the only way to understand is to have lost a child.  And yet I just want time to be forgiven all the things I can’t bring myself to do. It’s funny that time, which doesn’t cost anything and is easy to give, is such a desired commodity that people are reluctant to be generous with it.

For the past ten years, I feel like I’ve constantly been making “excuses” – that there’s always been something in my way – depression, the house, a flood, depression again, another flood, being pregnant, losing Gabe.  For the past ten years, there has always been something.  I just want an uncomplicated life for a little while.  Somehow, I feel like for the rest of my life, there will always be something in my way, and I’m just going to have to learn to push through it.  Usually, I do push through it.  I don’t make an issue of the “stuff” going on unless absolutely necessary.  Gabe’s death just feels different, insurmountable, as if there is no way around it, and going through it makes it impossible to accomplish anything else.

Autumn

/ ktpayn / Leave a comment

fall dandelion

Another season of change is here.  The air is cooler, the leaves are turning shades of amber and red, and the first hints of snow have arrived.

Autumn brings other hints of things to come: Thanksgiving, Hallowe’en, Christmas.  Times that I usually anticipate and enjoy.  This year they take on a different meaning.  This year will be what should have been Gabe’s first Thanksgiving, his first bites of pumpkin pie, his first time dressing up for Hallowe’en, his first glimpse of a christmas tree and his first time ripping paper off of presents.  Instead, I try to tell myself that he was alive for all these things last year, but experienced them while inside my tummy.  It doesn’t make up for the fact that he will never get to do these things himself, but it helps a little.

I know others have their own reasons to dread this season and all of the things their loved ones will miss out on, but it seems especially unfair that we don’t even have memories of Gabe enjoying these occasions.  He simply never lived.  He never breathed, never smiled, never laughed, never opened his eyes.  It’s hard to imagine him doing any of the holiday activities, because we barely got to see him, didn’t get to know him before we had to say goodbye.  I can remember my grandfather in the kitchen on Christmas morning,  and it makes me smile remembering the time spent with him.  But with Gabe, there’s only sadness, and so much heartbreak that he will never be physically with us on these special days.  He is gone forever, before he was even really here.

I long so much to feel his kicks again, to know that he is safe and healthy.  But it’s hard to accept that he’s really gone.  He lives in my thoughts every day.

Lost and Found

/ ktpayn / Leave a comment
Still holding on to the excitement of his impending arrival.

Still holding on to the excitement of his impending arrival.

There’s been such a strong desire in my heart lately to move forward with my life.  It’s a bittersweet feeling – wanting to keep living my life and think of a future, but not wanting to leave Gabe behind, still wishing he was here and all the hurt and sorrow was just a bad dream.  In many ways its still true that I feel like most days I awake from sleeping into my nightmare, rather than waking up from a nightmare.  I just can’t stand living so full of pain and sadness, it consumes every thought, every action, and every moment of my day.  However, I know that if Gabe were alive, his needs would fill every thought, every action, and every moment with joy.  Somehow I’m still hanging on to that hope of my baby healthy in my arms, even though I know he’s gone.

It’s been an emotional rollercoaster even trying to think about TTC again.  Since I have PCOS, I’ve had to start taking medication to get my cycles back on track.  I don’t know if we even could get pregnant right now, let alone considering if we are emotionally ready.  I know that I’m never really going to be fully ready, but I just can’t shake the feeling of not just wanting, but needing a healthy baby in my arms.  Right now, all of the risks are outweighed by the fact that my arms are hopelessly empty, and will remain that way unless we start moving forward.

The first big step for us will be burying Gabe’s ashes.  I’m still trying to think of ways that my husband and I can honor the little life we created, while keeping things simple.

I wish I was able to move forward without looking back so often. The pain just cuts so deep.

So many days I feel like when Gabe was stillborn, it left a permanent physical mark on me.  While the stretch marks are literally there to prove his existence, there is something more subtle at play.  People don’t act the same anymore.  People don’t know what to say, so we sit in silence.  People either don’t look me in the face, or stare as if I am disfigured.  I wear my pain and sorrow like a shroud, always there, separating me from the rest of the world.  I am a mother, and feel jealousy, anger, sadness, and yet still joy around other people’s children.  Their laughs and playing are so carefree, and I am envious of the bonds that parents share with their children.   Friends without kids have the same carefree stories that I did, back before Gabe was born.  I could go out and just re-join in the company of friends that have no kids, but I am stuck in my own little world of being a mother to a dead baby.  It’s been 5 months and one day now.  He would be laughing, playing, rolling over, maybe even starting to wiggle around a bit more, as he worked towards crawling.  Every child I see represents what we came so close to having.  Every child is a comparison to what Gabe should be doing – how old are they?  Do they have siblings?  Are they also never-sit-still always on-the-go types of kids?  Who would Gabe’s friends have been?  Who would my friends have been?  You meet a lot of new people when you’re pregnant, and you meet a lot of people when you have a baby, and everyone is so happy and excited about the little people they are proud to be parents of.  But what happens when you are the mom of a dead baby?  I am still a mother, but I don’t fit in with the “mommy group”.  I’m still young and don’t have many things tying me down right now, but with the weight of Gabe’s birth to constantly burden under, I don’t fit in with the carefree no-kids-yet crowd.  I’m just as much without a place in this world as Gabe is.   How do I share his story and move on with his memory when this part of my past cannot physically be a part of my present or future?  I’ve lost my sense of grounding and place in the world.

 

Hidden In the Darkness

In my own little world.

/ ktpayn / 1 Comment