One Month

Dear Maddie,

We lost you one month ago this morning. We miss you so much and wish with all our hearts that you were here. My arms have ached for you today, and I’ve felt hollow inside in the space where you should be. I still don’t quite know how to go on without you. I remember feeling you kick, seeing your little face on the ultrasound, and hearing your heart beat filling up the exam room. I still think sometimes that I feel you moving around in there. Remember the day I wore a very loose dress? I thought you’d invited friends over! Now, one month later, the stillness inside me is suffocating. I miss you every second of every day.

Have you found your brother wherever you are? I try to have faith that the two of you are safe and happy. Can you see me? I worry sometimes that you feel grief just as I do. Is there a way that you can see me and not feel sad? I really hope you can. The selfish part of me wants to know for certain that you and Andy are together watching me and all of us who still love you so much. The protector in me knows that, if seeing me makes you sad, I’d rather you be completely oblivious. Actually, I’d rather you were here. Both of you. My beautiful children, people tell me I just have to have faith that you are safe. What those people think I can place my faith in is beyond me, though.

My sweet baby, I wish I could feel you still. I wish I had more than just a sense of your presence. I wish so, so much that you were tucked safely inside of me again, waiting for that day when you would make your appearance. We were looking forward to hearing your cries, feeling those warm little fingers, and watching you grow. Now, all we can do is look at the box that holds your ashes and dream about who you could have been. Please be well and happy wherever you are.

All my love,

Mommy

Thank You

To Heather and everyone who came by from the group. I’m sorry I stopped answering individual comments– please don’t be offended by that. At the moment, I’m a bit too overwhelmed to stay awake for long. As all of you know, sleep, when you can get it, is merciful at this time. Please know that you are all greatly appreciated. I’ll be in touch.

Lightning Strikes

At 3:17 AM yesterday (Dec. 27), my beautiful daughter was stillborn. For the week before that, I had been experiencing severe cramps and minor bleeding. Nothing showed up on ultrasounds, though, so the OB decided we should just monitor it carefully. The cramps were really bad on Christmas day, so much so that I dragged my best friend from his family’s holiday get-together earlier than planned. Late in the evening of the 26th, I started developing what felt like contractions and bleeding heavily. I went to the emergency room, where they found a placental abruption. They induced labor at 12:30 AM on the 27th, and Maddie was born almost three hours later. Tomorrow, I will be going to pick out an urn for her. I should be picking out a cradle. We’re trying to decide on an appropriate memorial service, but for now, my head is spinning too much to think about anything other than the fact that both of my children are now gone.

Unexpectedly Expected

I woke up in tears this morning. I don’t mean sad– I literally woke up with tears running down my face and no idea how they got there. I don’t recall dreaming anything about my son, his father, or the accident, but my heart knows they were in my mind last night. Now, I can’t shake the sadness. A dear friend told me I carry my sadness with me everywhere I go, and he is absolutely right. Days like today, it overwhelms me.

All day, I’ve wondered about this sadness. It isn’t the gentle, constant sort. It’s the piercing, new-grief sort that happens less frequently these days. It literally feels like a whole in the center of me, slowly eating its way through my soul. I’ve called this post unexpectedly expected because the realization soon hit that I am pregnant with a child who I could also lose.

My daughter is already so loved by so many people, and she will have the absolute best I can give to her. She is growing in the safe and warm environment my body gives to her at the moment, and I will do everything possible to keep her just as safe outside. Still, in the back of my mind (and sometimes the front) I know how deeply aware I am that mothers cannot protect their children completely. I know that there is nothing I could have done to stop the car from slamming into that cold concrete barrier. I know there is nothing I could have done to protect Andy from the crash or heal him after it happened. Will I be able to protect my daughter? Will horrible things like that happen to her, as well? My fear has been rising to near panic level, and I have no idea how to lessen it. There are no words, no true promise that my daughter will grow old. I have to take it on faith that she will live a long and happy life, far longer than mine, but how do you do that when your faith has been shattered irreparably?

Today, I feel inconsolably sad and terrified for my daughter. I know how cruel the world can be.

A Child Remembered

Four years ago tomorrow, my son was taken from me. As I sit here tonight typing out these horrible words, I still feel like breaking in two. My son is gone. I can’t escape that. That’s why I’m terrified for the little child who is trusting me to give him or her a safe place to grow over the next seven months. After another week of nausea and moodiness, I took two more pregnancy tests, both of which were positive. Now, as I type out a remembrance for Andy, I’m sending out my love to the precious little one inside of me, as well.

Andy would have loved a sibling, I’m sure, even if he wouldn’t have admitted it. He always was a popular kid, and he had a way of making people smile. Even now, his pictures make people smile. I’m not sure how I’ll get through the day tomorrow. I just know that I will. It’s no longer about me. I have to keep going for the new little one who I am so eager to meet. Every step of this journey, though, is reminding me of Andy. I can’t wait to feel Little Person, as we’ve termed him or her, fluttering around, but I’ll remember the first time I felt Andy moving. On Friday, I heard my baby’s heart beat for the very first time, and I could hear the beat of another heart at another time echoing through that exam room. I’ll never know how my son would have reacted to his new little sibling. I’ll never get to watch the two of them playing or hear them laughing together. I’ll never see Andy, who would be thirteen years older than his brother, rolling his eyes and wanting that baby, as he would no doubt call him, to stop bothering him and his friends. They would consider themselves grown by now.

Tomorrow, I’ll remember my dear son and will allow myself to break down long enough to build back up. When Little Person gets old enough, I will take him or her aside and tell the story of Andy’s precious life, trying to share how special he was and keep him a part of the new little family that is forming.

Blue Lines

Over this past week, I realized there was a slight possibility that I was pregnant again. One of the classes I’m taking this semester has a dissection component. Normally, I’m perfectly fine with blood and guts and ooze. In fact, the three others in my group had been a bit hesitant at first, so I was the one who jumped right in with gloves to the elbow. Wednesday, though, I couldn’t stand to *look* at our specimen. When one of my group mates started defining a muscle, I started absolutely gagging. My professor told me to go throw up in the other room. Jokingly, someone asked if I was pregnant. I laughed, opened my mouth to say no, felt another lurch in my stomach, and had to answer with an “I don’t know.”

Last night, I took a pregnancy test, and it came back negative. Now is absolutely not the right time for me to have a child. I’m in school, my housing isn’t quite steady, and I’m starting clinical classes next semester. I’ve said over and over again that I do not want another child. When that test came back negative, though, I felt a little down. I think we women feel an immediate attachment to a child, even if pregnancy is only a possibility. Negative was, as my best friend said, the best option. Still, I guess the thought of having another child in my life isn’t so scary afterall.