It's Halloween. Tonight we will take Gus trick or treating in his little dragon costume. He has been practicing his roars. I am so excited for him, and a little nervous for myself; it's a first for both of us.
I wonder how Nina-Lou would have wanted to dress up? Would she have preferred a wild animal, or maybe some pink and purple princess monstrosity? Would I have still been able to cajole her into wearing something that I think is cool? Would she be fiercely asserting her independence, like her little brother does already at one and a half?
I know that chances are, if she had lived, I would not know Gus. But, when I fantasize about her living, I imagine them both here. He would love to have a big sister. He stares at bigger kids on the playground, standing awkwardly close, mouth agape. Turner and I chuckle and shake our heads. What a sweet, curious little weirdo.
Winter is approaching, and I miss her so much. In two months it will be her 3rd birthday, but she was never truly born, and I will not know how to celebrate it. Maybe having Gus here will make it easier in a way. Putting the story of his older sister into some sort of context remains a challenge, so my approach is to keep it simple: we had another baby, but she died, and we miss her.
The truth is that none of us really know her. I feel her soul, her essence, on a deep, visceral level, but she never got to really BE in the world, so it's really more of a sensation, a fleeting memory. Like a smell that takes you back somewhere you can't quite remember, but it's so familiar and real. I have moments when I can hold onto that sensation for a bit, and I try to sit with it when I can, protect it and savor it. But there is also the trauma of her birth, and deep sadness. The joy of remembering her will always be coupled with the suffering of grief.
Sometimes I still catch myself wishing so hard that things were different. It's more than a wish, but that's the best word I can come up with for it. It's this deep yearning, mixed with anger and frustration and an almost maddening feeling of desperation. What the fuck? How did this happen to us? The early days after she died are a blur to me, but I do remember one of the first times I was alone after it happened. I came home, walked up my apartment stairs, and for about 5 minutes I utterly lost my mind. I let the grief really take hold, and it was unbearable. I wailed. I pulled out my hair. I truly wanted to die.
It is so wrong that she's gone. I will never be able to reconcile her absence and our permanently broken family with any sort of meaning. I acknowledge that we have found happiness despite it, but I really don't want to be a better person for it, or learn from it, or try to derive any sort of greeting-card-inspired, platitude-of-the-day bullshit from it. It simply remains the greatest tragedy of my life. I miss my daughter, and I don't care to make it palatable or romantic for anyone anymore.
Where are you, Nina-Lou? I feel your quiet eyes and your delicate hands out there somewhere. Deep inside of me, and everywhere, and nowhere.
Today I am truly happy to be on this earth, grateful for my living family, excited to build new traditions, and hold my son, and kiss my husband, and underneath it all I will miss my daughter and know that there is no fixing the pain of losing her.
My heart is broken and yet so full.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Monday, December 21, 2015
Christmastime, again.
It's Christmastime again.
I find myself one moment so excited for Gus's first Christmas, excited to see my family, to sit back and have a boozy drink and watch my little boy crawl wildly around my mom's living room... and the next minute I'm reeling with disbelief that I have a living son and a dead daughter, that almost two years ago I actually lived through the horror of Nina-Lou's death and birth. That I have a beautiful dress for a two year old packed away in a box, which I can't bear to give away. That at one time I was pregnant with her, and I was such a different person. I miss her and I miss that old me. I like the new me, too, and I like my life as her mom and Gus's mom. Both of my kids have given my life a certain richness for which I'm indescribably grateful. But I wish they were both here. It feels so good to get to take care of Gus, to watch him grow. I want to hug and kiss Nina-Lou so bad sometimes that my guts just ache.
This Christmas may be the last one I spend with my dad. He is nearing the end of his life; he knows it and so do all the rest of us. My dad is the coolest, smartest, most exceptional person I have ever met, and it's not just me that thinks so. He makes an impression on everyone he meets. He's an incredible guy, and I'm so lucky to have been raised by him. He's still here, but he doesn't go out much anymore, he doesn't get dressed every day, and he spends a lot of time sleeping. He knows he's at the end, and he's made it clear that he is just so grateful for family and the bond that we all share. He just wants to spend these moments with us. It feels so good to be loved like that by my dad, and to love him back.
This year, I feel about how I expected and hoped I would feel two years after our loss. I am still aching for my daughter, but I have found happiness in this life without her. I had heard that the pain never goes away, that it only gets easier to bear, and I understand that a little better now. I still cry about her, and I still think about her every day. Two years is a long time, and two years is nothing. I have no idea how I'll feel 5 years, 10 years, 30 years from now. Right now, these pangs of sorrow are rather precious, and to feel them is a luxury.
Love, and melancholy, and joy, and grief, and laughter, and tears, and emptiness, and fullness. I am awash in a sea of it. There is new life and old life and lost life churning and swirling all around, and part of me wants desperately to try and grab it and hold it and sort it out and feel it all. But I know that I just have to kind of sit with it, and let it wash over and around me and everyone else, like it is wont to do.
I find myself one moment so excited for Gus's first Christmas, excited to see my family, to sit back and have a boozy drink and watch my little boy crawl wildly around my mom's living room... and the next minute I'm reeling with disbelief that I have a living son and a dead daughter, that almost two years ago I actually lived through the horror of Nina-Lou's death and birth. That I have a beautiful dress for a two year old packed away in a box, which I can't bear to give away. That at one time I was pregnant with her, and I was such a different person. I miss her and I miss that old me. I like the new me, too, and I like my life as her mom and Gus's mom. Both of my kids have given my life a certain richness for which I'm indescribably grateful. But I wish they were both here. It feels so good to get to take care of Gus, to watch him grow. I want to hug and kiss Nina-Lou so bad sometimes that my guts just ache.
This Christmas may be the last one I spend with my dad. He is nearing the end of his life; he knows it and so do all the rest of us. My dad is the coolest, smartest, most exceptional person I have ever met, and it's not just me that thinks so. He makes an impression on everyone he meets. He's an incredible guy, and I'm so lucky to have been raised by him. He's still here, but he doesn't go out much anymore, he doesn't get dressed every day, and he spends a lot of time sleeping. He knows he's at the end, and he's made it clear that he is just so grateful for family and the bond that we all share. He just wants to spend these moments with us. It feels so good to be loved like that by my dad, and to love him back.
This year, I feel about how I expected and hoped I would feel two years after our loss. I am still aching for my daughter, but I have found happiness in this life without her. I had heard that the pain never goes away, that it only gets easier to bear, and I understand that a little better now. I still cry about her, and I still think about her every day. Two years is a long time, and two years is nothing. I have no idea how I'll feel 5 years, 10 years, 30 years from now. Right now, these pangs of sorrow are rather precious, and to feel them is a luxury.
Love, and melancholy, and joy, and grief, and laughter, and tears, and emptiness, and fullness. I am awash in a sea of it. There is new life and old life and lost life churning and swirling all around, and part of me wants desperately to try and grab it and hold it and sort it out and feel it all. But I know that I just have to kind of sit with it, and let it wash over and around me and everyone else, like it is wont to do.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Gus
Around this time last year, I found out that I was pregnant. The morning I found out, I called in sick for my clinic shift and went back to bed, filled with a great and overwhelming fear. I expected the bleeding to start any moment, and I dreaded the look in Turner's eyes when I would have to tell him it was over. I didn't know how I would handle another loss, yet I knew that the worst could happen, and that the greatest tragedy of experiencing unimaginable pain is the reality that one just continues to live through it. The thought of doing so again made me sick. I didn't feel brave. I didn't feel strong. I felt small, and weak, and weary.
But the baby stuck. And stuck. And stuck.
We found out very early that he was a boy. We were shocked, although somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I knew. I had two dreams about boys, one before I knew I was pregnant, and one after. It made sense. It was who he was. We chose his name the day we found out he was a he: Augusto John-Francis. Baby Gus.
I felt him move pretty early into the second trimester. My doctors coddled me and watched me and the baby very closely. From time to time, I would see my own fear reflected back in their eyes, which honestly reassured me somewhat. They knew it could happen again, and they didn't want to live through it either. But his little heart kept beating, and he kept on growing, kicking into the mattress as I lay in bed, twisting and sliding around, contorting my belly into alien-like shapes.
My doctors gave us the option of inducing at the same point in my pregnancy at which I had delivered Nina-Lou, and after a lot of discussion and worry, we decided to take them up on it. On Feb 10th, at 37.5 weeks pregnant, we packed a hospital bag and walked through the same doors we had entered while I was in labor with Nina-Lou.
They started my induction slowly, but once labor started, it progressed pretty quickly. After about 9 hours of hard contractions, asking for an epidural and then changing my mind, and then asking for one again, my midwife checked me and told me I was at 9 centimeters. Then I felt my water break, and I felt his head drop, and I knew it was time to push him out. I laid on my side and yelled, "I have to push!"
And the midwife said, "So, push."
After about 5 contractions, I pushed as hard as I could, and I felt him come out (ow, ow, ow), and I heard the funniest little squawk. I remember everyone around me bursting into tears, and expecting to cry myself, but all I could do was laugh. They plopped him on my chest, and he was so sticky, and warm, and squirmy, and CUTE. My god. What an incredible feeling, to look at his face and feel his warm skin on mine. Turner and I just looked and looked and looked at him. There he was. He was alive.
"Hi, baby," I said.
He's 4 months old now, and it's strange, but it feels like he's always been here. The happiness and satisfaction I feel when I spend time with him is something I can't quite describe. It is so fulfilling to be his mom.
He is funny. He is gentle. He is joyful. He is wild. He loves to dance, to bounce, to watch other people move. He loves to hear all different kinds of music. He is experimenting with his voice, and he moans, and yells, and squeals. I recently heard him laugh for the first time, and aside from that squawk he made when he first busted outta me, it was the raddest sound I've ever heard. He sometimes looks like me and sometimes like Turner, depending on his expression. He is a voracious eater. He surveys the world with calm, curious eyes. He grabs toys with is fat little hands and shoves them into his mouth. He sleeps on his back with his arms and legs splayed out wide. If we do something he finds particularly amusing, he lifts his shoulders up to his ears, crinkles his nose and squints his eyes, open-mouth-smiles and wiggles his body around. We call it the happy dance.
Parenting is a challenge. There is a lot of worry. Is he nursing enough? Is he meeting his developmental milestones? Is he napping enough? Should he be sleeping through the night yet? The questions go on and on, and each phase comes and goes quicker than we can acclimate to it. But, man, it is awesome. It's even more awesome than I could have imagined. Even when I'm steeped in worry, sleep deprived, barely fitting into my jeans, covered in spit up (sooooo much spit up), with a baby attached to my boob and my phone just out of reach, I can say with utmost certainty that this is the best thing that I've ever done. The absolute best.
I love him. He is such an incredible tiny little person. He's going to grow up and have likes, flaws, desires, loves, triumphs, mistakes, and tragedies of his own. And through all of it, I get to be his mama.
I'm so lucky. I'm so grateful. I'm so happy he's here.
But the baby stuck. And stuck. And stuck.
We found out very early that he was a boy. We were shocked, although somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I knew. I had two dreams about boys, one before I knew I was pregnant, and one after. It made sense. It was who he was. We chose his name the day we found out he was a he: Augusto John-Francis. Baby Gus.
I felt him move pretty early into the second trimester. My doctors coddled me and watched me and the baby very closely. From time to time, I would see my own fear reflected back in their eyes, which honestly reassured me somewhat. They knew it could happen again, and they didn't want to live through it either. But his little heart kept beating, and he kept on growing, kicking into the mattress as I lay in bed, twisting and sliding around, contorting my belly into alien-like shapes.
My doctors gave us the option of inducing at the same point in my pregnancy at which I had delivered Nina-Lou, and after a lot of discussion and worry, we decided to take them up on it. On Feb 10th, at 37.5 weeks pregnant, we packed a hospital bag and walked through the same doors we had entered while I was in labor with Nina-Lou.
They started my induction slowly, but once labor started, it progressed pretty quickly. After about 9 hours of hard contractions, asking for an epidural and then changing my mind, and then asking for one again, my midwife checked me and told me I was at 9 centimeters. Then I felt my water break, and I felt his head drop, and I knew it was time to push him out. I laid on my side and yelled, "I have to push!"
And the midwife said, "So, push."
After about 5 contractions, I pushed as hard as I could, and I felt him come out (ow, ow, ow), and I heard the funniest little squawk. I remember everyone around me bursting into tears, and expecting to cry myself, but all I could do was laugh. They plopped him on my chest, and he was so sticky, and warm, and squirmy, and CUTE. My god. What an incredible feeling, to look at his face and feel his warm skin on mine. Turner and I just looked and looked and looked at him. There he was. He was alive.
"Hi, baby," I said.
 |
| Baby Gus at 1 week old |
He is funny. He is gentle. He is joyful. He is wild. He loves to dance, to bounce, to watch other people move. He loves to hear all different kinds of music. He is experimenting with his voice, and he moans, and yells, and squeals. I recently heard him laugh for the first time, and aside from that squawk he made when he first busted outta me, it was the raddest sound I've ever heard. He sometimes looks like me and sometimes like Turner, depending on his expression. He is a voracious eater. He surveys the world with calm, curious eyes. He grabs toys with is fat little hands and shoves them into his mouth. He sleeps on his back with his arms and legs splayed out wide. If we do something he finds particularly amusing, he lifts his shoulders up to his ears, crinkles his nose and squints his eyes, open-mouth-smiles and wiggles his body around. We call it the happy dance.
 |
| The Happy Dance |
I love him. He is such an incredible tiny little person. He's going to grow up and have likes, flaws, desires, loves, triumphs, mistakes, and tragedies of his own. And through all of it, I get to be his mama.
I'm so lucky. I'm so grateful. I'm so happy he's here.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
The 29th
Today is the 29th. Nina-Lou would have been 16 months old. The 29th of the month sometimes passes me by unnoticed. Sometimes it feels heavy and lonesome. Sometimes I am struck by her absence and presence in our lives and I am able to think about her without tears; feel grateful for the gift of love she gave to me and her dad. Today I am busy, and I have many distractions, but my heart aches for her.
A lot has changed since I last wrote. The biggest change is that somehow, miraculously, I became pregnant with and carried to term a beautiful baby boy. His name is Gus and I am in awe of him. As soon as he was born, warm and squawking and sticky and ALIVE, a switch flipped, and suddenly I was a mom to a living baby.
Mothering a live baby is significantly different from mothering a dead one.
I do struggle with this concept of being a mom to both a live and dead baby. It's complicated. I always get asked if Gus is my first, and usually the people asking this are well meaning and kind, and I will never see them again, so I answer yes. And then I say a secret sorry to my baby girl, the invisible one who exists only as a story. I don't worry anymore about burdening people with my tragedy, or even the awkward exchange that is inevitable when I choose to share it, but sometimes I'm just tired and I don't have the time or the energy to help someone wrap their brain around the idea that babies die.
I am overjoyed at the notion that Gus gets to grow up and be his own person. That someday he will be a MAN out there in the world. At the same time, it devastates me over and over again that Nina-Lou will always be that little baby whose body I held for a few fleeting moments. The only world she ever knew was inside me. She never got to nurse, to smile, to bat at toys, to cry and bury her face in my shoulder...
I sobbed in the delivery room when they prepared the little warming tray for Gus. They didn't do it for Nina-Lou. There was no point. She was dead.
I could go down the path of thinking about how, if she had been born alive, there is no way we would have tried for another baby 5 months later, and so in that universe, there is no Gus. I can't fathom a world without Gus any more than I was able to fathom a world without Nina-Lou. But a world with a live baby boy and a dead baby girl is the reality in which we find ourselves. I try not to think about what should have and would have been. It all just is. I want both my babies, and I don't care that such a thing is impossible.
Gus is falling asleep in his little swing right now. Occasionally he grimaces or smiles in his sleep. Chirps and coos to himself. He is incredible. Being his mom and watching him grow is such a joy.
Sometimes, when I catch myself amongst other parents of living children, talking about strollers or pediatrician appointments, I see how I have crossed over to the other side. It sometimes makes me feel like a bit of a traitor to my former self. The mother to a dead daughter, pregnant and filled with fear, resentful of these carefree moms whose daily worries were sleep schedules and the color of their baby's poo. Back then I felt alone, on an island. So cut off and different from everyone else. I cried in bathrooms. I drove home through tears. No one understood me. It was dark in that place, and all the things I did to try and bring light into my life were helpful, and lifted the mood, but that loneliness was intense. I have never felt so isolated.
And as much as I hate to admit it, Gus's birth changed a lot of that. I love parenting him. It's an indescribable feeling, loving him and caring for him. Nursing him and watching him get fat. Singing him the songs my parents sang to me and watching him smile. I had told myself that if he didn't make it, that I was done trying. I couldn't keep going through the heartbreak of losing babies, and I knew I would learn to accept my life as a babylost mom with no living children. I would have to accept that I was different from others but that was ok. I'm sure I would have figured it out. It would have been so hard, but I would have survived and I would not have had to live in the dark forever. But Gus brings so much light into my life. There is a lot of healing in being a mom to him. I still think of and grieve Nina-Lou every day, but that grief feels a little more simple now. It's no longer wrapped up with the grief of getting to mother a baby at all. It's just for her.
This isn't to say that I feel completely changed. I will always be different from most other moms. Like Turner said, a long time ago, "No matter what, we'll always be the people whose baby died."
There is no silver lining to losing a baby. There are many ways in which losing Nina-Lou has made me a better person, but there are many other ways in which her death changed me for the worse. I am far more fragile. My body, after back to back pregnancies, is pretty wrecked. My heart, in some way, will always be broken. But I am brave, and resilient, and my heart is capable of infinite love. I say this not to brag, but because I know it to be true.
Sometimes, when I see a little girl in pigtails, or when I look upon her ashes on the mantel, or when the 29th rolls around, I feel my heart open up, and and I go to that special, sacred place inside me that is only for missing her.
My sweet girl. No matter what joy or pain the rest of our lives may bring, you will always be gone when you should be here. Our love for you will always be wrapped up in our grief. We cannot feel your presence without also feeling your absence.
We will love you and mourn you and remember you and hold your absence/presence so close and so dear. Always, always, always.
A lot has changed since I last wrote. The biggest change is that somehow, miraculously, I became pregnant with and carried to term a beautiful baby boy. His name is Gus and I am in awe of him. As soon as he was born, warm and squawking and sticky and ALIVE, a switch flipped, and suddenly I was a mom to a living baby.
Mothering a live baby is significantly different from mothering a dead one.
I do struggle with this concept of being a mom to both a live and dead baby. It's complicated. I always get asked if Gus is my first, and usually the people asking this are well meaning and kind, and I will never see them again, so I answer yes. And then I say a secret sorry to my baby girl, the invisible one who exists only as a story. I don't worry anymore about burdening people with my tragedy, or even the awkward exchange that is inevitable when I choose to share it, but sometimes I'm just tired and I don't have the time or the energy to help someone wrap their brain around the idea that babies die.
I am overjoyed at the notion that Gus gets to grow up and be his own person. That someday he will be a MAN out there in the world. At the same time, it devastates me over and over again that Nina-Lou will always be that little baby whose body I held for a few fleeting moments. The only world she ever knew was inside me. She never got to nurse, to smile, to bat at toys, to cry and bury her face in my shoulder...
I sobbed in the delivery room when they prepared the little warming tray for Gus. They didn't do it for Nina-Lou. There was no point. She was dead.
I could go down the path of thinking about how, if she had been born alive, there is no way we would have tried for another baby 5 months later, and so in that universe, there is no Gus. I can't fathom a world without Gus any more than I was able to fathom a world without Nina-Lou. But a world with a live baby boy and a dead baby girl is the reality in which we find ourselves. I try not to think about what should have and would have been. It all just is. I want both my babies, and I don't care that such a thing is impossible.
Gus is falling asleep in his little swing right now. Occasionally he grimaces or smiles in his sleep. Chirps and coos to himself. He is incredible. Being his mom and watching him grow is such a joy.
Sometimes, when I catch myself amongst other parents of living children, talking about strollers or pediatrician appointments, I see how I have crossed over to the other side. It sometimes makes me feel like a bit of a traitor to my former self. The mother to a dead daughter, pregnant and filled with fear, resentful of these carefree moms whose daily worries were sleep schedules and the color of their baby's poo. Back then I felt alone, on an island. So cut off and different from everyone else. I cried in bathrooms. I drove home through tears. No one understood me. It was dark in that place, and all the things I did to try and bring light into my life were helpful, and lifted the mood, but that loneliness was intense. I have never felt so isolated.
And as much as I hate to admit it, Gus's birth changed a lot of that. I love parenting him. It's an indescribable feeling, loving him and caring for him. Nursing him and watching him get fat. Singing him the songs my parents sang to me and watching him smile. I had told myself that if he didn't make it, that I was done trying. I couldn't keep going through the heartbreak of losing babies, and I knew I would learn to accept my life as a babylost mom with no living children. I would have to accept that I was different from others but that was ok. I'm sure I would have figured it out. It would have been so hard, but I would have survived and I would not have had to live in the dark forever. But Gus brings so much light into my life. There is a lot of healing in being a mom to him. I still think of and grieve Nina-Lou every day, but that grief feels a little more simple now. It's no longer wrapped up with the grief of getting to mother a baby at all. It's just for her.
This isn't to say that I feel completely changed. I will always be different from most other moms. Like Turner said, a long time ago, "No matter what, we'll always be the people whose baby died."
There is no silver lining to losing a baby. There are many ways in which losing Nina-Lou has made me a better person, but there are many other ways in which her death changed me for the worse. I am far more fragile. My body, after back to back pregnancies, is pretty wrecked. My heart, in some way, will always be broken. But I am brave, and resilient, and my heart is capable of infinite love. I say this not to brag, but because I know it to be true.
Sometimes, when I see a little girl in pigtails, or when I look upon her ashes on the mantel, or when the 29th rolls around, I feel my heart open up, and and I go to that special, sacred place inside me that is only for missing her.
My sweet girl. No matter what joy or pain the rest of our lives may bring, you will always be gone when you should be here. Our love for you will always be wrapped up in our grief. We cannot feel your presence without also feeling your absence.
We will love you and mourn you and remember you and hold your absence/presence so close and so dear. Always, always, always.
Monday, September 8, 2014
spilling and cleaning
The past three days I have had the pressure of tears behind my eyes that refused to spill over. This morning I re-read every baby shower and condolence card we ever received. I took out Nina-Lou's coming home outfit, smelled it, rubbed it against my cheek. I looked at her footprint and remembered that awful night. And I wept. A lot.
I'll never hold her again. Some days I miss her so much, and the horror of what happened to us vibrates so vividly in my mind.
I've still never dreamt of her. I hope to someday.
I wish she were here. I wish she were 8 months old. I wish these were tears of happiness and not of grief.
She gave me wonderful and beautiful gifts. But it still hurts. I try to keep that hurt wrapped up nice and tidy these days. But sometimes it spills out, gets messy.
I'm better, I'm worse. I'll never be the same. Holy crap, I miss her.
I'll never hold her again. Some days I miss her so much, and the horror of what happened to us vibrates so vividly in my mind.
I've still never dreamt of her. I hope to someday.
I wish she were here. I wish she were 8 months old. I wish these were tears of happiness and not of grief.
She gave me wonderful and beautiful gifts. But it still hurts. I try to keep that hurt wrapped up nice and tidy these days. But sometimes it spills out, gets messy.
I'm better, I'm worse. I'll never be the same. Holy crap, I miss her.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
6 months
This week has been a whirlwind of preparing for my first level comprehensive exams. Nina-Louise has been there, floating in the periphery, but I have been preoccupied. My brain doesn't work the way it used to. Higher reasoning and memory are compromised. I worked hard this week to cram as much information in as possible.
And now it's over and done with. And it's a beautiful day. And I'm so relieved. And my baby is supposed to be 6 months old, but instead she's a memory. A feeling. That beautiful light that streams through the trees before the sun sets.
We miss her still.
And now it's over and done with. And it's a beautiful day. And I'm so relieved. And my baby is supposed to be 6 months old, but instead she's a memory. A feeling. That beautiful light that streams through the trees before the sun sets.
We miss her still.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
5 months
She would have been 5 months old now. The babies who were supposed to be her peers, with whom she was supposed to grow up and discover the world, are getting big and learning to crawl and playing together and smiling and cooing and drooling all over the place. My poor baby. She missed so much.
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