Medusa

There's so much darkness in me these days.  I would love to say that Nina-Louise brought nothing but light and joy into my life, but the fact is that her death has left me very broken.  I try and eke out joy from occasions, from meals I like, from the beauty I force myself to see out there in the world, but it is exhausting.  I feel sincere love for the people with whom I've surrounded myself, and my relationships with them do assuage the pain.  But joy is buried and only emerges for fleeting moments.

Yesterday was Turner's birthday.  We went out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Nopalito.  We sat at the bar.  We had drinks.  We laughed.  We spoke closely and intimately with our hands resting on each other's thighs.  We kissed.  We enjoyed each other's company.  To anyone watching, we must have looked like our life together is pretty rad.  And honestly, it is.  Except for that our baby died, and a huge piece of our hearts feels like it's gone forever.  And as much as I enjoyed this moment, I felt that dark empty spot gnawing inside me.  It's just the two of us.  Just the two of us.  Nina is supposed to be here and she's not.  Oh, fuck, it hurts.  Goddammit.

As we were getting ready to leave, a pregnant lady walked in, and my heart sank, and my stomach felt queasy, and everything I had achieved and then lost was right there in front of me, and I wished I were dead.  I cried the whole way home.  Poor T-bone.  Happy birthday, buddy.  Let's just sit in the car and sob for awhile, cool?

I don't hate or feel resentment towards pregnant women, or new moms (unless they treat their kids like shit, in which case I pretty much wanna rip their faces off).  I used to, when I was going through my miscarriages, but not now.  I am not sure why.  Maybe because I've been a pregnant woman, and I know what I went through to get that way, and what I will have gone through if I end up that way again.  But who knows.  I do, however, feel jealous.  Deeply, intensely, pathetically jealous.  I am jealous of the innocence in a pregnant woman knowing her swollen belly will result in a screaming baby.  I'm jealous of the love with which a mother looks upon her child.  I'm jealous of a living room cluttered with baby shit.  I won't ever have that with Nina.  I may not ever have that at all, and that thought makes me feel so fucking sorry for myself that I just want to crawl under a blanket for the rest of my life.  It fills me with a darkness and self-loathing so potent that I don't even want people to look at me.  I'm fucking Medusa.  I will destroy you with my sadness.  

And, honestly, I fear for pregnant women.  I constantly worry that they are being too lax.  Too much like I was.  Too trusting that the universe wouldn't dare take that child away from them in the end.  As much as I love and appreciate the community of bereaved mothers I have found in the wake of Nina's death, I am now burdened with the knowledge of just how much can go wrong.  Preemies who die in the NICU.  Perfectly healthy babies who get sick and die within hours of being born.  Babies who suffocate, suffer brain damage, and die in hospice.  Heart defects.  Cord accidents.  Beautiful, healthy, LOVED babies who die in their sleep for no reason at all.  It all happens.  It doesn't just happen to people on the news.  It happened to me.  It could happen to any one of us.  Even if I get pregnant again and have a perfectly healthy baby inside me and carry it to term, any one of a plethora of tragedies could befall us.  Already having experienced the worst won't protect my baby.  It also won't protect me from getting cancer, or having my dog mauled by a coyote, or my husband hit by a car, or having a child who later gets killed in a war, or shot on the street.  It's all so arbitrary, and the universe doesn't bless certain people and curse others.  Some of us will suffer and some won't.  There's no rhyme or reason to any of it.  The shit could hit the fan at any moment.

But despite all that, my desire to be a mom is so intense and acute that it takes my breath away.  People tell me that because I had a daughter and I loved her, that I am already a mom.  In a sense, I believe that.  But she died, and I didn't really get to be a mother to her.  I never held her in my arms while she was living.  I never dressed her in an outfit that I chose.  I never put her in a baby carrier and gently kissed the top of her head while shopping in a grocery store.  I never felt her drink from my breast, or put her warm skin against mine.  I never bathed her or felt her perfect, tiny little hand clasp around my fingers.  I held her dead body and it was not the same, no matter what anyone says.  I didn't get to be a mom; at least not the mom I was supposed to be.  It hurts in a way that is tortuously painless.  I want to give birth to her again and again just to fucking feel something other than this empty nothing.  It's crazy to want something that feels like it should be right there beyond my grasp and know that it isn't.  I'll never have her back.  I'll never get to be her mom.

We will keep trying.  We will follow through with all the tests and see if this is in the cards for us.  So far, no one can find anything wrong with me, other than that babies thus far haven't thrived very well inside me.  I will work all the angles, from the western doctors, to the acupuncturists, to the chiropractors and the mayan abdominal massage and the fucking Reiki healers. We take comfort in the fact that we made it pretty far with Nina.  As hard as it is to know that she had a chance at life and died anyway, it does give us hope.  I will nurture my body and make it as hospitable an environment as I can.  If we get pregnant again, and it lasts into the second trimester, I will be monitored closely, will undergo no less than 20 ultrasounds, will possibly inject myself with blood thinners and steroids, and I will most likely be induced or have a c-section.  I don't care how it happens.  I don't care that it will be the most stressful 9 and a half months of my life.  They can slice me open, pump me with drugs, whatever it takes.  And if none of that works, we will start the adoption process.  I want that fucking baby; the one who lives.  I know it won't be Nina, and right now, that stings.  But I have to keep trying, because don't know if I can live in a life that doesn't let me be a mom.  As unattainable and imaginary as it seems, I still think it's something that I'm meant to do.  I am not cursed.  I am not blessed.  I'm just a woman who has been dealt a shit hand.  Life is neither fair nor unfair, and I am going to do my damnedest to get what I want.