Remembering Shannon Elizabeth

3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days

2011-06-03T16:31:00.002-04:00

Since we said goodbye. It seems like forever sometimes. And sometimes it hurts like it was yesterday.

Sometimes Love is a Moment
Sometimes Love is a Lifetime
Sometimes a Moment is a Lifetime

Mothers who have lost a child - Erma Bombeck, May 14, 1995

2011-05-08T16:13:00.002-04:00

Mothers who have lost a child - May 14, 1995
Erma Bombeck

If you're looking for an answer this Mother's Day on why God reclaimed your child, I don't know. I only know that thousands of mothers out there today desperately need an answer as to why they were permitted to go through the elation of carrying child and then lose it to miscarriage, accident , violence disease or drugs

Motherhood isn't just a series of contractions. It's a state of mind. From the moment we know life is inside us, we feel a responsibility to protect and defend that human being. It's a promise we can't keep. We beat ourselves to death over that pledge. "If I hadn't worked through the eighth month." "If I had taken him to the doctor when he had a fever." "If I hadn't let him use the car that night." "If I hadn't been so naive, I'd have noticed he was on drugs."

The longer I live, the more convinced I become that surviving changes us. After the bitterness, the anger, the guilt, and the despair are tempered by time, we look at life differently.

While I was writing my book, I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise, I talked with mothers who had lost a child to cancer. Every single one said death gave their lives new meaning and purpose. And who do you think prepared them for the rough, lonely road they had to travel? Their dying child. They pointed their mothers toward the future and told them to keep going. The children had already accepted what their mothers were fighting to reject.

The children in the bombed-out nursery in Oklahoma City have touched more lives than they will ever know. Workers who had probably given their kids a mechanical pat on the head without thinking that morning are making phone calls home during the day to their children to say "I love you."

This may seem like a strange Mother's Day column on a day when joy and life abound for the millions of mothers throughout the country. But it's also a day of appreciation and respect. I can think of no mothers who deserve it more than those who had to give a child back.

In the face of adversity, we are not permitted to ask, "Why me?" You can ask, but you wont get an answer. Maybe you are the instrument who is left behind to perpetuate the life that was lost and appreciate the time you had with it.

The late Gilda Radner summit it up well: "I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned the hard way that some poems don't rhyme and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what is going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.

On Mother's Day

2011-05-08T16:07:00.002-04:00

On Mother's Day, we are reminded of what we have. We are also reminded of what we lost. And for loss moms, Mother's Day can be a bittersweet reminder of our babies.

On days like this, I am drawn to Shannon. I love my children. I love all my children, whether I got to give them a hug today with my arms or in my heart. And today I am reminded of a comment about Mother's Day by a great writer and observer or the universe - Erma Bombeck. She said:

This may seem like a strange Mother's Day column on a day when joy and life abound for the millions of mothers throughout the country. But it's also a day of appreciation and respect. I can think of no mothers who deserve it more than those who had to give a child back.

In the face of adversity, we are not permitted to ask, "Why me?" You can ask, but you wont get an answer. Maybe you are the instrument who is left behind to perpetuate the life that was lost and appreciate the time you had with it.

Her full column appears in the next post.

So "happy" Mother's Day to all the beautiful mommies whose babies soar with the butterflies. You love them and they love you. And sometimes it helps to be reminded of that.

someday

2011-02-27T14:01:00.003-05:00

Someday I'll be able to read other mom's blogs without crying all over my keyboard. Someday maybe I'll be able to read that book that sits on my nightstand about the mom who lost her baby and not cry when I'm a few pages into it. Someday maybe I'll feel healed enough. But I think I'll always cry. I think that losing Shannon left a door open in my heart that only other loss moms know about. A door that lets us cross over into each other's pain and let's us share our burdens with each other so that each of us can bear our pain, and help others bear theirs.

I think we do that because there are so many others who shut themselves off from us when we had our losses, so they wouldn't have to feel our pain, or "catch" our bad luck.

But even if that someday happens for me, I'll never believe that everything happens for a reason. And I'll never stop missing Shannon.

A week or so ago, we went to dinner with one of the "someone's" who disappeared when Shannon died. They likely disappeared because they were, at the time, pregnant with a girl and were likely freaked out by my Shannon's death. When I saw them, I was cordial, friendly even a little, but I was surprised to admit to myself that I was still kinda mad, in my heart, that they had ditched when the shit hit the fan for us. And that is ok.

happy birthday butterfly

2011-02-07T22:25:00.002-05:00

It's been 3 years since we said hello and goodbye to Shannon. Sometimes it seems like yesterday, sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago. February is always a hard month to deal with. I had my first pregnancy loss in February, then, exactly one year later, my 3rd - Shannon.

Losing Shannon gave me a perspective on life that I never had. I have met so many people along the way of my loss journey, but losing Shannon was a real eye opener. Some people have fallen by the wayside because of how she has changed me, and others have come with me on this long journey of healing and self-discovery.

I'm here, I survived. I miss my little girl every day. I wish she didn't die, but I also know that my life would be radically different today if she had lived. If any of my lost butterflies had lived, I wouldn't have known the life I have now. And I wouldn't give up the life I have now, even if I could go back and change things.

I don't believe that stuff happens for a reason. I believe that stuff happens. How we deal with it is the measure of us as humans. How others relate to the bad things that happen to us is the measure of their value in our lives. To understand that, I believe, is a gift. A gift that Shannon gave to me, because she wasn't going to stay. And I appreciate that, even if my heart still hurts.

So, happy birthday little butterfly. I'm sure that you would have had an extraordinary life. And I look forward to Spring, when the butterflies will return and I'll send you wishes and love with each one.

Another year gone

2011-01-05T17:57:00.004-05:00

It's 2011. Seriously, where did the time go? So much time passes, we hardly notice it anymore. And, then, you realize that it's almost been 3 years since my little girl died. Wow. That is a real long time, when you think about it. Several of my friends have recently passed their 3 year marks too. And they told me what I already knew, it still sucks. It still hurts and, what's worse, is that so few people remember anymore that 3 years ago, a happy mom and dad were happily pregnant and happily preparing to expand their lives to include a child who, in the end, didn't stay.

Recently, I've been seeing posts about a little baby named Scarlett Grace. Thousands of people are praying for a miracle for her. I had no idea, until today, what they were talking about. And when I found out, I cried because right now, there is a family in California with a beautiful little 3 month old girl who is in surgery because she has a form of cancer that is 1/6 million. One in six million. What kind of crappy odds are they to be on the wrong side of?

I get crappy odds. What happened to my Shannon was 1 in a million. I know how much that sucks. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Shannon and her last days, because I have been sick. What's the connection? The connection is that, on the night Shannon died, I had a terrible cold. I couldn't breathe and I took a sudafed because my doctor told me it was ok (and it was). Then I slept. And while I slept, Shannon died. And, after that, I was too afraid to ever take any medications when I finally got pregnant again. Especially sudafed. So, in dealing with this annoying illness, I've spent a lot of time thinking about my baby, and how much I miss her.

3 years has gone by so quickly. My rainbow baby is 18 months old and the love of my life. But I miss my Shannon. And I hope that if she has any pull wherever she is in the universe, that she can send some good vibes to that little baby girl in California to give her the healing she needs to stay here with her mommy and daddy. I don't believe in miracles, but in case they do exist, I'd like to give the one I didn't get 3 years ago to someone else who seems to really need it now.

Two and a half years - some random thoughts

2010-08-07T20:16:00.003-04:00

2 1/2 years ago, Shannon was born. It's strange to see a little ticker on the bottom of a page, and to see the time that has passed since you experienced something so terribly sad. Man, I miss knowing what my life would have been like with her in it, present in a physical way, instead of just in my heart and dreams. It just sucks.

A couple of weeks ago, my pet of 15 years died. When the vet found out that my pet died, the entire office sent us a card, with their condolences. Everyone in the office signed it. It's so easy to express condolences for a pet, why isn't so easy for people to express condolences for a dead child?

Something else that I have discovered about myself is that I am still not ready to deal with other people's pregnancies. I have never had an issue with any of my loss friends and their rainbow babies, but I still have an issue with the others - the ones who didn't travel this road. The ones who post stuff at 10 weeks on their facebook and who go through their pregnancy expecting that it will turn out ok. I don't begrudge them their joy, and I wish them well, but I still don't want to deal with it. Having a rainbow baby is not some magical healing elixer. It doesn't make it better. I wish it did.

2 1/2 years is a long time. But it feels like just yesterday sometimes.

Playing the dead baby card

2010-04-18T11:54:00.003-04:00

I don't expect everyone to understand me. In life, we all want to be understood and accepted, but I don't find it to be the most important thing in the world anymore. But I am especially peeved when someone tries to pull at my heartstrings or get me to give them consideration they aren't due by playing the Shannon card.

Someone who exists in my universe bizarrely tried to use the memory of my child in order to get me to "let them in." To like them, to allow them access to my life, my family, my heart, in a way that they are not permitted because I simply do not like them. In an effort to overcome my dislike of them, this person tried to tell me that s/he "shared my grief" over Shannon. Bite me.

I guess I am at a loss as to why, two years after Shannon died, that someone would be so limited in their thinking as to think that using Shannon's memory was the way to get me to find them a less distasteful person. What a strange way to try to use Shannon's memory.

What an epic fail.

hallmark sucks at grief

2010-03-04T16:45:00.003-05:00

I went to look for a sympathy card today. So little exists to talk about a dead baby. Unlike the death of an adult or a pet, the cards lack the ability to convey the simple thought that I am sorry that your baby died. These cards seem to assume that you have a lifetime of memories or experiences to remember when the person you are mourning is gone. In reality, we loss moms have moments. We have the experience of carrying our child. But we don't usually have the same thing that these cards assume we had. So, they just don't fit. And it creates a bit of a dilemma. Who wants to hurt someone by sending them a card that says, in essence, at least you have comfort from the warm memories of your loved one.

I know that we moms have love for those we lost, and love is certainly a warm thing, but it isn't the same when you are talking about the death of a child in utero or shortly after birth as opposed to the loss of an adult (for example). A lifetime for us is often compressed into those short moments where we hope, most fervently, that our little ones know that they are loved, that they know only peace and that we are immeasurably sad to see them leave us. For those of us who lost our babies before birth, we hope, in retrospect, that all of that love and peace was somehow conveyed across our placenta and across the universe, to our little one, to whom we said hello and goodbye to at the same time. Because they aren't supposed to leave us that soon.

I don't know a single mom who wouldn't give up everything for more moments, for more time to love, for time to create those memories that are all we have to sustain us later.

Most of all I wish that we didn't have to go looking for appropriate cards to express sadness at how much it sucks to be a loss momma.

Remembering a friend's losses

2010-03-03T14:37:00.005-05:00

Today I mourn the death of my friend's twins, who were born way too early. Their mom is a special, strong woman who I met shortly before I brought home my rainbow last year. She had lost another son before we met. She is now a mom to three little boys who soar above this world. My heart aches for her and her husband.

Rest in peace little men. You are loved and missed.

“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together.. there is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. but the most important thing is, even if we're apart.. i'll always be with you.” a.a. milne

Hello and goodbye

2010-02-08T17:48:00.002-05:00

Two years ago today, we said hello and goodbye to Shannon. We miss her and love her still.

Shannon - mommy and daddy sent you a beautiful red balloon today. We hope that you got it. We love and miss you very much...

I don't like February

2010-02-05T16:07:00.003-05:00

Just the thought of February can make me cry. The overwhelming sadness that I associate with this month, the fear, the pain, makes this month suck. It might be the shortest month of the year, but I loath it just the same. I pause lately, by Shannon's urn, and I stop and wonder about the alternative universe, where she didn't die, where things were very different, where February didn't suck. And I miss her. I wonder what she'd be like. I wonder if she would have been an easy going baby, like her big brother and the rainbow baby. I wonder what dealing with little girl fashion would have been like, because big brother pretty much wears anything, and rainbow baby wears whatever big brother wore all those many years ago when big brother was the baby.

And I miss her. I miss the concept of her. The thought of what could have been, or might have been. I wouldn't trade rainbow baby for anything, but just the same, I wish I could have them both. Rainbow baby has been a great healer, time has too, but it's still not the same.

Two years ago, we said hello and goodbye to our little girl. My little girl. And there's a part of my heart that still feels that pain. A part of my heart that always will. There's a part of my brain that relives a labor and delivery without joy, one that doesn't end in congratulations, but one that ends in a quiet room with a tiny baby in a little blanket. A baby who is small and cold and still. My baby. Shannon.

And I miss her. And love her. And cry for her still.

Next.....

2009-11-29T14:20:00.002-05:00

I went back to work 2 months ago. Most of the people I worked with only found out I was pregnant shortly before I left (if they knew at all). Part of this is because I am a private person, but part of it was wanting to keep my pregnancy under wraps, in case something bad happened.

When people who don't know me very well find out that I have two boys, almost all of them say, "well, now you have to try again for a girl." And I look at them, wondering what to say. To some, I say that we won't be trying for a girl, that I had a girl, and that she died. Now, I can't say that to everyone, because sometimes it just isn't worth it, but sometimes it is just the right thing to say. I had my daughter, and she is not here anymore. And that makes me sad.

In a few short months, it will be 2 years since we said goodbye to Shannon. That is really weird to me. In some ways, it doesn't seem like it could possibly be that long. It makes me realize that while I have come far since February 2008, there is still such as long way to go.

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-11-29T14:05:00.002-05:00

As Thanksgiving weekend draws to a close, I have been thinking back over the past three years. I started my pregnancy journey in December 2006, and ended it in July 2009. Along the way, I met some wonderful people, and cried more tears than I had in my entire life before that time. But I am, despite the pain and the losses of my butterflies and Shannon, grateful for those that I have met along the way who have provided me with love, comfort, support and a surprising number of laughs. So, I am thankful.

I am thankful for my children, those here with me on earth, and those that soar in a different reality. On our annual trip northward, I told my oldest that I was thankful for my family. And he said, "I know why you are thankful. It is because this year we have a baby, and last year the baby died and this baby didn't die. I have a brother, and the other baby was my sister." And then he asked why the baby died. And I still don't have a good answer for him.

He asked that question a few times this weekend. He doesn't talk about his sister very often but, when he does, it is like a waterfall of questions and issues about why she isn't here. And there are no good answers, other than saying that sometimes bad things happen, and that is how life is sometimes.

Looking back on how far I've come and, recognizing that I still have far to go on this loss journey, I realize that the people in your world make all the difference along the way. This journey would be so much harder if there weren't people who understand that the grieving process doesn't end, even if you have much to be thankful for. But I am thankful, just the same.

Nineteen months....

2009-09-08T22:32:00.002-04:00

Damn, that's a long time. I hate that every month, on the 8th, I'm drawn back to figuring out how many months it has been since the most horrible experience that any mom should have to endure, maybe a close second (or a tie) with the "I'm sorry" from the OB that we heard the day before.

I wish there was some magic in the universe that could prevent any other moms from feeling this pain. It can't hurt to wish...

Shannon - it's September, and we miss you so. The butterflies are still here for a little while longer, and the leaves are starting to fall. Much love with all my heart, mommy.

welcome little rainbow

2009-09-04T15:39:00.002-04:00

After a long, LOOONG journey, we have welcomed our little rainbow baby. He fills my heart with joy, and provides me with hope. His arrival was bittersweet, as it was an arrival that followed a great loss. His presence in our lives doesn't diminish the sad that exists because Shannon only lives in our hearts. His smiles, which are so much like the smiles of his big brother, remind me of the four little butterflies that flew on before him.

Shannon looked like her big brother, this little guy looks like his big brother, ergo, it seems likely that this little one would have endured comparisons to Shannon, had the two been able to exist in the same reality. But that reality doesn't exist. For to have Shannon would mean that I wouldn't be holding this little one and singing him to sleep, or waking up with him endlessly in the night. And that realization makes me sad, yet happy at the same time. For my life is more complete, but for the gaping hole that Shannon left. And my life is more fulfilled, except for the missing piece that is my daughter in my arms.

Earlier this summer, my big boy commented that, had the baby lived, it would be one, but this new baby was only zero. I told him that was right, his sister would be one. He said, "sister?," and fell quiet. He forgot that Shannon was a girl, but he never forgot her. I thought it was wonderful that he not only remembered his sister, but that she was supposed to come in July. Kids' minds are such amazing things.

When my new one came crying into this world, hearing that cry brought on a lot of feelings. I felt incredible relief that I had this living child, unbelievable happiness and an adrenaline rush that sustained me for hours. At the same time, a feeling of sadness hit me, remembering what we had lost and what we had gone through to get to this point. Since December 2006, when I started my pregnancy journey, I had been pregnant for well over 70 weeks. More than a year. And it seemed that we were finally at the end of that road.

I purposely did not acknowledge my pregnancy because I was afraid that it would disappear. I didn't dare complain about the heartburn or the endless trips to the bathroom or anything else for fear that someone might hear my complaints and think that I didn't want this baby enough, or that I didn't appreciate every kick. I didn't want the cosmic wheel to sense anything that could cause it to take this away from me.

From talking to other moms who are and, who have been, on this road to a rainbow, I know that my paranoia and caution is common. It's so hard not to be hopeful when you and your kind know, better than anyone, that the same hope that can sustain you, is the same hope that stings so much when it is dashed. You want that successful pregnancy so badly, but you are afraid to show that want, or to really freely embrace hope, or to allow that hope to cradle you through the fear. I know that I needed to protect myself. I only allowed myself to kinda start to feel that hope towards the very end of my pregnancy, but only a little. I believed that, until I held that rainbow in my arms and, heard him cry, that I wasn't done. My pregnancy journey was still going. And I am so happy and grateful that it ended well.

Now, my little family, now one bigger, continues down this road of life missing Shannon. The sadness is still there. It will always be there. But I am happy too. And that is very good.

Shannon's first birthday

2009-07-12T11:02:00.002-04:00

Shannon was due one year ago today, July 12, 2008. But she died. And, sitting here, on what would have been her first birthday, I wonder what life would have been like, had she lived. And I miss her and love her very much.

Happy birthday little butterfly. I know that you are in a better place, but we still miss you here. Love always, mommy.

The butterflies are back...

2009-06-14T17:54:00.002-04:00

It's so very hard to believe that yet another July is almost upon us. Shannon would be turning one soon, and I guess in the alternative universe, where the bad stuff doesn't happen, she is turning one. I look out the window, at the summer flowers that are almost in full bloom and I am struck, again, by how much things change, yet how much they stay the same. I still miss my little girl, she has changed me in numerous ways, some that I recognize right away, and some that are too subtle to really put my finger on.

But what strikes me the most is how much time marches on, whether you want it to or not. If someone told me a year ago that I'd be sitting here, staring at the same flowers, and wondering what was next for me down the road, I would have laughed. I am hopefully shortly going to welcome Shannon's sibling into this world, yet I still worry and wonder and miss my baby girl everyday. I worry about my answer when people ask - is this your second? Well, actually, it's my sixth, but you probably don't want to know that story.

And I worry, and wonder, about the passage of time on the human heart. How does time change how I miss Shannon? Does time make it hurt less - yes and no. Time makes it hurt differently. Time creates a big scab that, for the most part, keeps the hurt in one place, but constantly reminds you that the hurt is still there. At the same time, though, that scab gets slightly smaller with time, constantly reminding you that life does go on, and that you are, despite your best efforts, moving on too.

For me, though, moving on is not moving away from that essential piece of what and who I am because of Shannon. I don't want to change in that way. Shannon made an impact in my world, and through me, I guess, Shannon makes an impact on the rest of the world.

She gives me empathy to cry for other lost babies and sad moms, and to really get why I am crying. She gives me strength, to know that I have made it another day and that I can tell people that, they too can make it another day, and believe it to be mostly true. She gives me hope, that things and people can change because I've changed. And she gives me the butterflies, who linger too long in my garden to be anything other than gifts from her. And I love and miss her for it.

missing my baby

2009-04-24T09:09:00.003-04:00

Sitting at my desk, watching the spring plants start to really take off, I'm taken back to this time last year, when I sat in the same spot, watching the same plants, which were much smaller last year, not having had a full growing season yet. I remember just how sad I was last Spring, planning Shannon's memorial flower garden, and missing being pregnant with her. Spring brings some sense of anticipation, of thoughts of warmer weather and being outside and being able to appreciate how all of these little plants live in the cold hard ground for so many months before they just pop out again, bigger than before. It's really quite amazing.

But, this is yet another Spring without Shannon. Instead of wondering what my 10 month old baby would be doing right now, I find myself seeing little girls everywhere I go, and seeing the future that I will miss out on. The little girl on the train, with her pink raincoat and the barbie doll with the really cool spring outfit - nope, not gonna get that opportunity with Shannon. The little girl being trundled off to daycare with her dad this morning with the really cute pigtails. Nope. Instead, what I've gotten this Spring is big, hot tears that show up and catch me by surprise, taking my breath away when I tried to go to sleep the other day because I was wondering how to properly remember and incorporate Shannon into any birth announcements that I might send out this summer. I was in tears last night watching Greys Anatomy, because there was a sick little girl who died in her daddy's arms. I mean, I cried. Full on crying. Over a stupid TV show. I'd blame hormones, but that's only part of it. The fact is that I really miss my little girl.

I don't like crying, it messes up my already messed up sinuses. I don't like crying because it doesn't make me feel better anymore, it just makes me feel spent. I don't like crying because it isn't going to bring back the little girl that I haven't held in over a year and will never hold again. It makes me realize that, no matter how much time goes by, no matter how far removed time makes the death of my little girl, it will always be there, just a moment away, waiting for the tears to start.

And Shannon will still be gone, even though her butterflies will be back soon.

A Different Child by Pandora MacMillian

2009-03-21T11:50:00.001-04:00

A Different Child by Pandora MacMillian

People notice
There's a special glow around you.

You grow
Surrounded by love,
Never doubting you are wanted;
Only look at the pride and joy
In your mother and father's eyes.

And if sometimes
Between the smiles
There's a trace of tears,
One day
You'll understand.

You'll understand
There was once another child
A different child
Who was in their hopes and dreams.

That child will never outgrow the baby clothes
That child will never keep them up at night
In fact, that child will never be any trouble at all.

Except sometimes, in a silent moment,
When mother and father miss so much
That different child.

May hope and love wrap you warmly
And may you learn the lesson forever
How infinitely precious
How infinitely fragile
Is this life on earth.

One day, as a young man or woman
You may see another mother's tears
Another father's silent grief
Then you, and you alone
Will understand
And offer the greatest comfort.

When all hope seems lost,
You will tell them
With great compassion,
"I know how you feel.
I'm only here
Because my parents tried again".

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.

2009-03-21T11:46:00.001-04:00

I’ve got a secret I’ve been hiding, under my skin…..

In the loss journey, there are a lot of stops on the road. And I’ve reached another stop. so here goes if you haven't figured it out.

We are Pregnant again.

We are 24 weeks today. And, I did NOT tell anyone until these past few weeks. We couldn’t. Losing Shannon has taken away that ability to just put it out there and figure that everything will be ok. Because I don’t believe that it works that way. I worry every day that it doesn’t work that way. I don’t believe in happy endings. I believe that stuff just happens. And I have no end game. I get up every day and hope that nothing bad happened. I wake up every night and hope nothing bad happened. It is always in my mind.

And, rationally or irrationally, we needed to get to March, and out of February, when two of our babies died, and make sure that this one didn’t too. Yes, it may be morbid – welcome to my world…

And no, being pregnant does NOT take away any of the grief I feel over my little baby girl. Not a bit. In some ways, it makes it more acute. As I sit here, crying for Shannon and (Lucy and Tristan and Gregory and Richard and Dash and Josie and Tyler and Collin and for all the other lost babies of my dear other deadbaby moms,) I know that this is a really long road. And I am nowhere near the end. And even getting to the end of this pregnancy won’t bring me to the end of this road. This baby is pretty much due on what would have been Shannon’s first birthday, IF she lived. But she didn’t. So, what do you do with that? Knowing that in a different universe that that cake would have one more candle, and a different baby in front of it, and all you do is hope that this year, you have a reason to be happy.

This blog was never meant to be about anything or anyone but Shannon. And it always will be. I don’t plan on playing out this pregnancy publicly, and talking about it here all that much. I don’t think that works for me. But the feelings and the fears are very intermixed, and how I feel now is just another part of this journey – Shannon’s journey – and we are on this road together, Shannon, baby and me. And it has changed me and how I feel. And reality is that a lot of you already know. And more good thoughts in the universe can't hurt. And I feel it’s more intellectually honest to put it out there. And it only seems right to say it out loud. And I really hope it works out this time.

Thirteen months

2009-03-08T16:08:00.003-04:00

Now that that first year, that sad sad terrible first year has come and gone, time is speeding by. It's so hard to believe that this much time has gone since we first met Shannon, and said goodbye to her. It's hard to believe that, this time last year I was planning her memorial garden, and today, I sit here watching the first green start to poke its way out of the cold Mid-Atlantic ground. There were so many tears then, and there are still tears now, but they don't come as often, and I find that my grief and sadness, while always there, are further back, and don't fly forward nearly as much as they used to, but when they do, it is still often unexpected and much stronger than you think that it should be, after thirteen months.

And I've come to recognize the person that I see when I look in the mirror again. I guess, for better or for worse, this is me, and it's probably as good of a me as I am going to get anytime soon, if ever. And I am ok with this new me, for the most part. I've learned that while grief comes in all shapes and sizes and likes to sneak up on you sometimes and say "boo" and see if it can scare the crap out of you, you develop this "worldliness" about you that helps you be less scared. That sounds weird. I guess it is more like a wariness or maybe a weariness, where you just know that this is a world where bad stuff can happen and that sometimes it does.

I don't know. It has just been a really long time.... And I miss my little girl.

Friends forever

2009-02-15T13:42:00.002-05:00

I had a moment this weekend when I thought it would be ok to post a link to my blog on Facebook. So, I did. For less than 24 hours. And then I took the link down. I don't know why I thought that I was ready to put the blog up, but I guess, in the end, I just wasn't ready.

I guess, for lack of a better way to say it, I am not entirely ready for my land of the living to be invited into my land of the dead. And, reality is that some "friends" might actually be referred to as people who didn't exactly shine when Shannon died. On the other hand, some other "friends" showed me immense love and support. But, I don't know if the casual reader, the person who is looking to find out what I've been up to the "x" years since we last chatted, is looking for more than a place where I express my feelings about loss and life and life without my little girl. The people who might live and/or be more comfortable full-time in the land of the living might not get it.

There is a great book I read in high school, can't remember the title, but it contains the following: Why am I afraid to tell you who I am? I am afraid to tell you who I am because you may not like who I am, and it is all that I have. All of my Shannon world, while stronger than it was just a few months ago, is too new, too fragile, too fresh to me. I'm just not ready. While my world without Shannon is a big part of who I am, I can't write worrying about whether I am going to offend someone who *might* read my blog, figuring that I am going to critique bad tv or write about my love of thin mints, and instead reads something else. Because, those are also parts of who I am. And I caveat that by saying that I don't worry about offending the casual reader who might stumble upon my blog when searching for information about certain "D" list celebrities who *might* share my daughter's name. They are on their on (mostly because I don't know anyone who might actually search for such information)

Memories of a life lost

2009-02-15T13:34:00.003-05:00

http://www.newsweek.com/id/182572/page/1

A Vast and Sudden Sadness

--This article appears in this week's Newsweek. It is about stillbirth and the use of photography to remember our lost babies. Shannon was technically a week and a few days short of being a stillbirth, but it is all the same, regardless of the name you use. The photographs and memories which we made of her help to sustain me through some of the harder days. I am glad, despite the enormous sadness depicted in those photos, that we have them. I will treasure them forever as the visual record of her.

When mom's first find out that their babies died, and that they'll actually have to go to the hospital and go through labor and delivery, they often ask what they should do. I am forever grateful that there were moms out there who told me to bring a camera. Some hospitals actually have a "care package" of sorts for parents like us, which contains a disposable camera. Mine didn't. Some hospitals will take photos for you. Mine did, but lost them and found them months later. But we had our camera, and we have photos of our little girl. They aren't always easy to look at, because the day was so overwhelmingly sad, but they are part of our life, her life, and our memories and short time with our little girl. And they helped.

2009-02-14T14:41:00.003-05:00

Shannon

Was born sleeping on February 8, 2008

in Washington, DC, USA

She died on February 7, 2008.

"She is loved and missed."

http://namesinthesand.blogspot.com/2009/02/shannon.html

One year ago

2009-02-09T22:06:00.002-05:00

One year ago, my little girl was born. That day really sucked. Seriously. One year later, it still sucks, but only because I miss her and I still don't understand how it is that such a terrible thing could happen to an innocent creature that had everything ahead of her. I don't get it.

I don't get how some stupid people have 14 kids because they are dumber than a bag of dirt and think that they are some kind of "parenting" expert who will be able to support 14 kids on giving other people advice. Here's some advice - don't listen to stupid women who get 8 babies through IVF and think that is ok. So many of us just want one. The one we lost. The one that broke our heart. The one we didn't get to keep.

I don't get how there are so many moms and dads who don't want the kids they have, who treat them so terribly, who just don't care, who do unspeakably bad things to them. All the while, so many of us mourn what we lost and feel the sadness of the universe bearing down on us. I weep for more than my loss, I weep for the losses of my friends, and the losses of people I don't even know. Because I know what loss feels like.

We did a balloon release for Shannon's birthday yesterday. We set two balloons free - one yellow and one pink. And, because nothing is easy, they went right into a tree. The yellow one worked its way free first, and ran right into another tree. Eventually the yellow one got free of the second tree and went on its way, hopefully to brighten the evening of my evening star. The pink one - well, it got free of the first tree and went right for the second tree. One bounce, two bounces, three bounces, POP!, no more pink balloon. So, being the anal retentive tree-hugger that I am, I trotted off into the street to pick up the carcass of the pink balloon and brought it home. I'll put it in Shannon's memory box as just another pathetic reminder of a rather pathetic year. Then, my husband said, I don't like pink anyway. I said, neither do I. I'd like to think that Shannon let that balloon pop because, being my child, she just wouldn't have been that into pink either. At least the yellow one flew free. Frankly, I'd have rather have just had her here instead. Oh well.

Shannon - we miss you lots and love you more. I don't think Happy Birthday is right, because there was nothing happy about the day that we said hello and goodbye for the first and last time. You'll never be forgotten, my little one... I love you. --mommy

The day before....

2009-02-05T12:16:00.000-05:00

The day before Shannon died. Wednesday, February 6, 2008. I was so sick Monday that I stayed home Tuesday. On wednesday, we had a workman coming to install ceiling fans, so I went to work and took Sean to school.
I remember using my doppler that morning and listening to my baby, never realizing that I'd never hear that sound again. I remember lying there, with the doppler, just listening for what seemed like a long time that day. Who knew that it really was such a short time?

On the way home that day, I remember being so very angry at my son for telling a lie. I was really angry. Who knew how stupid that was at the time?
I remember having so much trouble going to sleep that night because of my stuff nose. I remember taking a sudafed and sleeping all night. Who knew that I wouldn't wake up from the nightmare that awaited me when I opened my eyes that next day?

That was the day before. Who knew that it was going to be the last day of my old life? Who knew that was the last day I'd still believe that happiness was really attainable? Who knew that my life now seems more appropriately among the dead and grieving, instead of in life?

Things really do change in a heartbeat (or the lack thereof). Who knew?

Stuck in a moment at 4 am

2009-01-25T13:57:00.002-05:00

Sometimes grief is a weird thing. It is like running around in a dark room that you are completely familiar with, except that this time someone moved a wall. And you run right into that wall, unexpectedly and painfully and find yourself gasping for breath in your bed at 4 am, when you have to go to work in a few hours, crying uncontrollably and wondering what the hell just happened to you.

After I looked at the clock, I realized it was 4 am, which was the time when Shannon was born. So, was the time significant? I don't think so, the grief I felt was not about her birth, it was about what happened next. It was about the time we spent with her after she was born. The end of the time we spent with her. Knowing that we would never see her again, when is it the right time to let go, to give your baby (your dead baby) to someone who is going to walk away with her and take her somewhere where you will not see her again until you pick up the urn at the funeral home. The person who is going to take your daughter somewhere (where?) into parts of the hospital that regular people don't get to go.

When do you, when can you, let go? How do you decide that it's time? How do you get to the point where you'd rather leave the hospital than stay there with the body of your child, to get away from the hushed voices and the people who walk past your door with the butterfly on it and the doctor who keeps coming in to say he's sorry. How long is too long to stay? When it is better to leave your dead child to return to your living child? The one who doesn't know that his sister is dead, the one who only knows that mommy didn't come home the night before.

Barry Manilow says, "letting go is just another way to say I'll always love you so..." Kate Winslet, in the sappy end to the sappy Titanic, tells her doomed love "I'll never let go." It's all crap.

You never let go, it all keeps coming back. No matter whether you are a day or a week or a year away from that terrible day. Even if you wanted to let go, you can't. And I don't know if I want to. Because I think it is always supposed to hurt on some level.

11 months, and counting

2009-01-17T10:57:00.002-05:00

Shannon was born 11 months and 9 days ago. That seems like a ridiculously long period of time to me right now. In just a few weeks, she'll have been gone a year. And I don't know what to say about that. My husband is about to leave the country for two weeks, and he gets back on Shannon's birthday. I wish I could go back to a time when February didn't fill me with dread and deep, deep sadness, but I lost two pregnancies, one year apart, within one day of each other. That really does make February suck, big time.

I feel like I've made good progess on healing this year. I will always miss my daughter, I will never get to see if she would have turned out to be some super awesome kid, (I suspect that she would have, despite her mom), but I am a stronger person now. I am a more compassionate person now. I understand the unspeakable now. I care a lot less about the unimportant things in life. On the good side that isn't so good, I have a lot less patience for stupidity and shallowness now. Why is that bad, well, only because there is so much of it around me - in the misplaced priorities of others, in the people who'd rather complain about the fact that they got a *X* when they wanted a *Y* (when all they should want is a living baby), in the people who poop on others just to get what they want first, in the list of others who I deal with regularly who just don't have a clue. I'm a lot more tired than I have ever been. And I still wonder if I will get my happy ending at the end of all this loss drama.

This past week, I had my yearly review at work. It was fine, but they mentioned that I had some "health issues" last year. Yes, Shannon is apparently a "health issue" when you work in a law firm and you are being reviewed by a room full of men. I don't even know if they knew what they were saying or what they had been told about my loss, or if they were just told that I was in the hospital or something. I suspect that they were told that I had a loss, but beyond that, who knows. And they said they were sorry and that they hoped everything was ok now. I wonder what "ok now" means, but I am not going to try to go there with a room full of men, so I dug my nails into my hand, said yes and thank you... Some discussions just aren't worth having.

And, on some level, I guess I am "ok now," if only I really knew what ok means...

It's the most ?wonderful? time of the year...

2008-12-28T13:46:00.002-05:00

I didn't send out holiday cards this year. Just didn't feel like it. Figured that the annual letter would be pretty much a downer - "hi, had a shitty year, my daughter died. Happy Holidays!" (stick a pencil in my eye) I figured that those that knew about Shannon would probably understand, those that didn't would figure that we didn't care about cards this year and everyone else could just piss off. When I told my mom that I wasn't sending out cards, she said, and I kid you not, "who died?" And I looked at her and said "excuse me?" And then she said, "Oh, Shannon, sorry." Seriously, I cannot make this stuff up.

This Christmas was much harder than I thought it would be. A lot of tears, which I didn't expect. Tears at random TV stuff, tears at stupid holiday specials, tears at dumb music... Instead of thoughts of sugar plums dancing in my head, I re-lived my time in the hospital the day Shannon was born. And I remembered every second of how sad I was. And I really, really missed her alot. Correction - I really, really miss her alot.

I accept that I'll never be over this. I accept that there is an empty place in my heart, and an empty spot in my home, where my little girl should have been. I know that I am not the only mom who knew that, no matter how nice I made this holiday season for my living child, there was a member of our family missing. I didn't buy a special ornament, I'm still considering buying one when I go out today, maybe.

Even after the Thankgiving baby hit and run, my sister has gone incommunicado again, and my parents haven't mentioned a thing about her to me. Other than the holiday card deadbaby gaffe by my mom, there was no mention of Shannon by anyone in my family or my husband's family. It's all very surreal. It's like I spent my entire year down the rabbithole, and no-one even noticed that I was gone.

10 months

2008-12-13T11:02:00.002-05:00

Well, I guess 10 months and a few days, since Shannon died. It's been a weird year. We (I) decided that we were not going to send holiday cards this year, because the thought of writing a holiday letter that is about how much everything sucks after your baby dies seemed to be a bit of a holiday downer. So, I'd rather be a grinch. Because, no matter what, when you have a living child, you can't pretend that there are no holidays. You get excited for them, because, in some ways, your life has moved on in those 10 months since your life turned upside down. And, my life has moved on in many ways.

Except for the fact that I still miss Shannon every day, and wish that there was a different reality where none of this happened and that there was a little girl staring up at our tree, alongside her brother this year.

Shannon - we miss and love you lots. The butterflies are away for the winter, but they'll be back soon.

The lost tribe of Thanksgiving

2008-12-03T13:12:00.003-05:00

Last Thanksgiving, I shared with my family the happy news that Shannon was on her way. Well, we all know how that turned out. So, I was particularly worried about going home this Thanksgiving, because it was like returning to the scene of a crime, except that all of the bodies were missing. And it was particularly weird because I was supposed to see my sister, who I hadn't heard from since Shannon died. (there's an earlier blog post about this, but I am too lazy to link right now - I'll do it later). She never called, never wrote, nothing... Then, about a week before Thanksgiving, I get a "sorry I was a thoughtless shit" e-mail apology from her. Ok......

So, what do you do with that? After 9 months, I am supposed to respond with something. So, following the advice of people much more sage than I, I responded with a vanilla "thanks for letting me know. See you next week." What else could I possibly say? After 9 months, I don't think that anyone is entitled to show up when I am doing better and expect me to go back to those deep, dark early days after my loss and revisit my pain for (or with) them because they were too thoughtless to have been there when those dark days were all too real. So, the public face is that I am fine, everything is fine, yes, how sad, Shannon died, yes, it sucks... No, nothing is new with me. Quite a complicated public face, I must say.

But, the true bottom line showed itself at the very end of the day, when goodbyes were being said for my sister's long trip back to the far away place from whence they came. The bombshell, the coup de grace, the true turkey of Thanksgiving and the justification for my belief that I really was hatched from a different family and placed with this one as a joke - my sister is pregnant. Yep, when they were basically walking out the door, this little nugget of *information* was pitched onto my plate. No eye contact, no cushioning, no prefatory language - just there you go. My overbalanced, tenuously stacked, complicated public face had to absorb that one too. And everyone in the house knew it except for me and my husband. Yep, guess the joke was on us. I guess that if I had been wearing anything other than my "everything is fine" poker face, they wouldn't have told me at all. (maybe I would get another e-mail) I get the impression that they waited until the end of the day so they wouldn't have to witness what they assumed would be my super-spectacular nuclear meltdown or blowup, depending on which side of the wall you live on.

No one should ever wonder why parents who have lost a child feel like they don't belong anywhere.

How do you measure a year?

2008-11-06T21:13:00.002-05:00

One year ago, just a few days ago, I found out that I was pregnant with Shannon. Never did I think that one year later, I'd be sitting here still mourning her death. A lot can happen in a year. For most people, it seems that they don't get to spend their time wondering what could have been... But, I guess that I am not like most people.

This week, while America was voting in change, babies were born, some lived, some did not. Someone who I have come to consider a friend, even though we've never met, suffered a terrible loss. And my sadness for her is deep, because it reminds me of the fragility of life and reminds me that we should never take things for granted. I marvel at people who, in the face of unspeakable tragedy, maintain a perspective that I just don't have. Even now, a year after seeing that second line, 9 months after losing my little girl, I don't have that perspective. I don't suppose that I ever will.

How do you measure a year - boxes and boxes of tissues, the gain and loss of friends, the fact that I am still here, a year later, still wondering what the hell happened to me and my life... Some things will never change.

More than a river in Egypt

2008-10-24T10:47:00.002-04:00

This has been a divisive year. First, losing Shannon, which has sucked beyond suck. Then, dealing with the aftermath of losing Shannon, which includes my inability to successfully get pregnant (still). Then, dealing with some less than supportive siblings, parents and friends, who don't know quite what to do or say, so they kinda just want me to get over it or hope that I have (they don't know if I have because they don't ask.)

It's also a divisive election year so, like anyone else who is trying to distract themselves from being a grieving mom, I've been engaging myself in other things, like election debate and discussion. It's interesting, fun and educational (and a great distraction)

Until yesterday. Yesterday, someone pissed me off. Big time. And it wasn't really about an election issue, per se. And I want to get it off my chest because it really bothered me, as the mom of a deadbaby.

A pregnant person yesterday pitched a fit over someone posting a photo of their stillborn son on an internet discussion board. She said that it was going to give her nightmares and that it ruined the rest of her pregnancy. And told the mom that photos like that don't belong.

Wow. Just wow. So, to her, oblivious pregnant woman, I say SUCK IT. And get over it. And a great big fuck you. Who are you to tell any mom that their photos of their child, living or dead, do not meet your standards of what is acceptable. I don't care that you want to go through your pregnancy pretending that people like us don't exist and that bad things don't happen. Lalala, better get your fingers out of your ears before you cross the street. We do exist and there are an awful lot of us, and what you said was stupid, hurtful and showed your ignorance of reality. Not every pregnancy boils down to 9 months = baby. Get over yourself.

You are not better than anyone else. And just because you don't want to think about the unthinkable, guess what, it's our life. We are living your nightmare every day. And we hope and wish every day that you don't ever know our pain or what it is like to not get to bring our babies home alive.

Don't demean us by acting like we are supposed to pretend that we and our children don't exist. Because that only pisses us off. And you made my friend cry, which really pisses me off. We are allowed to publicly post our birth announcements, we are allowed to show pictures of our children, we are allowed to call ourselves moms. And if you don't like it, well you can kiss my fat ass.

days of atonement

2008-10-08T22:09:00.005-04:00

So, yesterday was really the 8 month mark of losing Shannon and today is the 8 month mark of when she was born, but I was crazy at work yesterday defending my client against an asshat, and I was so tired when I got home that I was ready to puke, so reflecting on my loss didn't make the cut. How do I feel after 8 months? I am fucking frustrated that I am not pregnant yet. Let's start with that because never in my life has it taken me 8 months to get pregnant. I am totally frustrated that I conceived Shannon a year ago this month and I still have jack shit to show for any of my reproductive efforts. And, I am probably about to get my period tomorrow or friday, which will just let my raging bitch continue her tirade. And the march towards 40 with no baby continues on.

I am at the point now where I have to donate all the formula samples I got because they expire in June 2009 and I won't have a baby by then, even if I find out I am pregnant today (which I am not). So, then I will have empty cupboards to go with the empty uterus and the empty heart. And man does that suck.

And I still miss Shannon immensely. I close my eyes and I can see her as clearly as I did in February, wrapped in her blanket, all small and dead. And it seems like no time has passed as I can still cry just over the thought. And I wonder if I will ever be *better* when so many parts of my brain and my heart can't let go. And I wonder if I am meant to let this go, or if this is how I am supposed to live the rest of my life - avoiding pregnant people and baby showers and christenings and going to work on the weekends so I don't have to go to the playdate at the house with the new baby.

And I am tired because this is the person I have become. I am not being full of grace about my situation. I am angry, sad and pissed off. This journey sucks. SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS. I am not a shining beacon of patience and light. I fucking don't want to be me or to be living this sad, apparently barren life. I have nothing much to say. I don't care if people think that I should be acting some other way or that people who are less twisted about their situation are somehow better than me. I don't believe in any of this anymore. I don't think that I believe that I will ever get pregnant or have another child any more. I am glad that I don't believe in god, because I don't need more disappointment in believing that some sort of higher power knows all of this crap is going on and keeps my beautiful friends from having the babies they deserve so much. And I don't know why that is right.

And I apologize for ignoring my blog for a few weeks at a time lately. And I don't want to remember that I am old and tired and wanting so badly to have the one thing that is just not there - my child.

In Judaism, today is a day of soul-searching and repentance. I am pretty sure my soul escaped out of one of the cracks in my heart, so if anyone finds it, please mail it back.

stepping on my soapbox to create a better world for my children - born and hopefully to come

2008-09-17T21:22:00.002-04:00

Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin.

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists. But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story - - - connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war. I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke.

In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity. Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not. She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes. Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States . She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air. Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S. , but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain. Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler September 5, 2008

Seven months

2008-09-07T14:58:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, one of the deadbaby moms said to me that I need to come visit her after her baby is born, but that she would totally understand if I couldn't do it. And that was nice. Because there are so very few people who realize that time doesn't always make it better, and that watching other people move forward with their lives while you are still swirling around the drain in yours might not always be the best thing. But what I realize that is feeling bad is subjective and discretionary - more specifically, there are some people (and their babies) that I know that I will be ok with, and some that I know that I won't. It's not rational, it's entirely a gut feeling, but it's the best that I've got. And I know that I would be ok with her. Other people, not so much. Oh well.

I found out that Shannon died 7 months ago, today. This day has been floating in my head all week, but it has been (and continues to be) pretty distant and abstract. Like I am not entirely sure how I should feel, so I just sort of feel tired about it all. I miss my baby all the time, but it's farther away now, I still remember her face, and my time with her, but it seems like it was a lifetime ago. Maybe it was.

Shannon - mommy misses you. It's wrong that you are gone and I am sad every day without you.

2008-08-31T17:00:00.002-04:00

I lifted this from someone who lifted it from somewhere else...

So, what do you think people would say to you if you were paraplegic instead of infertile?
(author unknown)

1. As soon as you buy a wheelchair, I bet you'll be able to walk again!
2. You can't use your legs? Boy, I wish I was paralyzed. I get so tired of walking, and if I were paralyzed I wouldn't have to walk anywhere!
3. My cousin was paralyzed but she started shaving her legs in the other direction and she could walk again. You should try that.
4. I guess God just didn't mean for you to be able to walk.
5. Oh, I know exactly how you feel, because I have an ingrown toenail.
6. Sorry, we don't cover treatment for paraplegia, because it's not a life-threatening illness.
7. So... when are *you* going to start walking?
8. Oh, I have just the opposite problem. I have to walk walk walk - everywhere I go!
9. But don't you *want* to walk?
10. You're just trying too hard. Relax and you'll be able to walk.
11. You're so lucky... think of the money you save on shoes.
12. I don't know why you're being so selfish. You should at least be happy that *I* can walk.
13. I hope you don't try those anti-paralysis drugs. They sometimes make people run too fast and they get hurt.
14. Look at those people hiking... doesn't that make you want to hike?
15. Just relax, you'll be walking in no time.
16. Oh do my legs hurt, I was walking and walking and going up and down the stairs all day.
17. I broke my leg skiing, and was on crutches for weeks, and was worried I'd have a permanent limp, but I'm 100% healed.
18. I'd ask you to be in my wedding party but the wheelchair will look out of place at the altar.
19. You're being selfish, not coming on the hike with us, and looking at all of my track & field trophies.
20. Don't complain, you get all the good parking places.
21. If you just lose weight your legs will work again.
22. If you would just have more sex, you could walk!
23. You don't know how to walk? What's wrong with you? Here let a real man show you how to walk!
24. You are just trying too hard to walk. Give up, and then you'll walk.
25. Here, touch my legs, then you'll walk!
26. Just take a vacation, and the stress-break will be sure to get you walking!
27. When *we* were young we only had to worry about having to walk too much.
28. And I bet a paraplegic going to a bookstore doesn't find books about paralysis stacked next to all the books on running...

So here's a little hint. If someone you know tells you that she's trying to get pregnant and it's taking longer than expected, DON'T tell her to just relax. Don't tell her to adopt and then surely she'll get pregnant with her own child. Don't tell her that God has a plan for her. Don't say, "At least it's fun trying!" Scheduling sex with the person you love isn't fun. Getting vaginal ultrasounds every other day and intramuscular injections in your rear twice a day isn't fun. Finding out every single month that - yet again - it didn't work this month either is Just. Not. Fun.

DO tell her that you're sorry she's going through such pain/grief/frustration. Do tell her that you're glad she told you. Do tell her that, even if you don't bring it up (because you want to respect her privacy and understand that she might not feel like talking about it sometimes), that you're there for her if she ever wants to talk or vent.

And DON'T feel that because she told you that it's okay for you to tell your other friends, children, co-workers, neighbors, cousins, mailman, whomever - unless she tells you that it's okay to do so. Your need to share news pales in comparison to her need to maintain a shred of privacy and dignity.

toppings are extra

2008-08-23T20:26:00.004-04:00

When people ask me how many children I have, I pause. Part of me really wants to say how many I have been pregnant with (five), but then I think about it some more and I always say one. When people ask me if my son is my only child, again, I have to pause. Because he isn't. He is now one of five, the oldest of five, the one who got to live. Whether by luck or happenstance or the cosmic meanie missed one, I don't know. But he is all I've got. Up until this past week, he was one of four. But then, last week, I found out I was pregnant again, but this one didn't even make it through the weekend. So, is it a loss? Does it count as another deadbaby on the ever growing list? I guess it does (to me). How many cells does it take to make it a "real baby." What is the difference between a late period and an early miscarriage. Is there really a difference? Physically, I can say for me the answer is yes. I never had a "natural" miscarriage (not that there is anything natural about losing a child.) My early losses ended in D&C's because my body stubbornly refused to accept that it wasn't pregnant anymore and stubbornly hung onto whatever it had. This time, my body did it on its own. And it was different. It was slightly numbed by the amount of beer that I decided to drink (since I wasn't pregnant any more) and the fact that I was so glad that I wouldn't have to go back to the doctor begging for something to make my body give up its pregnancy, but the inescapable fact was that both my husband and I were markedly saddened by yet another loss. Just a few days before, we were stunned to find out that we had managed to create a baby at all, given all the crappy fertility news that we'd been given lately. We barely had a chance to revel in being pregnant before we weren't anymore. No one knew. The food from our traditionally yummy pizza, yay we're pregnant again dinner had barely digested before I wasn't pregnant anymore. It's amazing how quickly things change. Yet, in the end, because all I want is to have a healthy baby, and because it remains out of my reach, everything stays the same.

If I'd have known how it would have turned out, I would have had the prosciutto pizza. And I didn't even cry.

The longest year ever

2008-08-17T18:12:00.002-04:00

One year ago, I was embarking, for the second time, on trying to conceive after a first trimester loss. I had spent July and August 2007 as a human science experiment, having every test in the universe run on me to try to figure out why my babies kept on dying. In the end, there really wasn't anything wrong that they could find, just a few little things that probably didn't amount to much. Along the way, I got a lot of pity and a lot of bad pity advice. Let me tell you, for the record, that having a child before your losses is actually not a good thing. No, it doesn't make the losses easier to take, and no, it doesn't prove out the theory of "well, at least you know you can have kids" No, what it means is that I know that I can have one kid, the one that didn't die, but that doesn't mean that I possess the ability to have any more. Fertility problems after a loss, secondary infertility, whatever you want to call it, just freakin' the inability to get (or stay) pregnant just sucks. And it is very lonely, because no matter how many people are trying to get pregnant right along with you, your personal hell is yours alone. And, as time marches on, you get more and more alone. All the friendship and support in the world doesn't take the place of that healthy child that you want so much.

It doesn't matter how you try to sugar coat it, the bottom line is that Shannon should be 6 weeks old now, not dead 6 months. I should be worried about taking her into the sun, not getting mad because her urn got moved. If Shannon hadn't died, I would't be mortified of seeing all of the new babies born to our friends in the past few weeks. Oh, and the fact that they were mostly girls doesn't help. Moving backwards, if I hadn't had my first loss in Feb. 2007, I'd be preparing for a first birthday party now. If I hadn't had my second loss in June 2007, I probably wouldn't have been crying over a child who was about 8 months old in the doctor's office the other week. Because I wouldn't have found it sad to see a baby the same age as my second dead baby.

It's a pretty fucked up bunch of milestones that you get to measure time by when your whole life has become about loss. And it doesn't go away. I, and mom's like me, do the math reflexively. We always know how old our child would have been. We can guess by looking at other babies what ours might have been like. And when we hear pregnant women and new moms complain, we wish our diamond shoes were tight too.

So, I'm off to ride roller coasters with my child. At least, unlike the roller coaster I've been on for the past 20 months, I like these roller coasters.

Mindless memes (part deux)

2008-08-11T21:30:00.002-04:00

I got this from lifewithoutbrenna.blogspot.com who got it from another blogger.

The things I have done are in bold.

Bought everyone in the bar a drink
Swam with wild dolphin
Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
Been inside the Great Pyramid
Held a tarantula
Taken a candle lit bath
Said I love you and meant it
Hugged a Tree
Bungee jumped
Visited Paris
Watched a lightning storm at sea
Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
Seen the Northern Lights
Gone to a huge sports game
Walked the stairs to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
Grown and eaten your own vegetables
Touched an iceberg
Slept under the stars
Changed a baby’s diaper
Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
Watched a meteor shower
Gotten drunk on champagne
Given more than you can afford to charity
Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
Had a food fight
Bet on a winning horse
Asked out a stranger
Had a snowball fight
Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
Held a lamb
Seen a total eclipse
Ridden a rollercoaster
Hit a home run
Danced like a fool, not caring who watched
Adopted an accent for an entire day
Actually felt happy about your life, even for a moment
Had two hard drives for your computer
Visited all 50 states
Taken care of someone who was too drunk
Had amazing Friends
Danced with a Stranger in a foreign country
Watched wild whales
Stolen a sign
Hitchhiked in Europe
Taken a road-trip
Gone rock climbing
Midnight walk on the beach
Gone sky diving
Visited Ireland
Been heartbroken longer than you were in love
In a restaurant sat at a stranger’s table and ate with them
Visited Japan
Milked a cow
Alphabetized your CDs
Pretended to be a superhero
Sung karaoke
Lounged around in bed all day
Posed nude in front of strangers
Gone scuba diving
Kissed in the rain
Played in the mud
Played in the rain
Gone to a drive-in theater
Visited the Great Wall of China
Started a business
Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
Toured ancient sites
Taken a martial arts class
Played a computer game for more than 6 hours straight
Gotten married
Been in a movie (one of 10 million extras in Major League 2)
Crashed a party
Gotten divorced
Gone without food for 5 days
Made cookies from scratch
Won first prize in a costume contest
Ridden a gondola in Venice
Gotten a tattoo
Rafted the Snake River
Been on television news program as an “expert”
Got flowers for no reason
Performed on a stage
Been to Las Vegas
Recorded Music
Eaten shark
Had a one-night stand
Gone to Thailand
Bought a house
Been in a combat zone
Buried one/both of your parents
Been on a cruise ship
Spoken more than one language fluently
Performed in Rocky Horror
Raised Children
Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
Picked up and moved to another city
Walked on the Golden Gate Bridge
Sang loudly in the car and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
Had plastic surgery
Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have
Wrote articles for a large publication (well, one anyway)
Lost over 100 lbs
Held someone while they were having a flashback
Piloted an airplane
Petted a stingray
Broken someone’s heart
Helped an animal give birth
Won money on a TV game show
Broken a bone
Gone on an African safari
Had a body part below the neck pierced
Fired a rifle, shotgun or pistol
Eaten mushrooms gathered in the wild
Ridden a horse
Had major surgery
Had a snake as a pet
Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
Slept for more than 30 hours over 48 consecutive hours
Visited more foreign countries than US States
Visited all 7 continents
Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
Eaten Kangaroo meat
Eaten sushi
Had your picture in the paper
Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
Gone back to school
Parasailed
Petted a cockroach
Eaten fried green tomatoes
Read the Illiad
Selected one important author who you missed school to read
Killed and prepared an animal for eating
Skipped all of your school reunions
Communicated with someone without sharing a common language
Been elected to public office
Written your own computer language
Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream (and nightmares too lately)
Had to put someone you love in hospice care
Build your own PC from parts
Sold your own artwork to someone that didn’t know it was yours
Had a booth in a street fair
Dyed your hair
Been a DJ
Shaved your head
Caused a car accident
Saved someone’s life

Et vous?

Six months is a long time

2008-08-11T19:36:00.003-04:00

I still miss her. Every day. I got irrationally mad this past Friday because the cleaning lady moved Shannon's urn. They don't ever even dust my dresser, so why in the world would they have reason to move her? Super annoying.

Then, last week, exactly six months to the day that we found out that she was dead and I went to the hospital to deliver her, I get a call from the hospital where Shannon was born. Seems that they were doing some housekeeping and found all of the photos of her that they took. The ones that they told me were lost forever because they never got them because the camera wasn't working that day. Yea, guess they were wrong. So, they asked me if I wanted them. Hello? What do you think? Of course I want them. But, of course, I started getting upset and told them that there was no way in hell that I was going to go to L&D to get them. So, the nurse offered to bring them down to the parking lot for me. I can't go back there. I've been there 3 times in the past 2 years and I have no babies to show for it. Pathetic. If I hadn't had my son there, I'd probably believe that the building was cursed. But I can say now, six months later, that should I ever get pregnant again (please), I never want to go to that hospital again.

I never knew that just pulling into a hospital parking lot could make me sadder than I was. (who knew that the hospital would find that one last band-aid and yank it off?) (who am I kidding to think that was the last band aid?) But sure enough, there I was, holding an envelope full of photos and crying. And these weren't very good photos. Unlike living babies (correction - most living babies, some are just fug), dead ones don't get prettier as time wears on. Shannon will always be beautiful to me, but just the same, I recognize that, like my grief, there are some things that I will always keep for myself. Like my pictures of my beautiful baby from the hospital. But thanks just the same for the note cards with the matching envelopes.

I guess that's it. There are likely few traces of Shannon in the outside world, only in my heart and in the hearts of her dad and brother. No more photos to find, no more bills to fight over. But my heart still hurts. Every day. I guess six months is not really a long time after all.

reading meme's

2008-07-26T23:20:00.002-04:00

The National Endowment for the Arts has an initiative they are calling the big read. The website states its purpose is to "restore reading to the center of American culture."The premise of this little exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.

what to do:

1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2. Italicize those you intend to read.
3. Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE
4. Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 or less and force books upon them

the list

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Bible
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (I've tried and tried...)
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (I tried to read this, couldn't finish it)
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
Emma - Jane Austen
Persuasion - Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Dune - Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick - Herman Melville (in HS, we cut a deal to watch the movie instead - does that count?)
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Germinal - Emile Zola
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession - AS Byatt
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web - EB White
The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Watership Down - Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

***
So, I've read 33/100. Not too bad. I am like 5 1/2 average people, or just one lonely geek who read a lot in high school. I have to say, looking at this list, that the nuns at the academy must have known something, because they made me read a lot of this stuff. I am kind of surprised that Gulliver's Travel's isn't on the list, but again, keep in mind that I am a geek.

to every thing...

2008-07-21T20:52:00.003-04:00

I feel like I've been in a creative slump for the past week or so. It's not a bad thing entirely, because I feel like the passing of Shannon's due date has signaled some sort of shift in the cosmic process. I miss her terribly and I always will, but my life, my life has finally started to move somewhat (maybe) It's hard to explain, but I feel like I am done with a lot of stuff. (more mental garage sales) It's like I have started the shift to a second purge, and this time the purge includes some of the things that I clung to in those sad, dark, dark first days. I can't say that things are getting brighter, but things are certainly an acceptable level of blah. Am I still depressed? Yep. Do I still have no interest in participating in a lot of life? Yep. Am I still bitter? Yep. But, at the same time, I am better.

It is a more solitary life that I crave now. And it's not a worsening depression kind of wanting to be alone, but a need of wanting to be normal again kind of alone. It's hard when you feel like your life is on display. And I am not really sad that some of the people that I considered indispensible are, in reality, not. Not all of them, but some of them have moved on, and I too, now need to move on. I am not Feb. 6 anymore. I am post-February 7. And that is a whole different universe and not a lot of people are making the jump with me.

I have no idea where I am going with this. But my son is benefitting from having a mom who is trying harder to be present for him and trying to let him be a kid again, as opposed to being a sponge for mom's sadness. And he is the only kid I have on this planet, and he may be the only one at the rate this is going, so I should probably try to make sure that he is not entirely screwed up before he starts kindergarten. I've got plenty of years to screw him up. Rome wasn't built in a day...

Six by one

2008-07-13T00:20:00.006-04:00

1 How would you describe your relationship to fear before and after the loss of your baby?

before - I was afraid of stupid, trivial things. I was the horror movie, zombies rising up kind of fear person. Then - fear was just some part of living. After - Fear is reality. I don't need horror movie fear anymore. I have my life. Now, fear exists with me everyday in my personal life and creeps out of the corners when I am most vulnerable. Its shadows change the color of my life.

2 Is your lost baby/are your babies present in your life? In what way?

Shannon is more present than my early losses. I carry her photos everywhere I go. I carry her in my heart everywhere I go. I see her in every butterfly that passes by me. I see her in my son's profile when he is sleeping. She is my reason for being in this blog world.

3 Tell us about something said or done after your loss that left you feeling nurtured or supported.

One of my dear friends sent me a charm with a july birthstone, to commemorate when we were supposed to meet Shannon. People have reached out to me, through my blog and in real life, to help me feel less alone. Someone said "What happened to you sucks and I am sorry." (that's all I've ever wanted to hear)

4 Tell us about something said or done after your loss that left you feeling marginalized or misunderstood.

The world moved on... the people who said nothing hurt me, but the one's who think it's ok to send me photos of their newborn babies when they weren't there for me when I lost Shannon just really piss me off.

5 What's taken you a long time to do again? How did it feel, if you have?

I have a hard time thinking that 5 months is a long time. I've only started to react less with anger at the drop of a hat from feeling like society marginalizes my feelings as a deadbaby mom to some sort of resigned bemusement that the world is as stupid as it ever was, and that it mostly isn't directed personally at me. There's some relief in this mindset, but I still think that stupid is not really an excuse. And forgiveness still isn't an option.

6 How would you describe yourself as a partner before, and after?

Before - I would have considered myself pretty selfish. We have always had an excellent partnership because it was based on the full disclosure that I was the way I was and wasn't likely to change, which in my mind allowed me to put in as much (or as little effort) as I felt like as far as household responsibilities go. Now - our ways of dealing with grief are different, and it is easier to accidentially hurt him because he doesn't express his hurt like I do. I am more present in our relationship, in part, because it takes more effort to be present through my sadness. I am more honest. I am more brittle but, at the same time, our loss has brought us closer together and we are stronger for that.

Happy birthday butterflies

2008-07-12T18:44:00.003-04:00

What mom thinks that she will spend what should *would* *might* have been their baby's birthday writing about how much she misses her baby? In my new world, probably more than I'd ever have guessed. And as I look out my office window at our beautiful flower garden, I cry for the first time today - made it to after 6 pm. Not too shabby. (I guess) It was lighting the candle that did it. Stupid fucking candle. Doesn't make me miss Shannon any less. Just made me cry.

A few months ago, I embarked on a selfish task. I decided that my son would ask for a butterfly habitat for his birthday because I wanted butterflies. Shannon's dad and I felt an affinity to butterflies after losing Shannon. Don't know why, it was just something we both felt, separately and together. So, someone actually bought the habitat (we actually got 2). And we diligently sent away for the caterpillars and did all the stuff that we were supposed to do and waited for them to be butterflies.

We went away yesterday, because I didn't want to be at work because I just didn't want to be there on the day before Shannon's birthday and I should be on maternity leave and I just didn't want to be there. We went to an amusement park, and we had fun. Because pregnant people can't ride roller coasters. And even if my brother-in-law thought it was appropriate to tell us about his friend's colicky new daughter. Whatever...

So, when we got back today, we found butterflies. All of them (5) hatched. All of them were alive. I guess it's nice to know that something was born alive on the day that I would *might* have been enjoying mediocre grilled cheese sandwiches at the hospital and marveling at my beautiful daughter, who would have looked an awful lot like Sean, because she did in February, when she showed up way too early and not in the least bit alive. I'd like to believe that Shannon sent me some butterflies today, becaused I'd like to believe that she's the kind of girl that would send a sad mommy something to remember her baby girl.

Shannon - happy due date. I wish you were here with me and daddy and Sean. We miss you every day. And we love you. Mommy sends you hugs and kisses on butterfly wings. With all my heart...

Grief across the lines

2008-07-04T10:08:00.003-04:00

These letters appeared in the Washington Post, in Carolyn Hax's column, back in March, shortly after Shannon died. The first deals with the grief of a family, following the death of a family member, and the sheer exhaustion that results from the well-meaning 'intrusions' of friends and family, into someone's suffering and dying and the family's grief. It resonated with me because the process, and the feelings, don't seem so different than what a family that has lost a baby goes through. Of course, the situation is different because Shannon didn't have a circle of friends that went through the dying process with her, but the exhaustion and the grief felt by the family that was left to forever carry her loss with them while the rest of the world moved on, still is....

The second deals with someone who was diagnosed with cancer and was dealing with the fact that none of his/her friends wanted to address the simple reality that they might die and that there were things that the friends could do to help the sick person in dealing with that eventuality. Avoidance of other people's grief and need is wrong. It is also all too common. The family of a deadbaby deals with a lot of the same denial and outright avoidance from their friends. At the time of Shannon's loss, I was feeling it quite acutely. I still feel it today, but it is a lower level hurt, like that white noise hum, it's always there, but I don't always notice it.

*******
¿ On the other victims of terminal illness, the caregivers:

My mother died last year from cancer. Most people refused to believe she was dying. My mother knew a lot of people and had many friends and admirers. Of course, they all cared about her and wanted to be supportive and see her. My dad and I bent over backward trying to accommodate everyone. We were trying to do the "right" thing. If I had it to do again, my father and I agree that we would limit if not outright bar visits in those last few months.

While people's intentions are good, they need to recognize that sometimes their presence is more of a burden or outright detriment to the ill person's well-being. My mother had to summon extra energy to appear "well" and reassure people.

My mother's best, best, best friend is a wonderful woman whom I still respect and adore. However, she practically demanded access and if we tried to politely sidestep, she would just show up at our house at 10 p.m. trying to "catch" my mother. She would then stay while being completely oblivious to my mother's fatigue. Our friend was scared and wanted to be present. We understood that. Truthfully, though, she was also being selfish. She needed the comfort of seeing my mother, but that's not what my mother needed.

As politely as he could, my father finally had to tell my mother's best friend and her husband that my mother really needed more rest time. Her best friend had her nose completely out of joint because of this. The husband, however, understood and intervened on our behalf.

Intrusiveness is also hard on the caregivers. My dad and I basically ended up entertaining. We would be up all night taking care of diarrhea accidents, medications, trying to keep my mother calm during paranoid moments, then turn around and have to spend the daytime being social coordinators. Would visitors feel included and comfortable being there for incontinence or screaming/crying delusions, too? People want to pick their moments and that's not fair.

Sometimes it's simply not appropriate and oftentimes those inappropriate periods can go on for quite a while. As a patient, would you want everyone seeing you at your "worst" and feeling judged and gossiped about? We knew we'd be the bad guys if we restricted access more.

Knowing that, I'd still absolutely do it if I had the chance again. If nothing else, I didn't really get much time with my mother those last few months. There was always someone in the house and I didn't have the opportunity just to sit with her and talk. I so regret that.

The truth is that all of those people have gone on with their lives. As much as they cared and loved her, they don't live with her death day in and day out like I do. We were her family and we feel it at every holiday, every milestone, and during every daily, mundane activity, like eating dinner without her. They don't.

************
and, another one.....

Dear Carolyn:

I was recently diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and have been dutifully if miserably going through treatment. The prognosis? Who knows. The whole "every day is a gift" thing has somewhat cruelly -- and somewhat wonderfully -- become a daily, waking thought. How do I get the people in my life to confess out loud that this could, and in all likelihood will, kill me? Everyone around me is insistent on being optimistic and denying the truth that this disease kills people every day, and I could be one of them. I try to talk to them about what will happen to my things, and what their plans are when and if I die of this, just as if I were hit by a bus, but they stick their heads in the sand and refuse to have the conversation with me. Carolyn, I could die from this. I will die someday. These are both factual statements. So why will no one discuss it with me? -- V.

I am sorry. I am sorry about the cancer and the miserable treatments and, in the spirit of your question, I am even more sorry that your well-meaning but cowardly intimates have left you no choice but to suffer alone.

Your question is, why? And my answer is, I don't know. I can guess, though: You live in a society that can't get enough of fictional death, but prefers the real thing to be pat, antiseptic and (this is key) offstage. The difference may be as simple as the ability to click "off" when the emotions start feeling too real. The only thing we have to fear, apparently, is awkwardness itself.

You probably can't call people cowards as easily as I can -- you want openness about your impending demise, after all, not enthusiasm. However, I do think you want to use almost that level of bluntness to get your point across. As your "somewhat wonderfully" observation suggests, you have clarity, urgency and courage on your side here.

Gather these up, then recruit two more allies: specificity and selectivity. Narrow down exactly what you need, zero in on the person who represents your best shot at a straight answer, then ask. For example: "I will need someone to distribute my things. Will you please help me?" And when you get the oh-it-won't-come-to-that answer: "Yes, it will, and you will die someday, too, and I feel better talking about it than avoiding it. Will you please help me?"

And when heads start hitting the sand: "Can you explain why you won't help me?" Clearly this is pressing someone well beyond the point where, under normal conditions, I advise backing off; you can't "get" anyone to confess, or even pretend, anything. But these aren't normal conditions, and your needs warrant extreme measures to flush loved ones out of hiding -- as a favor to them, I could argue. Target the overlap between people you trust, and people who have said to you, "If there's anything I can do . . ." Collect on these offers, and tell people you're doing it.

Ideally, it wouldn't come to this, I know. Ideally, people wouldn't try to escape life's inescapable fact. But, ideally, you wouldn't be sick. I am so sorry you are. As you've been with cancer, be with people: unflinchingly matter-of-fact.

Beautiful people

2008-07-04T09:47:00.002-04:00

'The most beautiful people we have known are those who known defeat, know suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way of the depths. These persons have an appreciation , a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not happen.'

-As I sit here, months out from my loss, and days away from what would have been my baby girl's birthday, I can't help but think about the people who I have met on this journey. The collective wisdom of the world of deadbaby moms has provided me with strength, support and a lot more tears that I thought possible. Before I lost Shannon, I would see the posts by these people on the BBC boards, and I would think, 'whew, glad that isn't me'. I would read the stories and they would make me cry, but it wasn't me. And then it was me. And here I am. Five months later and I feel as if I am part of the collective wisdom and the burden on the world that is the deadbaby mom.

And these supportive women that I have encountered, the ones who have left little notes here, the ones who have e-mailed, are extraordinary. And I thank them. I don't know where this journey goes, I don't know if it gets easier (even though some say it does), I don't know if I get my living baby in the end, but I am glad that sometimes I feel a little less alone because I am not alone. And even though this experience has turned me into a more bitter bitch than I was before it, I can deal with it because it just is what it is. Now, if I can only get the universe to find a new punchline for its cosmic joke other than me, then maybe stuff will start to look up.

in the spotlight, alone

2008-06-28T12:00:00.005-04:00

I don't know when, if ever, this pain ends. I thought that it would get easier, but when it seems like it is, then it just goes and starts hurting again. I thought that I'd be pregnant by now, and hoped that a new pregnancy would lessen the pain. But I am not pregnant, and I'm not sure that it would have helped anyway. I thought earlier this week that I had gotten a positive pregnancy test, but it appears that it was either a dud test, or something, because none of the tests since then were positive. In the past weeks, it seems that at least 4 of my friends have found out that they are pregnant. And several people I know have given birth to healthy girls. And I can't bear to hear about it, read about it or see it because it's not me. And it makes me feel bad to feel this way because I feel like I should be able to be there for people who have been there for me, but I can't right now. And, I hate that my body is not cooperating in getting pregnant and I hate that every month, I hear the same thing - that people are pulling for me, that it's my month, that people have a good feeling, that I'll get my rainbow baby soon. None of it matters. And none of it makes me feel any better. I wish it did, because I appreciate the support. And I appreciate that people care. But I also recognize that I have always found it is easier to support other people that it is to have any hope for myself. Believing it myself if entirely another story. And I'd like to believe that when I say crap like that, that it makes someone feel better, and not worse because, more than anything else, I don't want people to feel bad.

All of this just makes me feel like I am under a spotlight - star of the "she's still not pregnant show" and it seems like it is becoming a show that has 1 star - me. This month was my last chance to get pregnant before Shannon's due date. And it looks like we failed again. And it makes me want to just crawl under a rock and not come out. Having another baby won't replace Shannon. But it would be nice to have something go my way. I really really miss her. And I feel like the tears that I do cry aren't even getting close to the well of tears that hasn't opened yet - and I don't know when (or if) it will open, but I am scared. I feel like I am on the edge of an abyss and that if I fall in, I will be gone for a really long time.

temptation

2008-06-22T16:29:00.002-04:00

Something really drives me nuts - it is people who are pregnant and who are complaining about every little bit of it. I would give just about anything to be pregnant again. You don't know how lucky you are. So stop complaining.

There is a board on babycenter full of people due in a few weeks, like I would have been, who are just moaning about being 9 months pregnant. Hello??? I am so tempted to go over there and tell them that I'd gladly switch places with any of them if my baby gets to live. Really, sometimes people should go suck it (thanks for that new phrase Christine. It really fits)

One step forward, two steps back

2008-06-22T15:44:00.003-04:00

And I've started crying again...seems like it has been weeks, until Friday since I've really cried, then it all started again. The conversation started simple enough... him: well, Matt's a father... me: "well, good for them"-(as if I care). Then the part he didn't want to say - me: well, was it a boy or girl or a tree. him: a tree. me: really? him: they had a girl. me: . . . (except for the stupid tears.) I decided shortly thereafter that I guess it didn't matter because I was never going to meet this child, unless by accident.

Before you think I am more of bitch then you already do, keep in mind that this was the guy who was the best man at our wedding and my husband's best friend since they were kids. And he didn't call for over 6 weeks after we lost Shannon. And he hasn't said a word to me at all. I get that maybe you don't want to talk to the lady who gave birth to her dead baby in her second trimester when you were pregnant with your first child at the same stage - and with a girl to boot - but fuck you - you are supposed to be my husband's best friend and my friend too. So, I'm done. I don't need to get to know your child who is going to be doing everything my little girl would have done, at the same time she would have, except for the being dead part. To me, watching that would be like chewing tinfoil. And I need it like I need a hole in my head.

It's interesting, I don't feel this way about my friends who all had girls earlier this year. I like their babies. I can be with them without crying. I enjoy being with them. It's just the ones who are popping out the kids right now. Because I would have been in the home stretch of my pregnancy, a place where I could have gotten my doctors to induce (as early as this week). And that hurts. And I see how many people who were my indispensible pregnant friends having a baby (or getting close) and suddenly finding me dispensible. And that hurts too.

The Dance

2008-06-17T22:54:00.001-04:00

Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared beneath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known you’d ever say goodbye
And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance
Holding you I held everything
For a moment wasn’t I the king
But if I’d only known how the king would fall
Hey who’s to say you know
I might have changed it all
And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance

- Garth Brooks

awful but functioning

2008-06-17T22:16:00.001-04:00

#links

This blog is wonderful. As far as deadbabyblogs go, it's good to feel less alone sometimes...

6 by 6

2008-06-17T21:43:00.002-04:00

Another group of lostbabymama's posted this 6 by 6 on their blog - http://www.glowinthewoods.com

1 In a word, how would you characterize yourself before your loss, and then after?

before - sarcastic .... after - bitter

2 How do you feel around pregnant women?

Anyone due around my due date (or who looks it) is just out of luck. I feel sad and angry around pregnant women. Much less so around those who I know had losses like mine.

3 How do you answer the 'how many children' question?

Sometimes, I mention Shannon. Most times not. It's hard because so few people knew that she was there before we lost her.

4 How did you explain what happened to your lost baby to your living children?

My son knows that he had a sister, who had an accident and died. He was very excited to be a big brother. He still asks questions, and we answer him. He is very curious about death, but that could just be because he is 5.

5 What would another pregnancy mean to you, and how would you get through it—or are you done with babymaking?

A health pregnancy would mean everything to me. It is what we are hoping for. I hope that I am not too old to do this again, and I hope I get my chance. I will get through it like MacGuyver, with chewing gum, tinfoil and a paper clip with which I will create an alternative universe where I will wake up in 9 months with a baby.

6 Imagine being able to step back in time and whisper into the ear of your past self the day after your baby died. What would you say?

I would say that it hurts a little less down the road and I would tell me not to go to the hibachi restaurant where they sing happy birthday every two minutes because it was my baby's birthday too and that really sucked.

thought for today

2008-06-17T21:15:00.002-04:00

My storehouse burnt down,
There is nothing to obstruct
The moon-view.

Mizuta Masahide (1657-1723)

**********
Today, my dear old friend from college, Phil called. He told me that he wanted to call me in February, after Shannon died, but he figured that I'd be deluged in calls, and he didn't want to be part of the crush. When I finished laughing at the thought that people reacted to the death of a baby that way, I told him that reactions like that are just not what you get when your baby dies. Most people don't say anything. He wondered what is the right thing to say - I told him it was simple. "man, that sucks. and I am sorry for your loss." That about sums it up.

But, as old friends do, we started catching up on what was new in the million years since we last spoke and he asked me how I was. And I said that, putting aside the great suck that is losing Shannon, I am ok. I am a different person than I was before I lost Shannon, but that I was ok with the person that I was now. I also told him that I was ok with being bitter, it sure beat crying all the time.

He shared with me the haiku above after I told him about how I started purging my life after Shannon died because none of the material things mattered anymore. He understood. It is so nice to be understood sometimes. It is wonderful to have a voice from your past cruise out of the ether and just remind you that you are ok and that you will be ok and that you have friends out there who are going to randomly call you on a Tuesday night because they want to be sure that you are ok. Sometimes it does suck a little less.

Strategic reserves

2008-06-14T20:21:00.003-04:00

Much like my son's birthday party, which was just overwhelming in terms of the amount of psychic energy it took not to completely fall apart entirely , I found my son's graduation from pre-school to be a bit too much as well. First off, there were at least 3 massively pregnant women there, two of whom are due in July, just like I was. Then, the kicker, a brand spanking new tiny baby from the mom of one of my son's classmates. This little girl could not have been more than 2 or 3 days old, and she was obviously a bit on the early side. So, essentially, she was what Shannon should be. Except right in my face. And not dead. And it made me cry only because after I said that I was going to go because there were just too many babies, another one of the moms said that she was sorry for my loss and then asked how I was. It was nice that at least someone got why I was sad, my husband pretty much just was encouraging me to leave. Nice. This woman got the sad because she had an early loss a few years ago. Not the same, but still, in some ways, the same.

I think that every day we start off with a finite amount of psychic energy which has to last us all day long. When you are grieving though, a big chunk of that energy is being diverted to every day tasks that previously didn't require any energy. So, when something big comes along, like a birthday party or a graduation or anything else, you just don't have enough there to manage really well and you don't have a reserve to pull from. So you just flounder along and hope that no-one notices that you are a basketcase.

At my son's party, I ended up tuning out a big part of the day and ended up involved in a long conversation with all my fertility and loss moms about fertility and infertility and loss stuff. Anyone happening upon that conversation would have been pretty confused. And I didn't care that I think that I was a terrible hostess. My mother sat there eavesdropping on the whole fertility conversation and I didn't care. She doesn't know about any of the conception issues we are dealing with now, or about my second loss, and if she found out at the party, she hasn't said anything. And my mother in law and mother ended up standing in the kitchen, while I was trying to warm food (in front of the hot oven, no less), and I just about screamed at all of them. Fortunately, only one person saw/heard the mini meltdown. But, truthfully, I just really didn't care.

AND, the pregnant person showed up. I thought she wasn't coming because she had to work, but no, she ended up essentially being the first person there. Yep, that didn't help either. Now, mind you, I love my friend dearly, but enough is enough. I don't need any more reminders of my dead baby who is not coming in July in my house. If she has a girl, I may just go around the bend. But, I only cried once, because all of the pity got to me (I hate pity) I just want my life to go back to normal.

Elective surgery

2008-06-10T20:07:00.002-04:00

That is what my insurance company has deemed the delivery of my daughter. Elective fucking surgery. Like I elected this to happen to me. Like I woke up on Thursday, February 7 and decided to check myself into the hospital that afternoon to give birth. Asshats. I guess that, on the bright side, they paid the doctor *something* so that they will finally get off my back about the unpaid bill for my "elective surgery."

Shannon - I love you. Thank you for sending me the beautiful butterflies that like your garden so much. They are not you, but it's something. -- Mommy.

double time to nowhere

2008-06-10T19:39:00.002-04:00

Seventeen weeks and five days ago I found out that my seventeen week five day old baby girl was dead. Shannon has now been gone for as long as she was even here. The amount of time that I have been so deeply grieving the loss of my child now exceeds the amount of time she existed as a living being. That blows.

And every day, I wonder, will I ever be happy again? Not sometimes happy, which I am most of the time, not truly happy, which I am not sure I ever was, but just happy? Some mundane, livable version of happy? Every day, I am asked to do the most mundane of things - wake up, shower, go to work, take care of my kid, make sure I look before crossing the street. Some days I don't want to do some or all of these basic things, but I do them. Then, on some days, more is expected. I am expected to host 40 people in my house for a birthday party. I am expected to donate my time. I am expected to speak to people who don't know what to say to me because my daughter died. And sometimes I am expected to be happy for other people who are pregnant. And just like remembering to cross the street, I am. Kinda sorta.

But mostly all I am is sad for me. Sad. sad. sad. I feel terrible that I am so sad, but that is just the way it is. I don't want to be sad. And, in much the same way, I feel terrible that I am not able to be sorta mostly truly happy for others who are closer to getting their baby than I am. I just can't. I can't. If I had some ability to figure out how to unshatter my heart, I would. But there are so many pieces missing right now. I am not sure how I am supposed to get up every day and do all the other things that are expected of me and not be heart-numbingly sad. I hate pity from others, but not as much as I hate pity from myself. I hate feeling like I have to act like everything is ok every day, when every day, I just die a little inside because I am one day further away from my little girl and the life that we were supposed to have. And that really blows.

Otherwise, I am doing mostly ok

2008-06-05T21:20:00.002-04:00

I actually kinda marveled at myself for typing those words in an e-mail the other day. I have tried so hard, since my loss, to be honest with people about how I was feeling, about the sadness that is overwhelming, about the anger at losing Shannon, about the crushing loneliness that comes from feeling like you might be the only one still missing your baby. Other that that stuff, I guess I am mostly ok. Sad, angry and lonely, but ok. So, while at first I thought that I was being a big fat liar for saying that I was mostly ok, I guess that I am not a liar. Do I still have terrible days when I just cry? Absolutely. Do I still know that every day that passes is another day closer to my EDD? Absolutely. Is my frustration at trying to conceive again multiplied by the fact that I miss Shannon so much? Absolutely. But I am mostly ok. Will I ever be totally ok? Nope. But that is ok too. Because I will always be me.

I have to make a note to myself to post about how absolutely not prepared I was emotionally and psychologically to have a house full of people for my son's birthday party. I was not ok.

Shannon baby, 17 weeks ago you left me. And I miss you terribly. I will always love you so very much, my first daughter. In just a few short days, you will have been gone for as long as you were here, and that is really hard for me to comprehend. I wish you were here. I hope wherever you are is better than here, because then at least you'd be in a better place than here. For what that's worth. Mommy loves you.

Loose "change"

2008-05-29T17:45:00.002-04:00

Our children change us... whether they live or not. Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991

Change is something that moms who've suffered the loss of their children know all too well. In a moment, a heartbeat *the stopping of a heartbeat* everything changes. Hopes and dreams are shattered and an unspeakable sadness creeps into your life and fills up all your empty spaces. What do you do with that? In some ways, I guess the answer is nothing. There is nothing you can do. There is nothing you can do to change what happened to your baby. There is nothing you can do to change what happened to you. It just IS. And you putter along though whatever shitstorm life has just thrown at you and you hope for the best and you make it up as you go along and you hope that no-one can see that you are not strong, that you just are trying to keep your head above water long enough to make it to the other side of this terrible thing. I don't know what that other side looks like, I am not there yet, but I think that I will not be surprised to find out that it looks like more of the same old, same old.

One of my more recent favorite quotes is from the Jam - 'bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names' I'd heard them sing that line probably thousands of times over the past 20 years or so, but I heard it after I lost Shannon and I wrote it down in my little book of stuff that I write down when I want to remember it. There is an immense amount of BS in the world, and a real lack of understanding of what it means to be a grieving mother. There is no handbook, there is no memo, there are no guidelines for how people can relate to you.

I am having a birthday party for my son this weekend. Other than a few close friends and family, no-one has seen me since the baby died. I am a little worried about that. I am worried that someone will say something and make me cry. I am more worried that no-one will say anything, which will make me cry later.

Shannon - I found out 16 weeks ago that you were gone. I miss you, little one. That's all. I just miss you. Love, Mommy

Strange dream

2008-05-24T21:15:00.002-04:00

I had a dream the other night. In my dream, I went to a book signing, and I was waiting in a chair for my turn to get my book signed. There were a lot of people there, and someone was telling people when it was their turn to go and get their stuff signed. I kept waiting, and then I realized that I was still sitting there while others who came in later than me were being told they could go. Then, a woman sat next to me and almost right away, the person in charge indicated that it was her turn and she got up and went. At that point I had enough. I turned to the guy and said "I have been waiting. The lady behind me has been waiting almost as long as me, and that guy has been waiting too. You are letting people go ahead of us and it isn't fair." At that point, the guy just let everyone get up at the same time and go. I think I just wandered off at that point, and I don't think I ever got my stuff signed. Then I woke up.

I am not one for dream analysis, but the big point was that the burning question in my mind was "when will it be my turn?" I have been waiting for my happy baby ending since December 2006 and watched while others got to go ahead of me, even some who came later. It was like an "anvil" dream, not even a crucial plot point and almost like bad TV writing, because it seemed so obvious. But this has been a week of little mental breakthroughs where the wall that I've built between my loss and my life has been passing information though.

I don't want to be "that person" - the one that people are concerned about. It's not the concern that bothers me, per se. Its that people asking about me makes me terribly sad because I hate to be in the place where I am the person that people ask about. I have lived all of my adult life as the person who got by on their own. I've never really asked for help, and I've never needed it. People always assumed that I was ok. That I was the strong one. That I would be fine. And it doesn't seem that people think that anymore. But what hurts the most is that I don't believe that anymore. I am vulnerable because I lost someone that was terribly important to me, and now I want to be pregnant again and there is no guarantee that it will happen or that, if it does happen, that I won't get another tragic outcome. That is really scary. And I am not one who lives life scared. Before, I always knew that I would be ok, even when things really sucked. And I don't believe that anymore. And I never needed it, but I always thought there was a net. And I've found out that there isn't one. And that is really scary.

Shannon - it's your big brother's birthday today. Please send him a hug. We missed you a lot today. We love you. - Mommy

2008-05-17T12:18:00.002-04:00

My little boy is turning 5 next week. It is a huge milestone for him. He is starting kindergarten, and moving on to a whole new chapter in his life. He misses his sister a lot. It shows in subtle ways, like when he mentions babies nonchalantly and asks for a sibling, and not to subtley, like when he says he misses the baby and asks why the baby died. He acts out sometimes, and gets angry because he can't always process what he feels.

He is obsessed with yard sales and garage sales, like his dad, and he sometimes asks if we can have one to get rid of his "baby" things. I can't part with those baby things because I really want another baby. I want it more than just about anything. Some mental health professionals say that for moms who are mourning the loss of a baby, often one of the only things that helps the healing is to have another baby. Not a replacement baby, but a baby that somehow helps to take the hurt away a little by allowing the mom to focus on something other than her pain of loss. I wonder how true that is. I don't think that I will ever be over losing Shannon, but I would like to believe that we'll have another baby. I'd also like to believe that someday I'll be able to think about her and not cry so easily.

Another baby would make my son very happy. He'll be a wonderful big brother someday. He would have been a wonderful big brother to Shannon.

Sometimes a reminder is helpful...

2008-05-17T12:08:00.002-04:00

When things go wrong,
as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low,
and the debts are high,
And you want to smile,
but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
when he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,
It's when things seem their worst that you mustn't quit!

C.W. Longenecker

Thanks Leana, for that reminder.

14 weeks - yep, still sad

2008-05-15T14:34:00.002-04:00

It really doesn't go away. I wasn't entirely sure that was true, but I guess it is. I think, for me anyway, the enormity of having lost 3 in a row may be part of the reason why I am still so sad but, that said, it really sucks to always be so close to tears. What I have found too is that it is sad that so many of the people who were such supports have kinda moved on, not in a really overt way, but they have gotten on with their lives and there are a lot fewer e-mails and stuff. And that is ok, I guess, because in some ways I have gotten on with my life too, except for this gaping hole in my heart. And, of course, except for all the freakin' tears.

My flower garden is doing well. As long as I keep up with pulling the stupid vines (Bishop's weed) that are trying to choke out the flowers, the flowers continue to do well. It's morbidly ironic that some stupid vine keeps trying to choke Shannon's flowers, particularly given how Shannon died. But that is morbid humor for you.

I found out this week that I actually had a placental abnormality, extrachorialis, with my pregnancy. The doctor didn't think that it had anything to do with Shannon's death but it probably would have caused her to come early. Another irony. I have accepted that the cord accident is probably the closest we are going to come to an answer on how Shannon died, and that is going to have to do.

I had an ok Mother's Day. It's hard to be sad and happy at the same time, but I was. It was bittersweet. Last Mother's Day I found out that I was pregnant with what turned out to be my second angel. This year, I am mourning yet another loss. But, at the same time, I am blessed to have a wonderful little boy who loves to say "happy Mommy's day" to his partially unhappy mommy. Who's mostly ok, except for the freakin' tears.

2008-05-07T22:31:00.002-04:00

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone important is missing from all the important events in your family's life.

Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming, because you just don't like to sit through anything.

Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand what if's & why didn't I's go through your head constantly.

Normal is reliving that day continuously through your eyes and mind, holding your head to make it go away.

Normal is staring at every baby who looks like he is my baby's age. And then thinking of the age they would be now and not being able to imagine it. Then wondering why it is even important to imagine it, because it will never happen.

Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness lurking close behind, because of the hole in my heart.

Normal is telling the story of your child's death as if it were an everyday, commonplace activity, and then seeing the horror in someone's eyes at how awful it sounds. And yet realizing it has become a part of my "normal."

Normal is having some people afraid to mention my baby.

Normal is making sure that others remember them.

Normal is that everyone else goes on with their lives, but we continue to grieve our loss forever.Normal is weeks, months, and years after the initial shock, the grieving gets worse sometimes, not better.

Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to this loss, unless they too have lost a child. NOTHING. Even if your child is in the remotest part of the earth away from you - it doesn't compare. Losing a parent is horrible, but having to bury your own child is unnatural.

Normal is realizing I do cry everyday.

Normal is a new friendship with another grieving mother, talking and crying together over our children and our new lives.

Normal is not listening to people make excuses for God. "God may have done this because..." I love God, I know that my baby is in heaven, but hearing people trying to think up excuses as to why healthy babies were taken from this earth is not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to this grieving mother.

Normal is being too tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned the house, did laundry or if there is any food.

Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have more than one child, because you will never see this person again and it is not worth explaining that the other children are in heaven. And yet when you say you have one children to avoid that problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed your other babies.

Normal is knowing I will never get over this loss, in a day or a million years.And last of all,

Normal is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you to feel, so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal".

missing you

2008-05-07T09:55:00.000-04:00

Today marks three months since I found out that my baby was gone. I wish I could say that it didn't hurt, but it does. It hurts and it sucks and I still feel this gigantic hole in my heart and my life. I miss my little baby.

Dear Shannon

2008-05-03T19:18:00.002-04:00

mommy was thinking about you a lot today. It was a beautiful day and it reminded me that if life was fair, or even a little reasonable sometimes, you would be coming to meet your family soon. But life isn't fair or reasonable, and you are gone. In the alternative world, where you lived, I'd be getting ready for your first summer here and figuring out what we'd be doing during the weeks before I went back to work. We miss you a lot.

It's kind of amazing the stuff that you had to be undone because you aren't here anymore. You have to cancel the daycare and reverse the leave and undo the benefits and reorganize your home, your job, your marriage and your life. The stuff that my husband and I had planned to finish before Shannon came, sits in large part unfinished because there is no sense of urgency anymore and, frankly, why should there be? Our July baby turned into no baby and I am still searching for answers why. My son wants to have a yard sale to sell his little kid toys because there is no little sister or brother coming anytime soon. We're not ready for that sale, because we're still holding out hope that there is still a maybe baby. I thought 2008 was going to be the year that my maybe baby came, maybe my luck will change for 2009. Maybe....

Food for thought

2008-05-01T21:25:00.002-04:00

I got this in my e-mail box the other day.

Don’t miss our Mother’s Day offer of a FREE meal for those who became a mom (or became a mom again!) in 2008!

FREE Dishes for New Moms
Being a new mom is the hardest and most rewarding job we’ll ever have. Well, it just got a little easier… and more rewarding! This Mother’s Day Week, Let’s Dish! will give a FREE Ready Made meal to anyone who has become a mom ( or become a mom again) in 2008. Just come into any of these Let’s Dish! locations between May 4 and May 11 and pick up your free dish (serves 4-6). No obligation. No small print. See just a few details below.*
Pass it on!>

View your “Free Meal” invitation online> Use our email “Email this” tool above to pass this on to your new mom friends! Or, share to your favorite group on Facebook or more using our “Share This” tool below!

*Meal selection is subject to availability. Offer valid at Let’s Dish locations in Baltimore (Timonium), Columbia, Gaithersburg, and Rockville Maryland; Alexandria, Ashburn and Fairfax Virginia. Offer is NOT valid at Bel Air, MD and Leesburg VA locations. Meal recipient must provide valid email address for mom, and proof of birth or adoption (valid proof includes birth certificate, birth announcement, hospital bracelet or other item with child’s name and date of birth or adoption between 1/1/08 and 5/11/08). One meal per child. Yes, moms of twins get two meals.

I am going to see if I can get my meal ... maybe I will bring Shannon's memory box as proof of her birth since we can't get birth certificates in D.C.

Twelve weeks down, a lifetime to go

2008-05-01T20:52:00.002-04:00

What have I learned and accomplished since Shannon has died:

1. I finally wrote the letter to the stupid insurance company explaining to them, with exhibits, that my daughter died before she was born so, it is legally and physically impossible for her to have been an abortion. Maybe now they will pay the freakin' claim so my doctor's office will get off my back.

2. I forced my doctor's office to find my chart today, which has been "misplaced" since February. Yes, they lost my file after I had Shannon. Today, in response to my records request, they gave me stuff from my previous 2 miscarriages. I explained to them that I was a repeat customer, and that I actually needed the medical records from this most recent pregnancy, not any of the others.

3. I planted a rainbow garden for my little girl. Except for the white flowers, which something keeps eating, the other flowers are doing great. Especially the purple ones, which is nice, because purple is my favorite color. I'd like to think that Shannon would have liked purple too.

4. I got called bitter. I like that one a lot.

5. I've discovered who some of my real friends are, and learned that some people just are not or cannot be there for you when you need them. I've been bitterly disappointed by some people, and filled with hope and comfort by some that I least expected to step up to the plate and be there for me. I've also learned that you don't choose your family, so there is little you can do, except be kind of appalled, if they don't check up on you after you lose your child. Important lessons to learn but the timing could have been better. All I can say is that the karmic wheel evens everything out in time.

6. I've met some wonderful people in the world of the dead baby blogs, and at babycenter on the 2nd/3rd trimester loss boards and the TTC after a 2nd/3rd trimester loss board. They have been family, friend, companion and life preserver.

7. I've realized that I am entitled to how I feel, no matter how crappy it might be.

8. I've learned that grief is deep and it doesn't go away just because you want it to. The process of moving on is just that, a process, and you just have to let it come in time.

9. I've learned that I am not alone, even if I feel that way sometimes.

That is a lot for one quarter. Only a lifetime left to go...

Shannon - mommy misses you lots and lots and loves you more. So do Sean and Daddy and the birds. Happy May Day. Love you squirt.

Pez

2008-04-27T19:22:00.003-04:00

The other day, my mom called me to say that random relative x had child #(insert number here). And she was miffed that I asked her why she chose to share this news, about someone that I hadn't seen in forever, with her child who is obviously having difficulty producing a living child. And she thought that I should care that some random relative has popped yet another living child out like Pez. Whoopie. Now, don't get me wrong, I wish happy (and even unhappy) pregnant people well. I wish them nothing but success and none of the heartbreak that I have endured. But don't be dense and expect me not to be sad or wistful when you tell me that so and so is pregnant or just had a child, because my own experience of the past 16 (almost 17 months) has been of pregnancy without living child. I've been pregnant for over 35 weeks since December of 2007 and I got nada, zip, zilch - well, I have 3 dead children that I love and miss very much, but I think you can see what I mean. So, I don't have to be happy for someone else. I don't have to really care, if it's not in my being to do so. I don't have to send a card, or show up for a baptism or deal with my loss on anyone else's terms but my own, because that is all I can do. It is enough to try to keep my own cup full. Getting mad at me because you choose not to recognize that I am sad about losing my beloved babies is not my problem. So, thanks anyway, but I'll pass on the pez.

sad momma/angry lawyer

2008-04-24T21:24:00.003-04:00

Coming home from very lonely places,
all of us go a little mad:
whether from great personal success,
or just an all-night drive,
we are the sole survivors of a world
no one else has ever seen. - John le Carre

**
Separation of personal pain from professional brain is a concept that is very strange. How does someone live with intense personal pain yet be fully functional, even successful in their daily life? With the exception of having lost Shannon, which overshadows everything in some way, the rest of my life goes on with, of course, the exception of the baby stuff. No baby. Maybe baby. Someday baby? I hope. I plot, I plan, I do my work, I am a wife, mother, daughter and friend, yet I am very alone. Other people feel pain over the loss of Shannon. But no one knows my pain. How people asking me how I am doing brings me back to the brink of tears. How I just miss her. How I would give anything to go back 11 Wednesdays ago and hear her heartbeat again. How 11 Thursdays ago, I cried more tears than I knew a human being had in them. How these 11 weeks since I found out she was gone have been hell. No-one lives in that hell but me and it's very lonely.

three lines

2008-04-20T20:29:00.004-04:00

I used to write a lot. For me. My job involves a lot of writing too, but that is work and it uses a different set of brain cells. Most of my poetry and writing comes from places of sorrow or transition in my life - and it's no different now. My thoughts when I write come from a place that I can't access with my daily brain, it is a place that I can't get to, it just is there on the paper or on the screen when I am done. I write for myself. I've started and ended many journals since I first started journaling. I guess the crisis or whatever prompted the journal faded from my thoughts, and the urge to write faded with it. Shannon doesn't fade.

Wednesday you were there
By Thursday morn you were gone
life's forever changed.

three lines. One about the day before she died, one about the day she died, one about life now.

Why doesn't the loss fade? Why doesn't letting it all out just be it - why is there always more? I accept that there will always be more, if I have another child, if I don't. Learning to live again, learning to breathe again, it's all new now and it is all done knowing that everything has changed. I don't like change. I've stayed at my job for 9 years because I don't like change. I listen to the same music I listened to in the 80's, because I like it more than anything else. It is comfortable. It is familiar. It is safe. When life changes, we try to cling to those things that are familar, comfortable and safe. We try to cling to our past. But the past is gone, my baby is gone, and I have to be and breathe in this new world, without a net. Life's forever changed. And I don't feel familiar anymore.

--

I see trees of green

2008-04-20T18:13:00.003-04:00

"What a wonderful world" was my wedding song. It reminds me of New Orleans and happier times but, at the same time, it is a sad and wistful song. I hear it now, and it makes me think of Shannon, and how she never got to see this world, or experience any of its wonders. And I wonder why. Spring is such a beautiful time of the year, I should be happy, I should have so much to look forward to, but I don't feel as if I do. My little boy is growing up, and my baby is dead, and it feels pretty lonely here sometimes in mommyland. Here I am, more than 10 weeks out from my loss, and I am still fighting with the stupid insurance company over paying for Shannon's delivery. And when I have to call them, it still makes me cry, and I feel so weak for crying because the stupid insurance company made a mistake, which they will have to fix in appeal, or I will sue them over it. It is such a stupid little thing, but it is so huge to me because it is just another indignity that has to be endured after the biggest indignity of all - the loss of my little girl. Someone told me that you are ready to try again for another child when you have the emotional ability to deal with it. I don't think I know what that means anymore. I think the better answer is that you are ready to try again when the fear of loss is outweighed by the desire to have a baby. Because I don't think I will ever *not* be so very very sad about losing Shannon. Not a day goes by when I don't miss and love my little baby. And now, when she should be 28 weeks, just a stone's throw away from meeting her mommy and daddy, instead she is in the ether... and mommy and daddy are really sad. What happens when your baby has been gone for as long as she was here? And what about the day she was due - July 12th? And what about after that? And I think to myself, what a wonderful world?

joining the ranks

2008-04-14T23:21:00.004-04:00

Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I surf the world of the dead baby blogs. There are a lot of them out there, and it never ceases to amaze me that such strong women exist and continue to exist, even though their hearts have been broken into millions of pieces. It is reassuring in some ways, because it's hard not to feel alone sometimes. Or that no-one else understands, but the reality is that a lot of people understand or at least know kinda what you are going through. It gives my sorry bitter self hope that there is hope, which I know, despite my being so sad and angry about my losses, but sometimes I forget about that hope part, and it is nice to get a reminder. And these moms, of the dead babies, even though some of them (a reassuring number of them) have gone on to have subsequent children after their losses, they still grieve their lost little one. They still mark each birthday and holiday with the "what could, would and should have beens" of their lost baby. Even years after their losses, they mark their year-time the same way I mark my near-time without Shannon. Every day. It doesn't go away. It will never go away. I will always miss my Shannon, and I will always miss her siblings.

I posted a link to a board that links to a lot of the blogs. I've sent them this blog so that I can join the ranks of the dead baby blogs, so that someone else who can't sleep might feel a little less alone because there is another bitter and twisted mom out there who is sad and angry and missing her baby, but who is still hopeful that there has to be something better ahead.

Shannon - your flowers are blooming from all the rain and the rabbits only eat the white ones (don't ask me why), not the purple and red ones, so enjoy the rainbow garden. I miss you lots and love you more.

2008-04-14T23:20:00.001-04:00

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the starts apart
i carry you in my heart (i carry it in my heart)
--ee cummings, 95 poems

Thoughts for today

2008-04-14T22:26:00.002-04:00

Love is the one thing
death cannot take.
Love is the one bond
that nothing can break.
Love is a cord
that time cannot sever . . .
Yes, love is eternal.
Love is forever.

There is a wee girl
who won't grow up at all.
Did your angel bear her gently
because she was so small?
I wondered that you bothered,
it's such a long long way,
from Heaven to a parent's heart
and then not let her stay.
Forgive the tears and pleading
and bitterness we've shown,
we really did not understand
that she was just a loan.
We forgot in all the sweetness
and joy from day to day,
somehow we never really thought
she'd have so short a stay.

Planting flowers in memory of Shannon

2008-04-12T20:41:00.002-04:00

I started a flower garden in memory of my daughter. If the rabbits don't eat everything, it should be full of beautiful flowers soon. It doesn't come close to making me feel better, but at least I feel like I am doing something to beautify the world the way she would have had she lived. I wish there was something that I could do that would take away the pain of losing her, or the pain of my friends who have gone through similar losses, but there isn't anything that can fix that. There are so many people in the world who lost their baby who would have been great parents, while so many children suffer in terrible and cruel homes, and it isn't fair.

I've wondered for a while what I have learned from this loss - and all that I can figure out is that we don't decide when our children come into this world, and we don't decide when they leave, but we love them deeply and we hurt deeply when they are gone. And planning your life around expectations can leave you with nothing if they don't work out, so it might be better to just let things happen. But I still miss my baby and wish she was still here with me.

Two months out of a long lifetime

2008-04-09T21:41:00.003-04:00

Two months have gone by. I have said it before, this has been a long two months. Time, with regard to Shannon, moves at a different pace than regular time. And it is amazing how close to the surface the tears still are and how quickly they come. There is a lot of guilt involved in moving on, or moving forward, or just moving. There is no sense that any of this has an end, it just seems that the grief goes on, and sometimes you find some new pot of grief that you hadn't even found before and there you go, back into the grief again. And what comes next? I don't know. I don't know if I will be able to have any more children. How do you know when to give up? When it is time to say enough is enough? All I know is that 8 weeks later, I miss my daughter so much. I didn't know what a broken heart really felt like before now, or how much it hurts. I want my daughter back and it's just not fair.

2008-04-05T16:13:00.001-04:00

"A Pair of Shoes"

I am wearing a pair of shoes.
They are ugly shoes.
Uncomfortable shoes.
I hate my shoes.
Each day I wear them, and each day I wish I had another pair.
Some days my shoes hurt so bad that I do not think I can take another step.
Yet, I continue to wear them.
I get funny looks wearing these shoes.
They are looks of sympathy.
I can tell in others eyes that they are glad they are my shoes and not theirs.
They never talk about my shoes.
To learn how awful my shoes are might make them uncomfortable.
To truly understand these shoes you must walk in them.
But, once you put them on, you can never take them off.
I now realize that I am not the only one who wears these shoes.
There are many pairs in this world.
Some woman are like me and ache daily as they try and walk in them.
Some have learned how to walk in them so they don't hurt quite as much.
Some have worn the shoes so long that days will go by before they think about how much they hurt.
No woman deserves to wear these shoes.
Yet, because of these shoes I am a stronger woman.
These shoes have given me the strength to face anything.
They have made me who I am.
I will forever walk in the shoes of a woman who has lost a child.
Author unknown

Hope

2008-04-05T16:05:00.000-04:00

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.--

Martin Luther King, Jr

When We Meet Again

2008-04-05T15:51:00.000-04:00

How will I know you?
Will it be that I can hold you in my arms
After holding you in my heart
for so long?
Will you whisper my name
"Mommy"
In the sweet voice of a little girl?
Or will you cry out like a quiring orchestra
in glorious awakening?
Will you wrap your tiny arms around my neck?
If you do,
I will never let you go.
I am sure I will know you
When our eyes meet
My shattered heart will fill with joy
And we will dance on golden streets.
Will you tell me
That it's been you all along
Protecting and caring for us?
Surely, I will know you
When we meet again.
Because fifty years from now
You will still be my little girl.

-Joanne Cacciatore

Celebrity Preggos

2008-04-04T10:35:00.002-04:00

I don't care if Angelina Jolie is having twins. I don't care about J.Lo's spawn. I don't care if Gwen Stefani thinks you should get more than one baby shower. I don't care if Giada had a girl and I certainly don't need her sage baby advice on the Today Show. I don't give a fart about Christina Aguilara or Nicole Richie or any of the other useless wastes of air that are having kids. Why does every freakin' magazine in this country think we do????

There are people in the world who just want a baby, their baby - whether it is a baby they carry themselves, an adopted baby - which is so stupid expensive and complicated in this country, or a baby that science helps with. Most people in this country can't afford traditional or international adoption, they can't afford IVF or IUI, they can't hire a surrogate, they can't afford a donor egg. So what is the freaking obsession with celebrity kids? Why should I care that so and so got her celebrity body back just a week after having her kids - maybe its because when she had her early c-section, they did the tummy tuck too - but they didn't mention that in the article. Or, let's talk about the early c-section - did you need it? Was your health or your baby's health in danger? Or were you just looking for a good week to be in People magazine when no-one else was having a baby? Did you want to try to avoid those last week's stretch marks because they are the worst? Was it worth it to risk your celebrity baby's health to do it? I am not sure that they care because a lot of them seem to have a lot of nannies and butlers and people to take care of their kids for them. But, they aren't working - so why aren't they able to take care of their own kids? They gave birth to them and collected the money from people magazine for the pictures - don't they want to take care of them? Now, not all celebrity moms are like that - some do feed their kids themselves and stuff like that - but they don't seem to be the ones on the covers of the magazines. I am just not sure what is right with this world that this is news.

Maybe it's just me because I'm bitter over my losses. But I doubt it.

Everybody stands where they sit

2008-04-04T09:53:00.002-04:00

I've been wondering lately, could this all be worse? Sure it could, but how? Is your pain different because you have kids already vs. not? Probably. I don't think my pain from losing Shannon is less, but I think inherent in the equation is that at some point, my body produced a child. Whether it can or will do that again is where I am totally at a loss, but at some point it did. And I have that. I know that, it's real. And so I don't know what all of this would be like if I didn't have my son. But I am sure that it would be scary. And truthfully, now I worry more about losing him than I ever did before. So, I lost a little there too.

So then, does the fact that I had three losses make this different? Sure. I don't know if my body can do it anymore because it hasn't done it lately - so, I get to worry in the first trimester if I am going to have another first trimester loss; then I get to worry in the second if I am going to have a loss; and then, after that, I get to worry that something bad that HASN'T happened to me yet could happen. And I don't know if that is all that different from any mom who has suffered the tragic loss of their child, but it is really scary.

Don't tell me

2008-03-29T19:54:00.002-04:00

Don't Tell Me

Please don't tell me you know how I feel,
Unless you have lost your child too,
Please don't tell me my broken heart will heal,
Because that is just not true,
Please don't tell me my daughter is in a better place,
Though it is true, I want her here with me,
Don't tell me someday I'll hear her voice, see her face,
Beyond today I cannot see,
Don't tell me it is time to move on,
Because I cannot,
Don't tell me to face the fact she is gone,
Because denial is something I can't stop,
Don't tell me to be thankful for the time I had,
Because I wanted more,
Don't tell me when I am my old self you will be glad,
I'll never be as I was before.

What you can tell me is you will be here for me,
That you will listen when I talk of my child,
You can share with me my precious memories,
You can even cry with me for a while,
And please don't hesitate to say her name,
Because it is something I long to hear everyday,
Friend please realize that I can never be the same,
But if you stand by me,
You may like the new person I become someday.

***
thanks to Jenell for posting this on her blog - http://makennahope.blogspot.com

It speaks to me (which is why I put it here)

Little kids have feelings too

2008-03-29T19:04:00.003-04:00

My son's daycare class spent part of the day last week talking about someone's new baby sister. Have they forgotten that my little boy lost his own sister just a few weeks ago? He hasn't. He brings it up when he meets people. He tells them that he had a baby sister and that she died and that he is sad. It is something that he tells them when he is trying to let people know who he is. He might only be 4, but he is a person too and he has feelings. And he is sad that Shannon is dead. And he wants a new baby. And while he waits, he has to see all the other kids in his class whose mommies are having babies. And he is sad. And so am I. And it bugs me that I am going to have to remind child care professionals that it is important to remember that kids have feelings. They should know this already.

I don't like to see pregnant people. I especially don't like to see pregnant people having girls. And unfortunately, pretty much all of the pregnant people I know are having girls. It makes me very sad because there is no pattern to the universe that I am the unlucky one who gets to have three losses in a row while people who don't even want kids get to have them every day. Why did my daughter have to die? It isn't right.

Time

2008-03-29T18:49:00.002-04:00

After Shannon was born, we spent 8 hours with her before we said goodbye to her at the hospital. In retrospect, it was enough time in some ways, and not nearly enough time in many others. I have thought of lots of things that I would have done, if I'd only thought of them at the time - plaster casts of her feet or hands (we couldn't get handprints because her fingers wouldn't take the ink), or more photos or just stuff like that. I would have brought her a blanket or an outfit if I had known. We had to squeeze an entire lifetime into 8 hours because, when your baby dies, all you have are those photos or memories and imprints on your heart. You don't get holidays or graduations or weddings. You got your time and there is no more.

I am less sad that Shannon has been gone for 7 weeks now, or that I should have been 25 weeks pregnant today than I am about the fact that I have an entire lifetime ahead of me which she will not be a part of. That is where the real pain in my heart lies. I never knew how much I wanted a daughter until I lost the one that I had. And now I am scared that I will never have that daughter and what I will have is just the memories and the photos of a fragile little girl who was taken from me way too soon. She will never have an easter egg hunt with her brother or get married or sneak downstairs to open her Christmas presents early. Man, that just really sucks.

Shannon - mommy really misses you and I hope that you can see your flower garden from where you are. Love, me.

Spring is here

2008-03-23T16:50:00.002-04:00

Spring is here and, who cares? I still feel terribly sad over the loss of my beautiful baby. She's been gone for 6 weeks. I miss her immensely. I am not sure that time makes some things better. I've certainly found ways to deal with my loss and still be a functioning member of society, but it's not always by choice. I've lost my sense of optimism, which I had after my first two losses. I've lost a lot of the hope that I had back then. I've changed a lot. So many things seemed so important to me 6 weeks ago and today I could care less about them. TV shows that I don't watch anymore. Stuff I don't read. So many people seemed important to me 6 weeks ago and, if I never heard from them again, I'd probably not miss them much. It seems kind of severe, but it happens. I'd give anything to be the person that I was before, if it meant having Shannon back. But that isn't going to happen because she can't come back. And it makes me angry and frustrated to know that my baby is gone. Why did it have to be my baby that died? It's not that I would wish this pain on anyone else instead of me, but I don't think this is very fair or just. Why shouldn't I be putting together baby furniture, instead of planting a memorial garden for my little girl? It all just seems kind of pointless at the moment.

Six weeks...

2008-03-20T21:42:00.003-04:00

I've been wandering about for the past few weeks feeling incredibly lonely. It is very lonely being a mom who has lost her child, because you are missing the child that was inside you, and you are missing the person that you used to be and you are missing the connection you used to feel with your life and your family and your friends and just with everything. You feel really lost. I realized the other day that it lonely and sad feel pretty much the same. It's hard to explain, but part of what I had been characterizing as lonely was probably just that I was feeling sad. But I didn't recognize sad, because I am rarely sad, so I was just calling it "lonely", which was an emotion that I understood better, but which wasn't entirely accurate.

I am sad because my daughter died six weeks ago. Six weeks ago I was sitting in a hospital bed, watching tv and crying and just wondering why the world had to be so very unfair and take my daughter away from me and my husband and my son. I am sad because in all of the things I imagined could go wrong in my pregnancy, that the thing I never considered was that she could have a cord accident and die. I thought about all the bad medical things that could happen and what we could do about them, but I never thought that what would happen would be something that I couldn't fix, and that would rob her of even any chance. And now, going forward, it is going to be all that I think of when I get the chance to be pregnant again. How wrong is it that my list of stuff that could go wrong is now so much longer than any list I could have of things that go right? How sad is it that there is now no longer any time that I will be able to say "whew," and finally be excited and happy to be pregnant? I'd have to be lobotomized in order to relax ever again.

Cord losses, as well as other 'unexplained' pregnancy losses seem to be particularly cruel. I will never know "for sure" that Shannon died from a cord accident. I just won't. There is no test, no way to measure what happened to her. All I know is that she was there, and then she was gone, and I am lost and lonely and sad without her. Six weeks ago, a lot more than just my daughter died, a big part of me did too. I miss and love my little girl very much.

mired in the mundane

2008-03-18T21:53:00.002-04:00

So, the insurance debaucle continues. The insurance company says that the doctor coded it wrong. The doctor insists that it was coded right. For some reason, I have to fix this by sitting on the phone with these two numbnuts in a conference call that I have to arrange and listening to them decide who is right. How is this appropriate for a mom who just wants the stupid bill paid for the delivery because she is sad about having to deal with this crap? I don't give a rat's ass who is right, just fix it because the one thing I do know is that I don't have to pay for this horrific experience. So, please torture me some more by making me live in the stupid details about procedure coding, because I want to know the procedure code differences between the delivery of a non-living child and an elective termination. Yes, that will make my whole stupid life complete. Because all this will help me to move on, how? This will not make me more bitter about this entire loss? After we finish the conference call, can one of you come to my office and shoot me? Do you suppose that either of these assholes would like to know that my daughter's name was Shannon and that she was really beautiful? Maybe I'll tell them anyway.

I don't like Mondays

2008-03-17T20:35:00.002-04:00

I am tired. It is very difficult to be a functioning human when you are tired. Whether you are physically tired, mentally tired or some combination of the two, it takes a lot of energy to keep the stuff you have to do right going forward, while the rest of you just wants to go back to sleep for a year or so. Given how slow time is moving, you would think that the sleep that I get would be enough, but it seems lately that it is never enough.

I was happy to find out today that the BabyBeat people actually DID refund the money that I had paid for my doppler. I returned it to them two months early, because I didn't need it anymore after Shannon died. They offered to refund the balance of my three month rental, and they actually did it. I am impressed. If I ever get pregnant again, I will rent from them again. Now I just need to get that far. On a hunch, I called the insurance company on Friday, because I was wondering what was going on with the claim they didn't pay and then said they would pay. So, it turns out that the genius I spoke to the first time resubmitted the wrong claim, one that had already been paid, and the payment people were like - this was already paid, and then the genius did nothing to submit the claim that actually needed to be paid. So, hopefully this time the person I spoke to on Friday submitted the correct claim to be reprocessed and paid. She said that I didn't have to call back because it was done. Nothing personal, phone lady, but I don't believe you and I will be calling this Friday. And that would be because my doctor's office told me that they weren't going to bill me for the insurance company's mistake, and not two days later, I got a bill. Again, this is not inspiring me to want to go back to these people when I do get pregnant again. If the doctors who run the practice tell me that I am not going to get billed for something, it would make sense that the billing people (in the same office) be told that as well. Or maybe I am the one missing something here. Or maybe it's just Monday ....

All I want is a stupid duck

2008-03-16T11:32:00.003-04:00

Feeling like you have no control is a terrible feeling. We can't control anything about our bodies - when we get pregnant, whether we can stay pregnant, when we'll get our periods (or not) or anything else. I don't think I am asking for much - all I want is something - a period, a positive pregnancy test, something that I start with - a single duck. Is it enough - not nearly, but it's a start. The path to a successful healthy baby involves a lot of ducks. All I am asking for is one - for now. If the point of all of this is that I need to move forward, is it so much to ask that I get something - anything - with which I can move forward? It doesn't seem like much to ask for, but right now it is the world to me.

Tantrums are underrated

2008-03-13T09:13:00.002-04:00

Shannon died 5 weeks ago, and I am hitting this spot where I am feeling really lonely, but I am not sure why. I am frustrated that I can't figure out what my body is doing - no AF yet, but nothing else either. I am moody and crampy, which could be PMS, or it could be the progesterone, and I just want to have answers as to what the heck is going on in my body. And I know, in my head, that it's only been 5 weeks and that healing and grief and hormones take time, but I am just not accepting it. Today it hit me that I have to throw a birthday party for my son, and I don't want to be there myself because there are people who would come who are due in or around July and it hurts me to think that I will see them looking all pregnant (like I should be at that point) while I am here, swirling around the drain. I may feel differently and hopefully will be in a different place by then, but today it all seems like it will suck forever. It's like I've reached the temper tantrum phase of mourning, and I just want to scream 'it isn't fair' and 'why me?' all day, but that would get me nowhere. I don't even have anyone to be angry with, because I personally don't buy that it's ok to be mad at "God" because s/he loves you anyway. I don't believe that there is any greater purpose in all this. It just sucks.

5 weeks

2008-03-12T17:56:00.003-04:00

Five weeks ago, Shannon was alive. Little did we know that this would be the last day that she was alive. If we knew that, would we have done anything differently? What could we have done differently? She was too little to live, so we couldn't have delivered her. There is nothing that can be done to untangle a cord that is wrapped around a baby, if the baby doesn't do it herself. Technology has not gotten us that far. So, how different would today be if five weeks ago I knew that my child would die? Does the grief experience change when a death is expected? Is there more guilt, more time to wonder if I could have stood on my head, or lay on my side or did something else that would have shaken her loose before I lost her. I think there is less guilt in not knowing when something bad is about to happen. In reality, there should be no guilt, because nothing I did could have changed anything, and it is likely that nothing I culd have done would have changed the outcome. I loved my baby, and I lost her anyway.

How unfair is that - even people who get hit by cars made some kind of a choice to walk in the street or to do whatever it was that brought them into the path of the car, however accidental or inadvertent. I didn't do anything, and neither did Shannon. And yet, life happened to us. It's not a perfect world, and nothing is guaranteed, but yet, this seems singularly cruel.

I should be 23 weeks pregnant, not starting over. My baby should be with me. I shouldn't have to be worrying about putting off dental work or x-rays because I want to have a baby. I should be carrying my baby right now.

I am not the first person to suffer this kind of a loss. I am not the last. Unfortunately, I know people who have had losses since I lost Shannon and I am bound to meet many more on my journey. Man, that just sucks.

Your Children

2008-03-07T12:16:00.000-05:00

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and
He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so he loves
also the bow that is stable.

Kahlil Gibran
1883 - 1931
Lebanese poet, artist, and philosopher

4 weeks ago

2008-03-06T20:43:00.002-05:00

Four weeks ago, my life changed in a way that I never expected or wanted. My precious daughter died. She was someone that I never really got a chance to know, and who only knew me as the heartbeat that rocked her to sleep. Her death was unanticipated and so very very cruel. How does the karmic wheel decide to stop on such a horrible result? If all of the universe is balanced, what needed to be rectified that had to result in the death of my little girl? Lifes biggest unanswered questions leave me feeling incredibly empty inside, as little pieces of my heart are being kept by Shannon, and by her two angel siblings. I will never get those pieces back, but I move forward anyway, for my living son and my husband and for myself and for Shannon and her siblings, because it is the right thing to do. Shannon knows that I loved her and wanted her and how much I miss her, today just as much as 4 weeks ago and forever. In the end, it is love that endures and love that makes it all worthwhile.

A very wise friend of mine said 'in all things, give thanks'. But what do you give thanks for after your child dies?

Erma Bombeck wrote: I had now joined a group of women who had to give their child back. They look like other women and they function like other women. But there is an emptiness in side of them that never goes away. At any given time of year when no one knows what they are talking about, they will look wistful and remark that they baby would be three years old today, or five, or ten. They play with the probabilities...the would have beens...could have beens... should have beens...and forever question, "Why?"

To the child in my heart

Precious, tiny, sweet little one
you will always be to me.
So perfect, pure and innocent,
just as you were meant to be.
We dreamed of you and your life
and all that it would be
We waited and longed for you
to come and join our family.
We never had the chance to play,
to laugh, to rock, to wiggle.
We long to hold you, touch you now
and listen to your giggle.
I'll always be your mother,
he'll always be your dad.
You'll always be our child,
the child that we had.
But now you're gone, but yet you're here,
we'll sense you everywhere
You are our sorrow and our joy,
there's love in every tear.
Just know our love goes deep and strong,
We'll forget you never!
The child we had, but never had,
and yet will have forever.

"Pooh, promise me that you won't ever forget me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred."

Pooh thought for awhile

"How old shall I be then?"

"Ninety-nine"

Pooh nodded

"I promise," he said

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day,

so I never have to live without you."

a.a. milne

Shannon - mommy loves you and wishes you were still here. I hope you are happy wherever you are. I miss you lots and lots. Love, Mommy.

How hard is it to read the chart?

2008-03-04T08:42:00.003-05:00

Ok - this isn't rocket science. How hard is it for the doctor's office to tell the nurse that is dealing with you for your post-loss appointment, that the person they are dealing with suffered a loss? Is it so hard to put a sticky note on the front of a chart so that the nurse doesn't ask you stupid questions or, worse yet, wonder why you are upset? Why should I be put in the position of explaining to some poor dumb doe that the reason why I cry when I come into my doctor's office is that every time I have been there lately, I have been in for an appointment for yet another failed pregnancy. And that having to explain this to every front desk person and nurse might be why the office stresses me out and raises my blood pressure. And that there may be better ways to give information and services to people who are dealing with the loss of a child. Like not putting it on me to fight with the insurance company over not paying the bill for the delivery of my baby.

I think I am going to write a letter to my doctor's office and remind them gently that people who have losses really do need a little extra sensitivity and that it would be helpful if the staff was a little more prepared when we came in. When I worked in education, I always took a few minutes before someone came in to meet with me to read their file and, if there was something that I needed to alert my staff to about the person, I did it. I know doctors are busy people, but why is that basic piece of courtesy so lost on a doctor?

Sometimes it is so simple

2008-03-02T21:28:00.002-05:00

I miss my little girl and I love her very much. Shannon - mommy loves you and misses you everyday.

Sometimes my Ipod speaks to me...

2008-03-02T17:14:00.008-05:00

I bought this song off I-tunes long before I lost Shannon. When I was listening to it yesterday, the words had such a deeper meaning to me now that she is gone. I would give anything to go back in time and to have more time with her, and I wish that I appreciated better the time that we did have when I was pregnant, but I can't change it. All I have are my memories, and my pain, and my hope for the future. That's all we get after those we love are gone. Photos, heart-shaped boxes, momentos from a moment in time that always seems to have gone by too fast.

These moments in time always go by too fast because we never figure that something bad is going to happen to change it all in a blink of an eye. And it happens. And it is only after it happens that we remember that it always happens that way. We just don't think about it because that would be a crappy way to go through life, always waiting for the other shoe to drop and loving everyone as if they would die tomorrow. It makes for a great country song, but the reality is that it's really hard to do and most of us - well, me at least, just can't do it. I don't think that you can't sit there and be a functional human being if all you think about is how everyone (including yourself) could die at any second. I don't know if you would ever leave your house (or your bed) if you thought that way. But, I guess sometimes, life kicks you in the ass to remind you that it happens. And that it sucks when the death happens close to you. And nothing is closer to you than the life that was growing inside you.

This may be the first and last time that I quote from anyone who has ever been in a boy band again, but I put it out there for your consumption...

Ordinary Day - Nick Lachey

I wish I could tell you
the things I never got the chance to
I wish I was with you now
to see you smile again

I wish we had more time
but time goes by so fast
The moment comes and
Then the moment passes by
In the blink of an eye

And If I had one wish
I Wouldn't ask for money
I wouldn't ask for fame
I wouldn't ask for the power to make this world change
If i could have one thing
that one thing that I would chose is
one more ordinary day with you
With you

I wish I could see you
and be there where my arms could reach you
I wish I could let you know
how much you touch my life
maybe a little time is all the time we get
The Words we long to say are words that go unsaid
you can't go back again

But if I had one wish
I Wouldn't ask for money
I wouldn't ask for fame
I wouldn't ask for the power to make this world change
If i could have one thing that one thing that I would chose is
one more ordinary day
With you

I wish we had more time
Time goes by so fast
The moment comes and
Then the moment passes by
In the blink of an eye
But if I had one wish
I Wouldn't ask for money
I wouldn't ask for fame
I wouldn't ask for the power to make this world change, no
If i could have one thing
that one thing that I would chose is
one more ordinary day
Just one more ordinary day with you
with you

Good riddance February

2008-02-29T17:48:00.002-05:00

I hate February. It's not rational, I just do. It is the shortest month of the year, yet because I've lost two children in February, my first pregnancy in 2007 and my loss of Shannon in 2008, it has turned into the suckiest month in the entire year. I guess it is good that it is a short month, because it ends that much faster. But not fast enough for me.

31,020 minutes, and counting

2008-02-29T17:22:00.003-05:00

Shannon was born three weeks ago today. 31,020 minutes ago (give or take a few minutes). She lived for 17w5d or 177,120 minutes. As they say in Rent, how do you measure the life of a woman or man?

When your child dies, you no longer measure your time in days or hours, but in your minutes. You can go from laughing to crying in mere seconds, and then find something to laugh about again. Time slows down to the point where three weeks has seemed like an entire lifetime to me. My birth experience, and the time I had with my little girl seems like it happened so long ago, but it only happened three weeks ago. I don't know if the altering of time is a defense mechanism that your mind creates to distance you from the intense pain of losing a child, or if it is just another manifestation of the surreal world that people who lose a child find themselves living in. Because no matter how long ago it all seems in my mind, my heartbreak and my tears over the loss of Shannon are right there, just mere seconds away.

Other people's 'everyday' makes no sense to me anymore and doesn't interest me much either. My 'everyday' now consists of integrating how I deal with the loss of my child into everything else that I have to accomplish to continue to be a functioning member of society and to meet my obligations to my job and my family. Most of the rest of it is complete and utter BS and a waste of my time to bother with.

I thought that I would know that I was alright when I had some control over when the tears come out but that isn't it. Maybe some part of me will never be alright, because my life has been altered in a permanent and unfixable sort of way. It is so easy to understand how a person who has suffered a loss can just shut down or not get out of bed, or just have no life left in them or not want to cook or clean or care. It is because there is no bottom to the well that moms like me fall into when their baby dies. There is no bottom to the sorrow or the anger that we are capable of feeling for ourselves and others who have been through a similar loss. But, minute by minute, we all work our way forward to the new reality that is our lives after loss.