Stuck in a moment at 4 am

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

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...

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

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

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?

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

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.