When it Hurts

I am 16 weeks along in this pregnancy today.  I hope things are all right.  I have a doctor's appointment on Monday and I just would like it to go well.  

This pregnancy is hard.  I have been emotionally sick, mentally sick, and physically sick.  The only thing that has kept me going is that I am spiritually well.  I thought very carefully about how we would tell family and friends.  Part of me wanted to just wait until something happened.  Either another miscarriage or a baby being born.  And then one day I was just so sick with everything weighing down on me and I knew it was time to tell people for 2 reasons.

1.  I was not excited or happy about this pregnancy which seems very weird since this is what we have been wanting and praying for.  Even with that, it's not exciting to think your baby could just die one day and you won't know until your body tells you or your doctor tells you. It's not happy thoughts that dance around in your head, asking yourself what would happen if you had another miscarriage.  So I needed other people to be excited and happy for our family.  As painful as it was whenever anyone congratulated me, most of the time with a question in their voice (Congratulations?), I took comfort in the fact that at least SOMEONE could be excited about this.  

2.  There is not much anyone can do to help.  The one thing anybody and everybody can do is pray for comfort to our family and for a healthy pregnancy.  Why postpone that one thing when I need all the help I can get?  And I have felt the spiritual power of all the prayers, I really have.  I know people across the US and even in other countries that keep us in their prayers.  And it shows.  Even if this pregnancy does end in a sad way, it doesn't discount the comfort that we have received.

I talked recently with a friend from support group, who is also pregnant and due a few weeks after me.  She observed that I was, like her, feeling detached and distant from the baby.  I agreed and we talked about how it was a defense mechanism but we both acknowledged that the detachment would never make a pregnancy loss any easier.  

Lara wrote me this little card, pictured below.  It hurt when I wrote a letter back saying that I didn't know if the baby was still alive.  That all I could do was hope and pray that it was.  Every day I hope and pray that the baby is still alive.  

There Is No Way "Over"

I'm all about words to use and words to lose and I have lost the words "get", "over", and "it" when put together in any way, shape, or form.  I just don't understand them.  Thankfully, I have never been told by anyone that I should be over my losses.  I have heard people describe others as never having gotten over something, usually a loss, though.  What does that mean?  Does it mean that on special anniversaries/birthdays/days of remembrances that they get a little emotional and still sad?  Does it mean that they still talk about their loved one, years later?  Does it mean that they still miss them?  They can still smile though, right?  They still laugh sometimes?  They get out of bed and take care of themselves and their families?  If the answer is yes then, yeah, I guess they never got over it.  Instead they moved forward, like I am.  

Time does heal a lot of wounds.  The farther I get from certain dates, the hurt eases a little.  The grief counselor for my support group often describes it as a "shift".  Emotions can change and change again like a wave.  Sometimes the wave is far away from you, sometimes it just covers your toes, and sometimes it washes over.  But it never leaves.  You just have to figure out ways to handle the emotions when they wash over.  

I will never get over my losses.  And I am not alone in that.  I've heard from many, many women, several much older than I, who have gone on after losses to have many children.  And they still think about their miscarriages.  They still think about their losses.  They still miss them and wonder what their babies would have been like.  They all have moved forward though and I will too.

Do your loved ones a favor- Never tell them that they should be over a loss.  It's just not going to happen.  

Days to Celebrate and Days to Mourn

February 5 was my due date with Henrietta.  With it now being a year and a half since I started my miscarriage journey, I have discovered that I treat certain days differently for each baby.  For Jean-Yves and Henrietta, I knew their due dates and looked forward to them.  I celebrate their very short lives on those days and, although I am still quite sad, their due dates tend to be happy ones.  Don't get me wrong, I still cried plenty.  But it is possible to feel both grief and joy at the same time and on my celebration days the joy can overcome the grief.
Their loss dates though are very sad for me.  August will just be a hard month since I lost both of them around the same time in consecutive years.  I will mourn more on those days, maybe keep to myself and let myself cry.
Luc, however, was with us for so little time that I didn't even know a due date for him.  I didn't even get to that first doctor's appointment.  I think I would have questioned if I was pregnant at all if it hadn't been for the need for a DNC.  So for him, I celebrate his life on his loss date of November 22.

With Jean-Yves' and Henrietta's dates being so close, I planned a lot of celebrations that spanned the whole week.  My last celebration will be when I get to visit my best friend and her new son, August.  We were due 2 weeks apart and I can't wait to hold him and think about how small (or big) Henrietta would have been.  It is mind-boggling to think that time can just pass by like that.  That life does go on even though a part of me just stopped for a bit.

My First Angel-versary

Happy Angel-versary, Jean-Yves!

You would have been 1 today or sometime near this day.  I miss you terribly.  I saw this at the store the other day and thought of you!

You are named after one of my favorite characters in Star Trek.  Your dad wouldn't let me name you Jean-Luc and I also liked the name Yves which he also vetoed.  So we just compromised a little :)

Last week your sisters, Lara and Vivi, and I went to decorate candles for a group who is conducting a review on pregnancy loss and infant death.  They give these candles to families they come in contact with who have experienced a loss.  Now that I know how simple it is to decorate these candles, I am going to do one for you and your brother and sister who are with you in heaven.

Many of my friends sent me this picture in the past few days, which is so timely seeing how I am celebrating you.  I am grateful for my friends and family who often think of me and of you.

"The Child Who Was Never Born by Martin Hudaceka

I will be watching an episode of Star Trek: TNG and picking out all the traits of Captain Picard that I would have liked you to have.  A good leader, perhaps?  Brave and a good diplomat.  I am sure you would have been stubborn also because that is just in your genes!

It is hard to believe that you would be one years old; probably walking and babbling away.  Your sisters would be googly-eyed over you!  I would have made my first boyish cake for you.  What would you have liked?  A train?  Maybe one with a lot of candy?  A teddy bear?  One thing is for sure, our whole family loves to eat so I am sure you would have loved every bite!

We love you so much.  We miss you so much.  

'Til We Meet Again

Love, Mommy

First Steps

I've been thinking about first steps lately.  In my support group we often talk about our first steps and we celebrate with each other when we take them and grieve with each other when we aren't at that place yet.  My miscarriages changed me and there are actions, events, items, things, etc that I have not brought myself to experience again; things that are too hard for me to deal with because they remind me of my babies and of my grief.  I suppose this is not something special to pregnancy loss; any person who has experienced a loss has probably felt this.  

I had a pretty steady exercise routine in 2012-2013 and had developed awesome eating habits.  Before I got pregnant with Jean-Yves I had just finished a cleanse and I felt at the top of my game health-wise.  I stopped exercising when I was pregnant with Jean-Yves because of morning sickness and then came the miscarriage, another pregnancy, miscarriage, another pregnancy, and another miscarriage.  I suppose a touch of depression led me down the path of not caring about exercising or eating healthy.  Why would I want to take care of a body that I felt had betrayed me?  Another irrational thought: Well, that healthy living certainly didn't help me any so why bother?

A mom, whose daughter was stillborn because of cord accident, talked about how everyone says that the safest place for a growing baby is in the mother's body.  But when that isn't the case, your whole way of thinking is shattered and you just don't know what to do.  I have felt that way too.  My babies were healthy.  Something is wrong.  So why not just blame my body?

This month, I made the choice to start exercising again.  I just felt like I was in a place where I could do so again.  I could stop blaming myself for what happened and I can move forward in this one aspect.  I started slow and just exercised at home for a couple days.  Then my work hosted a hip-hop exercise class and I figured to just go for it.  I haven't been to a class in 2 years.  I haven't exercised for a whole hour in 2 years.  It was a great class and I felt great afterwards!  And then I also shed a few tears because I couldn't believe 2 years had gone by since the beginning of my first miscarriage pregnancy.  

I took a first step that day.  There are other steps that I still have to take.  It's painful.  It's hard.  It hurts.

I know you have steps.  Is it getting on FB that you have avoided because of all the ultrasound pictures and baby announcements?  Is it talking to a friend who is having a baby around the same time you were due?  Is it eating a food that you ate around the time you miscarried?  Is it being able to walk through the baby section of a clothing store?  Is it praying?  I know that someday you will be able to take those steps, whatever they are.  One at a time.  And it doesn't matter how long it takes you.  Whenever you take them will be the right time for you.  So here's a picture of me, with my sweaty red face, in my exercise clothes, lying exhausted on the floor, holding up a triumphant finger to celebrate my first step, to remind you that there are people who know what you are going through.  And we celebrate your first step!

Happy New Year

So it's 9 days into the New Year.  So what?  I still wish these sentiments on everyone, no matter when it is!

1.  May you be able to see the joy through the pain.
2.  May you find a rock to cling to through the troubled times.
3.  May your support lines never falter.

[Christ]mas Means That There is Hope

Merry Christmas!

Because of a little baby born long ago, I know I can see my babies again.