I don’t care how scary your birth story was…I don’t care if your daughters shoulder got stuck while coming out…that her heart rate dropped once…I don’t fucking care. Because right now…I see your beautiful six year old girl doing a cartwheel.  You know what I have?  I have an urn in a bookcase.  Don’t try to get more emotion out of me by adding drama to your story, people birth 9lb baby’s all the time. I’m not cold-hearted.  I just have nothing more to give.  I have to protect myself.  Because I’m scared.  I’m scared for you.  Because I know what its like to have a real scary birth story.  I know what its like to hold your dead baby.  I know what true tragedy is…and I don’t want you to know.  I don’t want you in my club.  I’m selfish that way.  I don’t want to scare you with my birth story while you just found out your pregnant again.  I know you’ve been trying, so take my congrats and smile for what its worth, and change the subject.  I can’t listen to your birth and pregnancy stories 2X a week for the next 9 months while I’m sitting here watching my living child do handstands.  Our friendship may end, at least for the next few months.  Because my heart matters.  I know I’m being harsh, but my sons death is harsh.  I need to be able to move forward, and your conversations are keeping me in memories that I don’t want to be in.  So congratulations, and have a happy and uneventful pregnancy and birth.  I’ll be sitting over there when your done.

9 years.  9 years I have said and held fast to the belief that my son would be better off in my arms.  For 9 years for those who gave me pity, and patted my shoulder and said..its for the best…I would always respond..NO, NO ITS NOT.  Davids best would be in my arms, we would have given him quality of life, we would have given him everything and he would have known no difference.  For 9 years I clung to that with all I had.  For 9 years.

I got out of class on a friday…went home and sobbed.  Went home looked at my husband and couldn’t breathe.  I have never verbalized it…and as I start to type it my hands are shaking and my eyes are filling with tears. But I said something that I never thought I would.  I said what no parent should ever have to say.  I said…that davids dying was for the best.  and I collapsed and sobbed.  That weekend I could barely move.  I couldn’t function.  Reality hit me in the face.  It beat me down and it had won.  After 9 years of denying what was so obvious to others…something I could never admit.  I finally came to terms with…my son is at peace.  His little body was no longer hurting.  He didn’t have to live a life of pain and hurt.  David’s health issues would have given him no quality of life.  No matter what we would have done.  No amount of love would have given my son peace in body and soul.  It would have been selfish of us to keep him going…it would have been cruel to continue life support. 

Do I still love him, yes.  Do I still want him, yes.  Do I still mourn for him each and every day even after 9 years, yes.  He can be a half day of memories, or he can be a fleeting 3 second thought.  But he is with me each and every day.

I have no magic wand.  I can’t change the past.  I can’t bring him back…but what I can do is defend him.  What I can do is keep his memory alive.  And I can fight for others who also had to say good-bye.  To those of us who were not selfish…who didn’t grasp at miracles when none existed.  Not saying we didn’t want one because Lord knows I prayed and prayed for one…but bad things happen, and David died.  But he is at peace, with no pain.  And I pray that other moms, like me…who also had to make that decision.  Who had to end life support, who had to think of their child first, and put their grief to the side…that they too can come to terms.  That they know they did what was best for their child.

One day we will hold them again, one day I will stroke his cheek and tell him that my love never stopped, and then I will be at peace too. 

holidays suck when you are grieving. 

My first year without David, I tried so hard to be strong.  I went to Christmas dinner, hid in the bathroom a few times to cry, wiped my tears and walked on out.  My immune system was low…and I held a sick kid, and guess what…I threw up every 30 minutes on a 3 hour car ride back home.  It sucked. 

I tell you this because I don’t want you sick.  Drink fluids.  Take a vitamin.  Try to sleep.  This will not be easy for you…and thats ok. 

Its a new year, but for those who are grieving the loss of their child for the first time, its not a happy new year.  Just know you are not alone.  That you are loved, and people care for you, they want you to be happy - even though you know thats not going to happen anytime soon.  Be easy on yourself.  Drink fluids (getting drunk will not help…but a glass of wine won’t hurt either ;) )  No need to stay up if you don’t want too…don’t make this day more than it should be…its just another day in your life.  Wake up tomorrow and be proud you got through the year.  Small milestones for those that are grieving…and big hugs to you all.

God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.

I hate that quote more than words can say.  The first time I read it, I thought it should bring me strength…I didn’t understand why it didn’t.  When people would say to me “your so strong, I would just die if I lost a child” sounded petty to me..not helpful. Finally I understood why that quote made me feel worse than better…Its saying since I have some special inner strength God decided to kill my kid.  Really?!  God’s letting you keep yours because well, your weak.  But me, I’m strong, so my kid got the terminal health issues.  It doesn’t work that way, I don’t believe God works that way.

God needed more angels…ummmm no.  God doesn’t need to have my baby die so that he can have more cherubs floating around him.  Again, God doesn’t work that way.

I did something bad/wrong in my life to deserve this…  Why would God take another persons life to torment me?  What good would it do to take my newborns life, just so God could get even with me?  Again, God doesn’t work that way.

Do you know what cliche works for me…Bad things happen to good people.  I’m a good person.  I was a good pregnant person.  Something went horribly wrong when cells were dividing and my little guy didn’t develop what he needed too, to survive in this world.  Its biology.  Sounds cold, but it is the simple truth.  This knowledge brings me some peace.  I don’t blame God now.  I did, I hated him, I became indifferent to him, I didn’t believe in him…it happens.  I was hostile and hurt, and I grieved, I grieved with every cell in my body.  Living hurt.  Now, I’m comfortable in my grief, I’m comfortable with my God. 

I have no special inner strength that caused my son to die, he is not floating on a cloud with a harp in hand, and most of all I didn’t do anything wrong to deserve my son to die.

I can only say all of this because of time.  Its the one thing that has helped me…it hasn’t healed me.  I don’t need to be healed, I needed to be able to move forward and that is what I’ve done.  It hasn’t been easy.  Its been a long, twisty road.  Sometimes I go the speed limit, sometimes under…but I am always moving forward with every breath that I take.  And sometimes thats all you need to do. Just breathe, and take it one moment at a time.

this website helped me survive my first year of grief…its been over 9 yrs…hoping its still around and can help others

I have a silver ornament tree that I bought the first year without david.  Every year I take it out, set it up, add ornaments and feel some peace, but also still so very sad.  I have a stocking with David’s name on it too.  This year, my kids decided to help me unpack the christmas stuff…and they found Davids stocking…my son asks “who’s David?”  punch in the gut…not expecting that.  I tell him, “that was mommy’s first baby who died, sweety”  “oh, ok” and we moved on.  This isn’t the first time David has been mentioned…I talk about him, not routinely, but on occasion.  I have his urn, and some pictures - so the name David is familiar to them.  But still not a connection.  Its sad, that my 2 kiddos will never get to meet their older brother, but it is what it is.

I haven’t put up Davids tree yet…my husband asked me about it - and I couldn’t give him an answer.  This past semester in school I have had some realizations about my sons life/death…and I don’t know if my heart can handle setting up the tree this year, so it sits in the box.  Maybe on Friday I can do it…but as of today…its just not in me.

So I put on a brave face yesterday…did what I needed to do.  I was a good grieving mother.  Told everyone it was ok, and I’m allright.  I’m not.  I feel beaten and abused.  I just want to curl into a ball and stay there for a very long time.  I haven’t grieved this much in years.

I am normal.  Yes, its been years, since Davids death, but still…to have this wound ripped open over and over and over again, class after class…its too much.  I have one week left, only one week left of this rotation, and my heart can relax.  I just need to get through a few more classes, and I’m done with OB.  not done with peds, but I think thats doable.  OB has been such a roller coaster, I just want to catch my breath. SIGH…this sucks.  I miss my boy.

I relive his life every night before I go to bed.  Again, I haven’t done this in years.  I replay it, and talk as if I’m telling someone..every moment burned into my brain I explain.  Not, a way to fall asleep.  I’m tired and exhausted.  I need to stop reliving it…I keep trying to make it ok, keep telling myself this is how it’ll get better.  I’m looking through nurses eyes now - I see things a bit differently.  I notice different things in the pictures that I hadn’t before - like how I just had my gown on after giving birth - then in the pic where they brought him by me I was covered in blankets I was shaking so hard I thought I was going to fall off the bed - this is when I started to  hemmorhage…my placenta wouldn’t deliver so I had to get an emergency DNC.  Its those little details, that I overlooked so many times before - Now I see them.

My heart aches, my eyes are swollen, and my brain is numb.  But on facebook - I’m all good.  its manageable.  When in my house I sob on my husbands chest.  I long for the boy who I never really got to know.  I’m so very thankful for my two littles ones that I get to hug on a daily basis, but God do I want the one I can’t.

We Will Never Forget - Always Remember

I find that an odd sentiment from a society that urges us to get over the death of our loved ones. 

For those of us on any given day who has a loved one die for any reason…no one wants to hear our grief.  We are to remain silent in our mouring, so no one hears our cries.  We are told to carry on…don’t look back…the past is the past…you can’t change what happened…don’t dwell on the past…but yet for the lives lost on 9/11 remain hostile.  remain angry.  IT IS OUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO REMEMBER.

Please don’t misunderstand.  I mourn for those who died on 9/11.  I wept today as I listened to Paul Simon sing.  I can relate to those moms who lost a child, I can relate to those people who lost a friend.  Suddenly and tragically.  I remember.  Not because I’m told too.  But because I truely do hurt for them.  I know of no one who died on 9/11.  But yet, I still feel sorrow for them.  Not because its patriotic, but because I’m human.  I don’t want people to forget, I want people to remember the love that was once there.  I believe in memorializing the victims.  I believe in memorializing all people who have died.  I believe that every life is sacred.  I just don’t want to be looked at as crazy when my sons death date approaches, and I have moments of hurt.  When my temper gets short, when I cry in the car.  When those things happen to me, then I’m looked as not getting over it.  Not grieving properly.  But as a society its ok for us to openly weep on 9/11.  I don’t like that hypocrisy.  This is a national day of mourning rightfully so - but the lesson we learn today about grief…lets remember it for when we know someone else who is grieving.  Lets give them some compassion too.  Lets give them a moment to recollect themselves, and not look downly at them for not getting over it.

My hope is that with all of this sentiment for those people who have lost loved ones on 9/11, that it carries on to those of us who have lost loved ones on not such a national level.  That compassion can be given out on a regular basis, not just an annual one.

yes, my baby boy died.  He was terminal.  If I lived in the land before ultra sounds and prenatal care…I could leave it at that.  But since I don’t…I want to scream.  I’m in nursing school, and have ob rotation right now.  I dreaded it…knowing it would bring back memories…and keep David at the surface for the full 5 wks.  I’ve been doing good, I was even able to do clinicals and work with a laboring women, and did an assessment on a newborn…I did all those things, and it was good.  I felt good.  All very positive.  The next day in theory we talked about ultra sounds, kick counts and fetal heart rate.  We talked about why its so important, why we make the pregnant women do these things and we learned how to read the monitoring slips…why the fuck didn’t my dr know this.  why the FUCK DIDN’T MY DOCTOR LISTEN TO ME.  I wanted to scream during class…I wanted to stand up and throw my book, and hit the wall and say “MY BABY DIED DAMN IT”  “I DID THIS AND IT DIDN’T MATTER NOONE LISTENED”  but instead a sat there with blankness, deep breathing to make sure I controlled myself.  I drove home, sat down and threw a tantrum.  Hubby listened I wailed.  I’m drained.  Emotionally and physically drained.  I remind myself repeatedly…prior knowledge would not have saved my son.  prior knowledge would not have saved my son.  Its the only thing that keeps me from sueing my dr for her incompetance.  My little guy had no hope.  I’m thankful I was able to love and touch him for two days.  That I was able to hang on to hope for two days…until I no longer could, until my hope turned selfish…then I said goodbye.  I can move forward knowing I did the best I could during my pregnancy, I gave David everything I had…he will always be with me, in my heart, brain and soul.  He makes me a better person, I have to remember the good, and allow the bad to pass.