An open letter

An open letter to those who should know better:

It's amazing how quickly you forget.

Just ten weeks ago my daughter died.  My precious angel, my first born, my little girl.  I awoke one morning and felt her still.  I tried to wake my baby up.  She didn't move.  I called the doctor and rushed to the hospital, still not believing it could be true.  I remember the shock, no, the horror I experienced the moment the doctor stared too long at the screen.  He turned the monitor for me to see myself: her body floating gently.  After hours of agony waiting at home, I went in for my induction.  To the Labor and Delivery Unit, head hung low, they were waiting for me.  I remember the gush when they broke my water many hours later, I cried because this was the first time I felt that warm rush of amniotic fluid, and the circumstances were so different than what I expected. I delivered my baby's lifeless body just moments after midnight, they said she must have been waiting for New Year's Eve.  Maybe she wanted me to know that a new beginning would come at some point.  The truth is, I remember every moment of this like it happened yesterday.  I can so quickly return to that devastating, life-changing instant during the ultrasound.  "I am so sorry," my doctor said.

And what do you subject me to?  Conversations and remarks that I would hope could pause as you see me round the corner.  The thoughtless comments that you make.  The excessive celebration of other mothers' good fortune - yes, I am happy for them, but for how long do we need to post their newborn's photo in the workplace?  Must you really carry on about your easy labor and how you enjoyed maternity leave?  Why ask me about the choice of beverages for a friend's baby shower?  I am nowhere near ready for that, as you know very well.

You should know better, but since you don't, I will tell you.  Even when I am laughing, I am aching inside.  Every day is an effort to get through.  Perhaps my outward demeanor gives you the impression that I am "over it."  In fact, I will never be over it.  The pain will become duller and less sharp over time, I believe.  There will always be a void in my life, the space left by the loss of my first child, my beloved daughter.  I will survive.  But sometimes surviving is not easy.  It takes every ounce of strength that I have.  I didn't realize it would be so soon that you would lose interest in all that I have gone through.

Finally, I would like to remind you that mothers of loss are everywhere.  We are your friends, your colleagues, your relatives, your neighbors, your clients...  Do not assume that life has been kind to everyone you meet.  Have a little sensitivity and compassion.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Due date

Today was my official due date.  How many times did I say, "The first week of March," after being asked when I was due?  March 4th, 2011.

How different a day this turned out to be.

Not a bad day.  I had a lovely evening surrounded by four of the most important people in my life.  Certainly, it was not how I had expected to spend this day.  I thought I would deliver early (most likely), or be anxiously awaiting the onset of labor.

Instead, I am picking up the pieces of broken hopes and dreams.

The glimmer of hope

Lately, I have heard myself laughing sometimes.  A couple times upon being asked, "How are you?" I have replied, "Good."  Without thinking, without hesitance.  Is it possible that I am healing, even a little bit?

I don't mean to say that I am suddenly better.  Not at all.  I still feel agonizing pain over Angeline's death, and my mind can wander into some very dark places if I let it.  I don't expect that these feelings will ever go away, but maybe I am learning what it is like to live with this.  

I recently spent an evening out with a group of mothers of lost babies.  It was a girls night, where we talked about our babies and all sorts of unrelated things.  We laughed a lot.  I left with such a feeling of awe in the potential for recovery of the human spirit.  We've all been through hell and back, yet there we were: talking and laughing, eating, having a couple drinks.  I realized that in spite of the heavy weight of our respective losses, we still have the capacity for happiness, friendship, love.  Maybe we are even better at those things, because we realize how fleeting life can be.

I learned that one of the incredibly strong baby-loss mothers who I know is now expecting. I felt such excitement and joy for that family.  They are simply so deserving of a healthy baby to take home with them.  I have heard of other new babies on the way for mothers in our online community.  Each announcement gives me hope for the future for all of us.

It seems like there is a glimmer of hope lighting a dark passageway.

Blessed Be Your Name

At the bottom of the page is a blog-hop listing, courtesy of Franchesca, of Small Bird Studio. She has organized this list of "Small Miracles, Celebrating Hope."  Franchesca also inspired me to share a link to one of my favorite popular Christian songs.

It speaks of praising God not only in times of happiness and harmony, but also in times of despair and loneliness.  It reminds us that God both gives and takes away.

I don't know why Angeline couldn't stay with us in this life.  I choose to believe that she has been spared a human life of pain and difficulty related to her severe cardiac defect, and that she is now in a better place.

One line that seems especially relevant now,

"Blessed be Your name on the road marked with suffering,

 though there's pain in the offering, blessed be Your name."

The time we had

At times like this, you really do have to take it "one day at a time."  Or maybe "one hour at a time," as one of my colleagues said to me.  It's true.  There's nothing like the shocking loss of your baby to get you to face the reality that you have little to no control over what happens to you.  Instead of directing, controlling and planning as you used to do, you are suddenly in the position of taking life one hour at a time.  This is not entirely a bad thing.

Since I realize that nothing is guaranteed in life, I have been reflecting on the time I did have with Angeline while she was alive.  I loved her like crazy, from the moment I believed she was conceived.  I was caring and careful.  I think she knows how much her mother loves her.  I think about how she loved the foods I fed her - I know she liked eggnog!  I remember how it almost seemed like she would kick when I willed her to.  I would just stop and touch my belly and think, give me a big kick - and she would!  I took her to Jack Johnson concert, and thought how cool it was that my baby heard Jack Johnson live even before she was born.  She went to the Grand Canyon and New York.  Angeline went on a girls weekend to Vegas.  Two of us were pregnant, carrying three babies altogether.  We stayed up late, talking like girls do.  She spent time with my family, even my brother who lives in Australia.  She was loved by so many people before she was born.  I am grateful for every second she lived inside of me.

On days where I am really feeling down, I have decided that I will focus on trying to be a mother that would make my daughter proud.  I will never have the chance to raise her to be the woman she would have been.  Somehow, I believe she still knows me.  I want to be the example I would have been for her had she lived.

I know that if our daughter had grown up, she would have been a smart, practical and intelligent woman.  One day, when we grew old, she might have cared for us.  I know that our daughter would not have wanted us to suffer and agonize over her loss.

Angeline is with us in spirit now, and always will be.