I realize that my little Liam has not entered into play a lot lately. Maybe this is because he is just such a great pal to me right now and he's kind of uncomplicated. Here are some amazing things about my little Liam.
1. He is learning to read, in earnest. He recognizes words all over the place and helps me read books with him. Schwing! Holy kindergarten-teacher's dream come true! Yay, Liam!
2. He is so cozy. His hair is so silky and soft and his little body is just the warmest, snuggliest thing. He loves to just lie in bed and snuggle.
3. He loves to sing and is very good at it. Yeah, we've mentioned this before.
4. He is nice to his sister. This can be a rare trait in a 3 year old.
5. He also saved my life. An unusual trait as well. Yeah, I think I would have definitely sunk into a pit of despair if he hadn't come out with a bellow. My little Liam.
I always try to think about how I would describe how much I love Liam, and what his life means to me, but I can't. It's just too complicated.
So that's all. Greg and I are cooking a gourmet, grownups feast tonight with lots of wine.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Broadband coming soon
Just a little FYI.
The dial up that I know and love so fondly is to be short lived after all. We decided to ditch our cell phone and trade it for the internet. Next week I will have all new pictures, lovely exciting features, etc. on this page, because I will no longer have to wait approximately 92 minutes for each picture to upload, then 43 more for it to not properly load onto the page, and 132 minutes to try the whole thing all over again.
Now I will have time for more important things, like reading people's blogs.
The dial up that I know and love so fondly is to be short lived after all. We decided to ditch our cell phone and trade it for the internet. Next week I will have all new pictures, lovely exciting features, etc. on this page, because I will no longer have to wait approximately 92 minutes for each picture to upload, then 43 more for it to not properly load onto the page, and 132 minutes to try the whole thing all over again.
Now I will have time for more important things, like reading people's blogs.
I will not be so lazy/How to take a nap
So I actually made a New Year's Resolution this year. I never have before, but this seemed like a ripe opportunity for a resolution when I had a light-bulb moment the other night here in my little old-staircase desk. So first, the moment:
My desk is built into our old staircase that is closed off at the top. I sit on the landing (2 steps up) and then Greg built me a desk that is on the third step above that (so it extends over 3 full steps). Over my desk are about 6 more steps where I can store stationary, pens, hole punchers, old photo albums, old journals, you name it. The stuff that doesn't have a spot goes here. So on the desk is a basket, a nice, crunchy, old basket full of pencils and pens. On this night I need a pencil. I am rifling through the basket, pulling up pencil after pencil that reads, "Buckle up, kids in back" and each one is unsharpened. I waste about 3 full minutes trying in vain to find a sharpened pencil. 2 steps above my desk, just out of reach, sits a pencil sharpener. I continue to look through the basket, trying to find one that is already sharpened.
Now imagine for a moment that upon drawing out the very first unsharpened pencil, I had pulled it out, stood up, picked up the pencil sharpener, and sharpened it. Then the whole affair would have been over in about 1 minute. Instead I had to confirm, while sitting on my ass, that each and every pencil was, indeed, unsharpened before standing up to get it.
This is kind of how I tend to do stuff.
AND I QUIT.
So this is my New Year's Resolution: I will not be so lazy. I have posted it here and now it is official. The subtitles of my New Year's Resolutions are: I will either fold or throw in the basket each article of clothing I remove from my body; and I will dry and put away each dish that I wash. We'll see how it goes. I am 6/6 for good days keeping up with my resolution.
The next article of minor obsession. Thinking about weaning? Maybe not. I don't want to wean my baby. She is so cute. I say to her the other day, "Aoife, what's your favorite thing to do?" She smiles and leans in. "Nursies", she says. Oh, so cute. I think, could I actually ever do it? I mean ever? But I really think that maybe if I could detatch her from the nurse/sleep cycle I wouldn't be so frustrated with her around sleeping. Today at my Mom and Dad's house I WALKED in teeny-tiny circles around the dark bedroom, singing, with her nursing in my arms for about 25 minutes to get her to take a nap. HOLY SHIT? This is too much. She is almost 2 and she is BIG. It is tiring to do this. I am also kind of bouncing up and down, and trying to hold her bottom arm so it doesn't fall and flop and startle her from her sleepy-place. Then she will kind of start to fall asleep, and then think of something that she wants to tell me. "We at Nana's house, we be in guest room. Over there (which sounds like "ova deah") is rocking chair. Aoife rocking chair broked". Yeah, honey. Time to go to sleep. Begin walking again, slightly more bouncily. Is this not a little ridiculous? I mean it is just one of those moments where I look at my child and I think, there is just absolutely no question whatsoever who the boss is in this relationship, and right now it isn't me. I really think that it is relatively reasonable to ask someone of this great age to just lie down when she is tired and take a nap. Lots of kids do this. I have seen them do it. So I guess what I am considering is maybe ceasing to nurse her just before bedtime and naptime. Then she might not sit in her bed dreaming of nursies and instead she might curl up with her cheezy princess doll and fall asleep.
OOHHHHH. But this is the coziest time to nurse, before bed! What is a mother to do?
My desk is built into our old staircase that is closed off at the top. I sit on the landing (2 steps up) and then Greg built me a desk that is on the third step above that (so it extends over 3 full steps). Over my desk are about 6 more steps where I can store stationary, pens, hole punchers, old photo albums, old journals, you name it. The stuff that doesn't have a spot goes here. So on the desk is a basket, a nice, crunchy, old basket full of pencils and pens. On this night I need a pencil. I am rifling through the basket, pulling up pencil after pencil that reads, "Buckle up, kids in back" and each one is unsharpened. I waste about 3 full minutes trying in vain to find a sharpened pencil. 2 steps above my desk, just out of reach, sits a pencil sharpener. I continue to look through the basket, trying to find one that is already sharpened.
Now imagine for a moment that upon drawing out the very first unsharpened pencil, I had pulled it out, stood up, picked up the pencil sharpener, and sharpened it. Then the whole affair would have been over in about 1 minute. Instead I had to confirm, while sitting on my ass, that each and every pencil was, indeed, unsharpened before standing up to get it.
This is kind of how I tend to do stuff.
AND I QUIT.
So this is my New Year's Resolution: I will not be so lazy. I have posted it here and now it is official. The subtitles of my New Year's Resolutions are: I will either fold or throw in the basket each article of clothing I remove from my body; and I will dry and put away each dish that I wash. We'll see how it goes. I am 6/6 for good days keeping up with my resolution.
The next article of minor obsession. Thinking about weaning? Maybe not. I don't want to wean my baby. She is so cute. I say to her the other day, "Aoife, what's your favorite thing to do?" She smiles and leans in. "Nursies", she says. Oh, so cute. I think, could I actually ever do it? I mean ever? But I really think that maybe if I could detatch her from the nurse/sleep cycle I wouldn't be so frustrated with her around sleeping. Today at my Mom and Dad's house I WALKED in teeny-tiny circles around the dark bedroom, singing, with her nursing in my arms for about 25 minutes to get her to take a nap. HOLY SHIT? This is too much. She is almost 2 and she is BIG. It is tiring to do this. I am also kind of bouncing up and down, and trying to hold her bottom arm so it doesn't fall and flop and startle her from her sleepy-place. Then she will kind of start to fall asleep, and then think of something that she wants to tell me. "We at Nana's house, we be in guest room. Over there (which sounds like "ova deah") is rocking chair. Aoife rocking chair broked". Yeah, honey. Time to go to sleep. Begin walking again, slightly more bouncily. Is this not a little ridiculous? I mean it is just one of those moments where I look at my child and I think, there is just absolutely no question whatsoever who the boss is in this relationship, and right now it isn't me. I really think that it is relatively reasonable to ask someone of this great age to just lie down when she is tired and take a nap. Lots of kids do this. I have seen them do it. So I guess what I am considering is maybe ceasing to nurse her just before bedtime and naptime. Then she might not sit in her bed dreaming of nursies and instead she might curl up with her cheezy princess doll and fall asleep.
OOHHHHH. But this is the coziest time to nurse, before bed! What is a mother to do?
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Any thoughts?
So if you look really closely at the sidebar, at the picture of little Liam running at the camera? In the background you can see me and Greg, I am wearing a white skirt and holding Aoife, and we're between two big pine trees. That's where we got married. Behind me you might be able to make out a tiny little chair. We had ourselves photographed there by my sweet cousin, the illustrious and industrious Sabrina Ward Harrison, on our 5th wedding anniversary, and the empty chair is for Charlotte. Just wanted to point that out. It wouldn't fit on the caption line :)
But the real reason for this posting is this: I would like some help. So much that I'll even tell you just for today what my e-mail address is, just in case you don't want to post a comment and just want to tell me privately your innermost thoughts. carolmcmurrich@aol.com. So here's the question now, and it's for those of you who have lost a baby.
What was missing for you among all the books you read? What was your favorite bereavement book, what did it do for you, and what else did you CRAVE? Like for me, I wanted a book that was well written, but could also be my friend. I craved the stories of other women like me, but not in such detail that it freaked me out. I needed to know about this much, but not too much. I loved Empty Cradle Broken Heart, but I wanted to know MORE about the people who were quoted saying precisely the things I was thinking.
I am asking you this because I am "working" on a book, very slowly, with another writer and wer are currently putting together our very detailed outline from which to really dig in and I really would LOVE to capitalize on this potential opportunity to cater this book precisely to what people felt like they needed (or need as the case may be).
So thanks. I hope to hear from a few of you.
But the real reason for this posting is this: I would like some help. So much that I'll even tell you just for today what my e-mail address is, just in case you don't want to post a comment and just want to tell me privately your innermost thoughts. carolmcmurrich@aol.com. So here's the question now, and it's for those of you who have lost a baby.
What was missing for you among all the books you read? What was your favorite bereavement book, what did it do for you, and what else did you CRAVE? Like for me, I wanted a book that was well written, but could also be my friend. I craved the stories of other women like me, but not in such detail that it freaked me out. I needed to know about this much, but not too much. I loved Empty Cradle Broken Heart, but I wanted to know MORE about the people who were quoted saying precisely the things I was thinking.
I am asking you this because I am "working" on a book, very slowly, with another writer and wer are currently putting together our very detailed outline from which to really dig in and I really would LOVE to capitalize on this potential opportunity to cater this book precisely to what people felt like they needed (or need as the case may be).
So thanks. I hope to hear from a few of you.
Love in the time of naplessness
Oh, my.
It turns out some people are reading this. Oh, my. I am so humbled. Now I feel a little bit like that 11 year old adolescent I was mentioning yesterday, the one who says she looks ugly because she is hoping friend Alpha-12 year old cool girl will give her some kind of backhanded compliment. Uh, thanks guys, for reading my words, whoever you are...
This makes this feel like even more of a confessional than it ever was. For some reason, four people I hadn't ever heard of posting a comment yesterday makes me open to the possibility that perhaps lots of people are lurking around this site wondering about my innermost thoughts...
I think maybe I am a bit hormonal. There seems to be some emotional fluctuation, eh?
So here's what's on my mind today. Again. How can I get frustrated and mad at my beautiful living children? Argh! It makes me want to bang my head against the wall, not out of anger towards them, but at myself. How can I let this happen, I think to myself? Today's example. Aoife, not yet 2, thinks she doesn't need a nap. Unless I sit patiently with her in the rocking chair, nursing her and singing and patting her bottom consistently (who do you think got her into this habit? Hmmm?) she just plays in her bed. Then, at about 4 PM, she can't do anything. She is in a sleep-deprived stupor, clinging to my leg, moaning, and begging to nurse. All she wants to do is curl up in a big chair and nurse. Sounds ideal, right? Kind of, in theory. It is really cozy, actually... except that there is another beautiful little child who wants me to also play with him, and also there's the whole dinner thing which needs to happen by 5:15 which is about when Dad is going to get home. So I get frustrated. Either I get frustrated at the 4:30 point, when I have to start cooking and she is lying on the floor weeping piteously, or I get frustrated at the 1:00 point, where I just really want her to sleep so that we can all enjoy the afternoon.
So today it was 1:00, and Liam was tired and already asleep, and she nurses almost to sleep and then happens to accidentally, with the tiny, extra-sharp pincer grip of freshly cut one-year old fingers, pinch my nipple very hard. Just the very edge of it, as she was of course nursing at the time, but my nipple nonetheless. Tiny, razor sharp nails, digging in with a sudden, white-hot flash of pain. Could this have been where the grumpy mood began? My jump and shout startled her into a second-wind of chatter and conversation, at which point I angrily plonked her into her bed, forcing her into the lying position and fruitlessly tucking a knitted blanket around her squirming body, and told her it was time to nap. I stormed out. I had already nursed her for 20 minutes! Why can't she just go to sleep like a regular 2 year old! Oh Jeez!
Oh, wait.
Oh, oh, wait.
What am I thinking? What am I doing? Why am I angry?
WHY AM I ANGRY?
She cried for a while, then talked to herself for a little bit longer than that. I sat downstairs, feeling that emotion of anger, and not really knowing why I was angry.
I was angry because the way I parent and the things that I feel are right and that I do, like nursing and singing and rocking for hours to produce sleep, sometimes produce habits that are so labor-intensive on my part that when I am tired, or down, or just need 10 mintues to myself, I get mad NOT AT the child, but at myself for producing the habit in the first place.
This is where it always comes back to. I can't be mad at a child for not sleeping when I have never taught her how to sleep. I have coddled her right into where she now lies and now I have to coddle her back to sleep yet another time.
So I slink back up the stairs into the dark of her little tent-like room.
Scoop her up out of her bed, smelling as always like strawberry chapstick. This is the smell of my daughter, like soft, warm lips with fresh strawberry chapstick. I don't know the last time I bought strawberry chapstick but I think of it every time I smell her sleepy head.
I nuzzle this silky, sweet-smelling head and nurse her some more, calm this time, rocking and singing, and she relaxes in my arms as I tell her I love her and she falls asleep in 2 minutes and I tuck her gently under the knitted blanket and come down here and write this.
So at least I have figured out who I am mad at.
Sorry, Aoife. I shouldn't have taken it out on you.
Do you know how much I love you?
It turns out some people are reading this. Oh, my. I am so humbled. Now I feel a little bit like that 11 year old adolescent I was mentioning yesterday, the one who says she looks ugly because she is hoping friend Alpha-12 year old cool girl will give her some kind of backhanded compliment. Uh, thanks guys, for reading my words, whoever you are...
This makes this feel like even more of a confessional than it ever was. For some reason, four people I hadn't ever heard of posting a comment yesterday makes me open to the possibility that perhaps lots of people are lurking around this site wondering about my innermost thoughts...
I think maybe I am a bit hormonal. There seems to be some emotional fluctuation, eh?
So here's what's on my mind today. Again. How can I get frustrated and mad at my beautiful living children? Argh! It makes me want to bang my head against the wall, not out of anger towards them, but at myself. How can I let this happen, I think to myself? Today's example. Aoife, not yet 2, thinks she doesn't need a nap. Unless I sit patiently with her in the rocking chair, nursing her and singing and patting her bottom consistently (who do you think got her into this habit? Hmmm?) she just plays in her bed. Then, at about 4 PM, she can't do anything. She is in a sleep-deprived stupor, clinging to my leg, moaning, and begging to nurse. All she wants to do is curl up in a big chair and nurse. Sounds ideal, right? Kind of, in theory. It is really cozy, actually... except that there is another beautiful little child who wants me to also play with him, and also there's the whole dinner thing which needs to happen by 5:15 which is about when Dad is going to get home. So I get frustrated. Either I get frustrated at the 4:30 point, when I have to start cooking and she is lying on the floor weeping piteously, or I get frustrated at the 1:00 point, where I just really want her to sleep so that we can all enjoy the afternoon.
So today it was 1:00, and Liam was tired and already asleep, and she nurses almost to sleep and then happens to accidentally, with the tiny, extra-sharp pincer grip of freshly cut one-year old fingers, pinch my nipple very hard. Just the very edge of it, as she was of course nursing at the time, but my nipple nonetheless. Tiny, razor sharp nails, digging in with a sudden, white-hot flash of pain. Could this have been where the grumpy mood began? My jump and shout startled her into a second-wind of chatter and conversation, at which point I angrily plonked her into her bed, forcing her into the lying position and fruitlessly tucking a knitted blanket around her squirming body, and told her it was time to nap. I stormed out. I had already nursed her for 20 minutes! Why can't she just go to sleep like a regular 2 year old! Oh Jeez!
Oh, wait.
Oh, oh, wait.
What am I thinking? What am I doing? Why am I angry?
WHY AM I ANGRY?
She cried for a while, then talked to herself for a little bit longer than that. I sat downstairs, feeling that emotion of anger, and not really knowing why I was angry.
I was angry because the way I parent and the things that I feel are right and that I do, like nursing and singing and rocking for hours to produce sleep, sometimes produce habits that are so labor-intensive on my part that when I am tired, or down, or just need 10 mintues to myself, I get mad NOT AT the child, but at myself for producing the habit in the first place.
This is where it always comes back to. I can't be mad at a child for not sleeping when I have never taught her how to sleep. I have coddled her right into where she now lies and now I have to coddle her back to sleep yet another time.
So I slink back up the stairs into the dark of her little tent-like room.
Scoop her up out of her bed, smelling as always like strawberry chapstick. This is the smell of my daughter, like soft, warm lips with fresh strawberry chapstick. I don't know the last time I bought strawberry chapstick but I think of it every time I smell her sleepy head.
I nuzzle this silky, sweet-smelling head and nurse her some more, calm this time, rocking and singing, and she relaxes in my arms as I tell her I love her and she falls asleep in 2 minutes and I tuck her gently under the knitted blanket and come down here and write this.
So at least I have figured out who I am mad at.
Sorry, Aoife. I shouldn't have taken it out on you.
Do you know how much I love you?
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
I feel a little put out about this whole blog thing. I love having things to write, and I like the idea that somebody, out there, might read it. But I don't think anyone does read it! So should I just be writing this all in my journal? What is the point of sending it all out into space and losing it to a web page when I could be keeping it to myself?
I don't even know how somebody finds a blog. I guess I should be patient. Anyway I am not a very exciting specimen, let's be honest. No particular interest to the general parenting public who has never lost a baby, but probably too removed from my loss to really appeal to people in the throes of grief.
Does anyone (is there anyone out there?) go through moments of isolation and self-pity in a very adolescent kind of way? Sometimes it occurs to me that I am in my thirties and not really feeling all that much different than I did when I was a self-doubting 11 year old.
I suppose that's not true. I am pretty confident in a number of ways and I definitely feel totally kickass for having survived the loss of my first child. Really. I know that sounds weird but when I think about how I felt when Charlotte first died, and how I feel now, it amazes me that the human spirit is capable of coming so far. I wanted to die for so many months (wanted to die without a will or a means to actually make it happen, let me be clear on this) and now there is nothing I love more than getting up every morning.
Here's another random thing. You know the loss of control you feel when your baby dies? How suddenly the whole world is spinning around you and you can't do anything about anything? We all reclaim control in different areas. My weird area of control? I keep my house clean. Tidy. Not compulsively clean, particularly since I don't use chemical cleaners etc. of any sort, but compusively tidy. It makes me feel so happy and in control when the house is clean and organized to look at. If the insides of my drawers are a mess I don't care, but I have to look around me and see order as much as possible. This weekend I did a lot of organizing that made me feel oh-so-satisfied. This was not part of me before I lost Charlotte.
Maybe this is just me being a housewife and needing something to be proud of.
I never know what causes what in my life but I see how I am changing.
I don't even know how somebody finds a blog. I guess I should be patient. Anyway I am not a very exciting specimen, let's be honest. No particular interest to the general parenting public who has never lost a baby, but probably too removed from my loss to really appeal to people in the throes of grief.
Does anyone (is there anyone out there?) go through moments of isolation and self-pity in a very adolescent kind of way? Sometimes it occurs to me that I am in my thirties and not really feeling all that much different than I did when I was a self-doubting 11 year old.
I suppose that's not true. I am pretty confident in a number of ways and I definitely feel totally kickass for having survived the loss of my first child. Really. I know that sounds weird but when I think about how I felt when Charlotte first died, and how I feel now, it amazes me that the human spirit is capable of coming so far. I wanted to die for so many months (wanted to die without a will or a means to actually make it happen, let me be clear on this) and now there is nothing I love more than getting up every morning.
Here's another random thing. You know the loss of control you feel when your baby dies? How suddenly the whole world is spinning around you and you can't do anything about anything? We all reclaim control in different areas. My weird area of control? I keep my house clean. Tidy. Not compulsively clean, particularly since I don't use chemical cleaners etc. of any sort, but compusively tidy. It makes me feel so happy and in control when the house is clean and organized to look at. If the insides of my drawers are a mess I don't care, but I have to look around me and see order as much as possible. This weekend I did a lot of organizing that made me feel oh-so-satisfied. This was not part of me before I lost Charlotte.
Maybe this is just me being a housewife and needing something to be proud of.
I never know what causes what in my life but I see how I am changing.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
The Confession
Here it is, my confession.
It has been over four and a half years since my blissful, perfect pregnancy ended in the accidental death of my beautiful daughter. Since then, I have had two, healthy, anxiety-wraught pregnancies, ending in the healthy birth of my son and daughter.
Here is the confession. Confessions.
First, I still can't stand seeing pregnant people who I don't know. If I know them, somehow it's okay. I have gotten to the point that I can be happy with this. But strangers? I still cannot surpress the urge to run up to them and tug on their sleeve and say, "But don't you KNOW what could happen? How can you look so smug?" And each time I think this I berate myself because for all I know they have had 24 miscarriages but I still think it. I try not to, but I do. I don't like this one bit.
Confession number 2. When my friends have their first baby, I feel jealous. I look at the picture and I cry, but not for them, for myself. I can't help it. I just want to have that. I remember the feeling of being completely thunderstruck by this life that I had created and I think, imagine if she had been living. Imagine then what that would have felt like. I will never know. It feels so unfair and I can see the joy in their eyes and I want it for myself. I want to go back in time and get it.
But something happened today, something happened for the very, very first time. My friend had a baby, and it was her first, and I cried, and cried, big fat tears rolling down my cheeks at my little desk (which is built into an old stairwell off of our kitchen), and felt even a little shy when Greg came to look at the photo for the first time because of how much I was crying, and how I couldn't even really speak to say to him how happy I was for her. So happy. Happy for her, and not even a teeny-tiny bit sad for myself.
Why is this?
Maybe it is because Jenny has been trying to have a baby for about 10 years, for 3 years with her first husband who left her in the midst of their infertility crisis and then for 3 years with her dear Lawrence who is baby Porter's daddy. So there's this, the fibroids and the IVF and the miscarriage and then finally, at the very end, a beautiful little baby boy, so gorgeous, so here, and alive, and wrapped up burrito-style, and in the picture of her with him in her arms you can see it in her eyes. She can't believe it. There is no part of her that takes even the slightest hint of an eyelash of her son for granted. She knows he is a miracle.
Is it that? Is that why my tears were purely tears of joy?
Or is it this, the letter she sent me a few months back, starting off with talking about her planned c-section since she had had so many fibroids surgeries:
....how it will feel to go to bed the night before and know that's the last night...we hope. I always have to add that - we hope. We hope it will all go well for the next six weeks so that we get to that point. When people tell us, "this is the last Christmas you'll have without a baby!" I can't help but add, "well, we hope so!" The dream still feels fragile to me - maybe it always will.
And I have been wanting to tell you, Carol, that I have conversations with Charlotte on a regular basis. I hope that feels okay to you - it is not in a freaky scary sort of way, more that I feel even more connected to what you were experiencing as you were pregnant with her. I mean, Charlotte has never been far from my thoughts ever, but now when this baby moves I think about how she used to swim around, and I sort of talk with her about it, and think about her life. It's been a really nice thing for me, even though it is also so very sad to me that she never got to experience "out here". Obviously she is part of your family just as Liam and Aoife are, but in many ways, as much as anyone else can be, she is part of my family too - she is really built into the fabric of my heart. It has been nice for me to know a little more about what is was like for you to be pregnant with your first - I don't think anyone has any idea what its like until they do it themselves, which is one of the myriad reasons I wanted it so badly. Anyway, Charlotte keeps me company, and while her birth might be something people would tell me not to dwell on, it's really not what I focus on anyway - I think about how healthy she was and how beautiful and perfect she was. And her birth reminds me of what can happen in life - unexpected and accidental and heartbreaking, but also what can come of it and what each of us does with those experiences.
Oh my oh my. Could I ever have PAID a friend to write something more beautiful and poignant? And so I am concluding, here and now, that I don't have to think to myself this, which I usually think when somebody has a baby:
Now she can really imagine what it was like for me to lose my baby.
Because she doesn't need to. Somehow she already knew, and now she has been blessed with her own baby. I am so happy.
It feels nice in my heart to feel this pure joy. Baby Porter lives in Washington, so I don't know when I'll ever get to meet the little guy, but I am so happy for this couple who has worked so hard for this baby and finally has him.
And, back to my confessional, it is a rare, nice treat to not feel self-centered and wallowing in my own pity when somebody else is in the midst of their own pure joy.
It has been over four and a half years since my blissful, perfect pregnancy ended in the accidental death of my beautiful daughter. Since then, I have had two, healthy, anxiety-wraught pregnancies, ending in the healthy birth of my son and daughter.
Here is the confession. Confessions.
First, I still can't stand seeing pregnant people who I don't know. If I know them, somehow it's okay. I have gotten to the point that I can be happy with this. But strangers? I still cannot surpress the urge to run up to them and tug on their sleeve and say, "But don't you KNOW what could happen? How can you look so smug?" And each time I think this I berate myself because for all I know they have had 24 miscarriages but I still think it. I try not to, but I do. I don't like this one bit.
Confession number 2. When my friends have their first baby, I feel jealous. I look at the picture and I cry, but not for them, for myself. I can't help it. I just want to have that. I remember the feeling of being completely thunderstruck by this life that I had created and I think, imagine if she had been living. Imagine then what that would have felt like. I will never know. It feels so unfair and I can see the joy in their eyes and I want it for myself. I want to go back in time and get it.
But something happened today, something happened for the very, very first time. My friend had a baby, and it was her first, and I cried, and cried, big fat tears rolling down my cheeks at my little desk (which is built into an old stairwell off of our kitchen), and felt even a little shy when Greg came to look at the photo for the first time because of how much I was crying, and how I couldn't even really speak to say to him how happy I was for her. So happy. Happy for her, and not even a teeny-tiny bit sad for myself.
Why is this?
Maybe it is because Jenny has been trying to have a baby for about 10 years, for 3 years with her first husband who left her in the midst of their infertility crisis and then for 3 years with her dear Lawrence who is baby Porter's daddy. So there's this, the fibroids and the IVF and the miscarriage and then finally, at the very end, a beautiful little baby boy, so gorgeous, so here, and alive, and wrapped up burrito-style, and in the picture of her with him in her arms you can see it in her eyes. She can't believe it. There is no part of her that takes even the slightest hint of an eyelash of her son for granted. She knows he is a miracle.
Is it that? Is that why my tears were purely tears of joy?
Or is it this, the letter she sent me a few months back, starting off with talking about her planned c-section since she had had so many fibroids surgeries:
....how it will feel to go to bed the night before and know that's the last night...we hope. I always have to add that - we hope. We hope it will all go well for the next six weeks so that we get to that point. When people tell us, "this is the last Christmas you'll have without a baby!" I can't help but add, "well, we hope so!" The dream still feels fragile to me - maybe it always will.
And I have been wanting to tell you, Carol, that I have conversations with Charlotte on a regular basis. I hope that feels okay to you - it is not in a freaky scary sort of way, more that I feel even more connected to what you were experiencing as you were pregnant with her. I mean, Charlotte has never been far from my thoughts ever, but now when this baby moves I think about how she used to swim around, and I sort of talk with her about it, and think about her life. It's been a really nice thing for me, even though it is also so very sad to me that she never got to experience "out here". Obviously she is part of your family just as Liam and Aoife are, but in many ways, as much as anyone else can be, she is part of my family too - she is really built into the fabric of my heart. It has been nice for me to know a little more about what is was like for you to be pregnant with your first - I don't think anyone has any idea what its like until they do it themselves, which is one of the myriad reasons I wanted it so badly. Anyway, Charlotte keeps me company, and while her birth might be something people would tell me not to dwell on, it's really not what I focus on anyway - I think about how healthy she was and how beautiful and perfect she was. And her birth reminds me of what can happen in life - unexpected and accidental and heartbreaking, but also what can come of it and what each of us does with those experiences.
Oh my oh my. Could I ever have PAID a friend to write something more beautiful and poignant? And so I am concluding, here and now, that I don't have to think to myself this, which I usually think when somebody has a baby:
Now she can really imagine what it was like for me to lose my baby.
Because she doesn't need to. Somehow she already knew, and now she has been blessed with her own baby. I am so happy.
It feels nice in my heart to feel this pure joy. Baby Porter lives in Washington, so I don't know when I'll ever get to meet the little guy, but I am so happy for this couple who has worked so hard for this baby and finally has him.
And, back to my confessional, it is a rare, nice treat to not feel self-centered and wallowing in my own pity when somebody else is in the midst of their own pure joy.
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