I don't want to be the mother of a dead baby.
I guess this is the phase of grief they call denial.
I realized today that, for the past week or so, I've been pretending like it happened to someone else. I don't want to read about baby loss. I've been ignoring my blog list (and my blog). I have a stack of books beside my bed that I would have already sped through in the early days, but they sit there mostly untouched.
I don't want to be this person. I want to feel something else besides pain and loss and grief.
Yesterday marked the three month anniversary of William's death and I let it pass without a word or even a tear.
Today, I felt guilty for doing it. Not only am I a horrible mother for not being able to protect and keep my baby alive, I'm a horrible mother for not remembering and honoring him how I should be. Ah mommy-guilt. There's nothing else like it.
I think part of this feeling is being brought up because we're trying again. Yes, we're actively pursuing pregnancy, doing everything we need to in order to make another baby, and the possibility brings all sorts of bittersweet feelings with it.
I want William, and I know this baby, if we are successful in conceiving and I am successful in giving birth to it alive - god knows there are no guarantees - won't be William. I worry if it's a boy - will I compare them? I worry if it's a girl - will M. be disappointed? Will I?
Yesterday, I had a stress echo of my heart done. I've been having heart palpitations and some chest pain - I'm pretty sure they're anxiety related, but the doc wants to be sure. So there I was, facing an ultrasound machine again for the first time since that night in the very same hospital when the tech told us William was gone.
How many beats in a lifetime? I wondered, seeing my heart beating outside of my body. How many beats did William's heart get before it stopped?
I watched my own heart beating on a fuzzy gray screen and it was both surreal and apropos - because that's what it's felt like, for weeks, like I've taken out my heart and put it somewhere outside of myself. So I don't have to feel. So I don't have to do this anymore. Maybe my heart died when my son did. Maybe I just wish it had.
13 comments:
I know that telling you William's death isnt your fault wont help. We always feel guilty, even when there is nothing different that we could have done.
Dont worry about another baby. I had the same fears, but the moment(s) we found out we were expecting new addtion(s), we loved them for them and there was never a comparison. I'm sure that you will find that to be true, too.
Sending you big hugs in this aspect of your journey.
There was a moment that I realized I hadn't cried in a week (probably two to three months in also), and the guilt nearly drove me into an anxiety attack. We need to also protect ourselves, from our pain, from feeling sad all the time. I spent six months working on Calvin's memorial book and had to stop several times because the pain became overwhelming. It's ok not to hurt all the time. Really, it is. Our children wouldn't want us to spend eternity mourning for them, they want us to be happy, I truly believe that. As for having another baby, I envy you the possibility. I had my tubes tied during my c-section with the twins, figured that our family was now complete and then my son died six days later. I don't know if this is any comparison but after I had my firstborn, I was terrified to have another child. I didn't believe I could love another child as much as I love her. I was so wrong. You have an infinite capacity for love, of course a new baby won't be William, but you will grow to "know" that baby too as you carry him/her. And you will love it just as much as any of your other children, even William. I'm sorry you've been down, just remember that like a good book, you can put us down and then pick up where you left off when the time is right. Hugs
Much love and thoughts to you on the 3 month mark. I remember you in my prayers daily! I know that reading what you are going through is going to make me a better midwife someday.
There is nothing like the guilt a mother holds. Thinking of you~~
I think I know what you mean. I know that I have days when I feel trapped by all the grief and guilt. I just want to stick my head in the sand and pretend that none of it ever happened.
Sadly, I think that guilt is an integral part of being a mommy. You aren't a horrible one. You just aren't. I know how much you loved William, I can tell by how you write about him here.
My grandmother used to say that a mother's love is like a honeycomb and the love that she holds for each of her children is a separate cell within that honeycomb. They are distinct and separate and you can always add more. Perhaps because she had five children and umpteen grandchildren and got sick of them all trying to figure out who was the favourite!
I don't know, I've only ever had my girls but I think I felt those two distinct little honeycomb cells unfurl inside me. One for each of my daughters. Equally loved. Separate. Each a place of their very own.
Of course you still want your William. Another baby won't be William, but William has his own place in your life and in your heart. And a new baby will have a new place. All of his or her own.
I hope that the palpitations and pain ease. Sorry about the long comment. I got a bit carried away. xx
Dawn, we have to give ourselves permission not to marinate in the world of babyloss all of the time. It's okay to put it down, to step away from it, and pretend it didn't happen to you for awhile. I think eventually, we will reach a more even keel about everything. We won't have to pretend it didn't happen to us in order to have a few good days. Maybe this is the "fake till you make it" that others allude to. Maybe first we do have to pretend we didn't lose our boys in order to have days that are not so thick with grief. And then learn to integrate the two-- our loss and our ability to be okay.
I think it's so hard because we so desperately want our sons to know that they were loved and we had so little time to do it while they were still with us. It's hard to take a step forward and not worry that they would feel left behind or forgotten. And so we want to grieve, to keep our vigil, so that our boys know that we are always waiting for them if they were ever to return.
I think it's going to take some teetering in both directions to find some balance and some peace with the inevitable ups and downs that become a babylost mama's life as she moves forward.
I was in denial for a long time. It took me three months to even comment on blogs, or start my own. I did not want to admit to anyone I was a part of this awfulness.
Time away is good though. You have been very active in this community since just days after you lost your sweet William. And no one in their right mind could question you for trying again. We didn't even wait the three cycles we were told. We were trying before my six week check. Mother Nature had other ideas though, and it did take us seven months, but trying again was the only thing to keep me sane.
Good luck xo
I found trying again helpful, it means that you are working towards a day when your arms won't feel empty. Every day that passes is one day closer to you holding your own precious baby.
If you think you're a bad mother, I don't even know the date Isabel 'officially' died. We donated organs and I think the operation was around midnight so I don't actually know which day the machine was turned off.
You honour him every day because you're continuing in your journey and will get him a sibbling who will also honour his memory. Deep inside you feel your love for him and that can't disapear, a date is only a number.
I still, now, have days when I denial is my best friend. The only reason I can get up in a morning, the only reason I can care for my living children is to pretend it wasn't me this happened too.
I remember you talking about the wisdom of our bodies in your beautiful post "present" (I think). Sometimes our minds have a wisdom all their own too: the wisdom to allow us to rally before the next step on the journey.
love
Jill
Your heart is not your own...it is William's heart, too.
Lose one, lose the other. Find one, find the other.
I'm so sorry we can't skip parts of the journey.
You go as far as you need to go, and I will always be here, and I will always come for you. Doing that for you is important to my grief journey. Staying centered, staying grounded, holding space.
That, apparently, is our dance of grief together. Such an impossibly sad dance. Thank you for being the one the universe has partnered me with. I'm grateful our son has us.
M.
Anything involving a heart...mine or someone elses is totally traumatic for me now. Because of course I cannot think of a heart without thinking of little Ezra's not beating. When my dad had his bypass surgery in November, just months after Ezra died, seeing him on the blood pressure monitor in the cardiac icu set of the biggest panic/trauma attack of all time...I couldn't breath, couldn't stop crying. How terribly difficult that you had to go through this test.
As much as you can tell yourself that it wasn't your fault, knowing your job as a mother is to protect your baby, you feel as if it's your fault. But it's never your fault, it's just biology that failed us. Not us, because we wanted our babies more than anything in the world, but biology failed both us and our baby.
I'm still in denial over my son's death. People see my necklace with his picture and ask about him, and all I can say is "he's fine".
I hope you will be able to have another baby. I'm pulling for you.
xoxo
Do not feel guilty for not shedding a tear on the 3 month mark. This is a rollercoaster. You will look back and find that your healing has ups and downs and shows itself in different ways through the months and years.
I, too, was anxious to try again almost immediately after losing Jack full term. Except we had 3 more miscarriages and it was over 1.5 years before achieving a pregnancy that would carry past the first trimester again. It is quite common to feel the urge for another. The emotions are scary. I wasn't sure how to feel...did I want another boy? Of course I did. But then could I separate the two?
This is such a long journey. We just celebrated what would have been Jack's 2nd birthday on 7/7. I have pictures of our butterfly release up on my blog. I did not cry that day. I enjoyed that day. Of course, I had cried myself to sleep the night before. There are so many markers to come for you...so many anniversaries. How you handle them in unique to you and is never, ever something to feel guilty about. Our babies would want us to celebrate them!
You are doing a great job. You are also doing the best that you can. That's all you can do right now.
Post a Comment