Martyrville

I wish I could say I was in Margaritaville for Easter, but I seem to have ended up in Martyrville.


Part of it is, I guess no one knows what to say.

I prepared myself for an outpouring of sympathy. Just in case. The strange image that kept coming to me was Illyria from Buffy - armored and distant. I just decided to pretend I wasn't human. I'm just a visitor here to your planet. No feelings at all. What is this strange thing you call sadness? That was the most drastic thing I could think of, to keep the grief at bay. Otherwise, it's like trying to plug the Hoover Dam with bubble gum... (and we're all out of bubble gum?) I knew I would just break down and flood the room with my mourning, and what good would that be for everyone, including me? So... I was prepared.

But from the time we arrived at our little Easter gathering, most of my family didn't even mention it. Not even my brother-in-law in his before dinner prayer, who almost always mentions something personal, even if it's just "keep us all safe on the journey home," etc. Yesterday's prayer was the shortest and most general I've ever heard him deliver.

I brought my pictures of William and waited for the subject to come up. And I waited. And waited. I finally realized no one was going to say anything unless I did. Probably because they didn't know how I would handle it if they said something, I rationalized. So I finally showed my mom his pictures, and gave her the ones I'd had printed for her. I also asked her if she wanted some of his ashes - we decided to give some of William's ashes to the grandfathers he was named after. She said she did.

Once she was looking at the pictures, then my sisters and my niece wanted to see as well, and we talked about him a little, and about what happened. But I found it really interesting that none of the men - my brother-in-law, my nephew - wanted to hear about it or see him. They left the room in a hurry, and it ironically reminded me of whenever I have a newborn and start nursing them in public.

I think women understand on a more visceral level. Men are so bodily and experientially removed from it, it's probably even more horrifying and terrifying to them. Not that some women don't say all the wrong things...

My oldest sister told me how strong I was, that she was a mess when she found out, and she was glad my niece (in-law), S., was the one who came to the hospital to be with us, because she didn't know if she could have handled it. And my 2nd oldest sister told me all about how she had to pull over when she heard the news, because she was so devastated and crying so hard, but it comforts her to know that, "Dad got to see that baby first up in heaven." *sigh*

Not that I begrudge them their sadness... or their comforts. I know it's sad. People I have never even met face to face are sad about it, and I get that.

My mother-in-law took the prize for worst response, though. Three days after we'd called to tell her what happened, she called us. Not to ask if we needed anything. Not to inquire how we were doing. No. Instead, she calls my husband's cell (she wouldn't dare call mine and do this) to scream at him, "You haven't called me in three days and you obviously don't want to talk to me!"

WTH?!


M. didn't even tell me she called and said something. It wasn't until I overheard him on the phone with her, telling her how inappropriate her comments had been and how much he didn't appreciate it, that I realized. It's not like this is the first time she's done something like this - it's just that I can't think of a worse time and circumstance. I knew she liked to play the narcissistic martyr... but now? Really? In the midst of the mourning of the death of my child, she's going to play the martyr card and make us take care of her feelings?

Honestly, I can't do it. I've obviously been willing to before, seeing as I have so many of these types of people around me. In the past, I've been willing to suppress my own feelings to take care of everyone else's feelings around me, to let them think they were bigger, more important, than my own. But this grief is too big even for me to contain. I can't do it.

There have been times, in the past, I've thought that I should just do something drastic, or check myself into a mental hospital, just to "prove" that I'm not really as strong - at least on the inside - and everyone else seems to think I am. But in this case, it's not a consideration, or a rational thought... it's a real possibility. I cry all day. I sit for hours doing/staring at nothing. I forget to do the most basic things. Like take a shower. Or brush my teeth. Or eat. I hear babies crying. And I'm not sure it's all in my head.

What I want to do is crawl into a closet and stay there. I used to do it when I was little, whenever my parents would fight. It was rare that anyone came looking for me, and I once spent the entire night asleep in the closet. I emerged in the morning, and no one knew I'd been in there. That pretty much sums up how "strong" I am in the face of emotional stress. I hide, and no one notices, and everyone mistakes it for my being brave.

Every day, the closet seems more and more appealing.

Wallpaper

I put William's picture up as wallpaper on my computer screen.

For a week, I resisted, thinking it was too morbid, strange. It would be too painful, I told myself. I wouldn't be able to handle it. It would just make me sad.

But for some reason, I did it anyway. An impulse. Maybe even an instinct.

And I didn't know what a comfort it would be to see him when I opened my laptop every morning. THERE's my baby. My whole body relaxes. I don't understand it, I don't know why, but I can breathe again when I recognize his face. It's like a part of me going missing that I rediscover every day.

I don't know if it's part of the mourning process, or even just the hormones. I remember after the birth of my live babies, taking a shower afterwards, and feeling rushed and anxious. My baby was waiting. My baby needed me. I needed my baby. Being separated in those first days or weeks was excruciating, wrong. I couldn't wrap my head around it.

And I feel that way now. Even though he's dead, even though rationally, intellectually, I know he's gone. It doesn't matter. It's like my body hasn't caught up to my head yet. It still wants what it wants, and just seeing his face makes it better. It relaxes me almost instantly. It's surprising, even shocking to me, that I feel relief and calm instead of pain when I see him. But I do.

My mother-in-law asked me yesterday if we were going to "do this again." This. Have a baby. Again. I can't say the thought hasn't crossed my mind. I also can't say that I'm not terrified at the idea of being pregnant again.

Then she revealed the reason she asked, "Well, I just...I have some little outfits and things for him, but I can't return them, and I don't know what you want to do with them...sell them? Keep them? I don't know."

Me either. "I guess I'll take them...and decide later?"

"Well...I just don't want to give them to you if they're going to make you sad."

Ha. Now that made me want to laugh. As if. As if it could get any worse. Because right now, breathing makes me sad. There aren't any degrees. My life is so twisted, so strange, so surreal, so turned on its head upside-down, that looking into the face of my dead son is the most calming experience in the world to me right now.

If I could have his body still, I'd be holding it, decaying or not. I would. I understand how mother's minds snap, how they end up dressing up and carrying baby dolls and calling them by their dead child's name. I really get that, on a visceral level I never could have fathomed before William was gone.

That's how much I want him.

Soundtrack of our Lives

M. put a James Taylor CD on the other day, and all of a sudden, he was crying.

"Maybe this CD wasn't such a good idea,"  he said.

There's a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
A song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me

Goodnight you moonlight ladies
Rockabye sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Wont you let me go down in my dreams
And rockabye sweet baby James... 

I know what he means. I don't yet have "triggers" for my grief - because everything is a trigger. I'm creating triggers with everything I say or do. That includes everything I choose to watch or listen to right now. It makes me afraid to turn on the TV or the radio, to tell you the truth. I don't want to forever associate James Taylor (a man I normally love to listen to sing) with the death of my baby. 

And I know, if I play it too often, I will. I have a soundtrack in my head to all sorts of tragedy and joy in my life. There are songs I associate with all sorts of things, from my wedding, to the births of my children, to the sorrow of losing my best friend to breast cancer. They all have artists or songs associated with them, and they weren't necessarily conscious choices. Weird as it may sound, anything by Sarah MacLachlan is now ruined for me, because it makes me think about the year of my divorce. I almost wish I hadn't listened to her so much during that time...but I did. And now, she's forever associated in my mind to a great deal of pain.

So mostly I sit in silence, or watch reruns of shows or listen to music I never had much chance of liking anyway. But I found myself singing along to James Taylor and feeling something in me opening that I thought had been forever closed. It was almost...dare I say it?...healing, that singing, letting my voice rise and fall, a lullaby sung to comfort myself.  

I wish I had a playlist for this. Do they make one? "Songs for Mothers with Dead Babies." How terribly morbid. And yet...strangely necessary. Any ideas?

Home

M. went to the funeral home to get William's ashes yesterday. I stayed home with the kids to hard boil eggs. The Easter bunny is coming on Sunday, and we have to have eggs for him to hide. Life goes on, even here.

It occurred to me today... I never bought William anything for Easter. Not even a little outfit. Was it just absent-mindedness on my part? Did I jinx myself? Or did I know, somehow, that he wouldn't be here for Easter? 

We stood at the table in a circle around my son's ashes, and my husband said a little blessing. And then he said something that made me want to put my fist through a window. 

"I'm glad he's home. I didn't know I would feel that way, but I feel better, knowing he's here."

You see, I had the exact opposite reaction. 

My son is most decidedly NOT home, and holding a plastic bag full of his ashes made that awful point even more horrifyingly true. William is gone, and only his ashes remain. We might have what's left of him, maybe, but he is not home.

Trust me, I've looked. 

He is not in his cosleeper, tucked next to our bed, nor is he in his crib. He is not in the diapers I lovingly chose and washed in preparation for his arrival. He is not in any of the little onesies or outfits family and friends excitedly bought for us. He is not in his swing or the bouncy seat or his car seat or his sling. He is most definitely not in my arms, or at my breast. 

He is not home. 

He will never be home.The only thing we have are his ashes, an amazingly tiny bit of dust in a plastic bag with a metal tag and a number on it, brought home in a black plastic box placed in a black gift bag. Some gift. Thanks a lot.

Like the memory box, it's just another thing to put on a shelf. Something that will gather dust, that we'll move from place to place. Babies don't belong on shelves. Children don't belong in closets. The life that once started, developed and grew within me is gone. In the black box on my dresser is just what's left of the vessel he moved into, and ultimately, out of. 

The truth is, I don't want a memorial. I don't want William's ashes. I want my baby. I want to hold him, I want to nurse him, I want to watch him change hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. Ashes don't grow. Ashes don't smile or coo or give wet, sloppy toddler kisses or say, "I love you, Mommy." 

Ashes don't come home. 

My son will never come home.

Outside

I should have known I wasn't ready for the world yet, but it was an experiment. Easter is this weekend, and we were supposed to be bringing our brand new baby to both families so they could exclaim and fight over who was going to hold him next. Instead, I'm going empty-bellied and empty-handed. The thought of being in the midst of so many people, not strangers but family, people who are grieving, too, who might want to talk about him, hug me, comfort us... already I'm shrinking into myself just at the thought. 

So, tired of pulling frozen food out, we went out to a little local diner for dinner. That was a mistake. The first wave that hit me was, "The last time I was here, my baby was alive." I'd been doing that prodromal labor thing that day - it was the first day, actually, and I kept contracting, wondering if this was really "it." Our oldest son was with us, and we all squeezed into a booth. I remember M. moved the table so I could get my belly in.

But now I slid in without a problem, no longer worried about negotiating my bulk or protecting William from the table edge. He was gone. He should have been here beside me, either in his car seat, or tied to me in a sling. Was it going to be like this forever, I wondered, as I opened the menu to hide my tears. Every place we went, would I think, "The last time I was here, my baby was alive?" 

I stared at the menu and I couldn't think. My brain actually wouldn't work. I ordered something. I don't know what it was. M. later said, "I was surprised you ordered that - you had it the night before." I told him I forgot, which wasn't true. It was just the only thing I could think of, because I'd had it recently. The menu was a blur. 

When the protection of my menu disappeared, I blinked at the brightness, the sound of conversation, every voice too strident and painful to my ears. It was all too much, sensory overload. I could barely eat my food. I had to remind myself how. Chew and swallow. What was the last thing I'd eaten, I wondered, before William died? What had been his last meal? I hoped there was some sweetness in it.

On the way home, I stared at the cars going by, the strip malls, the gas stations. Life was going on out here, and it was so painful to me I could barely take a full breath. I wanted home, the smallness of my room, the comfort of my bed. I wanted to curl up and die, and if I couldn't die, then at least I could sleep, and if I couldn't sleep, I could cry myself hoarse in the darkness.

I was too exposed out here, too fragile, too vulnerable. I felt as if I had been turned inside out, and all my nerve endings were now on the outside, raw and rubbing up against everything. I didn't resent the world for going on. That was as it should be. But I wasn't part of it, not now, not yet. I was still wandering, lost in the darkness, and coming out into the world was just painful and disorienting. I didn't belong here.

I don't know how I'm going to handle Easter. I'm afraid I'm going to bolt from the room the minute my brother-in-law opens his mouth to pray before the meal. I'm afraid I'm going to burst into tears. Or finally turn to my sister, who keeps saying, "I know it must be easier for you, because you have a knowledge of the birth process..." and scream at her, "Do you think a firefighter mourns the family he lost in a house fire any less because he knows how a fire is started?" 

But I probably won't. I'll probably sit there, blinking at the brightness, the noise, just like I did in the restaurant, and wish I was somewhere else until I can crawl back into bed again and cry.

Snow Family

The kids made a "snow family" with our out-of-season April snow... and included a "snow William" in our little family, resting in my arms. Just where I wish he was... such a beautiful tribute. It brought tears to my eyes.

It's a little melty here, but you can see how they wrapped up the baby to keep him warm...

William's Birth Story 3: Hello, Goodbye

Why had I been so afraid of him? Afraid to see him, touch him, even think of him, after I knew he was gone? Death scares us so much, that constant reminder. We're mortal. We live, we die. We're transient, our time here so short.

But he was beautiful, so very perfect. He looked just like his daddy, and had the most hair of any of my babies. (All that heartburn! Oy! Wives tale or no, he sure had a lot of hair!) Everyone said how beautiful he was. So bittersweet. Tiny little man - he reminded me of his sister, with her long limbs and fingers. He got that from me. That, and his perfect little mouth. Everything else was all his daddy.

I held him and kissed him and whispered sweetness into the tiny curved shell of his ear. He was warm from my body, but I knew he was gone. Gone. He would never hear me call him my sweet little man or turn his head and seek the comfort of my breast. He would never open his eyes, and I would never see if they were dark and deep like his daddy's. How could this have happened? I whispered that, over and over, "Oh baby, I'm so sorry, what happened? What happened?"

When I handed him to M. and saw the look on his face, I thought my heart would break in half. I wanted to tell him I was sorry. I knew it was my fault somehow. My body had broken him, our baby. It hadn't kept him safe. I was a horrible mother, I had failed my baby, my husband, my children. Our perfect little boy, our nine-month dream, was gone, and I blamed no one but myself.

The doctor asked me - I'd almost forgotten she existed - to push the placenta out. I didn't want to. It hurt too much. I told her so, and she said, "Well, I don't want to pull on the cord," and that was enough to motivate me. I pushed out his placenta, deeply stained with meconium. He'd been in stress, that much was obvious, or he'd been gone a while. How long? I wondered. What was the last thing he heard? Felt?

Having a wonderfully overactive imagination isn't all that great at times like these. I can imagine perfectly well what it might have been like in the darkness for him, losing consciousness, losing his life. And all the while, I was oblivious. The one person in the world who was connected to him, who was entrusted to love him, protect him, keep him safe. And I couldn't do it. My body betrayed me. My baby died in the very cradle of my womb and became nothing more than a watery grave.

The doctor announced I had an intact perineum and cleaned me up. She said she wanted to send the placenta in for examination, and we agreed. Then the nurses asked if they could take William, give him a bath, take his picture. I nodded. It didn't matter, did it? I wanted him with me, but I wanted him alive. That wasn't going to happen. Ever.

Another nurse encouraged me to get up, take a shower. Numbly, I did. I hate hot showers - I'm very temperature sensitive - but I couldn't feel it that night. I watched my skin turn red - the nurse said she turned it on full hot to get it warm, warned me I might need to adjust to make it cooler - but I couldn't feel it. I washed. I washed until I thought my skin would slough off, just like my baby's had. I wanted to be dead, too. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face.

He was clean, dressed and wrapped up when the nurse brought him back in. Five pounds, four ounces, she said. Eighteen inches long. Almost exactly the size of our daughter when she was born. The nurse was sweet - so young, her eyes done up with glitter make-up, she reminded me of a fairy or an angel - and seeing her carrying my dead baby in to me was like waking up into some sort of surreal dream. This couldn't be my life. This couldn't be happening. The nurse showed us the pictures she'd taken, quite proud of the job she'd done. And I praised her. They were lovely. She'd done a wonderful job. But it wasn't much of a consolation for a dead baby.

I was supposed to be in my birth tub at home. I was supposed to be lifting my baby to my breast, hearing him wail, feeling him kick his little legs on the outside now instead of the inside. We were supposed to be saying our cord cutting prayer before Daddy cut his cord with his special knife, the knife he would pass on when William was old enough to know and understand what it meant. We were supposed to be taking off the bracelets we made, the ones we'd been wearing for weeks, waiting his arrival.

I was still wearing mine. So were the kids. I remembered them, and M. had the midwife bring the kids back in, and my niece-in-law, S. had tears in her eyes as she took pictures of our little family, still only four instead of five, even though William was there, cradled in my arms. He was gone from us, and would never reach for and pull his sister's hair or throw his sippy cup off his high chair tray and make his older brother pick it up again...and again.

Our daughter, Z., held him and exclaimed over how perfect and adorable he was. And I thought my heart couldn't break any more. Our six-year-old son, D., skipped sad and went straight to angry. "I don't want to hold that," he said. I winced. "Are you sure? You won't get another chance," I reminded him gently. He sat in the chair, folded his arms across his chest, and scowled as his sister cooed over her little brother.

Finally, D. crept onto the bed and held out his arms. I put William in them, and the words, "Careful," came out of my mouth just on reflex as I protected William's little head. But there was no reason, was there? He was gone - he wasn't feeling any of this. We were feeling it all, and it was pain beyond pain. D. cried and kissed him and I thought the world might end, right then and there. I wished it would. Seeing my living son cradle my dead one? I never, ever want to see anything like it again.

We took off our bracelets, and put them in the box the nurse had left us. Little blue box with his pictures in it. A keepsake box. I was going to be one of those mothers with a tragedy put away in my closet. I imagined myself packing it the next time we moved. And the time after that. Instead of a growing baby, a child, I would move a box of things from place to place. It was too horrible to think about for long.

S. went home, then, and soon after, our midwife went home, too. The nurses said we could spend as much time with William as we wanted, but it was midnight now, and our living children were tired - over tired - and it was time to go home. Two hours after he'd been born, we were leaving the hospital without him. They took him away, undressed him and packed his clothes into my little blue box. They included a lock of his hair, his hospital bracelet, a card with his name, the date, his weight and length. And they had us pick a funeral home - we just took their suggestion. Did it really matter?

Was anything ever going to matter again, I wondered?

And then we went home. I carried a blue memory box instead of a baby, and I tucked two children in that night instead of three. There was no baby moving in my belly, no baby next to me in the co-sleeper. M. wanted to move the tub out of the bathroom, take down the co-sleeper, but I said no. Not tonight. Not now. He asked about William's things. Such a pragmatic, masculine question. What were we going to do with them - his clothes, the nursery - but I couldn't talk about that. Not yet.

M. lit a candle for William, and it burned into the night. I resented that candle, that flickering flame, a memorial for the baby I would never hold again. I didn't want a candle, or condolences, or a blue box to put in my closet. In the morning, that candle was a fat, solid wax puddle on the plate, spilled over and burned out, and it was exactly how I felt. In the morning, William was still dead, I was still alive, and our lives were changed forever.