Roller Coaster Weekend - FAIL

First there was this...

Then this...

And if you think you see a line... you don't. Because then came this:

Pregnancy = FAIL

Game called on account of I'm broken... :(

Pain

I took my nineteen year old daughter to get a tattoo tonight. A pretty involved tattoo. Which meant a lot of pain. She was incredibly stoic about it, and as I watched, I saw the little three-year-old she had once been. She always hid her pain, even then. She once got her finger pinched in a folding door, and instead of coming to get me, crying, she just hid in the closet until it stopped hurting. (I found her just a few minutes after it happened - opened the door to get something and there she was, cradling her hurt hand...)

Watching her, remembering, got me thinking about pain. We all respond to pain - physically and otherwise - so differently. Like my daughter, I'm good at hiding mine. I'm not outwardly emotional. But I feel, and I know she does too. Deeply.

Her father and I divorced ... it's been ten years since then. We've been apart now longer than we were together. At the time, the pain was so great I thought I couldn't bear it. When the rift and wound was fresh, driving down familiar streets, past places we lived together, was incredibly painful. I drove through some of them tonight and realized... my pain has ebbed. In fact, what I experience now isn't pain so much as it is sadness, some nostalgia, and a little regret.

 It's faded over time. As I watched colors bloom on my daughter's skin...a back I soaped and rinsed 1,000 times in her life...I realized that the bright pain I still feel over William's death would disappear like that. Like my daughter's tattoo...colors would bleed and fade and slowly disappear, leaving the ghost-image of what it once had been.

Some day I really will look back and remember William differently. I felt that tonight, watching my oldest daughter bear her own pain and wondering what life had in store for her. At nineteen, I had yet to experience my greatest pain. Today, at thirty-nine, I'm not sure I have yet. But I have had my share. The longer we're here, it seems, the more life gives us. Our souls, like tattooed bodies, blooming bright, colorful pain that burns and slowly heals over time until it fades into the outline of our memory. Still there, always there, but never quite the same.

No, we are never quite the same again.

Magical Thinking

I took off my "memory" necklace for the first time in seven months the other day. Had to get a thyroid ultrasound (and just seeing an ultrasound image again was traumatizing enough) and it was in the way. We're still trying to catch an egg and get pregnant again, although every month that goes by, I wonder if it just wasn't meant to be and William's death was meant to be a big STOP sign from the universe.

I took off my necklace and had never felt more naked. And as I held it in cupped my hand and the ultrasound tech did her thing - looking for nodules or anything that might be causing the thyroid issue - I wondered if I should just put it away. I put away both William "reborns." They don't "sleep" next to my bed anymore. They're put away in the, as of now, unused nursery, and we have to make a special trip to "visit" them if we want to. So far, I haven't.

William's picture is still up, along with his ashes and the little momentos and statues we received after he died. They're all still there and I plan to make a permanent place for them. Soon.

But I wondered, holding that necklace into my hand, if it was my holding onto William and his memory that was keeping me from getting pregnant. Strange, the things we think, the associations we make.

Two women, now, who have come onto a loss board I frequent, who lost term or near-term babies after I did, have now gotten pregnant. That's hard. I'm happy for them, but looking around and wondering...why not me? Why is this so hard? I've never had a problem getting pregnant before. Quite the oppoosite.

Of course, I did get pregnant two months ago. It just didn't... take. What's wrong with me? All the tests they give me, everything keeps coming back normal. The issues I have (thyroid) are "under control" according to the tests, and shouldn't be preventing me from getting pregnant. So they say. But then again, they can't find any reason my baby died, either.

And it's now been seven and a half months since I held my dead son and I'm not pregnant again.

It must be my necklace. That must be it, I thought, clutching it in my hand and watching the ultrasound screen, wishing we were looking at a baby and not my thyroid gland.

The tech said everything looked "normal." No nodules, thyroid wasn't enlarged. Of course.

So I put my necklace on again and no, I haven't taken it off. What does magical thinking get me, anyway? Nothing. Which is what I have. Nothing.

It's hard to hope, it's hard to "stay positive." I told M. that I "feel" pregnant this time. I don't know, yet, not quite testing time... but I do. I feel pregnant. Of course, trusting my body is a big issue anymore.

He replied, "I hope you are...but I don't think I'm going to get very excited for a while."

That makes me sad. I understand it completely, and feel the same, but how awful that we have to hold back, hold our breath, hang onto memories and hopes and scattered dreams. I don't want to live that way, and I'm not sure how to avoid it.

If only I had a magic wand...

The Alternative

On Halloween, I walked the neighborhood with Vampiress and the Grim Reaper, all too aware of how light I felt. Last year I was pregnant, and my pelvis felt soooo heavy walking the streets. I was exhausted after our night of trick or treating last year.

This year I wasn't pregnant. This year, I should have been pushing a fat pumpkin in a stoller, but I wasn't. 

And then November 1 was the seven month anniversary of William's death. All Saint's Day. My first son's birthday followed on November 2. He turned sixteen. 

And life just keeps moving. 

My husband always says, "Well, that's better than the alternative."

Hm. Maybe. There are days I wonder. 

Missing Important Days

My friend Deanna died two years ago this November. She died at the age of thirty-six, of breast cancer that had metastasized to her bones (and finally, to her liver...) She and I talked a lot about missing anniversaries for "the sad stuff..." We both had a tendency to "forget" them. Her mother had died (melanoma, metastasized to the brain... ain't it a kick how genetically inclined the C-Monster is?) just a few months before I met Deanna, and year after year, she would "forget" the anniversary of her death. But a few days or weeks later, she'd find herself crying for no reason. Except, of course there really was a reason after all.

I haven't missed the anniversary of my friend's death. That's next month. But I have let the first of the month pass by without a thought several times since William died. I let Infant Loss Awareness day pass by without a mention. Why?

Deanna always wondered, too... why did she do that?  

I think I know. Because it hurts too much to remember.

It's hard enough to have a day every month - the first day of every month - where William is so close to the surface of my thoughts and the center of my heart it's hard to breathe without pain. To have a day when I'm supposed to remember them all... all of the lost babies... how is one person supposed to hold that?

I was catching up on reading blogs today, and I must have made that sound, the one that's common around here anymore, a sighed, frowning "Awwww." When my husband asked me, "What?" I showed him the picture of a daddy holding his lost baby, M. looked, frowned, and made the same sound. "Awwww... another one..."

It wasn't a question. We both knew what we were looking at. We knew the looks on the faces - they had been our own. It's so universal, this pain, this experience. It's a picture from an alternate reality, somehow superimposed over what should have been. There's Daddy, holding his son, Mama looking on, and you can see it on their faces, what should have been. She's proud, look at how she looks at her son... she can't help but see the beauty of her baby. Daddy holds his future in his arms, smiling strangely for the camera, but you can't smile in this situation without pain. There is a smile there, but instead of joy, there is sorrow.

Now times that by ten... by ten thousand... by a hundred thousand...

We're all the same, our hearts cracked open before the world, raw and bleeding. And it doesn't stop. It never stops. Babies keep dying. Hearts get broken. Dreams smashed. Again. Again. Again. Our own pain compounded, over and over. Impossible pain times infinity.

It's no wonder that I didn't light a candle, that I kept my breath shallow and my tears checked. It hurts too much to remember my son... your son... your daughter... 

But today I'm crying. Today I'm feeling them anyway, all of them, the lost souls, each light gone out. Today I'm breathing deep, heaving, cleansing sobs and wondering why I bother to fight it... it's going to come anyway. The pain comes like the tide, like babies dying, unstoppable.

I am helpless. It hurts to much to remember. And I can't help but remember.

What I think my friend, Deanna, didn't realize (and me, with her...) is that when we allow ourselves to remember... especially when we are connected, remembering together... somehow... when we are all united in this pain... there is some sort of comfort in it.

I didn't light a candle on October 15 this year. But I felt the love and light from those who did. Even in the dark hole I'd dug to hide in, I felt it. And I was grateful.

Maybe next year... maybe next year I'll be brave enough to light a candle.

Saddled

I used to love this season - the crisp fall air, trips to the cider mill, picking apples and the changing leaves. I loved it so much I named my first daughter after this season, the one she was born into.

But this year, I can't stand it. I look at the bright, bold colors of each leaf throwing off its chlorophyl, beautiful and brilliant in their final dying, and all I can see is death. Everything is dying. Cornstalks that, just a few months ago, stretched into endless green fields now sway in the autumn wind, yellowed and faded, simply husks. It's all fading away, and while I once gloried in the beautiful, dazzling display of autumn's end, now all it does is remind me.

It reminds me of William, and his death. I wish I'd seen him in those last moments, been able to look into his eyes, feel his last breath. If I had to lose him, why couldn't I have held him in those last moments? Why does the universe have to keep dangling things in front of me, a carrot before the horse, and yanking it away at the last moment? Almost there...you've almost made it... yet over every hill is just another mirage.

The universe says, you can carry your baby for nine months, but he'll die before you ever get to hold him. The universe says, sure, fine, you'll get pregnant again and get to ride that elated wave for a few days...before it all ends in more pain and blood. 

Always pulled up short, just shy, never quite reaching any sweet destination.

Does the horse eventually catch on? Does she just stop in the middle of the field? Does she turn and leave that impossible carrot dangling?  I am harnessed, the bit a cold, steel reminder in my mouth. There is no other way, that's what my body says, what my head screams.

I want that carrot.

I want my "fuck you" to the universe.

But what I really want is William back.

It's a callous and cold thought: "I went through all that for NOTHING!?" But it's my feeling and it's real. How many times did I say, heavy and dragging with my belly distended with William, "I'm never doing this again!"

I'm never doing this again... 

Careful what you say.

Today, M. said, "If we're not pregnant this time, maybe we should just stop trying."

I couldn't speak, couldn't move, couldn't breathe. That horse can't imagine not trodding onward, heading for that dangling carrot. There is nothing else in her field of vision - it's all orange, all the time. For me, it's like that. All baby, all the time. How can I stop? How can I say no?

The truth is, I'm afraid.

I'm afraid of making that choice. I'm afraid of losing the hope, the possibility that I might... just... reach... that... carrot.

But I'm more afraid of who I might become if there is no rainbow at the end. I have glimpsed that woman, and she isn't pretty. She is bitter, angry, resentful, cynical... If there is no hope, I'm afraid that I will become her, that the worst of the things I have been since William's death will become crystalized like ice shards in my chest, replacing what used to be my heart.

I don't want to be that woman. I want to have hope, I want to believe.  I want to keep pursuing that carrot...even if it is an impossible dream, a mirage. Even if.

Phantom Pain

I know a bit about flesh-eating bacteria. M. had it, following an abscessed tooth. He spend two weeks in the hospital, half of it in the ICU. It's very scary stuff, and usually, it kills you. He was lucky.

So was this woman.

But there is some very, very small part of me that looks at that first paragraph: 

A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee.

And thinks... but her baby is alive.

Would I choose being a quadruple amputee over having birthed a dead baby? Yeah. I would. In a heartbeat. But we don't get to choose, do we? Life just hands us these things, here you go, this is yours now, like it or not.

Are we supposed to say "Thank you?" Are we supposed to "learn something" from these horrific experiences? Is this some sort of competition to see who can carry the most pain? Or does the person who experiences the least pain win?

I can't fathom a world that leaves one woman's arms aching for her missing baby, and another woman's missing arms unable to hold her live one.

They say you have phantom pain for years after you lose a limb. Can you imagine? A part of you severed, removed, taken, stolen away. Gone, but still, you can somehow feel it...your own secret torment, a torturous ghost reminding you every moment of what you've lost.

Honestly...I think I know exactly how she feels.