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Good morning my friends,
I’ve been getting out more the past two weeks, since Dr. Hope took me off my more restricted activity limitations. It’s feeling more normal to be in the world, as if things are not quite in slow motion any more. I find myself laughing at times and meaning it. I find myself thinking about the spring, about the birth of the twins, about the summer. I suppose my past self would call this ‘healing’ and arbitrarily label this as ‘getting easier’. But I see griefwork different now.
I feel like I’m getting stronger in my ability to bear the weight of my grief. When the sadness hits, it is just as painful as the day we learned Will’s heart stopped. I thought that would ease. It doesn’t. But I feel don’t feel as crushed by its enormity as much. I’m building muscles to carry this loss with me throughout my life. I imagine you have two options with loss: you carry it like a canoe above your head, or you get trapped underneath it. My arms still tire easily, and it falls so hard it knocks me over. But luckily I have others to help me carry this burden so that I might peer out from the shaded covering and breath in fresh air.
That is what I meant this post to be about as I sat down to write anyway: those who help me carry the canoe. And the phrase that repeats over and over in my head is this:
I am not worthy.
I know people say that so much that it sounds cliché, or like you’re supposed to say as much when people do unbelievably generous things for you, but I understand that phrase now in such a deeper way (though I’ll admit I have had several private smiles at the Wayne’s World reference that continually intrudes in my head each time I think this phrase). In my darkness of loss, I don’t know that I have been anywhere near as gracious as I should be. I don’t even really know how to be amidst such acts of love.
‘Thank you’ is something that you say when a stranger holds the door for you at Walmart, or when the drive-through worker gets your order right at McDonald’s. But what do I say to these things?
- To Daven, who sat by my side the night we learned that Will was gone and cried with me. And her husband, who brought us pizza and ate with us in that terrible shock of loss.
- To Amanda and Shannon and Irma, who brought me food and special treats during those early days, loved on Sam when I was in my daze, and let me cry in my raw state without ever making me feel self-conscious.
- To our family, some of whom traveled from ‘way far away’ (as Sam would say) to be with us and watch Sam, who cleaned our messy house and distracted us in our pain.
- To Amanda, my NILMDTS photographer, who gave us such an incredible gift of our maternity pictures, who continues to check on me, who arranged for the 3-D pictures to be donated.
- To Regina, who took those amazing 3-D images.
- To Jill, who brought me a single white rose ‘for Will’ and delectable box of chocolates ‘for Abby’.
- To Andrea, whose phone calls and prayers lifted me up in the very dark times.
- To Dr. Hope, who let me see his humanity.
- To Camille, who brought us food and arranged special playdates for Sam.
- To Maggie, who served as a rescue rope in a sea of seemingly uncaring and uninterested medical professionals.
- To the mommies at Sam’s preschool, who brought us dinners, even though I’ve never met most of them.
- To my bible study, who formed an actual circle of prayer around me the week I went back.
- To women of past babies lost, many years ago, who wrote me kind and wise letters.
- To Mark, my husband, who holds my hand through this whole journey.
- To the ladies on my message boards at SK, who made a special graphic for remembering Will, and included it in their signatures.
- To my friends at Glow, who travel this babylost path with dignity and honesty.
- To Alexa from Flotsam, Niobe from Dead Baby Jokes, and Mel from Stirrup Queens who have sent me countless supporters through their own generosity in writing.
- To Dalia, who is making me a blanket for Will, and my photographer friends who are covering the cost of this.
- To everyone here who gives me such amazing words of support, I’m often speechless in response.
- To Marina, who gave me such a generous display of gorgeous baby girl clothes and items, that I was in tears last night as I looked through them, feeling so completely unworthy of such treasures.
- To all the prayers and other acts of kindness I have failed to mention on this list (and please forgive me for doing so).
How is thank you enough? It’s not. I’m not deserving of this, I’m not. And in that fact is the most precious treasure of all, that God is revealed in this list. That He loves us and forgives us and provides for us despite our utter unworthiness, despite our failures, despite our selfishness. He promises to rescue us from our pain and give us everlasting life. He promises that I, though I can’t be with Will now, I can be with him someday.
Though thank you falls so short, I’ll say it anyway. Thank you, my friends. And let me promise this, that I don’t intend to bottle this love up for my private keeping, but I will continue the legacy of doing things for others in their time of need, in Will’s honor.
Last night, as I cried tears of gratefulness at Marina’s lovely gifts, I shared with my husband my feelings of humility. Always wiser than me, he said, ”You might not feel worthy of these things, but maybe Abby is.”
“…and Will, too,” I added.
Psalm 139:3 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
We got to see them, snuggled so tightly together in their home. I have always believed in miracles of every size – not just the ‘earth-shaking kind’ but the quiet kind. The ‘flower petal unfolding in a perfect spiral’ kind. The ‘golden flecks in my son’s green eyes’ kind. And what a miracle we saw this weekend, God’s knitting needles still at work.
I was nervous about the 3-D ultrasound, and hubby and I talked about as much as we drove there. I’m not sure if I was more nervous to see Will or more nervous not to see Will. I was also nervous to see Abby, as I am continuously haunted by the thought that she will die right before my eyes as I watch her heart stutter to a halt on the ultrasound screen.
Regina met us after we did the paperwork and gently led us back to the ultrasound room, which was a mix between a lounge with comfy chairs and large screen on a distant wall for family members to view the baby and an exam room with a table, ultrasound machine, and another screen directly facing us. She asked us the names of our babies. I had talked with her on the phone, and she understood our situation and seemed gifted in her ability to be both sympathetic and joyous simultaneously.
I lifted my shirt and adjusted the pillow behind my head. My heart thumped loudly in my chest as she put the warm jelly across my belly. She explained that the first pictures we would see would look like a regular ultrasound, and that she needed to orient herself to the twins. I watched the screen and saw Abby, too big now to fit completely in the picture, sleepily squirming, heart delicately beating. And then she switched to the 4-D/3-D mode (I’m guessing 3-D is the still pictures and 4-D is the moving ones?). I felt a subtle whirring from the ultrasound device placed on my belly.
And then we saw her.
We both gasped, breath unwillingly siphoned from our lungs at the lovely, golden image that emerged before us. Our Abby was sleeping and gently nuzzling her cheek with a curled up fist. Her cheeks were full and lovely, her nose sweet and round. A halo floated near her face, “that,” Regina told us, “is Will lying on her chest.”
And the tears of joy and loss spilled so quickly out of my eyes I couldn’t see or catch that stolen breath back for a moment. I sent my hubby off for a tissue, so that I wouldn’t miss anymore of the miracle. I was awestruck. Speechless. A peace I have not known in many weeks filled my body.
I didn’t realize how close the twins were wrapped together. The cold ultrasound tech at the Perinatology Center had never told us anything of Will, as if he wasn’t even there. And in the absence of knowledge, my mind had shrunk Will and placed him in a far corner in my womb. But it was not so, he was definitely smaller than Abby but a sizeable little boy, most likely 2 lbs when he died. And he was very much present, taking up his rightful space still. Regina marveled at the fine line that divided the amniotic sacs between the twins, and how Abby seemed to be hugging and reaching around Will, despite this division.
Those separate sacs saved Abby’s life.
Regina worked and worked to get a view of Will. We got a look at his perfectly formed ear. We saw a forehead a cheek. It was alright, we said, just seeing Abby was a gift that we truly could not have imagined. But Regina kept trying, talking sweetly to Will as she searched. “Come on big guy,” she said lovingly.
Angels walk with us, I’m convinced of it.
And then we got a blurry peek. Blurry from lack of fluid in Will’s sac and because we were ‘looking through’ Abby to get to him. But we saw his lovely eyes and his button nose. And we felt so lucky, in all this unluckiness, to see this little glimpse of heaven. Our Will. Our precious, precious boy. Gone in spirit already and waiting in heaven for us.
We love you so much, baby boy.
I went to church for the first time since losing Will last evening (we have a Saturday night service for those who enjoy the Sunday morning sleep-in…which I do, except that Sam gets up by at least 7:30am daily, so it’s more like the Sunday morning no-obligation to be somewhere). I think it was one of the hardest things I may have ever set out to do.
My church absence has nothing to do with God, by the way. It has everything to do with feeling so very exposed with Will still in my belly. It’s hard enough, I can imagine, to show up to the ball after any baby-loss. But showing up with everyone knowing ‘the baby is still in there’ feels equivalent to Hester’s scarlet ‘A’. It’s not that I find it so horribly awful, Will resting in me. He’s my son. But I know it makes other people feel uncomfortable. I imagine I hear the tsking of their tongues or inhales filled with aghast at the mention of a woman carrying around her dead baby for so many months.
So I made my husband promise that he would not leave my side the entire time. He would be my human shield to the things people might try to say that, though well-intentioned, might hurt like little darts. And it worked mostly. I practically shook as we entered the building and nodded politely at a few mentions from nice people who said they were praying for us. I made eye contact briefly with several acquaintances and mentally sent out a vibe that said, “barely holding it together, please approach at your own risk”. They sent me back telepathic condolences. A few people did the ‘recognize and dodge’ manuever. It was the people I expected anyway, as they had been the ones who had not called or acknowledged me in any way since the loss.
My goal in going to service was to make it through without sobbing. Slient quivering lip and quiet tears, perfectly acceptable. But no floodgate opening weird noise crying allowed. And I did pretty well. During the service, when I would start to feel especially vulnerable, I would ask God for ‘strength and peace’ repeatedly. Maybe it sounds horrifically shallow and even dumb to have this aversion to public brokeness, but it is what it is. Every cell in my body instructed me to keep my vulnerability tightly strapped around me like armor.
I almost made it out of there, too, in my perfect shut-down mode. Well, until I saw a good friend and wanted to ask her if she would help watch Sam for an appointment I have later this week. And then I did it, I left my husband’s side and ventured into the swelled lobby of chattering and pleasantries to approach her. Our conversation went fine, and a noticed a collection of women (all distant acquaintances) hovering near as she left to attend to her own family. I looked to see where my husband had gone, but he abandoned his post to get the car.
Trapped.
I did well at first. Thanked them for their prayers. Hugged them. Dabbed a manageable dribble of tears with the smashed tissue I had held all service. What can they do? They can continue to pray for us, I said. They can continue to let others know the news so we don’t have to retell the story repeatedly.
“It’s going to get harder before it gets easier,” said a motherly acquaintance.
“Yes, I believe it is,” I answered, trying to decide how to free myself from this entanglement.
“I have a brother and sister who are twins,” she said, and then she gave me this knowing look, I guess that was meant to show me all the trouble I escaped from such an inconvenient circumstance. “You were lucky that God made the decision for you.”
What are you talking about, lady? “We would’ve welcomed the challenge of raising twins. We felt it was a blessing, not a curse.”
“It could be worse, you know,” she went on to say, as if the newly forming tears streaking down my cheeks were not enough message to STOP TALKING. “I was pregnant with twins and lost them both,” she whispered quietly.
“I’m sorry for that for you.” I said. Stop talking to me, I thought, frantically scanning the crowd for a familiar face to rescue me.
“It’s OK to cry. Just let it out,” she said, in some obscene twist of compassion.
“I know,” I said,”it’s hard to do that here though.” Can’t you see you are the one making me cry?
“At least you have Abby still,” was her final stab in the very miss-aimed approach at providing me comfort.
“I’m sure things could be worse, but it doesn’t make losing Will any easier.” Walked hurriedly away, out the front doors, out to the car that was sitting at the curb to rescue me. Tearfully told my husband the whole story. Asked to go get french fries.
That, my friends, is why I didn’t want to go to church in the first place.
And yet I know that just avoiding church will not make these ‘feel betterisms’ go away. I know they will come at me from many sources, most well-meaning (though last night I had this feeling that there was an undercurrent of her own loss, so many years ago, and that I must’ve lost the ‘who’s got it worse’ competition that I didn’t know even know existed between us). The conversation made me feel so unworthy of my pain, like instead I should be dancing around shouting praise for my ‘not as bad as it could be’ circumstance. It robbed me of feeling understood and truly comforted by the people in the awkward circle.
This woman is not evil. She’s just a woman, with a life full of hurt and joy and probably mundaneness that overtakes many of our years. I do not wish to serve her up on a plate for me or anyone else here to tear apart. Instead, I want to spread this message…
In loss, ‘at least’ should be banned.
And I guiltily admit to doing it. We ALL have at one point. I’ve even done it to myself with Will’s loss: at least he didn’t suffer, at least I wasn’t further along, at least Sam didn’t meet Will only to have to say goodbye. It is well-intentioned, this ‘at least’. It is meant as a way to offer comfort in someone’s dark hour of grief.
It’s a lie.
There is no comfort in ‘at least’. Yes, circumstances can ALWAYS be worse. Not only could I have lost Abby, too, I could’ve lost Sam and my husband, my house could fall down around me in a smothering and dusty pile of rubbage. But losing Will is my experience in each breathing moment…
And it still hurts.
Let’s all join together to erase ‘at least’ from every hospital room, NICU ward, funeral home, church lobby, and every other place we so easily let it spill from our mouths like a magic band-aid.
Let me be first in line.
I had what almost could be called a ‘good’ day yesterday, well, as ‘good’ days go in the ever-after of losing a baby.
I met up with friends and ended up staying out most of the day. It was a very, very welcomed time of mindless chatter that wandered into deeper waters followed by laughing and self-deprecation. I let myself hold off on the ‘if Abby’ statements some and let dangerous statements of ‘when Abby’ carefully form in my mouth and sit for display like carefully-folded origami cranes. I let myself talk about a baby shower, daring to picture the fruition of such an event. Daring to consider that a joyful occasion is not a betrayal of my love for Will.
I imagined the guests releasing white balloons for Will, each with a note attached to reach him in the unreachable sky. I imagined tea candles in clear votives lit for Will’s lasting legacy, the day of his creation and passing printed as evidence of his existence. I imagined them glowing and wavering like life-breath around a table of punch and cake. I imagined that it felt satisfying to be there, at this shower.
It was a vision so nice that I couldn’t help resting upon it before I slept last night. Most times, my mind’s eye rests upon wonderings of the twins’ birth or how exactly Will died, or the nightmare that I can actually see Abby’s heart stop beating, I think about life without both twins and wonder how it could even be done. But last night was a night for watching the flicker flame of possibility, that maybe, things might not be for the worst.
I’m getting a 3-D ultrasound of the twins tonight. My dear NILMDTS photographer, Amanda, arranged for one to be donated to us. I talked with the owner yesterday who wanted to make it as non-’traumatic’ as possible, since we’re not sure if we’ll really be able to see Will. I so appreciated her sensitivity. Quite honestly, I can’t imagine that what we viewed or couldn’t view (because Will’s amniotic fluid is probably extremely low) could be any more traumatic than what we’ve already experienced. But I told her that I understand if she wants to look at Will and see if a picture can even be done on a small screen without us viewing it. For me, the thought of getting to see Abby makes up for any issues with seeing Will. The chance to see at least one of my baby’s faces, still very much alive and thriving is almost indescribably tempting… like getting a stolen peek of heaven.
Other things that were good? I picked up the stashed-away baby name book and thumbed through to find a middle name for Abby. I didn’t really get too far. How can one little name encompass all she means to us? How can one name say, “A most precious gift from God, twin of Will, carrier of hope, fighter of the odds, sister to Sam, and daughter of two proud and doting parents”? When I walked into the bedroom later last evening, I found my husbands nose tucked into the baby name book, too. “I like one syllable middle names,” he said. And my heart was so tender for him right then, this man who has cried with me and laughed with me and carried me during my darkest times. How I could get through this without him I’m glad I do not have to know.
So there you are. I have learned to not expect this feeling of calm and optimism to continue for long, as if ascending a staircase where each day is a step up and over, as if grief had some linear direction. But I have come to learn that these moments should be breathed in and enjoyed like the fleeting smell of roses and lilies, not lasting forever, but so very sweet while they do.
Wow. Can I just say that it feels so awfully good to feel heard out here? Thanks for sitting with me in my anger, joining in, and encouraging me to pass through it.
Sleep came and went already for me again last night/today. This is my first 3AM day in awhile though, and I could not tell you why. There is no logical reason in griefsleep. It’s more like tossing a stone on a hopscotch block. Today it landed on 2:56. Tomorrow, who knows? I’m coming to accept pure randomness in this entire journey. Some days are horribly dark and heavy, and others are lighter. How can two days that look the same feel so different? Random tosses is the best answer I’ve got.
Thankfully, that heavy and hard to wear anger lifted some yesterday as fog clearing from the valley. I could see again, breathe again, and felt, for the first time in several days, relief in the clearing of that fog. Anger is not done with me, I know, but getting a break from it is necessary. I don’t like the feel of this intense anger, the rancid taste, the darkened goggles. Deep anger is dragonlike and rageful and ugly. It’s a vacuum where words have no merit. It sucks you in and suffocates you. It hurts and seeks to hurt without reason.
How I underestimated the need for ‘reason’ in my life.
But yesterday had a sense of order. Woke up, brushed teeth, cuddled with Sam, ate breakfast, took medicine, talked on the phone, counted Abby’s kicks, put Sam in time-out for standard 3 year-old infractions, relieved Sam of a half-attached band-aid that was tugging at his tender stomach-skin. It was to be simple day made up of easy tasks, none of which required me leaving the comfort of my home or even my pajamas. Well, until randomness landed me with a doctor’s appointment again. I had not scheduled myself a return appointment after Pink Scrubs last week, and was sort of hoping to stretch myself a bit longer before having to go back to what feels like a tornadic mixture of both comfort and hurt in that office. But Abby needs me to go. And so I went.
While sitting in the office thumbing through an uninteresting magazine, I caught the eye of another patient. She seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t place her. She walked over to me and asked how I was doing. “I’m hanging in there,” I said still scanning my brain for information and sadly realizing that my facial recognition technology was tragically inept. “We’ve talked here before, right?” I asked.
“We talked before your appointment on your, pause, ‘bad day’ a few weeks ago,” she said.
“Oh.”
“My husband and I felt so badly for you,” she said. “You were here by yourself with your son.”
“Oh.” And I think I had to make myself blink a few times.
“You were wearing that same shirt. I hope you’re doing ok now?” she asked.
I hadn’t remembered what shirt I wore that day. Gathered thoughts and, strangely enough, didn’t feel like crying. “It’s been hard….(and then I said something which I couldn’t tell you what that I’m sure had to do with the status of Abby or taking it one day at a time or something).” And then we stranger-chatted about her upcoming c-section and the risks she had because of her blood-clotting disorder. And then she got called back to see the doctor.
I wished her luck. We never exchanged names. Really, what good is it to do so with random strangers? It didn’t dawn on me until later to wonder how she knew about my ‘bad day’ anyway. Did I say something to her as I waited, numbed in terror, in the lobby for the nurse to take me down for the ‘official’ ultrasound? Did she overhear the nurses talking, violating all sorts of confidentiality laws?
It didn’t matter to me either way. What mattered was that this perfect stranger, so randomly strewn in my path, cared enough to tell me she was sorry my baby died. She didn’t need to do that. She could’ve hid behind her own magazine, staring at me curiously over the edge. She could’ve gossiped to her husband later that night, “I saw that women again today. You know the one whose twin died.” But she didn’t. Honestly, I don’t know if I could’ve done the same had I been in her shoes. I wished I would’ve thanked her for talking to me in all my weird deadbaby leprosy.
The lessons I learn from this are sometimes so hurtful and others times so humbling.
I was beyond relieved to have a nurse other than Pink Scrubs call me back. Different office than the ‘bad day’ office, as my acquaintance called it. I’m not sure what this nurse knew or didn’t know, but she was so comfortably normal in front of me it didn’t seem to matter. Doppler time. We both heard the urgent thunking of Abby’s heart quickly (which didn’t surprise me as I was getting firmly kicked right before). “Hmmm,” she said, “She’s a busy girl. Her heartrate is 180.”
Stopped breathing. Blood pressure skyrockets. “Is that too high?” I manage to say.
“Mention it to the doctor. She’s probably just very active right now though.”
And then my brain went into overdrive as I waited for Dr. Hope…
I should’ve worn a different shirt. This is a ‘bad day’ shirt. I should throw it out, except it’s not mine. Maybe I should still throw it out, who wants a cursed shirt? Breathe, Eve, your blood pressure’s too high. In through the nose, out through the mouth. 180 is too high, right? Does that means Abby’s in distress? I’m getting a c-section today, I’m sure of it. I’m not ready for that yet. In through the nose, out through the mouth. God, please be with Abby and keep her safe. Please be with me and give me peace in this moment. Nose, in. mouth, out.
Dr. Hope arrived quickly and dashingly smiled, “How are we doing?”. “I’m freaking out,” I hear myself say, “I think her heartrate is too high.” Blood pumps in my ears so loudly everything else is muffled. Next thing I know the portable ultrasound machine is there, and I’m leaning back, eyes closed, feel the warm jelly on my stomach. “There she is,” says Dr. Hope. Peek more at him then the screen. She’s moving like a synchronized swimmer, arms fluttering, legs wagging. “Look at that beautiful heart,” he says, “She’s fine, momma.”
My hubby has recently asked me to start every phone conversation with that exact same, or similar, statement when I call him at work. I totally get it, and I guess Dr. Hope does, too.
He continued the ultrasound and once again pronounced her perfectly fine, just having an ‘aerobic exercising moment.’ I nodded in thanks to this, but words had escaped me. Dr. Hope said, “I think you had a flashback.” Nodded again. “This is a very hard place that you’re in right now, and you’re doing really well.”
I could’ve argued except that I still had no words.
He went on to say speech’s worth of generally supportive things, and though he used the term ‘get over this’, I instantly forgave him because I knew he didn’t mean ‘forget about Will’. He said, “We need to get this little girl in your arms, and some of this pain will go away.” I nodded. I wanted to believe him, as sincere as he was. I forgot all about my mission to discuss Pink Scrubs.
Instead, I hung on each word Dr. Hope said and tried to imprint them in my memory like a poem. He said we were now completely out of the time in which Abby and I would’ve shown complications from Will’s death. He believes my contractions are a nuisance but not evidence of serious preterm labor. My blood pressure shows no signs of pre-eclampsia. We will start doing non-stress tests on her in two weeks to make sure she continues to thrive. In fact, he said we were his healthiest patients he saw all day, and that I should expect to be able to carry her until at least 36 weeks.
Words came to me, “I may be healthy physically, but my head is all messed up,” I muttered.
“You are doing very well. This is not supposed to be easy.”
No, not easy. This reality is not even supposed to be. Hoping for one baby while carrying two. No nursery in waiting. No take-home outfit lovingly selected. Anyway. I remembered, at least, to thank him for his kindness, his hope, and for talking to me like a human being. So sorry for the long post. Lots to say about this day, I guess, especially for an intended stay-in-my-pajamas day. I’m going to rest my eyes again, while it’s still dark, to the distilled words of Dr. Hope’s poem…
Abby’s OK.
Abby’s OK.
Abby’s OK.
Warning…angry words ahead
It’s been a not great day today.
This morning I began working on a post about the shades of grief in infertility and babyloss that just doesn’t want to come to fruition as of yet. Probably my lack of focus getting in the way. Thanks so much for your supportive comments about my recent visit to the doctor. I vacillate between the perspective that people are not going to know what to say and are, hence, going to choose to say nothing versus the anger that bubbles up that I have to be the one understanding of another’s awkwardness at MY loss.
Speaking of anger, at the suggestion of the grief counselor at my hospital, I contacted the head of the Perinatal Center to discuss getting a different ultrasound technician since the one I’ve had the past two times I’ve gone also refuses to acknowledge our loss. I built myself up for this phone call, telling myself it was not only good for me but good for other mothers who walk this path after me. Instead of even really getting to discuss the situation in a meaningful way and ask that a note be put in my chart with our request that Will be pointed out during our ultrasounds, I got this curt response from Kathy (I’m keeping myself with all my might from publishing her last name as I type this), the manager:
“Yes, Maggie (the grief counselor) already called me. You will not have that tech again, ok?”
And she hung up.
I was already feeling angry today. Angry at nothing, angry at everyone, angry at silence, angry at words, angry at Pink Scrubs, angry at moms to healthy twins, angry at Will for dying, angry myself for feeling so angry. And now angry at Kathy, who must be a very unhappy women in her personal life or some hideous job dissatisfaction or some disturbed personality disorder to treat me so rudely.
I hate this anger.
It is cancer.
I don’t feel strong, or brave, or wise, or gracious, or grateful, or anything that could possibly be spun in a positive manner.
I just feel mad, enraged, pissed off, jealous, hateful, hurtful, let down, alone…
It’s not nice to write about.
But it’s real.
Dear Nurse with the Pink Scrubs,
Hi. Remember me? I remember you. In fact, my heart dropped when your head poked out of the inner office yesterday to call me back to the exam room. I grimly obeyed your commands: stood on the scale and watched the numbers climb, sat on the paper-covered table and held my arm out for the blood pressure cuff. Lifted my shirt, pulled down my down my high-waisted maternity jeans, and laid back on the table for the doppler.
You left the room to get the doppler, never once looking me in the eye.
You left my chart open. I clearly saw it in the chart this time, the word TWINS scrawled atop my weight/stats chart with a red line hurriedly slashed through it. I know you saw it, too.
I know you didn’t even need to see that horrific note to know. You remember that day, four weeks ago when I entered the exam room smiling and at ease. You asked me about my son and joked with me about your own pregnancy with a warm and casual way about you. When you put the doppler to my belly and found Abby quickly, we both smiled.
When you struggled to find Will’s heartbeat, you became quiet in concentration. You left the room to get another nurse. You brought Sam a lollipop and read him a book while two other nurses hunted for the reassuring sound of second heartbeat.
Did you already know?
When I came back for my next appointment, I caught your eye as you passed the by the lab, where I sat, waiting to see if Will’s body was poisoning my blood. Your eyes skipped across mine like I was but a stain of dirt on the floor.
Yesterday, you came back into the exam room, doppler in hand, and I guided you to Abby. You counted the beats quietly. “150 beats per minute,” you said, and wiped the jelly off my stomach. I was crying, but you didn’t offer me a tissue. You just quickly packed up the doppler and headed straight for the door…
as if you might catch my deadbaby pox.
And you will never know that I was crying, not because of the doppler exam itself (which is like reliving the same horrific crash scene at each doctor’s visit), but because your inability to acknowledge me and my loss is like losing Will over and over again
each time I see you.
* * * *
Dear Nancy the Nurse practitioner,
Thank you for looking me in the eye and sitting with my tears.
Thank you for handing me Kleenex.
Thank you for offering me pamphlets of therapists who I can talk to.
Thanks for doing an ultrasound, even though we probably didn’t need to, so I could see Abby’s beautiful little body, face, and fluttering heart.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for asking what Will’s name is.
Thank you for holding my pain,
but for the briefest time.
Hello my fellow 3:30am friends.
If you’re reading this at a decent hour, hello to you as well. I read a post recently, ”Change” that mentions the 3am hour for babylost parents. The author describes this as her ‘thinking hour’ and tells of embracing this time where she can be undisturbed in her thoughts and grief over her lost child. I think I’m there as well. A few weeks ago, I found this nighttime wakefulness painful. I would lay in bed for a long time and quietly let salty tears soak my face and pillow until finally giving up the hope of sleep. Now I rather enjoy this quiet time. It is for me and Will.
Tonight I awoke, not of my own accord, but because Sam has a cold and began a coughing spell. By the time I had warmed a spoonful of honey to soothe his throat, prompted him to sleep propped up again on his pillows, and listened intently to see if my efforts worked…well, I was up. I stared out the window for a long time as a small snow storm has landed over of us in the dark. I turned on our deck light and watched the sugarsnow fall lightly from the sky so finely as if through a sifter. The snow is so perfect at this hour, mounding on every delicate tree branch and twig, undisturbed on the ground in a sparkling blanket, catching on even the smallest frozen garden remnant and leaf.
3:30 is not so bad.
I got a call from one of my church pastors yesterday to see how we were doing. There are times when I can discuss our progress much like discussing politics or some other intellectual matter and swallow down the lump that forms in my throat at phrases like ‘when the twins come’. But yesterday was not a swallowing down type of day. Instead it was the opposite, as if all those lumps resurface at once and catch in my throat, squeeze up to my mouth and spill out in gasping sobs as I try to sound intelligible. I don’t like to cry like this in front of others. It is a private cry, my own moaning song for Will. It, despite knowing it shouldn’t be so, embarrasses me.
Anyway, he was sweet in his awkwardness discussing the tricky aspects of me carrying around Will. I’m coming to realize that this makes people uncomfortable. Like they want to know the logistics of how it can be that Will remains inside me, now dead, but the act of asking almost tongue ties them. And rightly so, I would be just as curious and fittingly befuddled. Talking about Will’s body hurts, but conversely, NOT talking about him hurts worse.
Back to our conversation, he finally mentioned the prospect of a service for Will, thus bringing on more choking-throat sobs from me, since I have been waiting for that very question for a month. I don’t know if it he was prompted by a few well-meaning church friends of ours. Frankly, I don’t care. Hearing the confirmation that my dear son deserves a funeral fills, ever so slightly, the aching hole in me who wishes Will to be recognized as a ‘real boy’.
Of course we want a service, we’re just not sure how that will look yet. It doesn’t matter for now. I don’t think we will know what the details will be until he comes.
Waiting on the twins is hard. I know that the longer I wait, the better for Abby. But the worse for Will. Even though I know his soul is not in me anymore, I can’t help but see him trapped in some sort of in-between space, waiting for peace.
Or maybe that’s me trapped in that space.
So the last question the pastor asked me, of course, is what we need. Normal and caring question, but how can one answer that in practical terms? I need my son to be alive again. I need to rewind time to the chance to keep his little heart from stopping. I need to know that things will be ok again. I need for Abby to be here, full-term, right now and perfectly healthy. I need to have my twins’ nursery back the way it was supposed to be. I need my heartache to rest, for just a little bit, and let me feel the comfortable fit of my old self again. I need to fastforward time and glimpse that things will be ok in some way or another.
Instead I told him this, “I need for people to know what happened.” What I mean is that, though our close family and friends (of course) are aware of Will’s death, there are so many tangential people in our lives who do not know. And the thought of having to tell our story fresh to every one of them, exhausts my soul. I need people to already know when I run into them, as I surely will do.
If you are someone I know if real-life and are reading this, first of all, please let me know you’re here. It doesn’t have to be through a blog comment, but it helps me know to whom I’m speaking as I put myself on this stage with bright lights blinding me from my audience. Secondly, please let people know about our story. I don’t expect acquaintances to call or send flowers or cards or anything else, I just want people to file this fact away in their heads…
“We knew Eve was pregnant with twins, but one of them has died. His name was Will.”
And, real-life friends, if you want to link to my story, please link to my ‘public blog’, HERE. It is not a very well-written or introspective type of blog, I surely admit to that, but I need this blogspace to remain a sanctuary for me to share my deepest thoughts and worries. If you are here, you’re welcome to stay…you’ve come across me in a meaningful way, most likely via Daven. But I don’t intend this place to be a place of viewership for those on the outer cusp of my life who know me to some extent but wouldn’t feel comfortable coming in my home and sharing a good cry.
I hope that comes across the way I intend.
Saying what I need is a challenge, but surely a worthy one.
I continue to travel this journey of grieving as a fallen leaf being carried by the wind in unpredictable swoops and free falls and upward gusts. There is no rhythm or predictability of when the ups come or when the wind leaves me to fall to the earth in plummeting, spiraling dives. Hanging on is the best thing to do.
But the upward drafts have sent me aloft the past day or so. On Thursday and Friday, I was able to spend time with friends and be comforted in their all-accepting presence to my messy and ever-changing emotional states. My friends and I were also treated to a free lunch, compliments of a restaurant in town who thoroughly botched our to-go order. We didn’t order the chicken caesar salads in our bag, but we happily ate them. There is always a small speck of joy in something being free. I also received a call from my nurse at my doctor’s office…
I passed my 3 hour glucose test.
Before losing Will, I would’ve written the above sentence in capitals followed by an obnoxious trail of exclamation points. That was just me. I always realized I used too many exclamation points in my emails/post/writings. I decided that it was a visual representation of who I was, ‘Eve the Exclamation Point’. I knew this fact actually alienated people from me at times. I so vividly remember a rather gothic and morose high school peer of mine telling me she didn’t like me merely because I smiled too much. This hurt me terribly, since it was never my intention to seem fake or, worse, irrelevant, but I couldn’t change who I was.
Now I talk in periods. Maybe not permanently, but for now. Even when I put an exclamation (out of sheer habit) point into a greeting or cheery goodbye, I change it. It doesn’t feel right to live the life of an exclamation point right now. It’s not a good fit for me, living without exclamations, I’m not good at gothic and morose. But, I suppose that I will be who I am in the end, that wildflowers may pop out my mouth despite the dark and frozen soil I chew on now.
Maybe I’m looking forward to the spring after all.
(refocusing thoughts again)
The last updraft was on Saturday, when I was visited by a photographer from NILMDTS to do a maternity session. Amanda is a true blessing for us during this sad time. She has been so incredibly generous to do a maternity session for me and also has offered to do a birth session as well. She is vibrant and kind and compassionate and wonderfully talented. And despite what I’m sure was a VERY long day for her, she let me see a sneak-peek of our session, putting in time on a Saturday to edit these photos.
I’ve looked at these pictures over and over again, studying their nuances the way one might examine their newborn babies’ fingers and toes and delicate lips and fleshy cheeks. Thank you so much, Amanda, for giving me such a treasure to cherish while Will still rests within me and Abby kicks alongside him.
See, gothic and morose long-lost high school person, I can taste the seeds sprouting ever so slightly in spite of myself.
See my pictures here, at Dreaming Tree Photography.
Well, I loved all the advice for renaming my blog. I also appreciated the advice on not making too many drastic changes yet, since I’m in such an ‘unfinished’ place. So, I decided that I would leave my address the same, and just put up a different title for now. Not necessarily a permanent title, more like a chapter title that seems fitting right now. If I had to look up at that old ‘Infertility Rocks’ header with my ridiculous thumbs up picture one more time, I think I would’ve pulled out my eye teeth.
So, let me explain this chapter’s title. It comes from a poem by W. H. Auden, which has run through my head (at least parts of it) since losing Will. Here it is…
Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
I don’t think there is a truer description of pure grief than that poem – the wish for the world to stop turning and just be put away. I’d like to tell you that I discovered that poem while thumbing through one of my old poetry books one lazy Saturday afternoon. Not so. I heard that poem in the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral” back when I still listened to Pearl Jam on my portable CD player while wearing, quite unabashedly, wool socks under Birkenstocks.
Ahem. Anyway, not much to say about the movie. Hugh Grant was his well-known mix of charming and bumbling. Andie MacDowell, on the other hand, provided my hubby and I with fodder of which we STILL make fun in her dramatically-challenged utterance of the dumbest movie line I’ve heard (maybe besides, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”):
Is it raining? I hadn’t noticed.
It doesn’t sound so dumb as I write it now, but trust me on this one.
But this poem is read as a eulogy in this film, and it has always stuck with me. I didn’t realize how true it was, however, until we lost Will…sort of the way someone can describe a beautiful place in great detail, but until you actually go there yourself, you never get the smell, and the sounds, and the global view of that place.
So, I guess that’s all I have for now. Had a few really low days but feeling stronger again today. I get my haircut in an hour. Seems like a very ‘normal’ thing for one in my situation to do. But, seeing as I (at least personally) know no one in my particular situation, I guess I can just make it up as I go then, can’t I?
Your support is God-sent, my blogland friends. I think of the dank, depressing posts I’ve been churning out, and I wonder who would want to visit, dipping their toes in a such a cold lake as this. Thanks for providing me warmth and company. I don’t know how I would face this loss without writing, but also without all of you.
Today I awoke with a sense of propulsion. As if, for a short time anyway, time seemed to pass at normal speed and the physics of the earth made slightly more sense. It might’ve been because Abby kicks the underside of my bellybutton in the early morning, serving as the most blessed wake-up call that I have ever known. It might’ve been because I listened to her heartbeat anyway with the doppler. I like to think that it was a God-nudge, pushing me from the dark places of grief for a brief look out the window again, the way my hubby lifts Sam up on his broad shoulders to perch above the tangy air of sweaty hands and legs in a crowd.
It is with great reserve that I mention to myself or on this page the word ‘hope’.
Doubt floods in with this word and reminds me that, just a few weeks ago, I wrote a post called “24.5 weeks’ which marveled at my pregnancy, delighted in my new-found safety in the magic number ’24′, and pointed toward brighter days to come.
It is most likely that Will was already dead inside me when I wrote that post.
Those hope-filled words haunt me like no other words I think I may have ever conceived. I’ve considered erasing the words entirely, as if that would serve as some sort of backward time travel, eradicating all potential jinx-like powers. But I keep the words up there, because…well probably to punish myself.
And yet here I stand again, before you and before God uttering these words today: The doctor told us that Abby has passed the most critical time in twin-loss, and looks strong and healthy. She weighs 2 lbs 10 oz (that’s in the 60% percentile), and we once gain glimpsed her lovely face on the u/s. My cervix is over 4 inches long, and I didn’t cry during the u/s today. I even made a joke that sort-of felt like the old me, for just the tiniest of moments.
Please God, do not make a mockery of this hope. Please, please keep Abby safe for us. Please lift me up for more fresh air and dull my senses to the overwhelming suit of fear I wear. She is our only daughter, and Sam’s only surviving sibling. Please save her. Please?
(composing myself here)
I contacted ‘Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep’, an organization of volunteer photographers that will come to the hospital and take beautiful pictures of babies born to soon, babies born still, and babies lost to illness. Seeing as Will’s fragile body may stay inside me for so very long, I asked if they would be willing to do a few belly-shots, since he lays perfectly in me now. An angel has answered my request, and although NLMDTS doesn’t ‘officially’ provide maternity photos, she has kindly offered to do a maternity/family session for me this weekend. It is the first concrete thing I feel I’ve been able to do to remember Will since he died. I’m so blessed to have this opportunity.
It is daunting, however, to consider what one should wear or how one should smile when having maternity pictures taken with the knowledge that one of the babies is already gone. But I trust that they will be perfect. My belly remains perfectedly round with my twins, even though Abby is now growing when Will is not. They are still perfect in me, together for just a little while longer.
I also decided to search out matching (or coordinating) receiving blanket sets for when they are born. It is, once again, something I can do for Will when he no longer needs a beautiful nursery, or his coordinating car seat, or even my milk to nourish him. But every baby, still or alive, needs a soft blanket in which to be wrapped like the gift from God that they are.
This I can do.
One more thing I’ve been thinking about and need your opinions on is this darn blog title and address of mine. “Infertilty Rocks!” was a clever little tongue-in-cheek title when I was living it. I always planned to change the address/title when things felt firmer with the pregnancy, though as you may have noticed, there is never ground beneath my pregnancies.
Any suggestions?
In a dark and yet lucid moment, I thought that title, “Infertility Rocks and Then You Die,” seemed entirely fitting. But then I decided that, “Infertility Rocks and Then Your Baby Dies,” which is much more accurate to my circumstance, did not seem to roll off the tongue quite so easily (both literally and figuratively). So, my friends of blogland, give me your advice on a new title or new address or a new blog altogether.
I am currently incapable to making any decisions of merit.
As if this actually qualifies as a decision of merit.
