I cried myself to sleep ...

For some reason the past few days have really been difficult.  Tomorrow being the first day of November seems like the inevitable is so soon.  As long as it were any other month then the anniversary was obscure and distant.  Now it's only a few very short weeks away.  And the reality of it is crushing.

I cried last night because I missed my baby.  I cried because I wonder what he'd look like today.  Would he be walking already like his brothers or still stumbling along, preferring to crawl?  Would he have a tooth already or be drooling constantly without anything to show for it?  Would he be baby-signing and talking or stubborn and just smile and cry when he wanted something?  Would he sleep well through the night or still be fussy?  Would he be a size 12 months or 18 months?  Would he ... would he ... would he ... ?

Daydreaming (and night dreaming) are the enemy. They are the times where the haunting of what's been and what will never be seep in and terrorize the mind ... and the heart.

Eleven days until the day I believe my son died....
Fifteen until I accepted it...
Sixteen until they confirmed it...
Eighteen until he left me forever.

And I don't know how I'll make it through even one without drowning in these tears.

Lucky? Eh, I think not.

Yesterday I got sucked into a conversation (my own fault, I should have walked away) about stillbirth/baby loss. 

The comment was made that we are lucky to have a gravesite to visit.  That early miscarriages don't have that place to mourn.

I was dumbfounded.  Lucky? 

I carried my son to a point where if he'd been born alive he'd have lived.  I went through two and half days of induced labor.  I pushed my son into a silent room, the heaviness of reality that he was gone... Up until that moment, as absolutely ludicrous as it sounds, I held out hope.  I thought maybe, just maybe, he'd cry.  He'd be alive and it was all a mistake, a bad dream.  His weight would shift inside me and I'd - for a split second - think "see, he's fine". 

I held his little body, the poor shape it was in, and loved him with every ounce of me.  I couldn't fully comprehend how he could be dead.  He was perfect in every way.  His little mouth and nose.... His beautiful head of hair.  He was gorgeous and perfect. 

We had to chose a box to bury him in.  A 2' box that had extra room.  I don't consider that lucky.

Every time I visit his gravesite ... which I am "lucky" to have ... I fight the urge to dig with my bare hands to get to my son and run away with him.  I do know it's only bones at this point and his soul is long gone, yet I just wish I could have him close to me.

I feel like such a horrible mother.  Like I abandoned him or buried him out back like a pet.  I feel like I let him down and every time I go see him I am reminded of all those feelings.

Every time I go by his nursery or sit in there I remember how close I was to holding him there.  He wasn't an abstract ball of cells growing anymore.  He was a baby, all grown and just waiting to join us.  Everything was ready for him.  Those things don't just go away.  The room, his stuff, his headstone ... all there to remind me of how close I was before he was stolen from me.

I am not lucky to have those things.  I am tortured by them.  Though, without them I would probably feel the same torture.  There is no luck in the death of a child.

How quickly things change.. .. ..

It's amazes me how one minute I can feel fine, then a memory hits, and suddenly the world flips upside down.

Yesterday I was going about my day when the date suddenly hit me.  October 17 ... exactly one year since Colton's baby shower.

That was one of the most magical days I can remember.  I had so many friends join me to celebrate the upcoming arrival of Colton.  People traveled up to six hours (one way!) to join us.  The house was full of people.  Laughing, sharing ... celebrating.

That day feels so abstract now, so surreal.  I can't help but still be amazed at how quickly and drastically life can change.  Just three and a half weeks later my son was dead.  And I was being induced to deliver him too soon and without life.  A life that so shortly before we were celebrating and showering with love.

Today is one month until the day I delivered Colton. As it closes in, so does the world around me.  The reality of the last year, of the loss, closes in.  The reality of the loss and how deeply it still hurts and saddens me.  I miss my son, I wonder who he would be today.  And I wonder how life can change all so quickly.

It does matter.

Throughout this grieving process I have battled with loss.  And does it matter if it was 10 weeks or 40 weeks.  Well, it does matter.

There is a huge difference between no heartbeat at 9 weeks and no heartbeat at 9 months. 

There is a huge difference between cramping and passing tissue and being induced over three days and delivering your child.

There is a difference between the dreams of a nursery and a name and coming home empty handed to a fully prepared nursery with a child's name all over the place.

There IS a difference.  It doesn't mean that both don't hurt.  It doesn't mean both babies don't matter.  It's just totally different and it does matter.

I sometimes wish I'd miscarried at 10 weeks.  That I cramped and bled and lost the baby.  Or gone in and there was no heartbeat then.  At that point I could say "crap, that sucks" and move into another cycle and try again. 

At 34w ... it's so different. 

The doctor wanted to send me home on meds for three - four days to prepare my cervix.  He wanted me to come home, huge tummy, baby inside me, and face my family and friends with my deceased son in my body.  Thank God my cervix was already softening and dilating and he allowed me to go back to the hospital that night to begin induction.

Induction started Tuesday night; I delivered early Thursday morning.  I do not recall so much from those long days and hours.  I existed, I didn't live. 

I had dreamed about delivery.  I wanted an induction free, drug free delivery.  Instead I was induced and on an epidural.  I wanted my son placed on my chest and to begin nursing immediately.  Instead the nurses took him to clean him, moisten his deteriorating skin, and make him presentable for me to say goodbye to. 

Now all would be happy with just a living baby.  I realized all else is so trivial.

I didn't get to miscarry and take some tylenol and go back to normal life.  My milk came in full force.  My body ached from delivery.  I took vicodin for the migraines from crying. 

I had to go design his headstone.  I had to chose his burial plot.  I had to pick which 2' box to bury him in.  And I had to pretend for everyone around me that all was okay and I wasn't falling apart and shattered.

If people say a loss is a loss and there is no difference, they are sadly mistaken.  And I sincerely pray they never have to know the difference.  A loss is a loss and they all hurt.  There is a difference, though.  A huge difference.  And it does matter.

October is Miscarriage and Stillbirth Month

... and I really don't want to deal with it.  Or ... whatever.

Last weekend there was a candle-lighting ceremony and memorial for the babies lost and I didn't go.  I thought about it, then didn't.  I just couldn't fathom going and being around other people's grief.  I don't want to cry.  I don't want to wallow in loss. 

It doesn't mean I don't want to honor or remember my son.  I think about him every single day.  And I hope that me living my life, moving forward, and continuing on is honoring him.  I don't see how lighting a candle or commiserating with other mothers who've lost their children would make me feel any better. Rather, I feel like it would just bring me down.

I often wonder if I'm just in denial and am playing avoidance as to escape the pain. 

I feel it sneak up sometimes.  The other night I had a nightmare, a reliving of his birth again.  The silence so very deafening.  I woke up mad.  Not sad, not crying, just mad.  That should have been a wonderful, beautiful, full-of-life moment and it was death, silence, and stunning pain.  There is no physical pain that can compare.  

I am sure those things will come up more in the next month.  Only one month and it will be the anniversary of his death.  His delivery.  His funeral. Everything that sucked about last year.

I feel anxious when I think about his approaching dates.  When I think of taking him balloons to his grave instead of a cake and celebration with friends for his birthday.  I'm just ready to get past those dates and look forward ... the past is too painful to continue to be reminded of what all we've lost.. .. ..

When it rains it pours.. .. ..

The last few days have been dreary here.  The rain has been coming in waves, and when it comes it comes with a vengeance.  Yesterday a good part of town was covered in a layer of water and throughout today the rain has continued.

I haven't been feeling great, so driving across town to get home for lunch was a daunting task I didn't want to tackle.  Instead, I decided to go out to see Colton.  With the heavy rains I knew his flower cup would be full and need dumped and probably a wipe down of his headstone wouldn't be a bad idea, too.  The rain had let up - actually the sun was shining beautifully - so I headed over to check on my little monkey.

When I got to the cemetery I realized when it rains it really does pour. 

Just this morning another baby was buried. 

I just feel exasperated at this point.  I mean, seriously??  Two in just a few short weeks of each other.  I wanted to be wrong, that it was a cremation (the babies are surrounded by cremations) and NOT another baby.  So I asked in the office.  Yep, confirmation, two babies in just a few weeks time. 

How unfair is it that these babies died?  Here we are with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years right on our heels and these babies left their families who were probably - like me last year - planning for celebrations ahead that included these little lives.  Halloween has never been a big "holiday" for me, yet this year I find myself looking at the baby costumes bitter that I should be dressing up Colton in something ridiculously cheesy and people should be ooh'ing and aah'ing over how adorable he looks.  And, of course, it goes downhill from there.. .. ..

When we first lost Colton Brian said he felt robbed.  I didn't feel that way, though I empathized with how he must be feeling.  Now I feel it too.  I feel like all these memories we should be making, all these milestones we should be experiencing ... they have been stolen.  By the darkness of death, by the sorrow of loss, by the emptiness left behind.  We've been robbed.

My heart aches for these families that have joined our ranks.  And what's odd ... I don't know what I would say to them if I had the chance to say anything.  There is nothing good to say.  Even as a mother who knows exactly their situation, I do not know exactly their pain.  And, even having gone through this, even I don't know the "right" things to say.  Which, if nothing else, gives me empathy for all those who struggle to say anything to me. 

Still, though, it just sucks.  For them, for us, for all the parents who each day have to remember their life is missing someone so special.  And everything that should be special is just a little tainted with the loss of our babies. 

They say time heals ... time doesn't heal anything, it just takes you further from the impact. Things become less crushing, but nonetheless painful.  The resolve at least brings comfort ... no sense hoping for something you know you'll never have.  Just learn to live with the pain and sooth it when you can; and be prepared for the times it floods over you.  Because when it rains, it truly does pour.