My little Delaney. My sweet little Delaney ... I have hesitated so much to vocalize these feelings because of fear of how it would be interpreted. I love my daughter more than words can even begin to explain. I treasure her and appreciate her presence in my life. I am grateful she was given to me. She is my joy. She's also my sadness...
~~~~~~~~~
There is beauty in the storm, with the rainbow representing the end of the storm and brighter days.
So I have my rainbow baby. And, according to so many, her light shining on me should make my days all better. I read all about having the rainbow baby and heard from my friends how healing she would be.
But no one really talks about the flip side.
No one talks about looking at your rainbow and celebrating the shine but seeing reflected in it the shadow of what was lost. The darkness of the storm. The only reason the rainbow is referred to in such a way is because of the storm. They'd just be another child in the family. But they are the rainbow, the promise, blah blah blah.
My pregnancy was filled with dread. When would I stop feeling her? When would she die?
She failed her bio-physical profile ultrasound. I kept asking "but her heart is beating right?". She wasn't moving, she wasn't responding to stimulation. Something was wrong. And I just knew she was on her way to meet Colton too.
We induced immediately. When I delivered her she was blue, no cries. The cord was double wrapped around her neck. Very quickly my OB unwrapped the cord and she cried. I think. Maybe? I don't even remember. I do remember feeling guarded. Feeling a wall. A protective barrier. She was perfect, and beautiful, and ... alive.
But Colton was still dead.
See, the rainbow was there but she was shining through the cloud in the room. The thundering, deafening, pouring rain cloud. And this little rainbow, this little shining beacon in that cloud. Everyone else was celebrating, happy, and I was .... detached. Feeling the ache of the storm, the darkness, the memory of what was lost before. Seeing her held up and pink and alive in the doctors hands. And seeing the dark room, the lifeless body, the silence of when he held Colton just the same. Two wrinkles in time, paralleling in that moment. Torturing me and blessing me all at once.
Every milestone is so bittersweet. Would Colton have crawled at the same age? Would he have had a tooth sooner than Delaney's perpetual teething-with-no-results? Would he be so close to walking?
More painfully ... would he have her beautiful golden brown locks? Her piercing blue eyes? Would his laugh sound the same? What about that smile? Would he have a dimple too? Would his eyes dance with excitement and joy? Would he be as curious and adventurous and outspoken? Would he love making music and dancing at the slightest sound of a tune? Would he ......................
I rock Delaney in Colton's rocking chair every night. It's still Colton's rocking chair in my mind and heart. She's borrowing the space. She sleeps in his crib.
And the guilt I feel for this? Immense. Overwhelming. Crushing.
She is worth her own identity. She's worth her own life. She's worth being celebrated and loved without the comparison. Without the longing for knowledge of who her brother would have been.
And yet she's Colton's rainbow. She's a promise. Right? A promise of what though?
The pain isn't gone. It's not lessened.. Sometimes it's even magnified.
And the guilt for feeling this way. A punch into the gut. A feeling of failing another child, just in a different way. Failing to be able to give her untainted love. To give her an individual assessment and appreciation.
I love her so much, so I hate feeling this way. I hate feeling like she's a reminder of all I lost. I want to just love her. Just enjoy her. I don't want to cry when I rock her in the middle of the night, longing to know who Colton would be, longing to have held him and rocked him in his chair.
I want to be her rainbow. I want to heal so that she never feels like a shadow. So she knows she's Delaney. And she's wanted and loved and treasured.
Not as the rainbow baby, but as my baby.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
I Came in Like a Wrecking Ball
Grief is like a wrecking ball. It swings through, destroying everything it touches. The quake subsides and you think it's past when it rivets back on the pendulum and slams into you again.
Through time the span widens, the time between impact broader.
If you know anything about physics or the laws of gravity, though, you can guess what that extra time does to the momentum and point of impact.
*SLAM*
*CRASH*
*CRUMBLE*
Where the hell did that come from? How long has the grief been suspended in space, so that when it hit it debilitated me?
Two days ago I found myself gasping for air. The thought of Colton slammed into me, knocking me from my precarious perch of sanity and mobility through life. I spiraled down a dark, all too familiar path of despair.
Last night I lay there, at the bottom of that pit. I laid there, my arms wrapped tightly around a stuffed monkey that protects the sound of my sons heartbeat, and covered in the only blanket to ever touch and protect my sons skin. Desperately begging it to protect and comfort me.
I sobbed myself to sleep. Engrossed and devoured by the horrific reality ... my son died.
Some days it doesn't seem real. It feels like a story someone told me. Something make believe from someone else's book of life. A bad dream. A fallacy of my memories.
When the memories crash into me I sucomb and drown in the pain of the reality. Acknowledging I didn't feel him, no heartbeat on the dopler, no movement on the ultrasound, no waves of boom-boom, boom-boom....
Silence.
Yet that wail...? That primal deep wail of excrutiating pain and overwhelming grief....
Holy shit, that's me...
Shhhhhhhh .... No one can hear! What if you scare someone else? Make them uncomfortable?
Silence came with a price. I silenced my screams in that moment to spare everyone around me. Not realizing that was the first time of many. Not realizing silence meant death for me, too.
I lie to everyone daily, including myself. I walk around like a whole person, with a whole life, with a whole heart. I am a shell. I am what was left after that primal scream ended and the silence began. Just like the ultrasound, just like my sons heart. Silent and dead.
Through time the span widens, the time between impact broader.
If you know anything about physics or the laws of gravity, though, you can guess what that extra time does to the momentum and point of impact.
*SLAM*
*CRASH*
*CRUMBLE*
Where the hell did that come from? How long has the grief been suspended in space, so that when it hit it debilitated me?
Two days ago I found myself gasping for air. The thought of Colton slammed into me, knocking me from my precarious perch of sanity and mobility through life. I spiraled down a dark, all too familiar path of despair.
Last night I lay there, at the bottom of that pit. I laid there, my arms wrapped tightly around a stuffed monkey that protects the sound of my sons heartbeat, and covered in the only blanket to ever touch and protect my sons skin. Desperately begging it to protect and comfort me.
I sobbed myself to sleep. Engrossed and devoured by the horrific reality ... my son died.
Some days it doesn't seem real. It feels like a story someone told me. Something make believe from someone else's book of life. A bad dream. A fallacy of my memories.
When the memories crash into me I sucomb and drown in the pain of the reality. Acknowledging I didn't feel him, no heartbeat on the dopler, no movement on the ultrasound, no waves of boom-boom, boom-boom....
Silence.
Yet that wail...? That primal deep wail of excrutiating pain and overwhelming grief....
Holy shit, that's me...
Shhhhhhhh .... No one can hear! What if you scare someone else? Make them uncomfortable?
Silence came with a price. I silenced my screams in that moment to spare everyone around me. Not realizing that was the first time of many. Not realizing silence meant death for me, too.
I lie to everyone daily, including myself. I walk around like a whole person, with a whole life, with a whole heart. I am a shell. I am what was left after that primal scream ended and the silence began. Just like the ultrasound, just like my sons heart. Silent and dead.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Mother's Day
Tomorrow is Mother's Day. After losing a child, Mother's Day is never the same. The bittersweet taste burns in your soul as you celebrate the children you do have and mourn the one you don't.
I love my boys so much and people have said I should be appreciative for what I do have. Even implicate that my being sad is a disgrace to them, asking "aren't they good enough?".
Missing a child you've lost, feeling like part of you is missing too, cannot be filled by any other children. It's not that I don't love my living children with all my heart. Doesn't mean that I'm not happy to spend the day with them. It means that I also love my child I don't have and that part of me being a mother, part of my legacy, is gone. I want ALL my boys with me. I want him to be here, too. I want him to eat lunch with us and play with us and wait to meet his sister. I want him, too.
Those aren't feeling just reserved for Mother's Day. Those feelings never leave the heart and mind of a mother who's lost a child. in the every day living there are moments when you think of the child NOT with you and how different it would be if they were.
Tomorrow I'll get up and make breakfast for my boys. I'll Skype with my surrogate family. I'll make cupcakes and then dinner for my mom and my brother. And somewhere in between all that I'll go to the cemetery and be with my son, since he cannot be with me.
Mother's Day will never be the same. There will always be someone missing. Just like every other day, just a little more bittersweet.
I love my boys so much and people have said I should be appreciative for what I do have. Even implicate that my being sad is a disgrace to them, asking "aren't they good enough?".
Missing a child you've lost, feeling like part of you is missing too, cannot be filled by any other children. It's not that I don't love my living children with all my heart. Doesn't mean that I'm not happy to spend the day with them. It means that I also love my child I don't have and that part of me being a mother, part of my legacy, is gone. I want ALL my boys with me. I want him to be here, too. I want him to eat lunch with us and play with us and wait to meet his sister. I want him, too.
Those aren't feeling just reserved for Mother's Day. Those feelings never leave the heart and mind of a mother who's lost a child. in the every day living there are moments when you think of the child NOT with you and how different it would be if they were.
Tomorrow I'll get up and make breakfast for my boys. I'll Skype with my surrogate family. I'll make cupcakes and then dinner for my mom and my brother. And somewhere in between all that I'll go to the cemetery and be with my son, since he cannot be with me.
Mother's Day will never be the same. There will always be someone missing. Just like every other day, just a little more bittersweet.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Freaking the Hell Out
No sugar coating this. I'm a wreck. I stayed home from work today. I didn't sleep at all last night and I had a migraine today and it's just getting worse.
Today is the equivalent of the last day I felt Colton's life inside me.
So, yea, irrational, but I totally expect to wake up tomorrow and live the nightmare again. I totally am prepared and anticipating her to die too.
Friends keep saying "she'll be fine". Um, Colton was supposed to be fine too. Instead he's buried down the road.
Doesn't help that this week is also my birthday and also Mother's Day. Days I miss Colton even more. Days I want him here with me. Days my heart already aches to not have him with me. So this year it's a triple threat ... these special days + being pregnant + the same week I lost Colton = one freaked out me.
I'm just a nervous freaking mess.
I keep thinking "If I just make it through this next week". But ... she won't be here yet. I still have six weeks until induction. Anything could happen at anytime.
Yea, I know ... don't stress it... can't change it... everything will be fine... yada yada. Everything was supposed to be fine with Colton.
I know the added stress isn't good for me. I just don't know how to escape it. I feel like I'm drowning in it.
Lordamercy, please just let her make it here safe. I cannot lose her too....
Today is the equivalent of the last day I felt Colton's life inside me.
So, yea, irrational, but I totally expect to wake up tomorrow and live the nightmare again. I totally am prepared and anticipating her to die too.
Friends keep saying "she'll be fine". Um, Colton was supposed to be fine too. Instead he's buried down the road.
Doesn't help that this week is also my birthday and also Mother's Day. Days I miss Colton even more. Days I want him here with me. Days my heart already aches to not have him with me. So this year it's a triple threat ... these special days + being pregnant + the same week I lost Colton = one freaked out me.
I'm just a nervous freaking mess.
I keep thinking "If I just make it through this next week". But ... she won't be here yet. I still have six weeks until induction. Anything could happen at anytime.
Yea, I know ... don't stress it... can't change it... everything will be fine... yada yada. Everything was supposed to be fine with Colton.
I know the added stress isn't good for me. I just don't know how to escape it. I feel like I'm drowning in it.
Lordamercy, please just let her make it here safe. I cannot lose her too....
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Surviving
People ask "how are you?". The answers... Good. Well. Getting there. Excited. Scared.
Truth is ... I'm surviving. That's about it.
I'm 32 weeks now. 8 months. I should be overjoyed and bubbling with excitement. And, sometimes, I honestly am. I allow myself to daydream of her beautiful face, her peaceful breath, her hungry cry, nursing her ... yes, even dressing her up and showing her off.
And sometimes I let that glow and show. And people probably thing "phew, she's okay!". Reality? I'm surviving. I'm scared.
I was 34 weeks, 2 days when I confirmed Colton was gone. I was actually 33 weeks, 4 days when I lost Colton.
Did I mention I'm 32 weeks (and 3 days) right now?
So I'll give you one guess on my biggest emotion right now.. .. ..
I'm struggling so hard with trying to enjoy every moment, trying to focus on THIS pregnancy, and not focus I'm a week from when I lost Colton.
This pregnancy is completely different. She is SO active. So much so my tummy is sore and I feel beat up from the inside out. She is strong and busy and ... full of life. She's big. Really big. She's measuring over two weeks ahead.
If this were any other pregnancy I'd be bragging about how normal and good things are. Even as I sit here typing my belly bounces back and forth and extremities poke out. I have heartburn and sleepless nights. I can't eat much because she takes so much room. I have trouble breathing and my hips pop and spasm. I'm tired. It is - by all measure - the perfectly normal pregnancy. I haven't gained much, I feel so ... normal.
Yet I cannot shake the black cloud, the knowledge that at any time something can change.
I am seeing my doctors weekly now. I'll have both an ultrasound and doctors appointment every week. We'll check her placenta, cord, fluids, breathing, organs ... heart. Will it reassure me? Yes. For that moment. At any moment things can change ...
I really TRY not to live in the what-if's but it's much harder when the what-if's have become reality before.
I want to be happy. I want to believe she's going to come kicking and screaming into this world in just a few short weeks. I want to believe she is mine to keep.
Until then, though, I will keep surviving. I will keep moving forward until ... Well, until.
Truth is ... I'm surviving. That's about it.
I'm 32 weeks now. 8 months. I should be overjoyed and bubbling with excitement. And, sometimes, I honestly am. I allow myself to daydream of her beautiful face, her peaceful breath, her hungry cry, nursing her ... yes, even dressing her up and showing her off.
And sometimes I let that glow and show. And people probably thing "phew, she's okay!". Reality? I'm surviving. I'm scared.
I was 34 weeks, 2 days when I confirmed Colton was gone. I was actually 33 weeks, 4 days when I lost Colton.
Did I mention I'm 32 weeks (and 3 days) right now?
So I'll give you one guess on my biggest emotion right now.. .. ..
I'm struggling so hard with trying to enjoy every moment, trying to focus on THIS pregnancy, and not focus I'm a week from when I lost Colton.
This pregnancy is completely different. She is SO active. So much so my tummy is sore and I feel beat up from the inside out. She is strong and busy and ... full of life. She's big. Really big. She's measuring over two weeks ahead.
If this were any other pregnancy I'd be bragging about how normal and good things are. Even as I sit here typing my belly bounces back and forth and extremities poke out. I have heartburn and sleepless nights. I can't eat much because she takes so much room. I have trouble breathing and my hips pop and spasm. I'm tired. It is - by all measure - the perfectly normal pregnancy. I haven't gained much, I feel so ... normal.
Yet I cannot shake the black cloud, the knowledge that at any time something can change.
I am seeing my doctors weekly now. I'll have both an ultrasound and doctors appointment every week. We'll check her placenta, cord, fluids, breathing, organs ... heart. Will it reassure me? Yes. For that moment. At any moment things can change ...
I really TRY not to live in the what-if's but it's much harder when the what-if's have become reality before.
I want to be happy. I want to believe she's going to come kicking and screaming into this world in just a few short weeks. I want to believe she is mine to keep.
Until then, though, I will keep surviving. I will keep moving forward until ... Well, until.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The Abyss
Sometimes during the grieving and healing process we have revelations and realizations that help us to better understand and express how we feel. I had one of these "ah-ha" moments the other day and am sharing in hopes it might help others understand, too.
People ask what the pain feels like, when it really hits. This is the best I can explain it...
Labor and delivery is an experience like no other. There are emotional phases of the process that occur in sync with the physical process.
While laboring there is such an intensity. Anxiety and anticipation fuel adrenaline and drive the whole process. There is excitement and nervousness. A whole new world is approaching. A new life is joining the family, a new challenge, a new reward. A new hope, a new fear.
The delivery process is surreal. The pain is intense, the desire to hurry through and meet the baby fuels every second and every push and every pain. The reward at the end is worth it, drives it, generates an energy that's immeasurable.
Then the baby arrives. At that point it doesn't matter if you've been in labor two days, two hours, not at all ... doesn't matter if you pushed for hours, minutes, or are delivering via c-section. The moment the baby escapes your body is surreal.
In that moment everything shifts.
You're left in the anticipation and anxiety of the long awaited arrival of your child. All the anticipation intensifies. Your heart is beating so hard in your chest it may burst. Time stops.
You can literally hear every sound. The tick of the clock reverberates. Everyone is holding their breath. Everyone is watching a listening for the baby to welt out their first cry and announce "I am here!". Seconds feel like minutes, minutes like hours...
When that first cry happens the rush of love and joy brings the room to tears. All the anticipation, fear, nervousness flees and pure bliss fills every soul. The sound of the cries is the sweetest of all sounds, the reassurance of new life, new hope, new love. Life paused for just a moment, and restarted with an intensity and renewed life inside you that you never knew could exist.
So imagine that suspension of time never being broken. Imagine that cry never comes. You're trapped in that abyss between the excitement and anticipation of labor and that release and joy of new life. You're just stuck.
When labor hit hard with Colton and it was time to push I actually forgot for a moment that my son was already gone. The adrenaline kicked in, the anticipation of seeing him overwhelmed my heart, and my only focus was meeting him.
So he came out and my doctor held him up for me to see and I started at him, waiting. I honestly looked at him in dumbfounded wonder. Why wasn't he crying?? Why wasn't he moving?? I was perplexed. It took what felt like minutes, but was probably seconds, for it to settle in that he was dead. That I would never hear his cry. That I'd never see him move. I'd never feel his breath. I'd never nurse him or change his diaper ...
When that cry never comes the release, the joy, never comes. All that is left is the tick of the clock. The silence of the abyss. The silence. The gap between what was and what was supposed to be.
When it finally settled in he wasn't going to cry I just thought "what now". I still haven't figured that out.
Life does go on. But living doesn't. While one foot goes in front of the other, and work and parenting and day-to-day continues, part of you is stuck. Still stuck in that abyss. A part of you is left there, in that lost space.
People sometimes say "a part of you died" when you lose a child. I believe it's in that moment, in that space, where that part stays. Where part of you is lost and will never rejoin you. Part of your soul is forever sucked in the abyss between labor and love. Lost in loss. Never to breath again, never to exist ... just like the child that never cried and broke the abyss.
People ask what the pain feels like, when it really hits. This is the best I can explain it...
Labor and delivery is an experience like no other. There are emotional phases of the process that occur in sync with the physical process.
While laboring there is such an intensity. Anxiety and anticipation fuel adrenaline and drive the whole process. There is excitement and nervousness. A whole new world is approaching. A new life is joining the family, a new challenge, a new reward. A new hope, a new fear.
The delivery process is surreal. The pain is intense, the desire to hurry through and meet the baby fuels every second and every push and every pain. The reward at the end is worth it, drives it, generates an energy that's immeasurable.
Then the baby arrives. At that point it doesn't matter if you've been in labor two days, two hours, not at all ... doesn't matter if you pushed for hours, minutes, or are delivering via c-section. The moment the baby escapes your body is surreal.
In that moment everything shifts.
You're left in the anticipation and anxiety of the long awaited arrival of your child. All the anticipation intensifies. Your heart is beating so hard in your chest it may burst. Time stops.
You can literally hear every sound. The tick of the clock reverberates. Everyone is holding their breath. Everyone is watching a listening for the baby to welt out their first cry and announce "I am here!". Seconds feel like minutes, minutes like hours...
When that first cry happens the rush of love and joy brings the room to tears. All the anticipation, fear, nervousness flees and pure bliss fills every soul. The sound of the cries is the sweetest of all sounds, the reassurance of new life, new hope, new love. Life paused for just a moment, and restarted with an intensity and renewed life inside you that you never knew could exist.
So imagine that suspension of time never being broken. Imagine that cry never comes. You're trapped in that abyss between the excitement and anticipation of labor and that release and joy of new life. You're just stuck.
When labor hit hard with Colton and it was time to push I actually forgot for a moment that my son was already gone. The adrenaline kicked in, the anticipation of seeing him overwhelmed my heart, and my only focus was meeting him.
So he came out and my doctor held him up for me to see and I started at him, waiting. I honestly looked at him in dumbfounded wonder. Why wasn't he crying?? Why wasn't he moving?? I was perplexed. It took what felt like minutes, but was probably seconds, for it to settle in that he was dead. That I would never hear his cry. That I'd never see him move. I'd never feel his breath. I'd never nurse him or change his diaper ...
When that cry never comes the release, the joy, never comes. All that is left is the tick of the clock. The silence of the abyss. The silence. The gap between what was and what was supposed to be.
When it finally settled in he wasn't going to cry I just thought "what now". I still haven't figured that out.
Life does go on. But living doesn't. While one foot goes in front of the other, and work and parenting and day-to-day continues, part of you is stuck. Still stuck in that abyss. A part of you is left there, in that lost space.
People sometimes say "a part of you died" when you lose a child. I believe it's in that moment, in that space, where that part stays. Where part of you is lost and will never rejoin you. Part of your soul is forever sucked in the abyss between labor and love. Lost in loss. Never to breath again, never to exist ... just like the child that never cried and broke the abyss.
The Truth
The truth is I'm scared shitless.
Being pregnant again isn't full of joy and happiness. It's not healing a single ache or pain of losing Colton. If anything, it's magnifying so many feelings I've blocked for so long. I'm facing demons and pains that I didn't even know existed. And I cannot escape them, and therefore I'm being forced to face them.
I feel absolutely neurotic. Here are some of my off-the-rocker-losing-my-mind thoughts::
I sometimes want to beg my doctor to take her out now. Yes, she'd be in the NICU but she'd have a better chance there than in me. I already failed one baby.
I have the number to the cemetery written on a pad at work. I have more than once started to dial there number to offer a deposit on a plot next to Colton. God forbid she die and not be buried next to her brother.
Every ache and pain I know that her placenta is separating, that I'm going into preterm labor, that I'm losing her too. I even rushed to the doctor once already. They confirmed ... nothings wrong.
I poke my stomach. A lot. If she's not moving, I'm panicking.
I'm terrified of birth. Terrified. What if she doesn't breath? What if she doesn't cry? What if she DOES??
Does Colton feel like I'm replacing him?? I only just moved all his clothes out of the dresser and I cannot adequately explain the level of GUILT I feel for it.
Every day I feel like I'm losing my mind a little more. I find myself consumed many times by the what-if's and the what-did's.
I know that I'm my own worst enemy right now. I know I'm living in fear, not faith. I just don't know how to not to ...
I am in counseling ... a lot of counseling. And I'm comitting to blogging more about how I feel. To help myself, maybe to help others, mostly to help this little girl. I have three months to fix this. She needs me, 100% of me.
If God allows me to keep her, that is...
Being pregnant again isn't full of joy and happiness. It's not healing a single ache or pain of losing Colton. If anything, it's magnifying so many feelings I've blocked for so long. I'm facing demons and pains that I didn't even know existed. And I cannot escape them, and therefore I'm being forced to face them.
I feel absolutely neurotic. Here are some of my off-the-rocker-losing-my-mind thoughts::
I sometimes want to beg my doctor to take her out now. Yes, she'd be in the NICU but she'd have a better chance there than in me. I already failed one baby.
I have the number to the cemetery written on a pad at work. I have more than once started to dial there number to offer a deposit on a plot next to Colton. God forbid she die and not be buried next to her brother.
Every ache and pain I know that her placenta is separating, that I'm going into preterm labor, that I'm losing her too. I even rushed to the doctor once already. They confirmed ... nothings wrong.
I poke my stomach. A lot. If she's not moving, I'm panicking.
I'm terrified of birth. Terrified. What if she doesn't breath? What if she doesn't cry? What if she DOES??
Does Colton feel like I'm replacing him?? I only just moved all his clothes out of the dresser and I cannot adequately explain the level of GUILT I feel for it.
Every day I feel like I'm losing my mind a little more. I find myself consumed many times by the what-if's and the what-did's.
I know that I'm my own worst enemy right now. I know I'm living in fear, not faith. I just don't know how to not to ...
I am in counseling ... a lot of counseling. And I'm comitting to blogging more about how I feel. To help myself, maybe to help others, mostly to help this little girl. I have three months to fix this. She needs me, 100% of me.
If God allows me to keep her, that is...
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