Christmas again

Another Christmas has come and gone with an incomplete family.  This time with two pieces missing.  This year was particularly hard given the fact that there should have been new baby gifts under the tree for the little guy we should be still anxiously awaiting.  Instead, there is just bitterness, anger and grief.  I am mad that I don't get my happy ending, mad that I now dread a holiday I used to love and mad that there is noting I can do about it.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the faces of my two little guys when they realized Santa had come this morning.  Sawyer was so excited to realize that Santa is in fact real and magical.  There was so much joy and laughter in our home as he tore through his stocking and then his brothers and handed out gifts at whirlwind speed.   It just seems that there is never quite enough Christmas joy to dilute my Christmas grief.

Christmas is supposed to be such a joyous time, especially when you have kids to share it with.  There is nothing quite like seeing the magic of Christmas through the eyes of a child.  The past two year though, the magic has been a lot harder to find.  No matter how hard I try to feel the Christmas magic, no matter how much I throw myself into my kids and our Christmas traditions, I just can't seem to get back the old love I used to have for this season.  It is a time when everyone is proudly posting beautiful pictures of their beautiful children or big pregnant bellies.  Again, please do not misunderstand, I am beyond happy for them.  In fact, I very much envy their unimpeded holiday cheer.  I would love to be back in their version of Christmas, where the holiday is fun, exciting and magical.  In my world though, at least for now, it is yet another reminded that I will never again be able to celebrate with my whole family.  I will never get to see Addy or Charlie's faces on Christmas morning, take their picture on Santa's lap or watch them open their first gift.  Sawyer and Liam will never get to share Christmas traditions with their brother and sister and that is a fact that sucks all of the joy out of Christmas for me.  

I used to love Christmas, everything about it.  I looked forward to the magic and excitement of it every year as a kid, and even as an adult, I loved the craziness of Black Friday shopping and carrying on my childhood traditions with my own children.  This year, I was ready to take down the tree by 11:00.  It is all just too hard to shoulder this year and my usually strong facade has failed me horribly today.  After several full on meltdowns I am ready to call it quits with Christmas, at least for this year.   I am very hopeful that my Christmas spirit will return someday, and I will continue to pretend, for the sake of my living children until, hopefully, one day it does.  My greatest fear is that all of my pain will ruin this season for them, that I will not hide my newfound hatred of the holidays well enough.  I have so many wonderful memories of Christmas  and they deserve that as well.   As for this year though, I will retreat to my room with far too many sugar cookies and a rather large glass of wine to watch sappy reruns until Christmas is over.  May all of you celebrating with your children today realize just how very blessed you are.  To those of you grieving your tiny missing pieces along with me, I send you all of my love and wish you returned Christmas spirit and as much holiday joy as you can manage so squeeze from the season.

The Journey

Today, after hearing the news that an acquaintance of mine lost her husband after a long battle with cancer, I began to think about grief.  My response to the news of the death of a man I barely knew was not what I expected.  I have known this woman in a "quick greeting when you meet at community events" capacity and yet the news of her loss touched me deeply.  She posted a comment about grief and how hers had "just begun"  and I couldn't help but be touched, not only because she is obviously hurting but because I vividly remember being in that stage of grief.  I hope to never know the pain of losing my spouse, but I do understand that profound kind of loss that leaves a hole in your soul. I desperately wanted to say something to help her, to ease her pain, to assure her that the pain gets better but I realized that there is nothing to be said.  There is nothing that was or could have been said to me at that stage of my grief that would have made me believe that the pain would subside even a little bit.  The only thing to do is offer condolences and support.  There is no one else that can travel her path, just as there was no one else who could travel mine.

This brought me to thinking about my own personal journey of grief.  It has been one year, six months and 2 weeks since I began my own journey.  It has not been a an easy journey thus far and it is far from over.  There have been many ups and down on this journey, there have been many dark days when I felt the weight of the world on me and the emptiness left in my soul by Addy's passing felt like it would consume me. There have also been many wonderful days, days when I have been able to smile and remember her fondly.
In the beginning, there were only dark days but gradually the light began to peek through and the good days became more and more frequent.  Eventually, there came a time when the good days far outnumbered the bad but the bad days are still there, and tend to resurface just when I least expect it.  

With the loss of baby Charlie last month, I feel like I got sent back to start.  Well maybe a little bit past start but still it was a major rewind to the whole process.  The bad days came back in full force, this time mourning the loss of two children.  I feel like I am on a tandem journey now.  On one side I am still mourning the loss of Adeline on the other I am mourning the loss of baby Charlie at a time when I should still be pregnant.  The loss of Adeline rock our whole world and turned everything we had hoped for upside down.  I found the aftermath of her loss to be much less difficult that with the loss of Charlie.  The loss was again  heartbreaking of course, but with the added pain of no longer being pregnant.  I did not realize how hard that part would be.  After we lost Addy, I never had trouble being around pregnant women or newborns.  I had so much time to process in the little bubble of the NICU and I went home with a beautiful baby boy.  This time around, walking out of the maternity ward with empty arms was terrible.  I then had to go home and pack up my maternity clothes, because I already fit back into regular clothes.  Every pregnant women that I have run into is a giant reminder of what I should have and have lost.  I cannot even count the number of times that I have caught myself protecting my belly from my crashing boys, only to realize that there is no longer anything in there.  I never saw these things coming and they have knocked me for a bit of a loop.
The two losses are and the grief that goes along with it are so different that I feel like I am traveling two different paths at the same time.  The loss of Charlie brought back so many of the feelings that I had after loosing Addy and the difficult days flooded back, but the light is starting to peek through again and this time I know what to expect.  I know there will be a break in the clouds and the good days will someday outnumber the bad again.  If there was one thing I wish I could give to someone begining their journey of grief it would be this knowledge.  Unfortunately, that is knowledge that only comes from traveling the path you have been set on.  There is nothing that anyone can say to prepare you for this journey and it is not one that anyone can take for you.  Grief is a journey that you must face yourself, though luckily, not one that you have to face alone.
  

I am thankful for...

With Thanksgiving approaching I started an "I'm thankful for..." writing activity with my students.  As we were brainstorming things we were thankful for, it struck me how very grateful I am for everything that I have.   Even after all that we have gone through in the past two years, or maybe because of everything we have gone through, I am left with a deep sense of gratitude.  It is something that I noticed after we lost Adeline, and something that I have begun to feel even more strongly since loosing our little Charlie.  When I came home today I hugged my boys a little tighter and was a little more patient with their antics.  If any of thousands of factors had been even a little different I would not have them here to hug at all.

The past two years have not been kind to us.  Beginning with the loss of our beautiful girl, 3 weeks in the NICU with Liam and the wonderful but stressful addition of our niece to our family and ending with the excitement, stress and anxiety of another pregnancy and the eventual loss of our baby boy.  These past two years were also scattered with additional anxious trips to Maine Med with Liam and huge financial challenges and worries, all while dealing with the greatest loss we had ever known and the sadness, anxiety and insecurity that come along with it.  The last two years have taken so much from us and I know that it would be very easy to focus on that and get sucked under.  But these two trying years have also given us so much and for that I choose to be thankful.

I am thankful for my two beautiful boys.  After loosing this pregnancy I was struck with the fragility that is every pregnancy.  If any number of things had gone slightly differently, either of the pregnancies that gave me my three beautiful babies could have ended just as this one did.  I am forever thankful that fate was in our favor and we were allowed to be parents to Sawyer and Liam and we were allowed the memory and love of our angel Adeline. 

I am thankful for my wonderful husband.  Through everything, no matter how our relationship has been strained  and tested, he has been my rock.  We have had some rocky moments over the past few years but I have never felt more secure in our relationship or so sure that I chose the right partner for this crazy life, than I am now.  He is continually surprising me as a partner, a father and a person and I am forever thankful to have him to share my life with.  

I am thankful for the usual things too.  I am thankful for our supportive family.   I am thankful for a roof over our heads, good food on the table and the lights on.  These are things I have always been grateful for, though never more than now.  There were times over the past two years when the latter of these things we're not for certain.  Medical bills, time off of work and the addition of two new members of our family left us stretched pretty thin financially.  There were many weeks when were weren't sure how we were going to make it stretch far enough and there were even more weeks when it just wouldn't.  We would never have made it through the past two years with any kind of style and grace without the very generous help of our family.  Although we fully intend to repay them financially as soon as we possibly can, we will never be able to do enough to truly repay them for all that they did for us.  

Although there is not a moment that goes by that I do not wish the last two years could have included Adeline and there is nothing I wouldn't give to still be carrying her baby brother, they were able to give me some of the greatest gifts I could ever hope to receive.  They opened my eyes to the world and they changed me as a person, as a wife and as a mother.  They taught me about myself and to trust in my own strength and all that I am capable of.   For all of this and so much more, I will be forever grateful that I was allowed to be their mother.

A Box, Not A Baby

There are some things that, despite all logic and knowledge of the world, you believe will never happen.  There are things that, even once they have happened are still never real and never could have happened.  The loss of a child is one of those things.  Even after loosing Adeline, after leaving the hospital one baby short, placing her carefully folded things and various mementos in a pretty box and her ashes on a shelf, it was still an unthinkable thing.  After 18 months of living every parents worst nightmare, after having the outcome of pregnancy that no one ever thinks can really happen displayed proudly on a shelf in my room, it was still an impossible thing.  18 months later the impossible and unthinkable happened again.  Again I left the hospital with an empty stomach and a pretty box to put on the shelf.  It is not supposed to happen this way.  You are supposed to leave the hospital with a baby, not a box.  

At 15 weeks I delivered a tiny little boy tragically and traumatically at home.  Alone in my bathroom, holding his tiny little body and knowing for sure that the thing I had been denying for days was a reality, I still could not make it make sense in my head.  While my amazing husband held me and called the doctor, I stared at his tiny body in disbelief.  It happened again.  The 15 weeks of nausea, exhaustion and stress that I gladly endured for the prospect of holding my beautiful baby in April, ended so suddenly, in a way that made no sense at all.  As they wheeled me into the hospital, to the brand new labor and delivery unit that I had so looked forward to touring and delivering in, it made no sense.  As I explained to the well meaning emergency department nurse who wheeled me there that I was not having contractions.  As I answered all of the requisite labor and delivery questions before finally breaking down and saying "I'm miscarrying" it still made no sense.

 As if all of this was not enough, after 6 hours of medications to enduce contractions and get the placenta to pass naturally with no results, the doctor informed me that they would have to manually remove it.  As the doctor explained the options to me I looked at her and said a phrase I would repeat several times before the week was over, "I'm going to be honest, I've had enough."  That is how I feel about a lot of things right now.  I've had enough pain.  I was in what I denied to the end but now know to be labor, for 3 days before the baby finally came.  Painful contractions that were made even more painful by the realization of what they really ment.  I've had enough stress.  For 3 days I didn't know what was causing the contractions, I didn't know what was causing the vomiting and I didn't know the outcome.  I've had enough fear.  When the baby came I was terrified.  I was alone and had no idea what to do.  Thank god for my husband who took charge of everything and reassured me that everything would be ok even though he was just  as scared as I was.  When I came out of surgery I couldn't breath after having been intubated, a feeling I will not soon forget.  I was terrified as they told me how difficult the surgery had been, how much blood I had lost and the possibility of needing a transfusion.  I have had enough heartache.  I lost one beautiful daughter and am still dealing with her loss.  In the terrible moment when the baby came I lost the last shining light of hope I had for this pregnancy.   My heart broke as I watched my 4 year old creep into the room, terrified by what he would find since he did not fully understand anything that was going on.  After all of this, I have just had enough.

We are going to make it, we are going to be ok.  Unfortunately, we are not strangers to loss.  I don't think I will ever get over the pain of talking to Sawyer about how and why his brother died, I am still dealing with the pain of explaining how and why his sister died.  Worse still is the pain at the realization that he understands this concept perfectly.  A four year old should not have such an intimate understanding with death.  But we are fighters, we are strongest together and we are amazing if I do say so myself.  As we again begin the process of healing our family, pulling together and trying to make sense of something that just doesn't make any sense, I am struck by one thought over and over again.  This is not the way that it is supposed to happen.  Sawyer was supposed to leave the hospital oohing and ahhing over his new baby brother and bouncing around like he does when he is too excited about something to contain himself.  He was not supposed to leave the hospital clutching the box with his baby brothers handprints and footprints in it.  You are supposed to leave the hospital with a baby, not a box.

Awakening

The past year has been absolutely, dizzyingly crazy.  I have found my self shying away from the sadness, from the memory of my beautiful girl.  Almost as if I have been hiding from her, hiding from the pain that comes with her memory.  I scroll right by posts and stories about child loss and grief and have all but removed myself from all of the child loss support boards that I once clung to.  I have been aware of this but, even in the rare moments of peace that I have found in the past year, I have been somehow unable to connect with her.  Her memory has been superficial, I talk about her as if her death is only a well rehearsed story.  Don't get me wrong, I talk about her all the time.  I talk about her birth, about how much her big brother misses her, how much I hope to be able to use her things someday, but it is as if it is all a story that happened to someone else.  I have felt like a terrible mother, like I am pushing away my only daughter, as though if I can somehow manage not the think about her the pain will go away and things will go back to normal.  

Today however, while reading a blog post from another grieving mother, I had a flash of the grief I truly feel for Adeline's loss.  I had a return to the gut wrenching, tear welling pain that I usually feel when we comes to my mind.  It was a welcome feeling, a reminder that no matter how fast life gets, how crazy and out of control I let my self get, she will always be there.  I do truly love her and miss her with all of my heart.  Not that I ever doubted that, it was just a horrible feeling to be unable to connect with her, to have guarded my emotions so much that she could no longer get in.  

I think that today the boys and I will do something special for their sister.  Maybe we will finally finish the  memory bracelets that we made to donate to the NICU for her birthday.  Maybe we will make one of the many pictures and memorials that I have been putting off for the past year.  I will take this sudden awakening as a long overdue opportunity to reconnect with the memory of my precious girl.

Too Many Anniversaries

I haven't written here in a while, too long in fact.  This month is too difficult, and marks too many anniversaries for me to make it through on my own.  A year ago yesterday I got a surprise visit from my dad and received the most horrifying news I had ever received in my young life to that point.  The worst I hoped to receive for a long time.  My wonderful uncle Kenny had died, suddenly and unexpectedly.  He was a beloved member of our family and left long before his time.  I have remembered him every day of this last year and, a year later, the news has still barely sunk in.  At the time I figured that this was this would be the worst thing our family would have to deal with for a very long time.  Little did i know that just 8 days later I would learn that our beautiful baby girl was not going to live.  Nine days after loosing my uncle I would say goodbye to my beautiful girl.    

This past year has been the hardest of my life and now we are only 7 days away from Liam and Addy's first birthday and 8 days away from the anniversary of Adeline's death.  It feels like this year went by in the blink of an eye.  Although I did not always realize it, looking back I see that I have spent the entire time hanging on for dear life.  Each day was, and is a battle to just make it through our life.  I feel like I have missed so much in this last year, trying to stop time, to stay as close to Addy as possible.  We will always remember her, I know that, but I feel like the further we get from her birth and death, the further she gets from us.  Liam is growing into his own little person.  He is such a beautiful little boy but the more he grows, the less he looks like her.  I wonder very often how much they would have looked alike if they grew up together.  When he was a newborn I would kiss his head, just as I kissed hers in her little isolette, and if I closed my eyes I could feel like it was her.  His squirmy little big boy head no longer has that newborn feel, no longer feels like hers. 

I am so proud of my boys and my family and all of the things we have overcome and come through together this past year.  I was terrified that the loss of Adeline would be too much for us to weather, that we would grow apart.  Instead, we have grown together in her memory.  We live for her and for each other and I could not be more proud of that.  The past month has, of course, been the most difficult.  I can feel the tension building.  I am on edge all of the time and I can feel that I am not alone in that.  I think of her and remember her every second of every day and I cannot believe that it has already been almost a year since I first held her screaming little body in the delivery room.  Almost a year since I turned to my husband and said "We have a daughter."  Almost a year since that perfect few hours when I had two beautiful babies side by side on isolettes in the nursery at Wentworth Douglas.  I often look back on that time, the time before we knew we would only be bringing one of the home, with envy.  How I would love to go back to that moment, to drink them both in, if only for a moment.

Over the past year my thoughts so often drift to my Uncle Kenny.  I never really had time to process his loss.  In fact I very nearly went into labor in while in Bangor for his funeral.  At only 34 weeks I figured it would be fine to travel, though did bring a copy of my medical record and hospital bag with me just in case.  I know that he is giving my girl some good snuggles in heaven until I can get there.  He always did love the little ones and it gives me some peace to know that he was right there to meet her.   

Missing you

These last few day have been hard.  Not the normal, crazy, stressed hard, but all of that along with a sudden surge of grief.  Out of nowhere, after months of feeling ok and thinking fondly of my girl, I am struck again with that knot-in-my-stomach heartache.  It is as if she left just yesterday, not 9 months ago.  Last night I cried, for the first time in a long time, reliving every second of saying goodbye to her.  There is no particular reason for this onset of grief but it is here just the same. 

The past few months have, of course, had their difficult moments but I was able to take it in stride and go through my day with a smile.  I have had some wonderful moments with my boys.  I love to watch them play together, now that Liam is big enough to play.  He adores his big brother and I love the look of hero worship on his face as he watched Sawyer race around like a superhero, build block towers for him or eat snack.  I love how Sawyer always wants to include Liam in his fun.  He is always asking if Liam can sit on the floor and play with him or if I think Liam is done napping so that he can come play.  He is an amazing big brother and it makes my heart ache to think how much he and Liam are missing without their sister here.  They miss her, I can tell.  Sawyer talks about her all the time.  He plays with his "Addy doll", dressing her in Adeline's clothes, asking me to swaddle her so she can sleep in her Moses basket and snugging it right up next to his bed.  I came into the living room the other day and found him making the doll give Liam kisses.  It was a beautiful, heart wrenching moment but warmed my heart and made me smile. 

Liam has entered the separation anxiety stage.  I know other mom's know what I'm talking about.  That stage where it is pretty much the end of his little world when I put him down, hand him of to someone else or, heaven forbid, leave the room.  I look at his need to snuggle, to be close to me and I wonder if he is missing his sister as much as I think he is.  They would have been inseparable, I am sure.  He so very often looks up at the sky with a great big grin, or catches his reflection in the mirror and gets the cutest, excited expression and I can't help but wonder if he sees her.  Every now and then something weird happens at our house, his musical toy going off all by itself,  a big ray of sunshine on a cloudy day or just a sudden intense feeling that she is here, and he reacts to it.  A couple of times he has actually woken up from napping or gotten a sudden smile for no apparent reason.  Sometimes he just gets really aggitated at the same time that I am suddenly thinking of her.  I think she is here with him in those moments and I think he feels it too.  Usually these moments give me peace and bring a smile to my face.  Usually I am able to think of her fondly and continue with my day, but not today.  Today I sit, looking out the window at the quiet, snowy day.  The whole world around me is a beautiful, peaceful, quiet, white and somehow that makes it harder.  Today I just miss her.