Capture Your Grief Day 5: Journal

You have forgotten. You live your life unfettered by her memory. Maybe you are reminded every once in a while. A blog post in your newsfeed. An owl figurine in Marshall's. And then it's a fleeting thought of a fleeting life before you immediately think about how much things have changed. Your mind goes to Piper, a much anticipated rainbow, and your mind rests there. Because thinking of Piper is comfortng and joyful and safe. And you are not conflicted at all.
Let me set the record straight. Having children after loss is just as hard as not having them. It does not make the grief better or less painful. Rainbow babies are not signals to the end of the storm; they are simply reminders that the storm is not all there is, that the sun is still up there They are hope for the hopeless, and although a rainbow often exists because of a storm, it is an entirely different entity. One does not negate the other.
I still love and miss Kenley with every fiber of my being. Every day. Not a moment goes by where I do not think of her, of what she should be doing, of who she would look like, of the milestones she would be hitting. I still ache. I still hurt. I still cry. Probably even more so now that Piper is here. Piper is a daily reminder of where we are in life. Piper is our second chance. Because our first chance died. Every single laugh or smile, every roll over, every outgrown onesie is a reminder of what Kenley will never do. I can't even let myself get started on how Piper wouldn't even be here if Kenley had lived. That's an inner conflict I wouldn't wish on anyone. How are you happy for one when you know that happiness is a result of such sorrow? How do you chose the child to love? You can't. Yet, it seems the world wants you to. "Choose the living one," says the world. "You are alive. We are alive. Let's all focus on that. Forget about your other one. Death is sad. We don't like being sad. We don't know what to do with sadness."
You're going to say, "But Rebecca, I would never make you choose." No, not directly. Not purposefully. But, still every day, I have to choose. Is this the right time to talk about both my girls, or just the one who stayed alive? Would it be weird if after every new picture I post of Piper, I just cycle repeatedly through the four I have of Kenley? I so desperately want to show off both of my children equally, yet I know that's not possible. Piper will grow and change and interact. Kenley will forever be a black and white image of a sleeping baby. In the same dress. In the same position. Forever. She will never be more, but she is so much more. I have to choose because who she is doesn't fit in with how life changes. I have to choose because if I truly talked about her at the level I'd like, there would be an intervention. "Rebecca, we need to talk. We don't think this is healthy." You know what's not healthy? Outliving your children. Too often, the world tells the grieving to move on. Sometimes with words, but mostly through actions. Uncomfortable silences. Changes of topic. The not so subtle shift of focus to the living child.
I know I've said this before, but it can never be said enough. I have TWO children. I carried two babies. I had morning sickness and heartburn twice. I had glowing pregnancy skin twice. I felt two babies squirm and kick and flip. There is no difference between my girls, except for one. Only one of them is still here.

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Piper Madeline

Well, she's here!  Not without some trials and tribulations, though. 

Piper was born at 2:11 pm on Monday, April 28th, weighing 5 pounds, 8 ounces - with her cord wrapped twice around her neck.  Yep.  You read that correctly.  She had to be cut out of it.   My doctor tells me that we are very lucky we had the C-section already scheduled for the date we did.  Had I gone into regular labor with the cord where it was, or had we had scheduled delivery for a few days later, we could have had terrible results.  Again.  A week before she was born, the cord was exactly where is should be, but somehow between then and delivery, she got herself tangled.  The odds of this happening to another one of my babies is insanely low - yet it did.  It makes me even more grateful that she's here and alive  - and I don't have to go through another tragedy of losing my baby.  I am fairly sure that would have ended me.

 I had a pretty bad reaction to the anesthesia during the C-section and then to the pain medication afterwards, and Piper, being slightly early, needed a little oxygen.  So, she was whisked off to the nursery, and I was basically out of commission for the rest of the day - either vomiting or too foggy headed to focus.  I didn't get to hold my little girl until late Monday night, probably close to 10 or 11.  

Now that I have her home, I can hardly believe it sometimes.  My baby is alive!  She cries and sleeps and squirms.  Mike and I aren't getting a great deal of sleep - not because she's up all the time because she's actually a pretty good sleeper herself  - but because we are constantly checking on her to make sure she's still breathing.  We have both talked about how we are always on edge that this will all be taken away.   We are working on that, but it's not easy.  

Obviously, I still miss Kenley very much.  I always will.  And her little sister will know how special both of my girls are to me.  Life will always be bittersweet, but I'm so grateful for the extra sugar Piper adds to it.

Piper and Kenley

My Beautiful Rainbow

Bah Humbug

I can't even begin to tell you how much I am dreading Christmas.  If I could skip over the day completely - the week even - I would do it in an instant.  I don't want it to come without her.   I don't want to wake up in the morning to a still silent house.  I don't want to have to face another childless holiday, especially this one.   

This one is the big one.  It's the first big event almost every mom immediately imagines when she is pregnant.  We picture the outfit we will shop for our baby to wear - both on the actual day of Christmas and for any pictures we might take beforehand.   We picture putting up the tree with the various "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments we have either been given or purchased ourselves.  We picture relatives coming from afar to ooh and ahh over our beautiful baby.  Maybe we are even hosting the day at our house for the first time because the baby is here and it's easier than lugging everything all over town.  We imagine how our baby's eyes will light up as we hold her close to the tree, carefully brushing her fingertips over the branches.  We imagine sitting her on our lap on Christmas morning and helping her rip open the brightly wrapped presents that have been lovingly bought for her.  We picture the laughter and the smiles, the eyes shimmering with joy, the music, the light, the family.  We construct this day in its perfection while our baby is still forming her fingers and toes inside us.  

When you are pregnant, everything your baby has yet to do is still bright and shiny inside your mind.  When your baby dies, everything goes dark.   Like Ebeneezer Scrooge's Christmas that is yet to come, fog rolls in, the lights go out, and nothing is what it was supposed to be.  Only, I don't get to wake up on Christmas morning with a second chance.  Kenley will not suddenly be alive in her crib. My Ghost of Christmas Future has come and gone without leaving me a reprieve.  My baby is gone.  There will be no Baby's First Christmas.  Not for her.  I hope Bean will get one, but there are no guarantees in life.  And there's still another year to go before that happens.

This Christmas will be hard.  I will wake up like I have every day for the last ten months to a house without my child. I will hear her absence echoing in the silence.  I won't get her dressed in an adorable dress and tights.  There will be no shiny black shoes to snap onto her wiggling feet.  No presents to open.  No new toys to play with.   There will be only an empty crib and a living room without a Christmas tree.   There will be a broken promise and a weary soul.  

As I write this, a tiny sliver of hope squirms slightly below my belly button.  A little ray of light the size of a sweet potato quietly reminds me that not all is lost - that maybe, just maybe, next Christmas will be different.  While Kenley will always be missing, I hope Bean will be here.  But, now, instead of thinking of a future with bright, shining lights, I hope with a softness that cannot be helped.  A quiet pleading.  Please.  Please.  Please don't take this one away from me too.  Please let me have this one.  Please.  Please.  Please.  

But, she's not here yet.  I still have a long way to go, and all I really have is right now.  Right now, Kenley is gone and Bean is still growing.  Right now, I do not have a baby in my arms.  Right now, life is hard and uncertain and Christmas is still coming.  The first of many I will face without her, but hopefully the last I will face with empty arms.  

Conflict

Some days are extremely overwhelming.  Some days, I feel like those migraine commercials where the woman is holding her head and the camera zooms shakily in and out to represent the pain she feels.    I am overflowing with too many different emotions - emotions that completely contradict each other.  Some days, I don't know how I am going to handle this for even the next few months, let alone the rest of my life.    I feel like I am going to explode and implode at the same time.  Explode because I am so full of so many things that need to be sorted, but just can't.  Implode because the world just seems so heavy and crushing - and not always understanding of or accommodating to what I need to sort.  It pushes down on me to feel things a certain way, to process things a certain way, to have some sort of linear motion to this journey.  But, that isn't the way it is.  It has never been that way and it will never be that way.  I am stumbling through my life, like someone who drank too much, but is still trying so hard to walk upright.  I'm hazy and unfocused, and I'm afraid I'll never get a handle on myself again.

I miss Kenley every day and with no less intensity than the first day she was gone.  I think of her every day.  I love her every day.   My heart is still broken for her.   There are moments of those first few days that I do not let myself think about for too long because they just hurt too much.  Moments of writhing in anguish on the ultrasound table after seeing her unbeating heart - of what it felt like to walk, swollen with death, to the operating room for my C-section - of how cold and soft she was in my arms - and of how absolutely beautiful she was despite her lack of life.  I can't even write those sentences without taking ten minutes to compose myself.  Even as hard as I have worked to wade through this mess, I have still pushed a lot of it away.  I just can't do it.   I am still actively mourning for her.  

And yet, I am now pregnant with her sister.  How do I push all of that sorrow aside and be joyous for this new life?   How do I decide which child is more important to me?  Which emotion?  I can't.  And, you might be saying, "Well, you don't have to."   While that's true - while I don't have to choose between my children - there is only so much a human heart can take.   There is only so much room for such conflict.  Sorrow and joy can go together in a bittersweet swirl, but not always to this extent.  I try so hard to find that balance.  To find that path where my devastation over losing my firstborn can live harmoniously with my excitement over carrying my second.   But, I am not even sure there is a balance.  I don't know how to achieve it.  I am constantly faltering back and forth, back and forth.  Feeling intensely guilty towards one daughter if I spend too much time on the other one's side.  

I often find myself saying "I just want my baby."  I want both, but I can only have one.    In a perfect world, I would have both.  But, in a perfect world, Kenley would still be alive and I would not have had a reason to get pregnant again right now.  So, what does that say about Bean?  If I give Kenley priority in my heart, then it seems like Bean is a consolation prize.   If I focus on Bean, then what about my Little Ninja?   You might say I am over-thinking all of this, but really, I'm not thinking anything.  I'm only feeling.  And I don't know how to make it manageable.  I don't know how to organize these emotions anymore.  I'm just a swirling ocean of one crashing wave after the next.  Slam, slam, slam. 

Love, anger, excitement, fear, joy, sorrow, guilt.  All at once.  All the time.  

I still can't believe this is actually my life, and not some horrible nightmare.

It's Not Easy Being Green

It's hard to pinpoint what my thought process has been in getting pregnant again, but I can easily tell you I wasn't expecting it to be this hard.  I knew it would be tough.   I knew it would bring forth stress and conflicting emotions, but I really wasn't prepared for this.   I don't think any mother is.  I remember thinking, "If I can just get pregnant again, then I will feel better.  I will feel less empty.   I will feel like I am moving forward."  And while some of that is happening, it's not happening to the extent I thought it would.  And so many other things are going on that make this roller coaster ride even more stomach dropping.  I can't put all of them in one post, so I'll just write about things one at a time.

The first thing that caught me off guard was my emotional reaction to my physical changes. I'm not one of those lucky women who float through their pregnancies with a happy sigh and a joyous glow.   My first pregnancy was physically difficult.  My second is not different.  Nausea, heartburn,swelling, bloating, fatigue, soreness - you name it.   I had all of these things with Kenley - and I have them again with Bean.  I knew they were coming.   But, there's a part of me that feels that it is just so unfair that I have to go through it all again.   I am angry that I have to put my body through the pains of pregnancy a second time without being able to reap the benefits of the first.   While every pitch over the toilet bowl reminds me that Bean is alive and growing, it also irritates me that I have to be there.  And it makes me think of the last time, when it was Kenley who was causing my stomach to flip flop its contents.  Every time I wake up in the middle of the night with my esophagus on fire, I reach for the Tums with a sigh of frustration, not just because I'm uncomfortable, but because I'm uncomfortable again.   And when I'm too tired to do anything after work but sit and breathe, I wish it was because my baby kept me up all night crying and not because she's dead and I'm pregnant with her sister.  Every ache, every pain, every discomfort of my body is a reminder of what I have and what I lost.  

And then, there is the comment that always comes after I express these feelings.  "It will be worth it."   Oh really?   I'd love to take a look in the crystal ball you have.  Please, show me the guaranteed future where all of this is worth it.  Where my baby is in my arms, healthy and alive. Then there's the "At least you were able to get pregnant again."  These comments frustrate me for many reasons.   The main reason being comments like this make me feel like I have no right to complain about being pregnant - and that's just not fair.   Every woman has the right to complain about being pregnant.  Being pregnant is hard!   Our bodies go through so much.  I should still be able to talk about how crummy I feel without someone reminding me to remember how lucky I am to have a second chance.  I know how lucky I am.  I know so many women don't get pregnant as easily as I have.   My many support groups are full of these women, whose hearts break every month over and over and over again.   I get it.  No one needs to tell me of the hardships of pregnancy or infertility.  I have cried for them and with them.  We cry for each other.  I have been in this community for several months.  I know I could have it so much worse.   But, that doesn't mean I still shouldn't be able to complain.  In fact, I need to complain.   I need to have someone tell me they understand - or at least that they understand my right to be upset.  Let me hang on to this one bit of normalcy in a life that is anything but.

There's this mindset among those who aren't in the baby loss community that a Rainbow pregnancy is - well - full of rainbows.  This attitude that once that egg has been fertilized again, it's just smooth sailing until a screaming baby pops out.  And that any slight bump along the way should be taken with a smile because - hey, you're pregnant again!  Yay!    Yes, there are moments when I am truly happy and excited - when I'm not nauseous, when I have some energy, when my stomach isn't a boiling pit of acid.  And then there are moments when I feel like crap and I wish I had a baby already.   By the time Bean gets here, I will have been a human oven for almost two years, with a sixth month break in between babies.  And I will still only have ONE baby.  (The uncertainty screaming around in my head regarding that statement is definitely for another post)   I have earned my stripes.  I have earned the right to vocalize whether or not I have a stomach ache, or how tired I am, or how I just want my body to be done with this already.   

I have five more months - twenty more weeks - to go.  Twenty more weeks until my body is mine again.   Twenty more weeks before Bean is in my arms.   It seems like an eternity.  

I'm not Fixed

I have this fear that this pregnancy will make people think that everything is all better.   That I am "fixed."   I have this fear that people are thinking to themselves, "Well, now that she is pregnant again, she can stop being sad." "Thank goodness she can stop thinking about her loss and focus on the future."   I don't know if it is a valid fear or not.   I really don't know what is going on in other people's heads.  Heck, I rarely even know what's going on in mine.   But, just to clarify, nothing is fixed.  Nothing is suddenly better because I am pregnant.   I don't miss her any less.  I don't think about her any less.  

 I actually think about her more now.   Pregnancy is really all I have to connect with Kenley.  The nausea, the exhaustion, the poking out of the belly, the pops and wiggles that will soon become full-blown jabs and jolts. A little over a year ago, I was experiencing these physical changes with Kenley.   And now, I am starting again with Bean.  Every moment, I worry about Bean in there - and I think back to last year when I was carrying my little ninja, which makes me feel empty and full at the same time.   I am happy I have this second chance with Bean, while also being angry I have to even have a second chance.   Why didn't I get to keep my first chance?   I love, love, love both of my children, so it is so difficult to rejoice in one at the expense of the other.   To be happy for Bean reminds me of why I am pregnant now, and why I don't have a baby in my arms.  To wish I had Kenley seems like a slap in the face to Bean.  I still don't know how to reconcile this.   How do you handle loving your children equally when the life of one is the direct result of the death of the other?    

That conflict aside, Kenley is my first born.  She will always be a part of me.  I will always love and miss her.  Being pregnant again does not take away the hurt of her loss.   I can have a hundred more children, and I will always ache for her.  I will always choke back tears when I think of never holding her again.  I will always have to catch my breath when I look at the few pictures I have of her beautiful face.  Those things will never be "fixed."   Not by another pregnancy.  Not with time.  Nothing will ever make this better.  

I just wanted to put that out there.   I love Kenley.  I love Bean.  I am happy for my second child.  I still miss my first.  I am not fixed, and I won't really ever be.   I am learning to navigate around the holes in my heart, but those holes will always be there.  When Bean comes, my heart will swell in the places where Bean fits, but they won't close the gaps where Kenley is not. The thing with rainbows is you can't have them without the rain.