There is an interesting bunch of comments over at Niobe's regarding whether it is proper for a woman to bring live offspring to a walk of remembrance in honor of lost babies. The range of opinions is large, but can be very generally characterized as follows:
1) Babies? Oh, you mean those diaper-covered daggers with grenade handles. Remembrance marches should be adult-only events to protect the newly bereaved and anyone else who doesn't have a living child.
2) Babies do sort of suck. But ones born to parents who had a previous loss get grandfathered into my good graces. So ... bring your kid to the walk, if you really want to.
3) Babies represent hope. And kids who lost a sibling -- what are they, chopped liver? Let everyone whom the loss impacts walk together.
I am in the minority on this issue -- firmly ensconced in Group 3. I loooove babies. Babies were a much better soother for me than liquor or drugs or religion in my darkest days of loss. They were the best thing for me.
I should back up and say that in the first few weeks after my loss, seeing a baby was tantamount to a punch in the throat. I understand why some people recoil from kids in the wake of loss. I remember that stage well. But the lucky event that propelled me out of that place was the birth of my niece Scamp.
At first I couldn't believe how annoying, rude, and insulting the timing of that birth was. Scamp entered the world only six days after I said goodbye to my own daughter. I seethed at the unfairness of having to bind my stupid breasts to stop my milk while SIL geared up for a happy life at home with baby. I ground my teeth down to nubs listening to SIL complain about how hard it was to get up to feed the baby after a C section. I'd just gone through surgery and I was tired, too. But the reason I couldn't sleep was because of panic attacks due to complications from the loss. I yearned to tell SIL to suck it.
So when torrential rains flooded the roads between Oakland and Sonoma, I rejoiced at not having to go to the hospital to visit SIL and Scamp. Then once they went home, I perhaps exaggerated a wee bit about the whole family being deathly ill. "So sorry, we can't visit yet. Wouldn't want to give the new baby a cold, right?"
SIL, for her part, was lovely. She'd had a previous loss herself and understood. "Whenever you come is fine," she told me right after my termin.ation. "I realize it's hard. I won't be offended if you stay away for awhile."
All my instincts were screaming "Stay away forever!" But after about three weeks DH and I realized that like it or not, we had to go to Sonoma and see the baby. SIL and her family are the only relatives we have in the whole Pacific time zone. Staying away was weird.
Nobody asked if I wanted to hold the baby when we came. I couldn't decide if that was really kind or really mean. Finally, in an internal act of defiance, I thought, "Fuck it. Let's REALLY get this thing over with." I picked up Scamp and took a good look at her.
It was not what I expected. I didn't have the urge to drop her or start screaming at the loss of my own baby. In her nonchalant, unconscious way, she was utterly fascinating. Scamp settled into my arm and pursed her lips. They were the cutest little lips.
All I could think was, "Oh my God, she is adorable." And ... that was it. Nothing else. No spite or envy or bitterness. I was aware she wasn't my baby, but suddenly that didn't mean I had to dislike her out of loyalty to my own. In fact, I liked Scamp already. She and I were gong to get along -- I could tell it already. I patted her back gently and wished Scamp all the love and happiness on earth. Miraculously, I truly meant it.
It was the first moment since my loss where I didn't feel stunted and ruined by rage. It was also my very first moment of peace since I'd learned my baby might be sick. And all of those gifts came from a must-be-avoided-at-all costs baby. Go figure.
So that was when I decided that babies were no longer to be avoided. To this day I have a special bond with Scamp. She gave me so much, even though she is utterly unaware of all of it.
Showing posts with label healing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healing. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Acceptance
I was about to post a long-winded treatise on how dealing with physicians after you've experienced serious medical errors is a minefield of awkwardness. But then Bon wrote a beautiful post about what acceptance of the death of her baby feels like over at Glow in the Woods. I nodded all the way through, recognizing myself in what she said.
Like Bon, I said goodbye to my lost baby a little bit at a time. The first big moment of letting go came seven months after my loss, when I was pregnant again and learned Little A had normal chromosomes. Up until that point the lost pregnancy and the new one were firmly merged in my mind as the same. So that was the first moment I relinquished my ghost baby from my body. It was when I began to tiptoe slowly away.
Still, I felt a strong need to keep looking back. Little A's surprise birth exactly one week before the first anniversary of the death complicated that. The joy (and feeding) of a live baby eclipsed all else for awhile. And it felt wonderful to be in the moment, to have the weeks go by and the photos pile up showing the happy progress and growth. But ... it also made me feel guilty. It seemed I was somehow slighting the baby who came and vanished. I think that's why I started this blog when Little A was an infant. Even with my outrageously good turn of fortune, I still needed to voice the stories of what had happened in the previous year. I wanted to be able to write about the good things that happened in my family, too -- this has never strictly been a babyloss blog. But mostly I *needed* to vent that bad stuff. It was an irresistible urge.
To be honest, the second anniversary of her death swamped me like a sneaker wave. I think my life was finally stable and safe enough for me not to guard against the onslaught. So it came, and it shook me in a way that grief had not in a long time.
And then Little A got sick, and life flipped around for me again: new fears and concerns. But as terrifying as some of what happened in 2008 was, there was always hope that it could get better. There were also little stretches of happiness and calm. And during one of those worry-free patches in June of last year, it occurred to me that I my ghost baby's estimated due date had passed unnoticed by me for the very first time.
For me, it took about two and a half years after the death to let go in a significant manner. I knew the change was real when the third anniversary of my daughter's angel day rolled around this December, and I didn't feel the need to write about it. I was busy taking my eldest child to a showing of the Nutcracker that day. It was an awesome day, not at all ruined by my knowledge of what had transpired three years before. If anything maybe that made it just a smidgen sweeter, by contrast.
These days I don't write so much about my babyloss grief journey because it mostly feels completed. When I get a pang, I dish. But most of my harangues revolve around other issues. And that feels right. I guess when it comes to grief, you just have to do what your gut tells you to do: Wallow when that's the only thing you crave, and then move forward when that starts to feel more like a rut than a catharsis.
Forgive the awkward segue, but this feeling of release is precisely what made my last conversation with the doctor so damn frustrating and ironic. Because I have done the work to get over this pain as much as I am likely capable of getting over it. And frankly, outside a doctor's office most days, I feel good -- so long as I'm not dealing with things that would make anyone wig out a bit, such as a sick kid or your own mystery illness. But one lasting tattoo of these experiences is my discomfort dealing with doctors. Discussing my medical history always makes me freeze up. I suck at distilling the story into dry, emotionless bullet points. Because all of the most noteworthy events in my medical life (the D&E, Little A's c section) revolve around medical errors or cascades of complications from medical errors.
Talking about someone else's mistakes or misinterpretations within the medical field is AWKWARD no matter how you go about it. And I never know how doctors will react, either: will they think I'm a raving lunatic? A liar? Somebody ready to sue the next doctor they run into? Or maybe I remind them of someone they accidentally hurt in the past -- their own mistake that haunts them. Any of these reactions is possible, but none of them are particularly helpful in getting me decent care.
Anyway, I think I need a do-over with that appointment with my doctor. Heh, THAT's gonna be a great conversation, when it eventually takes place ...
Like Bon, I said goodbye to my lost baby a little bit at a time. The first big moment of letting go came seven months after my loss, when I was pregnant again and learned Little A had normal chromosomes. Up until that point the lost pregnancy and the new one were firmly merged in my mind as the same. So that was the first moment I relinquished my ghost baby from my body. It was when I began to tiptoe slowly away.
Still, I felt a strong need to keep looking back. Little A's surprise birth exactly one week before the first anniversary of the death complicated that. The joy (and feeding) of a live baby eclipsed all else for awhile. And it felt wonderful to be in the moment, to have the weeks go by and the photos pile up showing the happy progress and growth. But ... it also made me feel guilty. It seemed I was somehow slighting the baby who came and vanished. I think that's why I started this blog when Little A was an infant. Even with my outrageously good turn of fortune, I still needed to voice the stories of what had happened in the previous year. I wanted to be able to write about the good things that happened in my family, too -- this has never strictly been a babyloss blog. But mostly I *needed* to vent that bad stuff. It was an irresistible urge.
To be honest, the second anniversary of her death swamped me like a sneaker wave. I think my life was finally stable and safe enough for me not to guard against the onslaught. So it came, and it shook me in a way that grief had not in a long time.
And then Little A got sick, and life flipped around for me again: new fears and concerns. But as terrifying as some of what happened in 2008 was, there was always hope that it could get better. There were also little stretches of happiness and calm. And during one of those worry-free patches in June of last year, it occurred to me that I my ghost baby's estimated due date had passed unnoticed by me for the very first time.
For me, it took about two and a half years after the death to let go in a significant manner. I knew the change was real when the third anniversary of my daughter's angel day rolled around this December, and I didn't feel the need to write about it. I was busy taking my eldest child to a showing of the Nutcracker that day. It was an awesome day, not at all ruined by my knowledge of what had transpired three years before. If anything maybe that made it just a smidgen sweeter, by contrast.
These days I don't write so much about my babyloss grief journey because it mostly feels completed. When I get a pang, I dish. But most of my harangues revolve around other issues. And that feels right. I guess when it comes to grief, you just have to do what your gut tells you to do: Wallow when that's the only thing you crave, and then move forward when that starts to feel more like a rut than a catharsis.
Forgive the awkward segue, but this feeling of release is precisely what made my last conversation with the doctor so damn frustrating and ironic. Because I have done the work to get over this pain as much as I am likely capable of getting over it. And frankly, outside a doctor's office most days, I feel good -- so long as I'm not dealing with things that would make anyone wig out a bit, such as a sick kid or your own mystery illness. But one lasting tattoo of these experiences is my discomfort dealing with doctors. Discussing my medical history always makes me freeze up. I suck at distilling the story into dry, emotionless bullet points. Because all of the most noteworthy events in my medical life (the D&E, Little A's c section) revolve around medical errors or cascades of complications from medical errors.
Talking about someone else's mistakes or misinterpretations within the medical field is AWKWARD no matter how you go about it. And I never know how doctors will react, either: will they think I'm a raving lunatic? A liar? Somebody ready to sue the next doctor they run into? Or maybe I remind them of someone they accidentally hurt in the past -- their own mistake that haunts them. Any of these reactions is possible, but none of them are particularly helpful in getting me decent care.
Anyway, I think I need a do-over with that appointment with my doctor. Heh, THAT's gonna be a great conversation, when it eventually takes place ...
Friday, December 5, 2008
The House Whose People Sit in Darkness
The report for Little A's CT scan came back today. The problematic area of her right lung is not a tumor or congenital anomaly. The most likely big bad we dreaded -- bronchiectasis -- got ruled out as well.
So, we're left assuming that this weird patch of lung is scar tissue that developed during Little A's back-t0-back bouts of pneumonia last winter. Scar tissue is great news, as it can reverse in small children. So we'll continue to carefully manage her asthma and try to limit the amount of colds she gets (ha, ha, ha on this last one ... hoo, so funny).
After I talked to the pulminologist I hung up and skipped around the house and high fived Little A 50 times. There is nothing like a toddler to happily indulge a giddy adult in the high fives. Then I put Little A down for her nap and in the silence of the house, found myself crying.
Three years ago today I sat at the desk where I now type this post. The phone rang, and as I stared out the window into the backyard, a perinatologist I'd never met before told me that the baby in my belly had a 1 in 5 shot at having either Trisomy 18 or Trisomy 13. And so it began. The waiting, the hoping, the crushed hopes, the termination, the complications, the marital strain, the depression, the subsequent pregnancy, the pain, the worry, the uterine rupture, the joy of Little A, the medical problems of Little A. Had that call not come in December 2005, what would my life look like now? To be honest, I don't even know how to imagine that scenario anymore. It's all too strange too contemplate.
They say it's not uncommon for people to associate sounds or smells with the moment they receive terrible news. For me, the thing that always pops into my mind when I think of this day in 2005 is The Epic of Gilgamesh. For some reason -- probably because it is shorter than most other Penguin Classics on my shelf -- I happened to be rereading Gilgamesh around the time of that phone conversation. And now the call and the poem remain linked. Especially the passage about Gilgamesh's best bud Enkidu, who dreams of his own death, of going to the palace of the Queen of Darkness, which is described as the house from which no one who enters ever returns, down the road from which there is no coming back:
So, we're left assuming that this weird patch of lung is scar tissue that developed during Little A's back-t0-back bouts of pneumonia last winter. Scar tissue is great news, as it can reverse in small children. So we'll continue to carefully manage her asthma and try to limit the amount of colds she gets (ha, ha, ha on this last one ... hoo, so funny).
After I talked to the pulminologist I hung up and skipped around the house and high fived Little A 50 times. There is nothing like a toddler to happily indulge a giddy adult in the high fives. Then I put Little A down for her nap and in the silence of the house, found myself crying.
Three years ago today I sat at the desk where I now type this post. The phone rang, and as I stared out the window into the backyard, a perinatologist I'd never met before told me that the baby in my belly had a 1 in 5 shot at having either Trisomy 18 or Trisomy 13. And so it began. The waiting, the hoping, the crushed hopes, the termination, the complications, the marital strain, the depression, the subsequent pregnancy, the pain, the worry, the uterine rupture, the joy of Little A, the medical problems of Little A. Had that call not come in December 2005, what would my life look like now? To be honest, I don't even know how to imagine that scenario anymore. It's all too strange too contemplate.
They say it's not uncommon for people to associate sounds or smells with the moment they receive terrible news. For me, the thing that always pops into my mind when I think of this day in 2005 is The Epic of Gilgamesh. For some reason -- probably because it is shorter than most other Penguin Classics on my shelf -- I happened to be rereading Gilgamesh around the time of that phone conversation. And now the call and the poem remain linked. Especially the passage about Gilgamesh's best bud Enkidu, who dreams of his own death, of going to the palace of the Queen of Darkness, which is described as the house from which no one who enters ever returns, down the road from which there is no coming back:
There is the house whose people sit in darkness; dust is their food and clay is their meat. They are clothed like birds with wings for covering, they see no light, they sit in darkness.
It sounded so familiar to me, that Palace of Darkness. I lived next door in the House of Grief for a really long time. Food's just as sucky as it is at the Palace, and the lights are out, too.
But at least the road from the House of Grief runs in two directions. And sometimes you get to walk back out of there and into a real home. You get to turn up the thermostat, flick on the holiday lights, and enjoy a nice cup of tea while you bake cookies. And if the wind is blowing ominously outside, maybe this time you can just ... shut the damn blinds and ignore it, and not have the weather serve up a tornado while you're not looking.
Sometimes you can do this. And today, I am so thankful for that.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
By trade, editors deal with the micro details of a work. I have come to realize that I'm not naturally a big-picture person in regular life either. I try to employ my little-picture methodology to monolithic issues (raising kids well, saving for retirement, etc.). I want the reassurance of knowing the exact order of operations that go into whatever goal I'm facing down beforehand. But that's cramming a square peg into a round hole. The big picture is a vision that requires faith, hope, and improvisation at the start. For someone like me who absolutely sucks at improv -- that's a huge hill to climb, just to get started on something.
I've thought a lot about big-picture events and quests with a capital Q since reading the book, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I'm probably I'm the last middle-aged American woman to read it, but for the benefit of the three other people hiding under a rock, it is a memoir that chronicles a year of traveling and spiritual exploration after the author's soul-sapping divorce.
I'm shocked at how much I liked the book. I was cautious going in, because I heard the author was on Oprah promoting the story, and that Julia Roberts will star in a movie version. The book's press gave off the faint stench of The Secret, which really is just Social Darwinism respun in less harshly Victorian language (If your life is awesome, it's because YOU are positively special and earned every last orgasm and gold ingot! And if your life sucks, it's because You are negative and dragged those problems right to yourself like a magnet. Got that?)
But by just a few pages in, it was obvious that Gilbert wrote a memoir, not a smug how-to book. She isn't holier than thou or rigidly dogmatic. She's funny, open minded, and as enthusiastic about food in Italy as she is about meditation in India. Reading about her path from lost to found really did inspire me.
And here I am, recently awake to the fact that I am relatively at peace with my dead-baby-and-pregnancy-calamities saga. It took two and a half years, so it's not like it was an overnight change. Yet it feels so markedly different. It's like I've been staring for eons at the random dots in one of those Magic Eye books, and suddenly the big-picture just popped out at me.
For anyone newer to their grief, I would hasten to add that "at peace" doesn't mean I want to turn away from my loss, or distance myself from others out there for whom this is not as settled. I've been struggling to figure out a metaphor that explains the difference between how I felt before and how I feel now. The only one that sort of fits is that of the leg amputee.
We've all heard the death of a child being referred to as similar to amputation, right? It's permanent and impacts every step. The underlying truth is that you would always prefer to have your old leg back, where that an option. And in the beginning, even as you make progress at adapting to being one-legged, the lost leg is always keenly on your mind.
Being at peace is not getting your old leg back. Instead, it's akin to receiving a high-tech prosthetic. After being in a wheel chair and then on crutches, it feels pretty magnificent to bound around as a biped. So you don't think about the fact that all things being equal, you'd still like that real leg back, please. You just enjoy the breeze in your hair, and maybe look to the road ahead.
For me, anyway, that's what peace feels like. For others who have got here (in any matter, grief-related or not) what does it feel like for you?
I've thought a lot about big-picture events and quests with a capital Q since reading the book, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I'm probably I'm the last middle-aged American woman to read it, but for the benefit of the three other people hiding under a rock, it is a memoir that chronicles a year of traveling and spiritual exploration after the author's soul-sapping divorce.
I'm shocked at how much I liked the book. I was cautious going in, because I heard the author was on Oprah promoting the story, and that Julia Roberts will star in a movie version. The book's press gave off the faint stench of The Secret, which really is just Social Darwinism respun in less harshly Victorian language (If your life is awesome, it's because YOU are positively special and earned every last orgasm and gold ingot! And if your life sucks, it's because You are negative and dragged those problems right to yourself like a magnet. Got that?)
But by just a few pages in, it was obvious that Gilbert wrote a memoir, not a smug how-to book. She isn't holier than thou or rigidly dogmatic. She's funny, open minded, and as enthusiastic about food in Italy as she is about meditation in India. Reading about her path from lost to found really did inspire me.
And here I am, recently awake to the fact that I am relatively at peace with my dead-baby-and-pregnancy-calamities saga. It took two and a half years, so it's not like it was an overnight change. Yet it feels so markedly different. It's like I've been staring for eons at the random dots in one of those Magic Eye books, and suddenly the big-picture just popped out at me.
For anyone newer to their grief, I would hasten to add that "at peace" doesn't mean I want to turn away from my loss, or distance myself from others out there for whom this is not as settled. I've been struggling to figure out a metaphor that explains the difference between how I felt before and how I feel now. The only one that sort of fits is that of the leg amputee.
We've all heard the death of a child being referred to as similar to amputation, right? It's permanent and impacts every step. The underlying truth is that you would always prefer to have your old leg back, where that an option. And in the beginning, even as you make progress at adapting to being one-legged, the lost leg is always keenly on your mind.
Being at peace is not getting your old leg back. Instead, it's akin to receiving a high-tech prosthetic. After being in a wheel chair and then on crutches, it feels pretty magnificent to bound around as a biped. So you don't think about the fact that all things being equal, you'd still like that real leg back, please. You just enjoy the breeze in your hair, and maybe look to the road ahead.
For me, anyway, that's what peace feels like. For others who have got here (in any matter, grief-related or not) what does it feel like for you?
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