Capture Your Grief Day 15: Wave of light

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Tonight was the wave of light. We attended a walk and candle lighting. We lit a candle for our babies – Noah David, and the babies we lost early.  Image

I am also thinking of the children and siblings of friends – 

David Alexander, Sydney Elizabeth, Tessa Sue, Isabella, Aminidav & Naava, Grant Michael, Benjamin, Jonah, Sofia & Lucia, Paige, Harold, Jesper, Cael, Miles, Lana Grey, Tommie, Kimberly Ann, Heather, Addison, Lachlin Shaw, Lucy, Jude, Pax Jonah Melvin, AJ, Colton, Jackson Dean, Caroline Grace, Luke Hudson, Taidgh, Claire, Autumn, Flynn, and so many more who were here for such a short time.  

#captureyourgrief #captureyourgrief2016 #whathealsyou

Capture Your Grief Day 14:Beliefs + Spirituality 

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I don’t know what I believe.  I’d like to believe.  But I don’t know.  In the loss community there is a lot of talk about “angel babies.”  It’s a convenient shorthand, like rainbow or sunshine babies.  And it does have great meaning.  To a lot of people.  

But I don’t know.  I don’t know that we can know.  All I know is trying to have faith.  Trying to believe that he is with me, and that we will, some day, in some way, be together again – it helps.  So I go with that.  Image

Capture Your Grief Day 13: Dear World

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Dear World, 

This is my family.  And so is this.  I have three little boys, two of whom will never be in the same space.  But they are both equally, my children.  Each of these family photos is as complete as the other.  Which is to say neither of them is.  

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And we go on.  And we try to represent Noah however we can.  But I wish people could see our WHOLE family. 

Sam get’s refered to as our second a lot.  And I get it.  He is the second to live.  But he’s not “number two.”  And while I have two living children in my house. I am not a mom of two.  I’m a mom of three.  

Our parenting three challenges look different than most.  I get that.  We aren’t struggling with three car seats, or who gets a window seat, or to push the elevator buttons when there are only 2 buttons and 3 kids.  
But we still have three children.  We still love three children.  We just hold one with our hearts instead of our hands.  This is who we are.  

#CaptureYourGrief #CaptureYourGrief2016 #WhatHealsYou

Capture Your Grief Day 12: Lemons + Lemonade

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This prompt is supposed to be about finding the good that came out of the loss.  I don’t know that I can.  I don’t think there is some “higher purpose” to loss.  There are some things that have changed in me. Some things I do that are good.  But nothing is worth a loss like this.  You just keep going.  

The show “This is Us” had a quote in the first episode about “taking the sourest lemons and making them into something resembling lemonade.”  Resembling. You can have pieces of good. Pieces of happiness.  But you can take a lemon and make lemonade and be glad for it.  

I could tell you all the things.  That I love more deeply, or cherish moments more.  That getting to help others through loss is also helpful to me.  

But that’s sugarcoating.  It doesn’t tell you that with deeper love and cherishing more also comes greater anxiety.  That even buying clothes for them to grow into feels like tempting fate sometimes.  Or the pressure to do enough, to be enough, to make some kind of legacy to make up for the life that he didn’t get to have.  

So no.  There’s no lemonade here.  

#captureyourgrief #captureyourgrief2016

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Capture Your Grief Day 7: Myths

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We have a lot of societal views on grief.  Everyone knows the idea of the “stages.” Denial.  Anger.  Bargaining.  Depression.  Acceptance. 

We have this idea that grief is a linear process.  That you start at step one, go to step 5, and then you are done.  Grief complete.  

Denial.  I had denial at first.  True denial, where I thought the doctor was joking.  And then more when I hoped I had misunderstood.  Denial.  I thought – “this can’t be happening.  This is a mistake.” And for months I thought “did that really happen?”  It still seems unreal sometimes.  I never thought it would happen to anyone I knew, let alone me.  

Anger.  I was angry.  How could this be happening?  What do you mean that I have to spend two days in labor.  Have my milk come in.  Go through recovery and post partum depression with no newborn in my arms?  I was so angry that this happened to us.  You don’t want it to be anyone, but you look at other babies and wonder what the rhyme or reason is that some babies live and some don’t?  I am still angry sometimes. Angry that there is such a taboo about talking about pregnancy and infant loss.  Angry.  No one should have to go through this.  

Bargaining.  “Please let it be something else.  Something easier.  Something we can deal with.  Please just let him live.”  During my scans I hoped and prayed for life altering conditions, as long as they were survivable.  I bargained and begged to get pregnant again.  To have a living baby.  I bargain and beg for everyone I know.  “Please let their ultrasound be ok.  Please let their baby live.”  I am constantly afraid that it will happen to them too.  

Depression. How do you keep living when your baby isn’t?  How are you ever going to be happy again?  In the early days it feels impossible.  And then weeks, months and years pass.  And you are still left wondering how you live without them.  

Acceptance.  Noah is gone.  There is nothing I can do to bring him back.  I don’t cry at every conversation anymore. Not every one.  But there are things that bring me right back there.  We learn to keep going.  To honor their memory. To try to live, to do good, for them.  

I can go through each stage in the course of a day.  There and then back.  Skipping around.  People have mentioned “when I was grieving.”  It always takes me by surprise. When I was grieving?  It’s not a time period that you go through and then are done.  I will always grieve the loss of my son.  I can’t get over it.  We keep moving.  But the loss is forever.  The love is forever.  The grief is forever.  

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Capture Your Grief Day 10: Symbols + Signs

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The first day I was in labor with Noah, there were hot air balloons outside my window.  For most of the day, they hung there, perfectly framed.  Three of them.

We watched them while we waited.  The next summer I saw hot air balloons again.  It was a year from the day that Noah was conceived.  The next day, I found out I was pregnant again, with Sam. 

The hot air balloons truely felt like a sign from Noah.  

I have fallen in love withhot air balloons.  Sam’s room is decorated in hot air balloons.  His birthday party was hot air balloons  and  rainbows, and there is even a hot air balloon cloth diaper named after Noah.  

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I would love to some day take a hot air ballon ride on Noah’s birthday.  💗
#CaptureYourGrief #CaptureYourGrief2016 #WhatHealsYou