Capture Your Grief Day 9: Surrender + Embrace

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Control is not something I give up easily. To completely surrender to grief involves a lack of control.  Usually when I completely surrender to it it is because I have become so overwhelmed by the loss that there is nothing else.  Control is gone.  

I can think of a few times where I clearly surrendered to the feelings of grief.  Some long ago, and surprisingly one quite recent.The one I’m going to share was three years ago today.  

I have already talked about the disbelief of that moment on day 3.  We got through that moment.  The ultrasound.  The amniocentesis.  And then they said they would give us a few minutes before we talked more. They let us use the geneticist’s office.  And we just collapsed.  

There had been tears before, but we had held it together.  But once we were alone we just collapsed on the couch and fell apart.  How else do you deal with the news that the baby you are carrying is going to die and there is nothing that can be done?  

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Capture Your Grief Day 8: Beautiful Mysteries

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I picture him with big, brown eyes.  Light hair, like his brothers, but warm brown eyes.  

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He was quieter than they were.  Moved less.  I imagine he would have been quieter in life.  More reserved.  Thoughtful.  Slower is an easy, relaxed way.  

He would have liked books.  Looking at them, being read to.  

I can picture him serious, and a warm, shy smile.  He would have been a stuffed animal kid, like Sam.  Always holding one close.  I picture him sucking his thumb, something Owen and Sam never did.  

Who know what he would have been like.  How he would have fit in with his two brothers. We can only hold onto the few things we have.  He was here.  Who he would have been?  It remains a mystery.  

Capture Your Grief Day 6: Empathy

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Author John Green once wrote “it hurt because it mattered.”  I think that is the core of empathy.  

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So many people want to take away the hurt in any way they can.  Seeing someone hurt is uncomfortable.  We want to take away their pain.  But this isn’t a pain that can be fixed.  

People can’t fix it, so too often they default to minimizing it.  Trying to make it smaller.  They tell us to focus on other things.  Our living children.  Potential future children.  Faith in some grand plan.  Some reason why our child was too speacial to live.  

But none of that helps.  Telling us not to grieve doesn’t take away our grief.  Sit with us in our grief.  Acknowledge our pain.  Talk to us about our children without saying “at least.”  Honor our loss without comparison.  

You can’t take away the hurt. It hurts because they mattered. So please. I know our grief is uncomfortable for everyone.  But they mattered.  Be aware of what you are saying. In trying to minimize our pain, so often we get the message that they don’t.  At least, not as much as whatever you are telling us to focus on instead.  

#captureyourgrief #captureyourgrief2016

Capture Your Grief Day 5: Unspoken

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I am generally very open.  About Noah, his loss, the babies we lost after him. My grief.  I struggled to think what there was that I don’t usually share.  Then I listened to CarlyMarie’s live chat for today and it hit me.  Hidden in plain sight.  There is something that I don’t share.  Or that I only share in person.  With those I feel safest with.  

It’s hard.  But I feel like it needs to remain unspoken.  I thank those who have let me share without judgement.

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Post-Script

The above is what I am sharing on my personal wall.  

For the spaces I feel safe – I am talking about the fact that we terminated for medical reasons.  I think for those who read closely, all the pieces are there to put together.  The timing, the fact that I have never shared a “no heartbeat” moment.  But I can’t say the words.  Not in a world where people will vote a ticket with Mike Pence on it.  Not when I have reason to fear that a parent could use it against me if I ever go back to teaching.  I wish I felt safe being honest everywhere.  But I don’t.  

Capture Your Grief Day 4: Support Circles

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When Noah first died I was desperate to talk about it.  About him.  I joined every support group I could find.  Reached out to anyone I knew who had been through anything similar.  I was so grateful to anyone who would let me talk.  

I had a few friends who let me spill all of my hurt.  Who held that space without trying to change it.  People want to comfort.  But attempts to comfort generally seem hollow.  And many are just uncomfortable with the rawness of grief, even now.  

In addition to those friends, I found many support circles that held that space, for me, and others.  I still visit some of them to share my own grief, but I also go back because I know how much being heard was needed. I am now in a place where where I can support others as well. 

#captureyourgrief #captureyourgrief2016

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Capture Your Grief Day 3: What It Felt Like

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We knew what was happening.  Even though she wasn’t supposed to, the ultrasound tech had confirmed.  The fluid they thought they saw the week before – it was there.  I can only imagine how she must have felt.  Us asking.  Knowing she wasn’t supposed to say.  Knowing that what she saw was catastrophic.  
We knew, but we didn’t.  We knew there was a problem with his brain.  We had done our research.  We knew nothing could be done for 17 more weeks.  But we still expected a plan.  We were gearing up.  We expected to talk surgeries. 

The doctor came in.  He introduced himself.  Shook our hands.  He had white hair, rosy cheeks, and looked a little like Santa Claus.  But he was so serious.  

After introducing himself, he said the words I will remember forever.  

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“It’s really bad.”

I thought he was joking.  I almost laughed in his face.  I was expecting him to smile. To say “just kidding” and tell us not to worry, there was a plan.  They do this all the time.  

Denial.  I only got to hang onto it for a few moments, but it was strong.  
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Capture Your Grief Day 2: Who They Are

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ImageNoah David.  He was little.  20 weeks gestation.  10.3 ounces. 10.9 inches.  

But he was and is: Our son.  A little brother.  A grandson.  A nephew.  A great-grandson.  And now a big brother to Sam.

He is almost three years old.  He would be older than Owen was at Noah’s birth.  

We got to spend 5 months of pregnancy with him, and 12 hours with him in our arms.  

He was my quiet baby.  A mystery.  He hid behind his placenta so that we always had a hard time finding his heartbeat.  He didn’t move as much.  

I’ll never know what color eyes he would have had.  If he would have loved stuffed animals like his little brother, or pacifiers like his big brother.  Maybe he would have loved music like both of them, or preferred quiet.  

There is a lot I will never know.  But I know that he was here.  That he matters.  

#captureyourgrief #captureyourgrief2016

Capture Your Grief Day 1: Sunrise Dedication

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ImageThis is my third year doing Capture Your Grief.  Though I found and followed the 2013 Capture Your grief as well.

Three years ago we were fast approaching Noah’s first birthday.  But four years ago?  Four years ago I had still never heard of Capture your grief or CarlyMarie. Four years ago there was joy.  I had an ultrasound that day and the ultrasound tech proclaimed that we had a healthy boy.  We celebrated with words to friends and family.  The next day we got word that on closer look, something was not quite right. 

October is pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.  It kicks off today, October 1st.   It seems fitting.  Because October will always be Noah’s month for me.   October 1st 2013 was the start of everything.  

So I sit with this sunrise.  The beginning then.  The beginning now.  Before 2013 October never meant much to me.  Now it it THE month.  What will this month be for me? I’d like to slow down. This fall has been and promises to be a whirlwind. But I can try to slow down.  To sit with this.  And to reach out to others doing the impossible – “Birthing Death.  Raising Grief.” – Lindsey Henke

Microblog Mondays: The isle of conclusions

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A mom I see at my son’s dance class had a baby 2 weeks ago. Despite the fact that I had confirmed with the grandma the week before that everything went fine, when she showed up to dance on Thursday without the baby, my heart dropped. 

 Rather than wondering where the baby was, my first thought was that it died. Baby is fine, and was home with dad rather than being exposed to a dance studio worth of germs.  

I felt utterly crazy after. What sort of weirdo jumps right to the conclusion of death?  Who would think that?  But in my world, babies die.  Far too often.  Just another way I’m different from mom’s who haven’t experienced loss.  

This post is a part of Microblog Mondays

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๏ปฟIt should be my little boy

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I don’t do well with kids that are the age Noah should be.  I feel like people think I should be over that by now.  I’m not.  Hearing a kid is two and a half is like a knife in the heart.  And the kids I know we’re born/due the same week or month Noah was due?  It guts me.  

But I mostly do ok.  I see them, I vaguely interact with them, and I don’t run away sobbing.  Usually.  But today… Today crossed a line.  

There is a mom in my town who was due three days after me.  Three days.  We aren’t friends, but it’s a small town.  I know her, she knows me.  And we see each other.  

It started like any regular day.  I was at the farmers market and playground with Sam.  She was there with J.  Her little boy the same age that Noah should be.  

And then I look over – he is in my stroller.  

My stroller.  That Owen used.  That Sam uses.  That Noah never got to use.  In my fucking stroller.  

I waited for her to get him out.  She just stood there while he sat and ate his snack.  For several minutes, he sat in my stroller and she watched.  And I watched.  

Then I couldn’t take it.  We didn’t really have to leave for another 10 minutes, but I couldn’t take it.  I picked up Sam, walked over and said “we need to go.”  

She got him out, I put Sam in, and we walked away,  by the time I got to the car I was sobbing.  I sobbed all the way home.  

My friends mostly don’t seem to get it. They are fixated on the fact that you don’t let your kid sit in someone else’s stroller without asking.  Which sure.  It’s rude, and weird, and WTF?  

But it was a little boy Noah’s age.  It felt like rubbing in my face everything I’ve lost.  Everything I should have.  I try not to say why me?  You don’t want it to be your kid that dies, but you don’t want it to be theirs either.  But Fuck.  It was too much.  I know other kids his age exist.  I try to be nice.  I try not to begrudge the fact that their son is alive and mine isn’t. But fuck.