If I hadn't ended the pregnancy and lost the baby we call Clover, today would be the due date we were originally given: January 15, 2011. I realized this about mid-day, and thought to myself how I ought to do something special to commemorate her too-short little life (inside me). I'm not sure what I was really thinking of, but alas, all I did was bring it up on facebook - which brought a little recognition, a little discomfort but a little comfort, and a little sympathy...
By the time Maggie went down for her nap after lunch, I had a list of things I needed to get done. I was taking trash out, starting laundry, folding laundry, running back to the grocery store, getting a refund, picking up mail, paying bills, and taking all our Christmas stuff and my stuff from Dad's place out to our storage space, and hoisting ungodly boxes around to make everything fit. I got home and finished up the laundry and started cooking a new and somewhat challenging new Indian recipe for dinner. Talk about a burst of energy. After dinner, I did collapse on the couch for a bit and lose all that wildness, but then got back up and finished a buttload of dishes (which Tim was kind enough to start on) and am now ... relaxing.
So that last burst of energy left me in a weird space. Unsettled. Waiting. And my brain started cranking. And I thought, who knows ... had things worked out with the last pregnancy, had things progressed normally, if I was 9 months pregnant today instead of 4.5 months ... I might have indeed been nesting my brains out today. Getting ready to welcome a new life into our home. Scurrying around with ridiculous energy, trying to get things ready or just so ... so I could welcome that new baby.
I know it doesn't make sense - I know there's no metaphysical "reason" that I would "nest" today in connection with my lost baby - but when I finally stopped and sat myself down and thought - this recognition just kind of clicked into place.
It just somehow seemed very fitting.
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
1.15.2011
7.22.2010
ugh
I need to write something... and I don't know that it will come out in it's entirety tonight. (Part of the problem is that though "resolved" - it's not. It's still a work in progress.) In fact, I really don't think I will write much tonight. But I do need to write something.
A little over a week ago, I had what I thought was a routine NT ultrasound. I'd had one before I left on vacation (end of June), but the baby was just shy of the 11-wk mark, so they couldn't do the measurement. I came back after spending a glorious 2+ weeks with family and friends, jaunting around MI, OH, and WV. Showing off my pregnant belly. Feeling good. Little did I know that when I came back for this routine ultrasound, that it wouldn't be routine at all.
My midwife broke the news to me that the u/s showed that Tiny Baby had something they determined to be anencephaly. This basically means, "without brain." As in, a brain just hadn't developed. This is simply "not compatible with life" (a phrase we heard many times over the last week). I guess this is quite rare, and they never really can say why this happens, but it sometimes does. It just made no sense. And it still doesn't.
We spent almost every day in the following week with a different specialist or another doctor. Ultrasounds that used to bring joy and hopeful anticipation instead brought tears, convulsions and trauma. One specialist expanded on anencephaly, by adding the term "anacrania." This basically means "without skull." So this may be obvious to you ... and somewhere inside, it was to me as well ... but this further confirmed that there is no way our baby could live past birth. I could continue to carry the baby, and it would likely even continue to take nourishment and grow ... but there was no way it could ever have a chance to live on the outside.
I had just come into my second trimester, so, keep in mind... that leaves me 2/3 of the way to go. 6 months of well-meaning, "How are you feeling?"s and "How's the baby?" and "What are you having?" 6 months of watching what should like hope grow ... but knowing with dread that when it came to the point to give birth, I would instead be in total despair. Maybe a stronger person than me could tell all those well meaning questioners and go through a "birth" like that - but I can't. I couldn't.
So my options did not feel like options. I'm thankful for "choice" but it did not feel like I had a choice. You never hear stories like this in the pro-choice/pro-life debates. If I had a choice my baby would have developed nice and normal brains and skull. My baby would live. My choices? Suffer now (already doing it) and/or suffer later (sure I will continue to do this).
But I am not pregnant anymore. We didn't know the gender (too early), but I had inklings and dreams it was a girl, so we call her Clover. And that's all I can write tonight.
A little over a week ago, I had what I thought was a routine NT ultrasound. I'd had one before I left on vacation (end of June), but the baby was just shy of the 11-wk mark, so they couldn't do the measurement. I came back after spending a glorious 2+ weeks with family and friends, jaunting around MI, OH, and WV. Showing off my pregnant belly. Feeling good. Little did I know that when I came back for this routine ultrasound, that it wouldn't be routine at all.
My midwife broke the news to me that the u/s showed that Tiny Baby had something they determined to be anencephaly. This basically means, "without brain." As in, a brain just hadn't developed. This is simply "not compatible with life" (a phrase we heard many times over the last week). I guess this is quite rare, and they never really can say why this happens, but it sometimes does. It just made no sense. And it still doesn't.
We spent almost every day in the following week with a different specialist or another doctor. Ultrasounds that used to bring joy and hopeful anticipation instead brought tears, convulsions and trauma. One specialist expanded on anencephaly, by adding the term "anacrania." This basically means "without skull." So this may be obvious to you ... and somewhere inside, it was to me as well ... but this further confirmed that there is no way our baby could live past birth. I could continue to carry the baby, and it would likely even continue to take nourishment and grow ... but there was no way it could ever have a chance to live on the outside.
I had just come into my second trimester, so, keep in mind... that leaves me 2/3 of the way to go. 6 months of well-meaning, "How are you feeling?"s and "How's the baby?" and "What are you having?" 6 months of watching what should like hope grow ... but knowing with dread that when it came to the point to give birth, I would instead be in total despair. Maybe a stronger person than me could tell all those well meaning questioners and go through a "birth" like that - but I can't. I couldn't.
So my options did not feel like options. I'm thankful for "choice" but it did not feel like I had a choice. You never hear stories like this in the pro-choice/pro-life debates. If I had a choice my baby would have developed nice and normal brains and skull. My baby would live. My choices? Suffer now (already doing it) and/or suffer later (sure I will continue to do this).
But I am not pregnant anymore. We didn't know the gender (too early), but I had inklings and dreams it was a girl, so we call her Clover. And that's all I can write tonight.
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