Five Years.

Somehow it's been five years since you've come and gone, Caleb, but your birth (and death) remains one of the pivotal moments of my life. You were important to me. You are important to me. I miss you, little boy. I will always always always have a part of me that wonders "what if....".

Five years. Damn.

Four Year Anniversary

Four fricking years. My god.

I remember him. His loss colors so much of my world. I'm so happy where I'm at now, but I often wonder - would I be even happier? Is it possible to miss him more than anything and wish it hadn't happened, since if it hadn't, chance are I wouldn't have my two rainbow girls? I wouldn't take them back for the world, but I would also give the world to have him back. I just want all three of my babies together. I want the girls to have their big brother. I want to have my little boy. 

It's not a fresh pain. It's not an open wound. It's a rarely seen scar. It's a lingering thought, a shadow out of the corner of my eye, an unexpected reminder when I least expect it. 

Sometimes I find it so hard to believe that this happened to me and that it's my life that played out in the pages of this blog; that it's me who has a little wooden box in the closet that contains all of a life not lived. 

That's all. 

How Do I Lose Thee?

I just read a fantastic piece over at "Hang Your Hopes from Trees." Even after two rainbow babies, it still resonates.

Just a snippet is below - I highly recommend going over for the full post.

How Do I Lose Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

"When we ‘lose the baby’, what do we really lose?

We lose hope. Hope for the future, for a child in our arms.

We lose plans. Plans for a life, for a family, for happiness.

We lose faith. As our bodies seems to fail us, we lose the most faith in ourselves.

We lose security. We lose a sense of trust that things will be okay. That blissful ignorance that it won’t happen to me. We lose innocence. What happens if we try again? We risk losing a connection, a happiness, excitement. We risk losing all these things we deserve..."

(source: http://hangyourhopesfromtrees.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/how-do-i-lose-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/)

Just Those Few Weeks

I can't remember where I first came across this poem, but it's so beautifully reflective of everything that is felt after a loss - even for a very early loss. 

______________________________________

For just those few weeks
I had you to myself.
And that seems too short a time
to be changed so profoundly.
In those few weeks,
I came to know you...
and to love you.
You came to trust me with your life.
Oh what a life I had planned for you!
Just those few weeks...
when I lost you,
I lost a lifetime of hopes,
plans, dreams and aspirations.
A slice of my future simply vanished overnight.
Just those few weeks...
It wasn't enough time to convince others
how special and important you were.
How odd, a truly unique person has recently died
and no one is mourning the passing. (But me.)
Just a mere few weeks...
And no "normal" person would cry all night
Over a tiny unfinished baby,
No one would, so why am I?? (You would too.)
You were just those few weeks, my little one.
You darted in and out of my life too quickly.
But it seems that's all the time you needed
to make my life richer
and to give me a small glimpse of eternity.
~S. Erling

Can you see us? (A Poem)

A very dear and very brilliant woman I know lost her little boy at around the same gestational age as I lost Caleb. She wrote an incredible poem about it that brought memories just flooding back, and I wanted to share it (with her permission) with anyone reading this.

Can you see us?
(link to original post)
By Vanessa at Navigating Through Silence

Can you see me
Curled up in a fetal position
Sobbing
uncontrollable guttural cries
that come from so deep within
few of us know such crevices even exist.

When we saw you
When we spied on you
thanks to the technology that liberated and confined all of us
us - our family
We learned you loved that position

We watched you punch and kick
when the tech tried to unfurl you
from the fetal position
that you knew so well
but you refused
we called you stubborn, like your dad.

We saw you
But you never saw us.

Can you see us now?
See the people who made you from love
Who created the little you
and loved you from the moment
you presented yourself
as a mere hormone
via a pink line

We made you
and we love you
unconditionally.

Can you see our pain?
How we ache everyday that you are no longer here
that every where there are reminders of the you
even though you no longer exist
outside of your hearts, our minds,
our souls.

You were a piece of us.
The first true piece of us.
An amalgamation of your mother and father
our strengths
our weaknesses
our faults
our visions
And we couldn't wait to watch them transform
into you.

Can you hear us now?
I used to hear your heart beat.
Every morning and every night.
Your father could hear it.
But sometimes you preferred when it was just me.
Our special moment
my spying on you
You with little space to retreat.
It was truly the most beautiful sound
Such a strong sound,
the doctors said,
as they assured me you were right where you should be.

Could you hear us before you left?
Could you hear our voices?
If so I hope you heard our laughs
Our giggles
Our joy
The sound of my heartbeat,
did it lull you to sleep?
Would you recognize it,
if you heard it now?

If you can see us,
and you can hear us,
you hold a precious, precious gift,
and I wish it was through a two way lens
So that we could see you
and know
that you made it alright
That there's no pain anymore
That there's peace where are you are
and that you've come to call it home.

I feel so hollow without you.
But if you can see me,
and you can hear me,
I know that you can also feel me.

When you feel me
You know that without you
Such a vital piece of me is gone.
Which is why you hear the guttural sobs
and see the constant embraces between your father and I
that leave me weak in the knees
is because I can no longer feel you.

The next time you look at us,
The next time you touch us,
I hope to feel the warmth of your little hands radiate from within
telling me
that you will always
see us
hear us
and fill me with your warmth.

Questions??

I blog much more often on my baby blog, but I understand that might be difficult to visit if you're fresh (or not so fresh) off a loss of your own. Trust me, I've been there. I know the sadness, the jealousy, the anger, the frustration....all of it is normal.

If you have ANY questions about the TAC or anything else, please feel free to email me at the following:

largirl (at) gmail (dot) c0m

Three Years

Three years on, it doesn't hurt as much - it even takes me a moment to realize what day it is. Three years on, that makes me feel like a terrible mother.  Three years on, it feels like a dream and I have to read my own words to remember everything. Three years on, that makes me feel like a terrible mother. Three years on, I still have random moments of sadness, when I see a little boy that is the age Caleb should be, or when I see a cute outfit for a baby boy (though he'd be long out of baby clothes by now). Three years on, that reassures me that I haven't forgotten him and haven't moved on without him - but that life did go on...no matter how much I didn't want it to three years ago.

Two Years

I keep thinking this is the one year anniversary, but no, sure enough, two years have gone by. It doesn't matter; I can remember it all with the slightest provocation.  I wonder what you would have been doing now. Two years old. A toddler, for sure. Dark hair like mine? Light like your dad? Brown eyes? Blue? It pains me that I'll never know. You'd be talking a mile a minute, I'm sure. Running. Playing. A sturdy little toddler boy. A sweet kid, no question.

I wish with all my heart this would have had a different outcome.

Love you, little one.

Remembering

I was just reading a post on the blog written by one of my (too many) loss buddies. She, too, lost a son and now has a beautiful daughter at home.  Her second pregnancy was a much more difficult journey than mine, but reading her blog today about pPROM just brought memories flooding back.

It made me remember the bleeding, my water breaking (twice), the emergency room, the option to terminate the pregnancy given by one doctor, the tiny bit of hope by another, the optimism I felt at home (of course it would be okay!), the confidence I felt while doing research and doing every single thing right during those days of bedrest, and then the horrible, horrible, horrible feeling of realizing I was going into labor.  I remember my family being around me when I started to feel off, I remember going to rest in my bedroom, I remember Chris checking on me, I remember hoping hoping hoping praying hoping it was just gas. I remember realizing that I could time the pains. And that we needed to go into the hospital. And being on the maternity ward with my comparatively small belly. And god, just everything from that awful night. It was awful. I was lucky that he was born alive and I got to "meet" him, but that doesn't mitigate the fact that I have those terrible memories burned into my mind.  I left the hospital less than 24 hours later, with Chris but alone. I still have some flowers that people sent that I dried. A couple plants sit in my kitchen. A box crammed full of cards and 20 weeks of memories sits in my basement. A music box engraved with his name is in Carys's room.  Baby boys still make my heart hurt.

I was feeling terribly guilty about that; that I still hurt at announcements that people are having boys. Carys is my world. I wouldn't trade her for anything. But that doesn't mean that I stopped wondering what could have been or about the little boy who would have been her big brother.

Friends in High Places

You know what's a stinking miracle?

That my future baby's life might be saved because of the internet.  And that's literally.  No exaggeration.

If you remember, it was only after Trisha had her talk with Dr. Haney that I even started looking into incompetent cervix as a cause. I was quite certain it wasn't going to be that. Hell, I was positive.

So when first Dr. Haney, then my local MFM, then a third doctor at UCLA all confirmed that IC was very likely the cause of my loss, I was floored. And mad at the health care system. How could my very competent OB continue to call it a fluke?  After my last appointment with her, I was...well, not confident in my treatment plan for next time, but comfortable that there really wasn't anything else to do.   And I was so wrong.

If it wasn't for Trisha, I never would have even considered that IC could have been the cause of Caleb's death. If it wasn't for Trisha, I never would have found Dr. Haney. If it wasn't for Trisha, I wouldn't have my TAC right now.

Isn't that insane? It blows my mind.  And I know at least two people who have gotten TACs because of this blog, so the *literal* circle of life (living babies!!!!!!!!) continues.

One Year

It's frankly impossible to believe that one year ago today I delivered Caleb. Impossible in every way - how did I survive a full year after my baby died? How has it been that long? How hasn't it already been a lifetime?

Happy birthday, tiny man. I miss you.

Offical records

Caleb's birth certificate came today. I finally was ready to get a copy of it, plus we needed it for taxes, so it was good timing.

It was a bit startling, because there's a giant "deceased" stamp across it. I guess I didn't realize they did that. But I'm so glad to have it and that it exists, period. I know not every state issues birth certificates to babies born at Caleb's gestational age, but here in Nebraska, a baby born with a heartbeat is considered a live birth and gets one. It's such a relief to know that there's an official, real record of his short time on earth - that in 100 years if someone is looking up the history of our family, his name will be right there. Proof positive. He wasn't just a figment of my imagination, though sometimes it feels like it was all a dream.

I had to laugh, though, because they spelled my middle name wrong. Whoops. It'd be a funny story to share with him when he got older if he was around to do so.  ::sniff::

Blame Game

Last year, on April 5, I was 18 weeks and 3 days pregnant.  Late that night, I felt a sensation like a water balloon popping and a gush of blood. I was sure my water had broken. First thing in the morning, I went to the midwife's office. The baby's heart was beating away, loud and clear.  She gave me a fern test, which tests for amniotic fluid. It came back negative. My big anatomy ultrasound was scheduled for 20 weeks exactly; she decided to move it up a week - three days from then.

Two days later, my water broke for sure. This time it was clear, and I immediately went to the ER.

Five days after that, Caleb was born.

I'd had very minor spotting at the beginning of the pregnancy, but around 15 or 16 weeks it picked up, and there was bleeding to some degree nearly every day.  I learned later that bleeding like that can be a very typical symptom of cervical changes. I also learned later that the fern test isn't accurate when accompanied by blood and the blood can obscure the amniotic fluid, giving a false negative.

I question everything.  I blame myself, but I trusted my caregivers. I thought they would take care of me and my baby.

Why didn't the midwife tell me, after I'd gone in several times for bleeding, that I wasn't a candidate for midwifery care anymore?  Why didn't I get an ultrasound to look for the source of that bleeding? Why didn't she know that the presence of blood could give a false negative on a ferning test? Why didn't she order an ultrasound immediately upon my coming in with the concern that my water had broken?  In retrospect, waiting three days was completely insane. But I trusted her when she said everything was okay.  Why didn't she consult with one of the doctors at that point?  The midwife practice I was seeing was in a hospital, and shared office space, staff, and the L&D area with both the regular OBs and the high-risk doctors. Why didn't I insist on a second opinion??

I'm convinced that my water broke that first time, and that it broke a second time two days later (the bag can reseal, temporarily or permanently, after breaking). 

If I'd gotten an ultrasound at 15 weeks when I started bleeding, would they have discovered that my cervix was shortening?  Would I have gotten a cerclage at that point? Would that have saved Caleb?

If she'd used ultrasound to check on my fluid levels instead of using a ferning test, would she have discovered that my water had broken 48 hours before it broke "for real"? Would I have been admitted to the hospital at that point, given antibiotics earlier, gone on bedrest earlier?  Would the bag of waters resealed and stayed resealed?  Would that have saved Caleb?

We'll never know if different care would have changed the outcome.  Maybe it would have been the same and he would have died no matter what we did.  But maybe he would have had a chance if I'd been more knowledgeable; if she'd have been more aggressive.

I still believe in the standard of care that most midwives provide for low-risk, uncomplicated pregnancies and births.  I do believe that when I started bleeding at 15 weeks, the midwife should have bowed out of my care.  I do believe that when I was sure my water broke at 18 weeks, she should have bowed out of my care.  I don't blame midwives in general.  I'm not even sure I blame her specifically. I should have spoken up. I should have insisted on an ultrasound. I should have asked for a second opinion. I didn't.  At the least, we share blame. At the most, as his mother, the blame falls on me for not protecting him.

The what-ifs in do nothing but frustrate and sadden me, so I try not to think about them too much.

But please. Be an advocate for yourself and your baby. If something doesn't feel right or you don't feel like the care you are receiving is enough, speak up. Your baby's life may depend on it.

Linky Link

On my other blog is a post about how the second time around does not lessen the pain of your loss, and how people's reactions can be difficult to understand. 


Emotional Limbo

And time goes on. And so does procreating, apparently.

As some of you guessed, the reason I stopped blogging over here so often was because I'm pregnant again. We're due July 11 and I'll be 13 weeks on Monday.  I didn't post anything here because there are family and friends who read this blog, and I wasn't out yet. Well, as much as I'd like to keep it completely secret from EVERYONE until I'm actually given a real, live baby to take home, we made the announcement to family and friends over Christmas and New Year's.  I also didn't post because when I was deep in the throes of grief, it seemed like every time I found a new loss blog to follow and fall in love with, the writer found out she was pregnant. Which was great for her, but holy shit painful for me.  I was SO not there yet...so there were a lot of blogs that I followed and then immediately unfollowed.  Well, now I'm one of those writers. I won't be writing about my new pregnancy on this blog - this is Caleb's blog - but if you are so inclined you can follow the progress of this little one at Baby H, Take Two.  Some day I might make a new blog and combine them all into one epic site, but...well, let's be real. I won't. Far too lazy for that.

Anyway, I hope that I haven't caused anyone too much pain by posting this, and maybe (just maybe) even provided someone suffering a loss a little bit of hope.  This will be the only post about a current pregnancy here, I promise.

Fingers crossed our 2011 baby has a better outcome than our 2010 did.

Life is like a Blackboard

I was reading one of the many, many baby loss blogs I follow, Awful But Functioning. In a recent post she mentioned that several years ago, she'd written a post about political candidates that had lost children. And Elizabeth Edwards responded with a very, very beautiful analogy that was so eloquent and TRUE that I wanted to share it here. Even though it's three years old I just saw it for the first time.


I have often described the death of a child in this way: in life we have a blackboard on which we write all the things we are doing -- our jobs, coaching soccer, working at Goodwill, going to basketball games, whatever. And the board is full, so when the next thing comes along, we find a corner or the board to add a computer class or a space between other things for book club or sewing Halloween costumes. It is full and lively and seemingly all important.

And then your child dies, and all the things that were so important that you worked to squeeze them in? Well, they are all erased. And you are left with an empty blackboard. Everything you thought was important was not. And the next time you write something on the board, you are very, very careful about what it is. Your choices about what to do and how to do it are so much more deliberate. Doing something that is so patently important as public service -- whatever your politics -- well, that seems like an easy call. That is worth some of the space. And putting something on the board, well, it allows you -- in your words -- to function another day. And each day that you find something else worthy of the board makes it a little easier to put one foot in front of the other. And each day you functioned the day before makes it easier to function again. Are there still bad moments, even bad days nearly twelve years later? Sadly, there are. But they are not as frequent and they don't happen in that same emptiness you feel today. Now when they happen, we can turn to something that we have written, something worthy of our time, of his parents' time and we can function through that pain. As you will -- not without [your child], but with [your child]* not as a living, breathing daughter [or son] but as an inspiration and a helper to decide what is worthy of your blackboard. 

How beautiful and so spot on is that?

*Tash, I hope you don't mind that I changed this...I wasn't sure if you'd want your daughter's name out on someone else's blog, and I thought it was such a beautiful sentiment that I wanted anyone to be able to see their child's name there. Let me know if it's not ok!

Christmas

Christmas was hard, knowing that we should have had a cute three-month-old in red and white striped footie pajamas being passed around and spoiled with "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments and toys well  beyond his age ability.  Instead, almost no one mentioned him.  Thank god for my mom, who *did* remember and gave us an ornament...but instead of "Baby's First Christmas" it said "Our baby angel".

So not fair. Babies should not die.

Taking a break

I will be back soon! I'm slammed at work and in my 2nd job as a photographer and need to catch the heck up! I'm also in a pretty good place mentally. I have one friend who had her baby a couple months ago and one preparing to deliver, and while I'm obviously insanely jealous, I'm also happy for them. I miss Caleb and think about where I should be at in my life every day, but...it's not as soul-sucking as it was. I just don't have a lot to post about right now.  That might change tomorrow and I need an outlet again, but for today: nothing.

So for anyone who is just starting this journey: it does get easier. It won't go away - I can't imagine it ever will, but it does get easier.

Please

Sometimes I am overwhelmed with fear that this will happen again.  I think anyone who has suffered miscarriage or pregnancy loss or infant loss goes through the same emotions. It's occasionally enough to make me not want to try again. To just give up.  But what if? What if it doesn't happen again? And what if I missed out on beautiful, wonderful children because I was scared?

But.

But what if it does? Would I be okay? Would Chris be okay? What would we do? My heart shattered on April 12 and it doesn't quite fit back together the way it did before. If it broke into a million pieces again, would I be able to put the shards back together this time?

Does that thought ever go away? I hate that I can't take comfort in the things most women do.  I just want to be naive again. I heard the heartbeat. I made it into the second trimester. I was days away from being halfway through the pregnancy. If I get pregnant again, will there come a day when I'm able to relax and consider the possibility of bringing an actual baby home with me, and not just a box of memories?  At this point I can't imagine it.

The Ship

I am standing upon the seashore.

A ship at my side spreads her white sails in the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, "There she goes!”
Gone where? Gone from my sight…that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There she goes!,” there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”

- Henry Jackson van Dyke (1852-1933)