I heard a friend who lost her husband say shortly after that her life was "moment by moment." I think right now I feel like that a little but perhaps emotion by emotion or thought by thought? Let me explain...
On Friday I went to the farmers market and saw a little jacket for a baby boy. I wanted to buy it and had it been a year ago I would have. But now I don't want to buy anything before this baby is born because what am I going to do with it if he does not make it? I have a whole bunch of baby boy clothes in a dresser that were never put away. Those drawers stay closed. I am not sure how its going to feel to put them on this baby when they were bought for someone else... It is so weird. I know that baby Steve never wore them but they were bought or collected with him in mind.
I just spent the weekend getting IV fluid in the hospital maternity unit because I had a really bad flu and lost a lot of fluid. The doctors were concerned that I might go into preterm labour. My emotional energy has been so focused on this new baby for the past three days and the hope and promise of him - I had a bed side ultrasound, they checked his heart beat every shift change and I could hear people talking excitedly in the hallways on their way to see new babes. So much happiness and so hopeful. But then I got home and received a call that our baby's headstone came today. It is on the ground next to his grave. I am
going to see it with his daddy after he gets home from work.
One moment up, one down. My emotional energy is split three ways. Anne, Baby Steve, new baby... a repeating mantra that goes around and around.
Baby Steve is so present in my thoughts right now also because his anniversary is coming closer and closer. It feels contradictory to be focused on a dead baby when I have a living one growing inside and a two year old charging around soaking up the world as fast as she can.
My therapist said that when we lose someone it is almost like they become frozen in time. And that time is gone. Life and time moves forward at a breathtaking rate and those grieving have to figure out a way to catch up and rebuild a new path to travel until life ends and we get to go home.
I think I felt my dead baby say to me in a moment of extreme grief, "Time will pass, your mission will end and when you come home we will all be there to greet you."
Thursday, 31 May 2012
Thursday, 24 May 2012
numb
Today is 23 weeks and 2 days.
I spoke with the monument place today and they said that my son's headstone would be ready for installation on May 29. I saw my therapist yesterday. She encouraged me to have a plan for the year anniversary of baby Steve (June 21). Is it bad that I don't want to think about that? I don't want to plan for it? It feels almost like if I think too much about my dead baby that my growing unborn baby will share the same fate. Death is so hard to think about when it is not staring you in the face all the time. Is it bad that I am trying to avoid it? I am putting all my hopes and positive energy into trying to get this new baby here - alive. But at the same time I don't allow myself to think beyond Sept 5 - his induction date. Because if he does not make it and I have not allowed my hopes to get too high maybe the grief wont be so hard this time around?
I wish that I could go back to being ignorant and blissfully happily pregnant where my biggest worry was if our house was going to sell before the baby came.
I spoke with the monument place today and they said that my son's headstone would be ready for installation on May 29. I saw my therapist yesterday. She encouraged me to have a plan for the year anniversary of baby Steve (June 21). Is it bad that I don't want to think about that? I don't want to plan for it? It feels almost like if I think too much about my dead baby that my growing unborn baby will share the same fate. Death is so hard to think about when it is not staring you in the face all the time. Is it bad that I am trying to avoid it? I am putting all my hopes and positive energy into trying to get this new baby here - alive. But at the same time I don't allow myself to think beyond Sept 5 - his induction date. Because if he does not make it and I have not allowed my hopes to get too high maybe the grief wont be so hard this time around?
I wish that I could go back to being ignorant and blissfully happily pregnant where my biggest worry was if our house was going to sell before the baby came.
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
I suppose I will share on my own terms as a few people have figured out my baby's gender. It is a boy.
So as you may or may not be able to imagine that hurts a little. I am happy for another opportunity to raise a boy but I am nervous because I do not want myself or others to think that he will be a replacement or that everything has "worked out."
One child can NEVER replace another.
That is all I have to say on this subject. I don't really want people to try and discuss this any further with me right now. Please don't come up to me and say "i heard blah blah and how are you feeling about that."
Thanks for respecting my pain.
So as you may or may not be able to imagine that hurts a little. I am happy for another opportunity to raise a boy but I am nervous because I do not want myself or others to think that he will be a replacement or that everything has "worked out."
One child can NEVER replace another.
That is all I have to say on this subject. I don't really want people to try and discuss this any further with me right now. Please don't come up to me and say "i heard blah blah and how are you feeling about that."
Thanks for respecting my pain.
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