October 15

October 15 is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Today we honor the babies we carried but never met, those we held but could not take home, and the ones who came home but couldn't stay.

To my friends, you and your angels are in my thoughts and prayers today, and everyday. I will be forever thankful to have walked this journey with you all by my side. ♥

 

(Stolen from a friend's facebook status, but I know I can't say it any better than she just did.)

 

Best picture ever

Last weekend we had Lucas's photo shoot, I will put the "normal" pictures up when they are all done. Our photographer was/is AMAZING, I cannot recommend her highly enough and her rates are crazy low.

Anyway, she got this picture for us (while Lucas was having a big breakdown but luckily you can't tell), which might be my personal favorite "family" picture ever.

October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant Loss remembrance, so this picture is perfect timing. Tomorrow (technically today since it is 1 am- I can't sleep- too many thoughts going on in my head) we will be at a Remembrance Walk for our daughter and all of the other babies that left much too soon. 

Freaking dots

A blogger that I follow just posted this quote addressing something that I used to believe in, but its harder/iffy now:

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." ~ Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

We had our lives so nicely planned out. Joe did the military thing while I worked on my degree and we waited to have kids until he was out. (Being a child bride, figured we had plenty of time for that. And I was adamantly against having/raising military brats- I admire the women who can do it but I was pretty much the Worst Military Wife Ever and knew adding kids to the mix at that time would have been a horrible idea.) He finally got out and I finished my degree and found a job, then a different "better" job that turned out to be Hell City. I got pregnant and nearly died and before we could even set up the baby crib, we picked out a casket for our daughter instead. I might not be Mother Teresa, but karma can suck it, because nothing I've done was That Bad for us to deserve losing our daughter, and there are some pretty crappy people who manage to have kids (Casey Anthony?). And I know some really really great people who lost babies too. So where is the karma in that?

But as bad as it was and is, it could have been a lot worse. Suppose, for instance, that I hadn't been adamantly anti-military-brats for us. (Joe actually wanted to start having kids almost immediately.) If I had gotten pregnant when we were overseas, and that pregnancy had turned out like it went with Olivia, I would have died too, there's no doubt in my mind about that. The military doctors where we were stationed were not very good (they are a big reason Joe's knee is considered permanently damaged now..it turns out that Motrin can not fix Everything.) There was not an American OB on the island. The off base hospital had very few English speakers, could not do c-sections or epidurals, probably did not have magnesium sulfate which prevented me from seizing, and if they had bothered to take me seriously at all and done bloodwork, it likely would have come back a week or two later. What happened to us was awful, but it could have been worse. I guess.

If we hadn't lost Olivia, I'd still be teaching and missing out on a lot of their babyhood with my hours and hours of grading and planning every night. I may have kept a friend or two who deserted me when I needed them most, but I wouldn't have met some of the great people who I have met who are and will be fantastic friends for many years to come. Would I trade my new friends and teaching to have her back? Absolutely. (Sorry.) But the what if game is not much fun and there are no trades, only what is.

What is, is that Olivia has brought so many great people and friends into our lives. What is, is that we have a beautiful little boy, losing Olivia has made it easier in some ways to parent him. So he woke up 10 times last night (true story), I snuggled with him on my chest in our recliner and marveled at how much of my body space he is taking up these days and am just so thankful that he is here and healthy. The little things like that, it is a little easier to appreciate and deal with some of the harder stuff, because nothing is harder than watching your baby die. What is, is that I have a new path that isn't teaching and I think I will be pretty good at it and I think that I will love it and I think that it will fit very well into our lives, allowing my to still have time at home with Lucas and also not having to drag work home.

So I don't really believe so much in karma anymore- crappy things happen to great people and horrible people get away with murder. But maybe the dots do connect after all, maybe not in the way we thought we should or would have liked them to, but maybe I am starting to trust that maybe one of the worst things to say to a bereaved parents, "things happen for a reason" has some hint of truth. Not that there is ever, will ever, be a reason good enough for Olivia to have died. BUT, if she had to die, at least I am at a place now where I can appreciate that her death, as horrible as it is and was, has brought some good changes and maybe pointed me to a better path than the one I was on.

Olivia's birthday

It's hard to find the words for yesterday. I started a few different blog posts and erased them, so maybe we'll try pictures instead.

It was a beautiful day. Just like last year. I bought the same happy birthday butterfly balloon and the same heart balloon as last year (but this year decided to write on it), and this year added a pink flower balloon. One for each of us.

 And Lucas was dressed for the occasion but totally uncooperative for pictures, he was fascinated by grass.

Actually, Lucas is a mellow happy baby most of the time overall but yesterday he was especially cooperative (with the exception of pictures and then at bedtime he'd fall asleep for 5 minutes, wake up when I put him in bed, and then was wide awake chattering away like it was the middle of the day. Finally I put him on the floor to play and let him wear himself out.) I was concerned about trying not to cry in front of him much since he's not quite as oblivious now, that was a failure, but luckily he didn't seem concerned about it.

 

 We left flowers, and broke the rules again this year and left a little doll and winnie the pooh figurine (last year they let the stuff we left stay for almost a year- technically since its a national cemetery "stuff" is against the rules but they tend to let it slide if it is subtle and plus Olivia's grave faces away from the street).

Then we released the balloons (Lucas participated)

I had my eye out for butterflies, but there weren't any. No animals or insects of any kind, but strangely enough, right after the balloons were out of sight, a big orange butterfly flew quickly across the street, past us, and was gone...too quick for me to get a picture and even Joe nearly missed it because it came and went so quickly. If I hadn't been looking around, I would have missed it too.

Then we stopped by the angel/park on the way home (this is where we will be back next week for Lucas's early 6 month pictures- fingers crossed the weather cooperates)

 The angel always accumulates lots of stuff.

We added a baby doll and teddy bear and another winnie the pooh figure to the collection.

And a flower to Olivia's brick,

More uncooperative baby pictures (but at least he's smiling).

I had to go to the bathroom and when I walked back up to Joe and Lucas, this butterfly practically flew into me. (It looks a lot like the same butterfly at the cemetery but I'm sure it isn't since they are 20ish miles apart.)

Then we came home and ate cupcakes. They had sprinkles and tinkerbell on them.  Joe and I went through her memory box and cried a lot more while Lucas played and laughed at us.

It was a nice day, for what it was. We received so many nice messages and texts and emails, and even an incredibly nice and unexpected card. That definitely made the hard day a little easier. But it was definitely still sad and hard and draining. It also definitely helped to have Lucas to squeeze a little extra tightly, poor kid. Although I think being pregnant with him for Olivia's first birthday forced me to keep it together a bit more and this year I tried but really couldn't.

Happy birthday, baby girl.

September 28, 2011

Two years ago today about this time I was getting an ultrasound on my lungs and liver and probably other stuff in the hospital. The tech kept looking at something in particular and then even went and got another tech to help her. I was almost relieved that it seemed like they had found something wrong to explain my pain. When we were brought back to the hospital room, I naively said to Joe, "I'm just afraid that they aren't going to find anything wrong and send me home like I'm imagining this..." (I always morbidly wonder what exactly would have happened if they had sent me home. My OB said I would have likely started seizing by the next day and gone into liver failure within a day or so as well. Olivia was already in distress with low fluid levels by around 4 pm that day, so I don't think she would have lived much longer inside me. They didn't think she'd survive long enough for an induction.)

A nurse came in and asked if I wanted pain meds and I said no. Soon after that, my OB's (now ex) partner came in and checked me over, asked about where it hurt and that dumb rating scale they use. The nurse told her how I had turned down pain meds, the tone in her voice suggesting that "she can't be in that much pain if she doesn't want drugs"...that was when I spoke up that the reason I didn't want pain meds was that I would rather tough it out until I passed out from it than take something that might effect the baby. I think Joe must have been on his way home to let out the dogs by then because he probably would have been even more irritated about that than I was. Someone came in and did more bloodwork and they were waiting for the radiologist's report. I begged for food and they finally agreed to give me freaking broth, which was disgusting, but I was starving. They didn't want to let me eat anything real until they knew what was wrong in case I needed surgery. We'd been there since 3 am or so and it was now about noon.

The Really Bad News came from a phone call around 2:30ish. I was watching General Hospital (It just so happens that Olivia and Lucas/Lucky are both characters there. We didn't do it intentionally really, and if we have another girl someday, the names that I really like aren't any characters yet.) And texting my friend on my cell phone about how they were trying to starve me and asking her to google pain meds and pregnancy because by that point I was pretty stinking miserable between my hunger and the pain and also sleep deprivation and not to mention I had no idea that I was never going back to Hell City again so I was still stressed out about what the little darlings were doing to my sub and the lesson plan for the next day. I think I called them sometime that afternoon before I found out the bad news and told them that I'd been admitted and still was there and probably wouldn't be in to work Tuesday either and just have them do whatever.

Anyway, my OB was on the phone (note: when my OB calls me herself, it's almost ALWAYS bad news. The only time she called me herself my entire pregnancy with Lucas was to tell me the amnio came back mature which I already knew from my nurse at the perinatal center, and after I had called her when my water broke. She called me twice in my brief pregnancy with Olivia- when my quad screen test results came back bad, and that day in the hospital.) She said my lab work came back really bad, that she wanted me to be transferred to another hospital and stay on bedrest there as long as we could, but we'd probably be delivering in a week or so. And there was a high risk doctor coming to see me and talk to me more. He came and suddenly waiting a week to deliver was no longer an option. (I found out later my OB called around a few more MFM's to get other opinions and try to find something, anything, to buy us a little more time. But they all agreed and said there was nothing.)

Everything was a whirlwind from there although not really. The last ultrasound. Going back to my hospital room after the ultrasound. The nurse asking what happened and crying with us. The ambulance to the next hospital. Talking to my OB at the new hospital. Getting prepped. And then surgery. Then she was born. And died. 2 miserable days in recovery on mag sulfate with our dead baby in the room because Joe wouldn't let them take her away and wouldn't let anyone set her in the little basket/cradle they brought her in. (That's still heartbreaking even in retrospect.) Finally, thank god for Heartprints Maggie who coaxed Joe into letting them take the baby for a little while with the promise they'd bring her back whenever we wanted. We were in bad shape. Finally the mag was stopped and I was brought to a new room away from L&D (but ironically ended up there with Lucas-thankfully not in the same room- b/c the hospital was so overfull with mom's and babies that they had to use 2 floors.) A few days later it was suddenly October, and we left without our baby, with a bag full of Olivia's "stuff", a scrapbook, some little books and stuff.

And here we are now, two years later.  Still missing her as much as ever. I made the mistake this year of trying to think of this day as little as possible. It's been quite a long while since I had a good hard cry. Heartprints Maggie says grief is like a cup that builds up overtime until you empty it or it overflows...and it is overflowing for me today. I don't remember last year being this hard, not that it was easy. This may be a multiple post day.

Oh Olivia, I wish you could have stayed.

That Question

Today my friend Jackie and I met for lunch at McAlisters with our rainbow boys (who are getting to be fairly high maintenance now that they don't just sleep through our meal like they used to, but they were still both pretty good.)

This older lady came by to bring us our food and touched baby Zackary's head which totally would have earned her a dirty look from me if it had been Lucas but Jackie is not as spazzy about that stuff as me- and I always try to keep Lucas strategically away from strangers as much as possible.Anyway, so she asks if the boys are related (at least she didn't ask if they were twins), how close they are in age, the usual stuff...and then came That Question.

"So are these your firsts?"

I pretty much froze and stared at Jackie who gave a strained "mmhmm" as she met my eyes. The lady babbled on for a second or two longer and then left us.

I gave myself permission to answer however I need to in the moment and my answer is totally different every time. There are times I've said no and made the person keep prying for details, I've said yes (I look at it as although he's not our first child, he's the first that we are getting to raise-which is sorta what the person is really asking I think), there are times I've said " no-our-first-baby-died" in all one breath. No matter how I answer, I usually end up feeling pretty crappy about it.

This was the first time we were asked together. And it would have really freaked the lady out, probably. And I will always hate that question.

It has almost been two years since Olivia came and left.  The day after we lost her some idiotic chipper young resident came into my hospital room and apparently missed the heartprints sign taped to the door which is the head's up for them to know that the baby died. I asked her how many days I had to stay and she assumed since I was in a recovery room (for the extremely close monitoring because of the meds I was on and my still wonky labs) that my c-section was that day and gave us a totally wrong answer. Then she asked me brightly, "how is your baby doing?" I answered flatly, "dead". She did the gasp of surprise "oh I'm so sorry blah blah" routine that I've become used to now. Joe, ever the protector, had a (probably not very nice) little talk in the hallway with her and the poor nurse who was standing there shocked. His intention was good and that made for an easy target to vent some anger at the entire crappy situation, but really, that was just the start of That Question. Here we are, nearly two years later, blessed with a beautiful, healthy, happy baby boy, and STILL that question comes up. I guess it will probably haunt us forever, "That Question". It isn't so much that it makes us think about Olivia, we are always thinking of her. It's that it always smacks you in the face randomly, usually when I'm least expecting it, and there never is a good answer.

Stories of hope and perseverance

I started following Courtney's blog about the time she became pregnant with her rainbow baby after losing twin boys due to pre-e/HELLP around 22ish weeks if I remember correctly.  And I was so excited when she passed the 22 week milestone with no sign of trouble. And then disaster struck, and baby Wyatt was born much too soon at 23 weeks and passed away. (This was about the time we were struggling to get pregnant.) As if that wasn't enough for one couple to deal with, they also suffered from infertility and needed IVF/donor eggs from her sister to conceive. After they lost Wyatt, they had to go through another full IVF cycle which resulted in a chemical pregnancy. At long last, Courtney and Jason welcomed their fourth baby boy, Carter Evan a few days ago at 38 weeks. No pre-eclampsia or HELLP or anything else went wrong. I'm always very excited to hear about a rainbow baby being born, but there are no words to describe how happy I am for them.

Another blog that is incredibly inspiring and also heartbreaking is another Courtney at EB'ing a Mommy. Courtney's son Tripp was born with a rare and incredibly painful skin disorder called EB (which stands for something else). It basically causes his skin to blister whenever it is touched, so his body has to be wrapped up to protect him and things like baths and teething are extremely difficult. Tripp was not expected to live beyond his first year, but he is now two. If you are the praying type, Courtney and Tripp could surely use them.

That is all for today.