The Parent After The Loss
TRIGGER - Sensitive post about grief, anger, rainbow pregnancy, loss, breastfeeding, etc.
You see me going on and on all the time about "Pregnancy After Loss" and even before, "TTC After Loss"...but so far, I've not touched on Parenting After Loss. This is a whole new ballgame. I assume that I can tell you to expect many entries regarding parenting after a loss, because that is my life now, among other things, but I have already experienced things, even though Isaac is only 6 weeks old, that I know someone else out there has to relate to.
In the early days of my grief, my relationship with my living son struggled. He shied away from me. When I was in the bedroom with the lights off and the TV on something for background noise, hidden away under the covers with my eyes swollen out of my head from crying so hard, tear stained shirt, pillow, sheets, face...with my head under the blanket hoping that I would soon suffocate myself and join my newest child that I just lost...our relationship suffered. He didn't understand THIS type of Mommy. Mommy didn't cry, Mommy didn't get emotional, Mommy didn't hide from things, Mommy always had something to say...but this Mommy, no THIS Mommy, she didn't. She couldn't catch her breath to speak. She couldn't see between her swollen eyelids to notice what was going on. She couldn't be thankful for what she had because what she lost was so great. He would only hug and kiss me upon command by Tommy or other family. He wouldn't come curl up with me and let me cry on him. He was afraid, of whatever demons I was fighting, the grief demon, I guess...he could see it ( I often know and see young children are most sensitive to things that we cannot see ) lashing at me, like the waves of the ocean on the once strong, but now fragile shores of an island during the biggest hurricane it would ever endure. Hurricane Emma... I was a strong, sturdy piece of land. But now I was broken. My shore was crumbling, my trees were bending, my structures were failing beneath the wind and water, and my ever sturdy lighthouse...the waves were bashing its base, it was crumbling, leaning into the wind...it would soon fall over and crash into the ocean. Everything was being consumed by Hurricane Emma. There would be nothing left by the time she was done. I was a only dingy in the middle of the ocean with no anchor. I had long since lost my anchor in the violence of the waves, it was at the bottom of the ocean somewhere, if I could just find it.
Fast forward a few weeks, when I went completely and totally numb. I can review my posts during this time of the year, a mere 2 months after she passed in 2014, and it would seem as if I had never had anything happen, to hear my timeline tell it. I was making rash decisions, smoking cigarettes, and not really giving a whole lot of a shit what I was doing, aside from trying and failing to get pregnant week by week. I was NOT being easy on myself. I was not treating myself right. Once I decided in late September, on my birthday actually, that I was ready to re-enter the world of social media, that was the peak of my numbness. That numbness didn't go away for a long time. I leaned on my husband and my son, my mom, mother in law, and my 3 best friends Jessi, Becca, and Paula. Those were the people that held me together. Those were the people who checked on me, who made sure I hadn't killed myself day to day. The ever present. There were a few people outside of that group that checked up on me and that were a staple in my grief as well but not like these few. I started meeting people online that had been through the same thing and we were brought into a close knit group together. I had no idea just how much those people helped me rebuild, either. Not until way later.
I grieve Emma daily. But past the first two weeks or so, I went comfortably numb. The people stopped visiting, calling, checking...the flowers and gifts stopped rolling in. Tommy went back to work. It was just me, alone with Shade at home, who was 90% self-sustaining in that unless it was needing to use the bathroom or needing food prepared, he didn't need me. Nobody needed me. Emma sure didn't need me. After those first couple weeks, my thoughts ate me alive. I don't know how there was anything left. I wouldn't let Shade go anywhere, without me... and I spent the majority of the time trying to make him NEED me more. I am sure that I aggravated him to his wits end. I had good intentions. I felt the need to be needed. My postpartum body didn't understand why nobody needed me. My brain was lost. My heart was shattered. And I couldn't make myself understand. I used a lot of money buying things for myself, for Shade, for Emma. Pouring material things into my life attempting to fill the void. Pouring myself into getting pregnant, learning, researching, purchasing fertility aids that I probably didn't need...teaching myself everything there is to know about the reproductive system and how it worked and how to get pregnant the fastest. Ask me...I can tell you pretty much anything you need to know. I've been a hand in getting several people pregnant that were unable to before. HA..no joke. Without laying a hand on them of course.
Fast forward again. January 29th, 2015. I found out I was pregnant again. That line that I had stared at for hours...was it really there? Was it pink? Was it an indent, a dye run, did I wait too long to look at it? I sent pictures and cranked up the resolution and the contrast and inverted the colors and everything... I sent it to Michelle, to Jessi, to Becca, to Tommy...they could all see it. Was it real?? Amanda pestered me at work long enough til I held my pee for 4 hours and we went to the clinic and got a test, and we stood in the bathroom at work, and she said "I told you! See, there it is. Do you see it?" and as I stood there crossing my eyes to see it, there it was. That faint little pink line on that cheap clinic test. That's when it hit me. I WAS PREGNANT. I've never felt a rush of emotions like I felt before, guilt being a HUGE chunk of said emotions. Guilt, happiness, total and utter complete fear, relief, thankfulness...
Fast forward to May of this year. When we officially found out that this little baby that was a little pink line a few months ago, that I had been torturing with an ultrasound a couple times a week trying to peek in on it and get to know it and see if it had a cheeseburger or a turtle...was a BOY! Again with the conflict of emotions. I had prayed for another girl, so that I could see Emma on in her legacy with her clothes and her stuff that had been bought for her, so that I could know what it was like to raise a girl, too, before my ovaries got too old and dried up to produce eggs. After I had the nagging feeling (I had spent a lot of time trying to get a shot of this baby's genitals in the ultrasound room late at night, becoming a self proclaimed pro at early OB scans myself --but don't ask me to do late OB I can't quite get it) that my rainbow was in fact a boy, I started praying differently. I was bargaining. I asked God and Emma to give me what they knew I needed to help heal my heart. They knew me better than I knew myself, after all. I would say that I know I WANT a girl, because maybe in some way I thought that Emma would come back to me in some form if I could follow her birth with another girl. But I know that they would hand pick for me exactly what I NEEDED even if it wasn't what I thought at the time. When I for sure found out, at Baby Belly Spa in Lexington, (yes I paid $130 for an ultrasound and a couple 3D shots to make 100% sure I knew it was a boy...I even drank a frappe and ate a pastry from Starbucks to sugar and caffeine him up before the scan so he would be cooperative and show us his bits) I was caught somewhere between heartbreak and elation. I know what its like to raise a boy, and I loved it. I love my Shadey more than words can say. But to me, this knowledge meant I knew Emma wasn't coming back. I didn't know that before? YES, I did. But this was a chance for me to grieve her in a new way, all over again... I had been asked if I was going to be upset if it was a boy. Of course I will be. I'm allowed to be pissed over the gender, or well, disappointed, because it wasn't what I wanted. This isn't mail order baby, you don't get what you WANT, you get what you NEED! But, considering I just lost a baby 8 months prior, I am allowed to feel however the hell I want to. When I was pregnant with Emma, I can say it truly didn't matter to me. If it was a boy, cool, I'd have 2 boys! If it was a girl, sweet, I'd have one of each and I'd have the 'perfect little family'. when I found out she was a girl, oh my, I was so excited that I might not ever have to have another child, maybe my family was complete! He could protect his little sister in school. I'd get to buy dresses and bows and stuff with floral print and cheetah print leggings and baby jeggings.
Fast forward to the birth of our rainbow, September 22, 2015. Just days before I had suffered with the confusion yet again of how to care for TWO children. How to give my undivided attention to Shade AND Isaac. I'd never just have a "Mommy Shadey day" again, there will always be someone else. These same thoughts I had just days before Emma passed started to creep into my head again before I had Isaac. I pushed them out with anger. NO. NO. You do not get to WORRY about stupid stuff. You get to worry about how beautiful Isaac will be, and how wonderful its going to feel to hold a LIVING, BREATHING BABY after almost 2 years of being pregnant and after a year of the worst time in your life. That's what you get to worry about...the rest will fall into place. What his cry will sound like. What sounds he will make. All of this stuff that seems almost foreign to you, even though you have a child already and have experienced it before...you get to experience this almost like its a brand new feeling to you, because it is, its a birth of a baby AFTER you lost one. It is 100% different than your first born. I don't care if it wasn't 4+ years ago, and you blame it being so long ago that you don't remember this stuff and how good it feels...it's almost as if you never gave birth before, once you've held your deceased child in your arms, nothing is the same. Including when you hold your next living one there in that same spot, in that same hospital, in that same operating room, in that same gown, with those same, yet different tears streaming down your face. I got to breathe in for real, for the first time, at 0824 on 9/22/15 in over a year, when I heard him cry his first cry. It was like I'd never heard a baby cry before! Its still like that. Every time he cries, I don't get frustrated or feel the need to "UGH" because I have to get up and tend to him...I feel like someone is punching me in the throat sometimes because I'll never hear Emma cry, but most of the time I feel my heart swell and come close to bursting because he's here, even after 6 weeks...he's here.
My relationship with my firstborn struggled again. I yelled at him and he got in trouble a lot for a while, because he wasn't listening and we had to take him down a notch, since Isaac was here, he had to learn not to be so rough/loud/aka a preschool aged kid. I realized we were asking him not to be himself. Of course, some of this was just lashing out and being a turd, not just him being him, but regardless, I had to learn to be patient. He was going through a big change too, and with his every other day mention of Emma, he was still grieving. He shied away from me again. Instead of begging for my attention, he pushed me away, because I was the grumpy mommy who traded him for a screaming little stinky baby. This lasted a couple days before he and I cried together over it. And since then he's been perfect. I think he needed to know he wasn't alone. He's smarter than I give him credit for a lot of the times. I notice now, he will come and curl up on me, compliment me, "Mommy you're so beautiful!" and these sweet things he said, the sweet Shade I missed to bad at first. These were the things I was so terrified of, when I realized it wasn't just me and him anymore, that he would change, that I would lose him, too.
This brings me to the differences between parenting before and after loss. For instance, with breastfeeding. It was all I wanted to do, I wanted to breastfeed him and make sure he got the best of the best. Because remember, everything I do, I do with the mindset that my body couldn't keep my last child living for longer than 39 weeks and 4 days...so its only natural to just HAVE to be able to breastfeed him, to sustain him with only me...he doesn't need anyone else. JUST ME. And it has to be breastmilk, not formula, because my PAL mind says "breast is best, and formula isn't good enough"! I was determined to do the best of the best for him. When I was first mothering Shade, I tried breastfeeding him and he had a lazy latch and it just didn't work. I didn't get skin to skin with him at birth and he was given a bottle prematurely, and I was a first time mom and I didn't press it. I tried, but I didn't try hard. I wasn't worried about it because he was happy and healthy and that's all I could see and that was enough. It wasn't enough this time. Of course at only a month old I had to stop breastfeeding Isaac, I just couldn't keep up with the amount of milk his little growing body needed past one month. But I did it, and I'll do it again next time, for as long as safe and I will hopefully not feel as bad about it because I'll know what the problem is with my body and I'll expect it and I won't be disappointed on that note. However, during this transition I cried and I cried. I gave away my breastfeeding supplies, now I don't have to have a reminder of how I failed. Every time I get into the cabinet for a drop-in liner when I do use drop-ins, I am reminded that those were purchased for Emma. Most of these bottles were supposed to be hers. Siblings are supposed to share, of course, but when I was breastfeeding I didn't have to look at that stuff. The brain finds all kinds of ways to fool you.
You're a different mother now. You don't even want anyone else to watch your children. Sure, you let it happen, but you struggle the entire time. Its as if you're making up for lost time, lost experiences, that you didn't get with your child you lost. I'm able to, most times, when I'm alone caring for one or both children, de-escalate myself and say screw everything, all that matters is here & now. You're more cautious, more nervous, like you've never had a child before. First time mom all over again. You're able to instead of being angry or frustrated or annoyed by being up at god knows what time of night...appreciate it, take it in, that its so dark outside that you can't see your hand in front of your face and everyone else is REM sleeping, dead to the world, nothing is on TV and nobody (except your fellow newborn mothers) is online, and there's nothing else in the world to do except feed, diaper, and snuggle this baby. He's looking up at you so innocently, so graciously, happily slipping into a milk coma. He has his tiny hand wrapped around your thumb and his other hand touching you, too, perhaps your chest or your side. The soft swallowing breaths he's taking lull you almost to sleep. Then the soft warmth of his breath and the fuzzy warm newborn hair on your neck as you rhythmically pat his back waiting for that burp to signal time to snuggle back up for a while. In that moment, in those wee hours, nothing else matters. Nothing but you and him. Your hair might not have been washed in 5 days, your clothes MIGHT have gotten changed 2 days ago, and lord knows when the last time you put on actual new makeup was. You won't have that always. Before long they'll be running from you when you need to diaper them. Holding their own sippy. They won't need you to feed them cheese puffs and gummy worms and fruit snacks and carrot sticks and pringles. They'll never look at you quite so endearing as they do during those wee hours. They'll never be this age again. Just like I've never been as old as I am today...you'll never get those wee hours back. These things aren't always noticed prior to a loss. Something as simple as whether or not to get Shade his flu shot, becomes a complicated decision needing the input from 3 nurses, a doctor, and a psychic. LOL.
I have Emma to thank. Yes, she broke me through and through. It wasn't her fault, but she did. If not for her, I wouldn't have Isaac. I may have stopped having kids after her. Now I have Isaac, and I'll have at least one more. Who knows what the future holds. All I know is that I am not ready for this to be my last go around with the wee hours. I'm not ready to give it up yet. It didn't mean anything to me before but it means everything to me now. So in essence, she is the reason that I have and will meet all of my future children. Watch them grow, hold them close in the wee hours. Lord knows I'd give anything to experience the wee hours with her, something that the cuddle cot could've helped me do, at least in a sense. But I didn't. SO I am trying to give that opportunity to other local people.
My island will be forever changed, is forever changed. Some things have been rebuilt almost the same, others will never be the same. There will always be chunks missing that nature just cannot replace. Life will always at frequent intervals find ways to rub salt in my wounds. I will always see Emma when I look at Isaac and wonder if maybe she would've sounded the same or drank a bottle the same or even grunted when she pooped the same as him. The little things.
But I will always wonder what she looked like in the wee hours. And I will always parent differently now, whether I want to or not.
xoxo
You see me going on and on all the time about "Pregnancy After Loss" and even before, "TTC After Loss"...but so far, I've not touched on Parenting After Loss. This is a whole new ballgame. I assume that I can tell you to expect many entries regarding parenting after a loss, because that is my life now, among other things, but I have already experienced things, even though Isaac is only 6 weeks old, that I know someone else out there has to relate to.
In the early days of my grief, my relationship with my living son struggled. He shied away from me. When I was in the bedroom with the lights off and the TV on something for background noise, hidden away under the covers with my eyes swollen out of my head from crying so hard, tear stained shirt, pillow, sheets, face...with my head under the blanket hoping that I would soon suffocate myself and join my newest child that I just lost...our relationship suffered. He didn't understand THIS type of Mommy. Mommy didn't cry, Mommy didn't get emotional, Mommy didn't hide from things, Mommy always had something to say...but this Mommy, no THIS Mommy, she didn't. She couldn't catch her breath to speak. She couldn't see between her swollen eyelids to notice what was going on. She couldn't be thankful for what she had because what she lost was so great. He would only hug and kiss me upon command by Tommy or other family. He wouldn't come curl up with me and let me cry on him. He was afraid, of whatever demons I was fighting, the grief demon, I guess...he could see it ( I often know and see young children are most sensitive to things that we cannot see ) lashing at me, like the waves of the ocean on the once strong, but now fragile shores of an island during the biggest hurricane it would ever endure. Hurricane Emma... I was a strong, sturdy piece of land. But now I was broken. My shore was crumbling, my trees were bending, my structures were failing beneath the wind and water, and my ever sturdy lighthouse...the waves were bashing its base, it was crumbling, leaning into the wind...it would soon fall over and crash into the ocean. Everything was being consumed by Hurricane Emma. There would be nothing left by the time she was done. I was a only dingy in the middle of the ocean with no anchor. I had long since lost my anchor in the violence of the waves, it was at the bottom of the ocean somewhere, if I could just find it.
Fast forward a few weeks, when I went completely and totally numb. I can review my posts during this time of the year, a mere 2 months after she passed in 2014, and it would seem as if I had never had anything happen, to hear my timeline tell it. I was making rash decisions, smoking cigarettes, and not really giving a whole lot of a shit what I was doing, aside from trying and failing to get pregnant week by week. I was NOT being easy on myself. I was not treating myself right. Once I decided in late September, on my birthday actually, that I was ready to re-enter the world of social media, that was the peak of my numbness. That numbness didn't go away for a long time. I leaned on my husband and my son, my mom, mother in law, and my 3 best friends Jessi, Becca, and Paula. Those were the people that held me together. Those were the people who checked on me, who made sure I hadn't killed myself day to day. The ever present. There were a few people outside of that group that checked up on me and that were a staple in my grief as well but not like these few. I started meeting people online that had been through the same thing and we were brought into a close knit group together. I had no idea just how much those people helped me rebuild, either. Not until way later.
I grieve Emma daily. But past the first two weeks or so, I went comfortably numb. The people stopped visiting, calling, checking...the flowers and gifts stopped rolling in. Tommy went back to work. It was just me, alone with Shade at home, who was 90% self-sustaining in that unless it was needing to use the bathroom or needing food prepared, he didn't need me. Nobody needed me. Emma sure didn't need me. After those first couple weeks, my thoughts ate me alive. I don't know how there was anything left. I wouldn't let Shade go anywhere, without me... and I spent the majority of the time trying to make him NEED me more. I am sure that I aggravated him to his wits end. I had good intentions. I felt the need to be needed. My postpartum body didn't understand why nobody needed me. My brain was lost. My heart was shattered. And I couldn't make myself understand. I used a lot of money buying things for myself, for Shade, for Emma. Pouring material things into my life attempting to fill the void. Pouring myself into getting pregnant, learning, researching, purchasing fertility aids that I probably didn't need...teaching myself everything there is to know about the reproductive system and how it worked and how to get pregnant the fastest. Ask me...I can tell you pretty much anything you need to know. I've been a hand in getting several people pregnant that were unable to before. HA..no joke. Without laying a hand on them of course.
Fast forward again. January 29th, 2015. I found out I was pregnant again. That line that I had stared at for hours...was it really there? Was it pink? Was it an indent, a dye run, did I wait too long to look at it? I sent pictures and cranked up the resolution and the contrast and inverted the colors and everything... I sent it to Michelle, to Jessi, to Becca, to Tommy...they could all see it. Was it real?? Amanda pestered me at work long enough til I held my pee for 4 hours and we went to the clinic and got a test, and we stood in the bathroom at work, and she said "I told you! See, there it is. Do you see it?" and as I stood there crossing my eyes to see it, there it was. That faint little pink line on that cheap clinic test. That's when it hit me. I WAS PREGNANT. I've never felt a rush of emotions like I felt before, guilt being a HUGE chunk of said emotions. Guilt, happiness, total and utter complete fear, relief, thankfulness...
Fast forward to May of this year. When we officially found out that this little baby that was a little pink line a few months ago, that I had been torturing with an ultrasound a couple times a week trying to peek in on it and get to know it and see if it had a cheeseburger or a turtle...was a BOY! Again with the conflict of emotions. I had prayed for another girl, so that I could see Emma on in her legacy with her clothes and her stuff that had been bought for her, so that I could know what it was like to raise a girl, too, before my ovaries got too old and dried up to produce eggs. After I had the nagging feeling (I had spent a lot of time trying to get a shot of this baby's genitals in the ultrasound room late at night, becoming a self proclaimed pro at early OB scans myself --but don't ask me to do late OB I can't quite get it) that my rainbow was in fact a boy, I started praying differently. I was bargaining. I asked God and Emma to give me what they knew I needed to help heal my heart. They knew me better than I knew myself, after all. I would say that I know I WANT a girl, because maybe in some way I thought that Emma would come back to me in some form if I could follow her birth with another girl. But I know that they would hand pick for me exactly what I NEEDED even if it wasn't what I thought at the time. When I for sure found out, at Baby Belly Spa in Lexington, (yes I paid $130 for an ultrasound and a couple 3D shots to make 100% sure I knew it was a boy...I even drank a frappe and ate a pastry from Starbucks to sugar and caffeine him up before the scan so he would be cooperative and show us his bits) I was caught somewhere between heartbreak and elation. I know what its like to raise a boy, and I loved it. I love my Shadey more than words can say. But to me, this knowledge meant I knew Emma wasn't coming back. I didn't know that before? YES, I did. But this was a chance for me to grieve her in a new way, all over again... I had been asked if I was going to be upset if it was a boy. Of course I will be. I'm allowed to be pissed over the gender, or well, disappointed, because it wasn't what I wanted. This isn't mail order baby, you don't get what you WANT, you get what you NEED! But, considering I just lost a baby 8 months prior, I am allowed to feel however the hell I want to. When I was pregnant with Emma, I can say it truly didn't matter to me. If it was a boy, cool, I'd have 2 boys! If it was a girl, sweet, I'd have one of each and I'd have the 'perfect little family'. when I found out she was a girl, oh my, I was so excited that I might not ever have to have another child, maybe my family was complete! He could protect his little sister in school. I'd get to buy dresses and bows and stuff with floral print and cheetah print leggings and baby jeggings.
Fast forward to the birth of our rainbow, September 22, 2015. Just days before I had suffered with the confusion yet again of how to care for TWO children. How to give my undivided attention to Shade AND Isaac. I'd never just have a "Mommy Shadey day" again, there will always be someone else. These same thoughts I had just days before Emma passed started to creep into my head again before I had Isaac. I pushed them out with anger. NO. NO. You do not get to WORRY about stupid stuff. You get to worry about how beautiful Isaac will be, and how wonderful its going to feel to hold a LIVING, BREATHING BABY after almost 2 years of being pregnant and after a year of the worst time in your life. That's what you get to worry about...the rest will fall into place. What his cry will sound like. What sounds he will make. All of this stuff that seems almost foreign to you, even though you have a child already and have experienced it before...you get to experience this almost like its a brand new feeling to you, because it is, its a birth of a baby AFTER you lost one. It is 100% different than your first born. I don't care if it wasn't 4+ years ago, and you blame it being so long ago that you don't remember this stuff and how good it feels...it's almost as if you never gave birth before, once you've held your deceased child in your arms, nothing is the same. Including when you hold your next living one there in that same spot, in that same hospital, in that same operating room, in that same gown, with those same, yet different tears streaming down your face. I got to breathe in for real, for the first time, at 0824 on 9/22/15 in over a year, when I heard him cry his first cry. It was like I'd never heard a baby cry before! Its still like that. Every time he cries, I don't get frustrated or feel the need to "UGH" because I have to get up and tend to him...I feel like someone is punching me in the throat sometimes because I'll never hear Emma cry, but most of the time I feel my heart swell and come close to bursting because he's here, even after 6 weeks...he's here.
My relationship with my firstborn struggled again. I yelled at him and he got in trouble a lot for a while, because he wasn't listening and we had to take him down a notch, since Isaac was here, he had to learn not to be so rough/loud/aka a preschool aged kid. I realized we were asking him not to be himself. Of course, some of this was just lashing out and being a turd, not just him being him, but regardless, I had to learn to be patient. He was going through a big change too, and with his every other day mention of Emma, he was still grieving. He shied away from me again. Instead of begging for my attention, he pushed me away, because I was the grumpy mommy who traded him for a screaming little stinky baby. This lasted a couple days before he and I cried together over it. And since then he's been perfect. I think he needed to know he wasn't alone. He's smarter than I give him credit for a lot of the times. I notice now, he will come and curl up on me, compliment me, "Mommy you're so beautiful!" and these sweet things he said, the sweet Shade I missed to bad at first. These were the things I was so terrified of, when I realized it wasn't just me and him anymore, that he would change, that I would lose him, too.
This brings me to the differences between parenting before and after loss. For instance, with breastfeeding. It was all I wanted to do, I wanted to breastfeed him and make sure he got the best of the best. Because remember, everything I do, I do with the mindset that my body couldn't keep my last child living for longer than 39 weeks and 4 days...so its only natural to just HAVE to be able to breastfeed him, to sustain him with only me...he doesn't need anyone else. JUST ME. And it has to be breastmilk, not formula, because my PAL mind says "breast is best, and formula isn't good enough"! I was determined to do the best of the best for him. When I was first mothering Shade, I tried breastfeeding him and he had a lazy latch and it just didn't work. I didn't get skin to skin with him at birth and he was given a bottle prematurely, and I was a first time mom and I didn't press it. I tried, but I didn't try hard. I wasn't worried about it because he was happy and healthy and that's all I could see and that was enough. It wasn't enough this time. Of course at only a month old I had to stop breastfeeding Isaac, I just couldn't keep up with the amount of milk his little growing body needed past one month. But I did it, and I'll do it again next time, for as long as safe and I will hopefully not feel as bad about it because I'll know what the problem is with my body and I'll expect it and I won't be disappointed on that note. However, during this transition I cried and I cried. I gave away my breastfeeding supplies, now I don't have to have a reminder of how I failed. Every time I get into the cabinet for a drop-in liner when I do use drop-ins, I am reminded that those were purchased for Emma. Most of these bottles were supposed to be hers. Siblings are supposed to share, of course, but when I was breastfeeding I didn't have to look at that stuff. The brain finds all kinds of ways to fool you.
You're a different mother now. You don't even want anyone else to watch your children. Sure, you let it happen, but you struggle the entire time. Its as if you're making up for lost time, lost experiences, that you didn't get with your child you lost. I'm able to, most times, when I'm alone caring for one or both children, de-escalate myself and say screw everything, all that matters is here & now. You're more cautious, more nervous, like you've never had a child before. First time mom all over again. You're able to instead of being angry or frustrated or annoyed by being up at god knows what time of night...appreciate it, take it in, that its so dark outside that you can't see your hand in front of your face and everyone else is REM sleeping, dead to the world, nothing is on TV and nobody (except your fellow newborn mothers) is online, and there's nothing else in the world to do except feed, diaper, and snuggle this baby. He's looking up at you so innocently, so graciously, happily slipping into a milk coma. He has his tiny hand wrapped around your thumb and his other hand touching you, too, perhaps your chest or your side. The soft swallowing breaths he's taking lull you almost to sleep. Then the soft warmth of his breath and the fuzzy warm newborn hair on your neck as you rhythmically pat his back waiting for that burp to signal time to snuggle back up for a while. In that moment, in those wee hours, nothing else matters. Nothing but you and him. Your hair might not have been washed in 5 days, your clothes MIGHT have gotten changed 2 days ago, and lord knows when the last time you put on actual new makeup was. You won't have that always. Before long they'll be running from you when you need to diaper them. Holding their own sippy. They won't need you to feed them cheese puffs and gummy worms and fruit snacks and carrot sticks and pringles. They'll never look at you quite so endearing as they do during those wee hours. They'll never be this age again. Just like I've never been as old as I am today...you'll never get those wee hours back. These things aren't always noticed prior to a loss. Something as simple as whether or not to get Shade his flu shot, becomes a complicated decision needing the input from 3 nurses, a doctor, and a psychic. LOL.
I have Emma to thank. Yes, she broke me through and through. It wasn't her fault, but she did. If not for her, I wouldn't have Isaac. I may have stopped having kids after her. Now I have Isaac, and I'll have at least one more. Who knows what the future holds. All I know is that I am not ready for this to be my last go around with the wee hours. I'm not ready to give it up yet. It didn't mean anything to me before but it means everything to me now. So in essence, she is the reason that I have and will meet all of my future children. Watch them grow, hold them close in the wee hours. Lord knows I'd give anything to experience the wee hours with her, something that the cuddle cot could've helped me do, at least in a sense. But I didn't. SO I am trying to give that opportunity to other local people.
My island will be forever changed, is forever changed. Some things have been rebuilt almost the same, others will never be the same. There will always be chunks missing that nature just cannot replace. Life will always at frequent intervals find ways to rub salt in my wounds. I will always see Emma when I look at Isaac and wonder if maybe she would've sounded the same or drank a bottle the same or even grunted when she pooped the same as him. The little things.
But I will always wonder what she looked like in the wee hours. And I will always parent differently now, whether I want to or not.
xoxo
Comments
Post a Comment