7 Years

 5 years ago I wrote, and I quote "Year after year, its been almost TWO years."

Here we are, pushing up on 7...S e V e N years. 7 whole years since Emma Caroline came into the world, quietly, silently, still warm, and as still as the lake on an early morning. 7. I keep saying the word "seven" or "seven years" this morning (August 31, because I've been working on this blog for a minute). Like saying it over and over is going to make it seem more believable. Lucky number 7 comes to mind. Except this number 7 isn't really lucky. 7 doesn't seem like a long time, but it is. Its only 3 years short of an entire decade, after all. It feels like it happened yesterday sometimes. It feels like it happened 30 years ago sometimes. And sometimes, it feels like it was some movie I watched or some really detailed nightmare I had that I could never really shake. 

It was late afternoon. It was hot out. Blistering Indian Summer. The parkway was lined with purple and yellow wildflowers. The leaves were dark green, begging for rain and cooler air to dry up, fall, and drift to the ground to be crunched under a boot somewhere. The office was busy. Shade was jabbering. Mom was excited. I was planning what I'd need to pack for 'tomorrow'. Then the doppler was silent and the faces were barren. The ultrasound screen was still. The color flow was still. Everything was still. I am pretty sure the entire flow of my blood stopped in its tracks. "Just say it... I can see the screen, doc." Shade was chanting her name in the background and I can see that iPad with the green case on it that I had just ordered a few days before from Amazon moving around out of the corner of my eye in his little excited, curious hand. I knew we'd be induced and Shade would need something to do...I mean, of course I'd be induced. I'm nearly 40 weeks pregnant, nearly 41 by my dates...nothing can happen at this point. I just have to get her here. Right? 

WRONG. So, so, so very wrong. Seven...

How could I have been so ignorant? I would say naïve, but I had been a nurse for over a year. Come on, Amberly.  When was the last time you felt her move, dumbass? This morning after that nightmare that woke you up at 5am? Last night at bed while she was doing her acrobatics, except way more active than normal? Now, that makes me wonder what was going on in there in the "safety" of my womb, the one thing that was supposed to sustain and protect her. Was she struggling, while her mother was just laying there trying to rest after a long day of work? Did her movements decrease yesterday? Have you not paid attention to her trends? F*cking idiot. 7 years. 

 Her skin was like porcelain. Smooth and warm from my body heat still. That quickly faded. Her color changed and her skin cooled to room temperature. An unfortunate side effect of coming earthside without a pulse. I was numb. Physically, from my core on out. Sometimes...I still feel that numbness. Other times I feel a stabbing, crushing, gut wrenching, soul twisting pain that I cannot describe any other way except that...cross your fingers you never have to try to describe it yourself.  2,550 days. 363 Tuesdays. The numbers keep climbing like covid cases. Oh boy, the time we're in now. How things are different. I almost feel a twinge of thankfulness when I think about the state of the world and how its declined since you were supposed to be born. Maybe its for the better. But then I remember handing you to Kyle for the last time I'd ever lay hands on my only daughter. My newborn baby. A whole 7lb 10oz baby I held for 10 months only to hand away forever. The 7lb 10oz of her body left my arms for the last time around 10:30pm but the weight of her never truly left. My whole world was flipped on its axis September 2nd, some 7 years ago. I would've been better off with an asteroid hitting the earth like some doomsday movie. I'd have had better chances. The impact would've hurt a little less. And then I remember that no, I'm not thankful. It wasn't for the better. There is no reasoning. There is no place better for you, Emma, than to have been in my arms, alive. Thank you - please don't say those things to grieving mothers. 

The few weeks prior, leading up to September 2nd, I was very impatiently waiting for her arrival. I was sore. I was hot. I was tired. I was overworked. I spent 13 hours 3-4 days a week on my feet running the ER working mid-shift (12p-12a) and countless hours at home keeping up with everything. I was quite literally crippled by the end of my shift most days. I said things like "I'm tired of being pregnant", "I'm so done with pregnancy", "I don't want to be pregnant anymore", and other common things pregnant women say when they're tired, hot, and sore at more than 38 weeks pregnant, almost 40 weeks pregnant by MY calculations. I got my wish. Seven - Pro tip: watch what you wish for. 

I sit and wonder more often than one would think, whether or not her soul is actively trying to find mine. I wondered this same thing 5 years ago when I wrote the entry I quoted earlier here. Except then, I still felt connected. I hadn't dealt with losing Emma truly at that point, but somehow I still felt her in a lot of places, in a lot of things. In 2019, I lost another baby and between that and a couple other issues, I was forced to deal with not only the loss of her, but another baby, and many other things all at once. 0 stars. Do not recommend. But anyway... I just wonder. If she gave up on me, if she started looking for someone else. I went distant for a while. There were certain places and things that were causing me constant stress and grief that I had to remove myself from and when I did, it felt like someone cut the rope from her almost. I still struggle to figure that out. 

"US" used to look a lot different than it does now, admittedly so. Lots of things have changed since 2014. It feels so far away. Being in 2014 was a nightmare, but the further I move away from that year, the weirder things get. Sometimes it feels like some weird dream. Maybe an alternate dimension that I existed in once upon a time. I imagined things being much different.  A surprise delivery, or maybe even being induced. A hard, sweaty labor without an epidural and a screaming, warm, pink baby girl to put lots of bows on. None of that happened. Literally none of it. Would Isaac exist if she had been born alive? Would Emerson exist if she had been born alive? Would the baby I lost in 2019 have been Emerson? Was that him? Did he come back to me? IS Emerson Emma? What is going on? I don't know. And as much as I'd like to think I have it semi-figured-out. I don't. I'm as clueless as the day is long. I am literally a lost soul swimming in a fish bowl. It would be two lost souls if I knew someone else felt the exact same way but truth be told - nobody feels the same. No two people feel the same. 

This baby loss thing is the heaviest thing I've ever felt. I pray that nobody has to feel it. But they do, every day. Stillbirth is the real pandemic. It's been going on for a billion years yet here we are with little to no decrease in incidence and no real prevention measures on a regular basis. Sigh. 1 in 160. That is us. The statistic. 

This year I'm not doing any fundraisers or get togethers. I am putting some care packages together for 5 local hospitals and I will be delivering them Saturday when I go to her grave. I won't even be at her grave on her actual birthday because of the boys' school. Honestly, I could go, but I wouldn't have the time to accomplish all the tasks I need to accomplish on her birthday. It feels sacrilegious to be elsewhere on her birthday. It wouldn't be the first year it happened but I feel like...a bad mom. I plan to color, burn her candles, put together care packages, go to Hobby Lobby and buy some new things for her grave for fall, have cake and coffee, and release sky lanterns that evening. Take the day to relax. Then, on Saturday, do all the stuff with the kids and my mom. The day always feels like a giant boulder sitting on my chest. The impending day. I know when I wake up on September 2nd, 2021, things will be no different than when I woke this morning. But its still "that day". the memories leading up to this day are the heaviest because it reminds me of what could have / should have been. I don't want her to be forgotten -- as a parent when you cant protect your child any longer, you protect their memory. I struggle with part of me wanting to not acknowledge the day at all because that means I have to deal with it emotionally, to the other part of me making sure I acknowledge it just the right amount. But what is "the right amount"? The feelings wax and wane. Sometimes I'm remembering her with love and sometimes my heart is heavy. 

I know my heart aches throughout the years for her. No more today than it did the day she was born, or the day I found out she was growing in my womb. I have loved her then, I loved her still. With the biggest, warmest part of my crusty old heart. The world has tried to harden my heart and my soul, I feel tired and beat down to the core most days--but the corner that she exists in is soft, warm, plush, but empty...always waiting for her to come back to me. 

<3