Toward a New Year

The holiday season is gone again, and I made it through with more grace and joy than I ever expected.  We had fun as a family.  We did a lot of fun things.  We did service and put slips with the things we did in a bottle as the present for my angels.  I don't know whether to feel good or bad about the fact that we had such a good season without a lot of thought about our losses.  We've even had fun with babies without a lot pain.

I think I will choose to view this Christmas season as a triumph.  It has been a season of joy, a season to celebrate the One who gave us a reason to hope and a way to hold our angels again.  I choose to cherish the memories and look forward to making more.

Forgiving Symbols of Christmas

Two years ago, even last year, songs surrounding Christmas about the baby, the angels, birth were hard for me.  Tears would spring to my eyes at unexpected moments.  One of my favorite songs, "What Child Is This?" was off my menu for a while because it talked too much about my triggers.

This year, I've held a beautiful 2-month-old baby and older little ones, sung and listened to Christmas songs, put the angel on the Christmas tree, and sought ways to serve so I could put those acts of service on little slips of paper to put in my angels' jar to be opened on Christmas, and involved myself in any number of former triggers and felt little to no pain.  I hope this is a sign of healing.  I'd like to think it is.  I've thrown myself into this ordinarily painful season with abandon.  It's not a perfect time.  I still look at the photos and other reminders of my angels on the tree and feel a moment of sadness.  But it feels okay because other symbols on the tree, those of the Lord who overcame death, have come to mean a little bit more to me.  It still hurts to ponder my losses, but I know it's not forever.  I will hold my angels again.

Another Holiday Season

Anyone who has lost can tell you holiday seasons are hard.  You tend to feel the absence of the one you have lost more than most times.  We haven't gotten very deeply into the holiday season, but so far, this doesn't seem as bad as some of the other seasons.  It doesn't seem as painful.  Maybe it's because I'm busier than most times.  Maybe it's because other events going on in my life or the world make my pain seem small by comparison.  It's hard to say why.  I just hope my pain stays this muted for the whole season.

As I have done for previous years, I will seek out opportunities to serve.  But I feel less compelled to do so for my sake.  I'm not having to bury myself in service to survive.  The things I do this year are for others and for others alone.  I will still write down services we as a family do and put them in a jar as a gift for my angels to be opened Christmas morning.  Alli and the other angels are still part of the family and always will be.  I'm not sure what's different about this year, or if the emotion hasn't stricken yet.  I guess we'll see.  In the meantime, I will continue to search for ways to make others' season just a bit brighter as I go about my own                                                                                                          

Gratitude

I have had some hard days recently.  But I know that I have to focus on gratitude for what I do have rather than on sorrow for what I don't or for what I've lost.  When I think back over all we've been through with my baby's death and five years of miscarriage, I'm tempted to fall into a dark place of pain and sadness.  It would be easy to do.  

However, this week is Thanksgiving in the US.  It's a time to reflect on all we've been given.  It's time to invite joy in by showing my living children how much I appreciate them by spending more time with them.  It's time to hold my husband and those two sweet kids close to my heart and focus on the joy that comes with counting my blessings.  Thanksgiving is about more than food.  It's about cherishing the moments with those we love.  It's about making memories.  And this week, I am determined to cherish every moment and make wonderful memories.   

Deja Vu

6 1/2 years ago, we went through hell with the state after my baby's death.  They tried to blame us for her death, even though it was clearly an accident.  I want to say it was a nightmare, but you wake up from a nightmare.  I am still scared of knocks at my door.  As I said a few weeks ago, they committed multiple crimes and lied in multiple ways in an attempt to frame us for negligent homicide.  For ten months, they could knock at any time and take our kids away just because they had the legal right.  And we could offer no proof nor defense that they'd accept, even upon the admitted and proven lies of one of their workers.  I'd rather face a firing squad than face losing my kids.  All of this is a big reason we have struggled to heal from my baby's loss.

This last week, I had a representative of the state show up on my doorstep unannounced.  Why?  Because somebody in the cafeteria saw my boy eating cold ramen and my girl expressing frustration about being hungry.  Did that busybody bother to ask why?  No.  She assumed it was because they didn't have food at home.  So she reported us to DCSF.  And my kids were interrogated in their school because we hadn't yet filled out the Reverse Miranda paperwork that would protect them from the state and give them the rights they should have to only be interrogated in the presence of parents and a lawyer.  That paperwork is now in place, so my kids don't have to be made to feel insecure in their school and pitted against their parents by people who pretend to care.

Later the day the DCSF worker showed up most recently, I made the inquiries that busybody in the cafeteria didn't bother to make.  My boy was eating the cold ramen he packed himself because he decided he preferred cold ramen over waiting for the lunch monitor, an upper-grade kid, to cook his food for him.  He figured it took too long.  Why did my girl complain about hunger that day? Because a lunch monitor screwed up the food my girl packed for herself then threw it away.  And to top it off, the person who made the call to the state was in charge of lunch monitors.

So basically, this woman blamed me for her negligence, thereby making my kids' school feel less safe and launching me back into the nightmare that was the ten months following my baby's death.  And it did feel like we were launched back in hell for the days that followed that knock on the door a little over a week ago.  Over cold ramen and a misunderstanding of the reason for a nine-year-old's histrionics.  This is called jerky behavior on the part of that school employee.  The reps of the state disappeared when we proved conclusively the latest call was based on misinformation and that they had no grounds.  But will there be any negative consequences visited on the cafeteria worker for a false report?  There should be since it's illegal to misreport, but there won't be.  Instead, we get to live with the thought that there is a dangerous person in the cafeteria, one who thinks trivial items like one day's unsatisfactory lunch and cold ramen sound like abuse, one who would rather sneak around and conduct witch hunts rather than ask questions and communicate openly.

For 6 1/2 years, I feared the state's visit since the first time, when they showed how unethical they could be in a legal system that validates anything they want to do under the false assumption they wouldn't lie.  I should feel triumphant that we fended off their attack.  Instead, I feel insecure in my home, in my kids' school, everywhere because the illusion of safety for me and my kids is gone again.  And the memories of those tragic days of loss and victimization have resurfaced.   I'm trying to regain my peace.  But it will take a long, long time.

Filling the Hole with Fluffies

I've thought a lot about my love of pets.  When I was a kid, I think I loved cats so much because I never got enough attention from Mom.  There were seven of us, and I always felt a little lost in the middle.  So I turned to cats to fill that hole.  

Now, I'm older.  I don't think I'm filling the parental hole in my life.  I think what I've done instead is fill the hole not having a baby has left in my life.  When my husband and I first got married, we had a rational two cats.  Okay, the cats weren't rational, but the number of pets was.  For the first few years of our marriage as we had one child then another, we added a few more here and there, mostly to entertain the kids.  The cats were the love of my little girl's life.  The hamster was to keep my boy happy when we were about to have another girl instead of a boy.  [It took us pretty much the whole hamster's life to finally admit that whereas we had tried to get a boy hamster, so he didn't feel the imbalance in the force quite as much, we only ended up tipping it female just a bit more.]  We got a bearded dragon because my boy was all about dinosaurs, and that was as close as we could get.  We got fish because the kids found them fascinating and pretty to watch.  

But then, after Alli died, our pet population exploded: cats [now five], rats [several, now down to zero], dogs [one then two then three and back to two again], guinea pigs [two, though that phase passed quickly when the stunk up the house and woke my girl every morning with their squealing], snakes [several at one point because my boy loves snakes], ducks [sold], bunnies [we've gone through several over the years and are now down to two that we rescued], chickens [12 at one point, but the raccoons wiped out so many that we only have a few left], lizards [still have two], frogs [all gone], goats [sold as soon as they ran away one too many times], and I'm sure I'm missing one or two more.  But we've had an insane number of pets.  Part of it was because the kids wanted to try out this animal or that one.  

But I think a bigger part of it was because I was filling a hole.  I couldn't go out and buy a baby, but I could go out and buy a baby, but I could go out and buy something else to care for like a snake or a bunny or a chicken.  But none of them scratched the itch.  None filled the hole.  So I slowly pared down to a few cats, two dogs, a couple of lizards, two bunnies, and a handful of chickens.  That still may sound like a lot, but it's sane compared to what it was, and the greater part of the population stays outdoors.  The cats do the best job of filling the hole left by babies because they're snuggly and warm and like to be held.  But I have had to come to terms with the idea that animals just cannot be what I want them to be.  However, I can be what they need me to be, which is their caretaker who gives them the attention/food/water/etc. they need.  It's good to identify what's happening, so I can seek my solace elsewhere and let the animals be whatever they want and need to be.  

Greeting my Nephew

So far, I think I've done pretty well with being happy for my sister's baby.  I truly am happy for my sister.  She wanted this baby and she's delighted to have him.  It's just hard not to also feel and undercurrent of--what? jealousy?  pain?--something.  A sense that the world is moving on without me as I'm surrounded by women who can happily and without effort--or with little effort--have a baby simply because they want to, it's time, or their body just works that way, whether they want it to or not.

Every time one of these women whose body actually works starts to complain about the horrors and pains of pregnancy, I want to shake them and remind them that at least they get those symptoms, and those symptoms don't go away until they have a baby to take home.  At least they will get a reward for going through all of that.  I want to remind them to be grateful for the swollen ankles, the back aches, the nausea, the tiny bladder syndrome, and even the violence of the unborn upon their internal organs because at least that means a baby is coming, and they will be able to hold and love that baby instead of bury it.  I understand being uncomfortable.  It isn't fun to be pregnant.  I get that.  I've been pregnant 19 times.  I just wish I had more than two live children to show for it.  I imagine if you put all of those months of pregnancies cut short together, I'd have at least nine months.

But at least these women with swollen ankles and pain generally look forward to holding that baby.  I have a hard time contemplating those who decide that they'd rather intentionally kill than hold their baby.  I know there are reasons, and some of them are valid.  It's just hard for me when I naturally go through what other women pay for.  Like someone may envy me for this inevitable result to any pregnancy.  I just can't imagine that mindset.  And I don't wish to.  It all makes me very sad.

I guess I can remind myself to be grateful that, unlike many women with fertility issues, I can actually hold two live babies.  I can remind myself that I'm fortunate to have faith that I will hold my unborn one day.  I can be grateful for the fleet of angels who watch over us and sometimes even help in the answering of our prayers.  There is much for which I can be grateful.  But there are times when it's hard to remember all I have when I'm focused on what I don't.  I just can't let those times last.

Varying Degrees

I know loss is different for everyone.  For me, loss has become the expected, the normal.  I fear miscarriage but at the same time expect it because it's been my way of life for several years now.  I lost another one, as I wrote about in the last week or two, and I bounce back quickly.  It hurt--a lot--but I'm okay.  I even played with my nephew's baby and toddler over the last couple of days, chatted with my pregnant friend, heard of the announcement of my newborn nephew, and I'm okay.  I'm not in the kind of pain I was in under similar circumstances after Alli died.  Loss has become part of my new normal.  Most people that are pregnant say they're expecting, but I can only say when I'm pregnant that I expect a miscarriage.  Because I've been right for years.

But the mommy of those same babies came here to escape/cope with the anniversary of one of her miscarriages.  I couldn't tell you the exact dates of my miscarriages because after 15, I've almost lost count.  If every day I had a miscarriage was destroyed, there wouldn't be a lot of months left without pain.  But to her, that date is significant, like the date of Alli's loss to me.  Loss is different and affects us all differently.

Just because we're in a fetal position over every anniversary or scarcely take note of them, we can't expect the same of everyone or even anyone else.  All we can do is reach out in empathy to others who have lost and treat them with love and understanding.  We need to understand everyone is in a different place on this pathway called life.  If someone doesn't react to miscarriages or is incapacitated by one, we can't judge them by our own experience and emotions because they're going to view these losses and react to them differently.  All we can do is love and offer an ear or a shoulder or whatever they need.

When the Rainbow Fades

So we have a theory about our miscarriages.  Before, I thought that when we gave up on trying to have a baby, the Lord may still send a sweet little one then protect him or her when the time was right.  I've now come to the conclusion that no matter how a baby comes and when, my body will just not support a baby.  In fact, I'm fairly certain I have an unknown medical condition that is taking out the babies.  It may be another antibody.  It may be that my hormones don't kick in.  There's no way to say.  But I had a good two weeks of using the pills the doctor gave me to ward off baby loss--baby aspirin, progesterone, and prostaglandin--and it still did not help.  I still lost the baby at roughly the same time as the later ones of the others.  We can't know what's going on.

But at this point, we can know that my body will not support a baby.  There will be no rainbow baby for me, at least until the Second Coming and the Resurrection.  Then, I will have my army of angels where I can hold and love them.  Until then, I have to be grateful for what I have and continue in the hardest kind of faith, the "but if not" faith.  Elder Simmons of the LDS church described true faith, faith in the Lord that will not be shaken even when our prayers don't seem to be answered as we're hoping.  Lord, I want this.  But if not, I will still trust and believe.  And that is where I live, in the land of but if not faith.  I will not hold a rainbow baby, but I can be grateful for my angels and grateful for the children I can hold.  My peace and joy are both in gratitude.

My Sadistic Stork

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about my hopes and fears with this new pregnancy.  Well, the inevitable happened.  Blood.  I think I have an unknown medical condition--possibly a second antibody--that makes it impossible for me to carry a baby.  7 or 8 years ago, before my angel Alli was born, I had my first miscarriage.  It was traumatic.  We made it to ten weeks then went in to be told those dreaded words, "There is no heartbeat."  I don't think I had before then heard a more traumatic phrase.

Then Alli came and four months later, died in an accident.  She was a miracle, unaffected by the Kell antibody that could easily have killed her.  We held her for four precious months, then she was gone.  I learned there is a more traumatic phrase than the first, and that is, "We couldn't revive her."  It turns out losing a baby who had become the center of your world is even more agonizing than losing the dream of a baby you had not yet held.  At least, for me, it was.

Then I started a string of miscarriages. One or two made it as far as eight weeks.  Most were gone by week five.  One required a D&C.  For one, I took morning after pills to avoid the D&C.  I would never do that again.  I nearly bled to death.  The rest flushed on their own.  There were 13 over the course of our four years of trying, all at varying stages and all before the end of the first trimester.

So we decided we were done.  We weren't going to try again.  We had been taking careful aim with all of our research and, over the course of the last year of trying, had succeeded twice.  Only to have blood twice more.  After some prayer, we decided to turn it all over to the Lord.  We weren't going to try again.  And if a year of careful trying resulted in so little success, not trying would probably result in none, right?  Wrong.

Here we are, a year later.  I thought if I turned it over to the Lord, and pregnancy happened, maybe it was Time.  Maybe whatever had taken the other 13 [or 14 if you count the one before Alli] wouldn't affect this one.  My little girl even felt a bond with the baby [or babies, as she felt].  She sensed angels there.  Turns out it must have been the one angel in the womb and perhaps my Angel Alli, there to be with me when the inevitable struck.  Blood again.  At first, I thought it was just a UTI.  But after an ultrasound revealed the fetus was just too small to be a full seven and a half weeks, I knew I had another angel.  I cried all day and most of the next, in tandem with the blood. And now, not only are we going to NOT try, we're going to ANTI-try, as in avoid any possibility.  I just can't take it.  I have lost 16 babies in a row, more than most woman can imagine losing.  I'm done.  It hurts too much.  Every time.

I am thankful for my fleet of angels.  I know they're with me when things get rough, witness my little girls feelings.  I know I'll see them and hold them when the Lord comes again.  But in the meantime, my house feels so silent and empty.  My arms feel emptier still.  I love that the Lord sent me two I could hold before the dam arose, one of each.  I just have to cling to that faith and that gratitude when the tears start to fall again.

9-11: Others' Trauma

As others are doing, my family is commemorating the anniversary of the terrorist acts of 9-11.  Having been through loss and trauma myself, I hear these stories with a much more personal and empathetic feeling than I ever did before my own loss.  I went to school in New York State, though, to my knowledge, I didn't know anyone in the building.  However, for me, it was a personal event, more than just the death of just under 3000 people.  It's more than a number.  It's not just that I went to that plaza years before the towers went down or that I saw it when they were still clearing away the rubble from ground zero.  It's also not just that I know a lot of people who live in New York and did not know right away that they had all escaped the events of that day.

For me, it's a day that means loss for so many.  It's a day during which mothers lost their children and children lost their parents.  My heart aches for those who went through the experience of going to work like any other day and being scarred for life or lost.  My heart also aches for those who said goodbye to their loved ones for the last time on that day.

I don't think anyone who was not there can imagine what it was like.  However, many of us know what it is to lose loved ones.  We can all feel the pain, on some level, of those hurt by that day.  We can all take a moment and mourn with those who still mourn, comfort those who need comfort.  For just that day, we can get beyond the differences that separate the US and find common ground in a time of healing.

12th Anniversary

Today is my 12th wedding anniversary.  12 years ago today, my husband and I got married.  I look at pictures of myself then, before 15 child losses in a row, including the loss of my sweet Alli, before the legal complications, before stress and worry filled my 40-year-old face with worry lines.  I see my smile then: how innocent, how carefree, how easy that smile seemed.  I miss that easy way I saw the world, the "it can't happen to me" philosophy I had.  I did not know I would face pregnancies that would be off-the-charts with their risk, including that vicious Kell antibody, a.k.a. the killer antibody that stands in the way of any baby that makes it past first term.

I wonder if I had known then, 12 years ago, what I would face if I would still have moved forward as I have.  I know I would have done some things differently.  But would I have chosen differently when it came to marrying my husband?  I don't think so.  But I think my smile would have been a lot less easy or carefree.  I think it's probably a good thing that we don't know everything that's coming.  Sometimes, we'd rather just not know.  But I know I made the right choice 12 years ago, even with the trials we've been through.  I prayed about it.  My husband prayed about it.  We both knew without a doubt it was right.  And I wouldn't trade my live children for anything.  Sometimes, I just miss my easy smile.  I miss the self I was before I knew hell could happen to me, too.

Giving Up

I gave up.  I threw in the towel close to a year ago.  I had been trying for something like four years to have a rainbow baby.  I even prayed about giving up.  I gave away everything, all the baby stuff.  13 miscarriages in a row, including a prior miscarriage, 15 baby losses in a row.  I knew my body wouldn't carry another baby.  I figured if I was trying, truly trying, for a baby for so long, there was no way my rainbow could happen.

A few days ago, I nearly fell down with vertigo.  I never get vertigo except when I'm pregnant.  Sure enough, we passed the test I'd been working so hard to pass for so long.  It's not that we weren't ever getting pregnant ... just that in spite of careful trying, it was getting rarer and rarer to the point that it didn't seem possible anymore.  And here we are.  I don't know which I'm more scared of...that we lose the pregnancy again, as usual, or that we keep it for longer than usual then go through yet another painful later miscarriage or baby loss [a very real probability with the antibody I have] or that I hold the baby then lose it like I did with Alli.  I think it's the last.  No, it's definitely the last.

There's nothing I want more than a baby and nothing that terrifies me more.  From my experience, there is a very very fine line between a live baby and a dead one.  I prayed for this before.  Now, with my neatly ordered existence and my thinking moved beyond this possibility, I feel lost, confused.  A baby would be a marvelous blessing.  A live baby.  But I have a hard time hoping, even a little bit, that this double line on the pregnancy test can translate into a live child for me.  For most people, pregnancy means you're expecting.  I'm only expecting more loss, more pain.  More blood.  I keep telling myself I'm fine, that whatever happens, I'll be fine.  But I'm not fine.  I'm terrified.  Between my consistent and unexplained pattern of early loss to my antibody that is likely to kill to a fragile baby facing a world full of dangers, I have a hard time seeing the path between me and a child old enough to be less fragile.  Even my older kids scare me when they go out into the world because I still envision the many ways I could lose them.  I used to see myself as a Disney princess.  Now I'm Dory because I can scarcely remember my own name thanks to the symptom of mourning, forgetfulness, and I'm Marlin because everything looks like a danger to the babies I have left.  I want to see this through the eyes of faith.  But I understand too well "but if not faith."  I want this baby to live, but if not, I will know it is for my good.  I don't know that I can endure any more loss.  Please, Father, help me survive this, however it works out.  

Healing in Fiction

This week, I read a book by Rachel Ann Nunes: Ariana The Making of a Queen.  It was a sweet LDS romance novel that reminded me somewhat of my own.  It was recommended to me by a friend because of the resemblance.  It's clearly a first book.  I see some of the missteps I read about in novice writers like excess of adverbs and flashbacks and an ending that is too perfect to be very believable.  But it has a power that I like in its telling of tragedy.  Spoiler alert:  when the main character's baby dies, I feel it.  I know how loss feels, especially loss of a baby that one has held near to her heart as the center of her existence for the first several months of life.  There's a potency and power that gives the reader a sense that the writer understands such loss.  I wept for Ariana's pain.  It was a therapeutic kind of thing, like what I want to do with my writing.

So many writers feature a miscarriage or a child loss as something bad or painful but pretty much gloss over the experience.  It's like they're afraid an audience can't handle the pain or don't want to go there.  But without showing the depth of agony, the author is betraying the people who have lost like that.  They're showing loss as less cataclysmic and life-shaking than it really is.  While reading about her loss, I felt I could weep about mine without necessarily reliving it.  This is the kind of therapy I think comes from reading fiction that mirrors one's own sadness and trauma.  For those who have lost and can handle reading stories about other's loss, I highly recommend it.

Empathy

One of the things trauma and loss gives one is empathy.  Those who have not gone through serious, life-changing loss can sympathize, can reach out, can truly care.  But to really empathize, one really has to have been there.

I went to hear a presentation given by a woman whose child was taken hostage--along with the entire school--by a man and his wife just over thirty years ago in Cokeville, Wyoming.  This story was recently retold through the movie "Cokeville Miracle," which I highly recommend.  This is trauma.  After this mother presented her story of trauma as she faced the very real probability of losing her three children who were in that school, I went up to her and gave her empathy.  I did not go through the same situation, but I did go through trauma that threatened my family and/or members of my family.  We both had experiences of miracles involving angels protecting the family.  There was a time I would have found her story interesting.  Now, I see her story as a deeply personal one, something with which I could connect on multiple levels.

I'm not saying that most people want to suffer trauma and loss.  But after I heard her story, and she heard mine, we left as sisters in trauma.  We made an empathy connection I could have had with her no other way than through experience.  After moments like that, I feel thankful not as much for the trauma and loss itself but for the growth I've undergone as a consequence of life experience that allows me the empathy I may otherwise lack.  Loss is hard but the consequences and results aren't always bad.

One of those Days

I thought I was over baby jealousy.  I told myself I was, anyway.  Most days, I'm fine that we've given up on trying to get pregnant after 14 miscarriages and a baby loss.  I usually don't have a problem being surrounded by pregnant ladies or little babies.  At least, anymore.  Right after I lost my baby, all of that was really hard.  Usually, I'm fine.  I'm grateful for the two I can hold now and for my angels I will hold one day.

But today was a little harder than most.  A friend who had a stillbirth recently seems to be successfully pregnant again.  Another friend is nervous about the twins she's expecting.  It seems so effortless for some people.  I keep telling myself this is the way it is, and I've learned to accept it.  But on days like today, I can't help but feel a little hurt.  I can't help but wonder what I'm doing wrong as a parent that I wasn't so blessed.  I know this is not a great way to think about it, that some really wonderful people don't have even one they can hold.  But all the logic in the world doesn't still those frustrating little thoughts and the emotional pain of all I've lost and what I won't get anytime soon.  Most days, I'm thankful for all with which I've been blessed.  But we all have our days when what we don't have weighs heavy on us.  Sigh.  

Family Trips

I like family trips.  I know my angels come with me.  They're never so close as when we go together on memory-building adventures.  I don't visit Alli's grave often because I know she only goes there to be with us.  She can just as easily be with us anywhere.  But I know I can invite her and the others along on trips in prayer.  I pray that my angels be allowed to come as we trek through Yellowstone or the Tetons or even just on local campouts.  

I know I have my own private army of guardian angels.  We've tried their protective power out a few times with problems and minor accidents with which we've dealt.  I know they are attuned to our wants and desires.  My little girl asks for a pet in prayer, and my angels are there to grant her wish with as much detail as they can manage.  But there's really no need for Alli or the others to be with us all the time.  I can, however, know they will be there when I invite them, when there's need or true and sincere desire.  They travel with us.  I love days in which I know they're there.  I'd travel every day of the year if I could, just to create memories and bond with those we can see and those we can't.  

Difficult questions

For a lot of people, little questions like the following are no big deal: "Where are you from?" "How are you?" "How many kids do you have?"  That first one is a question complicated by having a father who liked to move us a lot, so I'm not sure what we're talking about.  The concept of a "hometown" is foreign, and, therefore, slightly painful because it reminds me of the core identity I lack.  But I can handle that question.  The other two are a little more complicated by child loss.  

"How are you?" can be easy or difficult, depending on whether or not we're nearing an angelversary or difficult birthday.  Most of the time, I can answer by the wrote and expected answer, "Fine."  Anything else seems to confuse and frustrate people.  It's not a question but a greeting, and there's a script to it.  If you actually give a real answer as if it were a real question, people aren't sure what to do about it.  You have to be careful around whom you answer something like, "I'm dying inside," because some people will look at you funny or edge away.  They don't seem to understand this is a trying and painful question for those who want to answer it truthfully in a way that would explore the pain inside.  It's a performance question that is not intended to hurt but often does through its insincerity.

Then there's the hardest one that can't help but hurt.  "How many kids do you have?" Most people would expect me to mention the two they could see.  But that seems a betrayal.  What about the third?  What about my Alamanda, who I held for four short months?  She's with me.  They just can't see her.  And often, that conversation will lead to how she died and the hell that I went through after.  But even three doesn't seem quite right.  I fully expect to hold my miscarried babies again, too.  But most people don't want to hear a lengthy explanation of my Alamanda and my fourteen miscarriages.  I don't need to let just everyone into my world and trauma.  But how do I answer that question without touching on it at all?  By its very nature, that question that seems so simple to those who have not lost babies suddenly becomes a reminder of pain to those of us who have lost.  But it's not like I'd want to put a tattoo on my forehead that says, "Please don't ask me how many kids I have."  It's just one of many constant reminders. Why do simple questions have to seem so complicated?

When Writing about Trauma

When writing about trauma, one must keep in mind one's audience.  When you're writing for yourself, you can get away with writing up every detail, every moment, every feeling.  It's a memory.  It can all be recorded.  If you want to share that later or not at all, that's fine.  You can even rip it up and throw it away.  For your healing's sake, just get it done.

But when you're writing for other people, keep in mind that people get tired of repetition, tragedy, woe, heartache, tears, etc.  Tears become ridiculous instead of heart-breaking when overdone.  One must write enough that the reader gets the sense of tragedy, both before the loss and after.  It's best if the reader really feels for the victim/survivor.  How much is too much?  

Keep the audience in mind.  to do that, one must get readers.  If those beta readers get tired of it, it's probably too much.  Time to trim and refocus.  What is most critical to write?  Whatever is most needful, that shall you write.  

On Tuesdays and Birthdays

It used to be that Tuesday was just another day of the week.  At least it's not Monday, right?  Everybody hates Mondays.  But Tuesdays have become more difficult for me, especially around that angelversary because six years ago, we lost her on a Tuesday.  Then my birthday came around two Tuesdays later.  It was a rough day.  Then the next couple of birthdays were painful since they were on or the day before miscarriages.  I officially became a member of the birthday haters club.

This year, my birthday occurs, once again, on a Tuesday just as the angelversary was on a Tuesday.  I don't love Tuesdays.  Each birthday comes around with an echo of pain, which makes birthdays troublesome, even when they end up being pleasant.  I'm sure tomorrow will be fine, that it will be pleasant enough that it won't even occur to me that it's THAT kind of Tuesday.  It's funny the things that change after loss.                  

Survived

I survived another angelversary.  The worst part was the day before when EVERYTHING hurt.  Every other thought hurt because every other thought was about her and about my loss.  The day of, we were so busy between visiting her grave, running errands, going to the temple, playing with cousins, and so many other things that I scarcely thought about the day at all.  So it didn't hurt as much as usual.

But I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing.  Surviving with less pain is good, right?  But did I do her justice on her day?  Does doing a lost one justice mean we have to hurt all day for him/her?  That's a hard one.  We remembered her by going to the temple and visiting her grave but missed going through her book because we were so busy.  Was it enough?

I know she wants me to be happy.  I know she hurts with my pain.  Mourning is an individual experience, so only I can decide if I'm doing it right.  But is there such a thing as "right" and "wrong" or is it just about remembering the lost one whether we are in pain over it or not?  I know that healing is about hurting less over the memories.  Does that mean I'm healing or blocking out the emotions?  I don't think there's an easy answer for that.

Death Anniversary

I know how to handle my angel's birthday: we throw her a party with an angel food cake.  We make her presents.  We go to the LDS temple.  I can (sometimes) handle it with some good grace.  But there's nothing lovely or inspiring about the anniversary of her death.  There's no way to feel or be in a way that won't hurt.  The day is a landmine.  I just know in advance that it will hurt, and no amount of bracing will help.  As I've said before, most days, I'm fine.  Most days, I can handle loss.  I don't have to think about loss all day every day.  I just miss her, and that's part of my life.

But on the death day, the scar tissue/bandage are yanked off, and the wound is exposed.  The lightest touch will hurt.  I know it will.  It's part of how these days work.  The day comes, and it feels like no time has passed.

Other than a temple trip, the only thing that we consistently do from year to year is to pull out her picture book to open the wound because it will happen whether or not we plan for it.  If we as a family plan a set time to open her book, we also plan a set time where we can cry and let the emotions flow.  And at least once a year, that's okay.  It's simply part of mourning.

The Death Date

I think most people remember the significant dates of their loss:birth date, death date, sometimes due date.  Those dates tend to bound off the page.  You start scheduling things for one of the months of one or the other of those dates [assuming there are two or even three], and that date tends to pop out at you wherever you go.

Such is the case for June 29th.  When I started that day six years ago this month, it was just another date, a date when I had a rare work day during the summer.   Now, it's become emblazoned on my mind as her death date.  Everywhere I look, there's the number 29: milk jugs, my work calendar, events... It's almost like there isn't another date in the entire month that matters because EVERYTHING seems to point to the 29th.  It's a trigger like no other, and it's everywhere.

Somehow, I have to figure out how to block out that one date, to forgive the number for its offensive existence.  I'm just not ready yet.    I'm sure I'm not the only one to whom this happens.

Writing Letters to Angels

People have looked for ways to connect with their loved ones beyond the grave for centuries, millenia.  What this says is they think their loved ones are far away or even sitting around a cemetery.   Mythological stories and other stories throughout time have shown a great distance between the mourner and the mourned.  

But from my point of view, our angels are not far away.  They can many times see us, though we cannot see them.  This is not to say that I believe that our angels have nothing better to do than to stare at us all day long.  They are busy.  But we can reach them.  

I truly believe that reaching our loved ones can happen through prayer--we can pass on messages to them through our prayer, not that we pray to them directly--and through writing letters.  Sometimes, messages we speak can reach them.  I think that what with our loved ones being so close, they could read our notes or have them passed on to them.  This may not match with what you believe, but that's okay.  Many people believe that writing and speaking out helps them work through their pain.  Even if you don't believe messages can be passed on through written word, spoken word, or prayer, at the very least, you'll be helping yourself work through your issues.  But I believe that messages can be passed on to our loved ones through written, spoken, and prayed word.  Heaven is nearby.  

Many believe our loved ones watch over us when they can.  They want to see that we are happy and moving on.  I'm sure it causes them pain to see us in constant mourning.  I have written my emotions out through journaling, through blogging, through letters to my loved ones beyond, and many other kinds of writing.  I have prayed that hugs be passed to my loved ones beyond.  I've have prayed to know that my angels were with me at important moments.  

I know this can work for you.  Even if you don't believe this can help your loved ones, know it can help you.  Our angels are not far away, and they continue to love us where they are.  

Faith and Healing

Morning is Unique

Mourning is an individual experience.  For each person, grief takes different forms.  A lot of people tout the virtues of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief.  When my baby smothered herself in a pillow six years ago, the support groups I joined each handed me a copy of the five stages as if it were a guide book to the experience of mourning.  Yet my experience and those of others around me seem to defy one single process, one single experience.  The five stages did not help me in my personal search for healing.  They did nothing for me except set me up for a confusing and incomplete definition of healing. 

False Expectations:

            Before my baby passed away, I lived in the illusion of safety, that just because no great tragedy had happened to me, it couldn’t.  It felt like a kind of protection that shielded me from the worst the world had to offer.  Then when my baby died, I was unprepared.  I had taken a class on trauma writing.  I had also written my master’s thesis on how reading fictional accounts of trauma and healing can provide a safer, somewhat removed space in which to deal with tragedy.  But none of this prepared me for the actual experience of loss. 

            I had heard time heals all wounds and was set up by that “guide book” I was handed for an expectation that all I had to do was let time pass, and Kubler-Ross’s five stages would happen to me.  As soon as they were done, I’d be healed.  I’d go back to how I was before my tragedy had punched a big bloody hole in my heart.  I wanted something to make it better because it hurt so much. 

The Reality

I knew, based on my experiences with child development classes, that stages meant states of being that would happen on their own in a normalized sort of order.  But in reality, I found myself going through a crazy mix of emotions, only a few of which matched up with Kubler-Ross’s stages of shock and denial, anger, depression and detachment, dialogue and bargaining, and acceptance, all of which were supposed to lead to a return to a meaningful life.  I didn’t see a lot of anger or detachment.  I couldn’t really deny anything.  And there were so many more emotions that weren’t on the list that I faced.  I discovered I could go through all of these emotions and more in a month, a week, or even an hour.  I’d skip from shock to acceptance and back to depression or hysteria then eagerness to share my story and back to depression again.  There was nothing stage-like in any of it. Even on days of acceptance, and even after returning to a meaningful life, it still hurt.  My heart still felt like it had a bloody, nasty, painful hole in it that wouldn’t go away. 

As time passed, I found ways to not think, to keep busy, to look at anything but my baby’s pictures or other triggers that sent me into fits of hysteria.  Basically, time allowed me to grow scabs over the big, bloody, painful hole, so I wouldn’t have to feel it.  But a scab is not nearly as comfortable or sensitive a tissue as regular flesh.  All it took was a nudge or poke at the edges of the scab, and I was in pain again.  

Research

So I started to look elsewhere for guidance in the healing process.  I picked up Robert Neimeyer’s book, Meaning Reconstruction and the Exerience of Loss, that debunked Kubler-Ross’s stages as unscientific.  He pointed out that Kubler-Ross’s original theory was based on the experience of dying, not on grief at all.  And he also pointed out that her theory had no scientific foundation or basis in fact, that the “stages” she defined were not stages at all.  I merely learned what I already knew, that grief involves “highly individual processes.”  What I didn’t find in either text was a useful idea of what healing would feel like for me, what it even meant.  Both texts defined healing as, basically, a return to normalcy.  I had returned to some kind of functionality, which meant by either definition, I was healed.  But I certainly didn’t feel healed.  Memories of my loss still hurt acutely even years later. 

 I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, so another kind of guide I was given and studied was a variety of books by other LDS people about their experience of loss and healing.  Almost across the board, they set up a model of prayer, reading scriptures, and above all, having another baby, a rainbow baby to fill the arms even if he or she couldn’t replace the baby lost.  So we tried.  We spent years trying, only to have a total of 15 losses in a row before we walked away from trying, one baby death and 14 first term miscarriages.  All the testing brought us no answer as to the source of our problem and no rainbow baby.  We’ve recently come to terms with the idea that my body just will not carry babies to term anymore for whatever reason. 

Turning to the Source

So instead, I have turned to God for answers, and I have come to a greater understanding of the healing process than I ever did through science or pseudoscience.   Just after my baby died, I turned intensely to faith.  I prayed harder, studied scriptures more closely and with the guide of the Spirit, more than I ever have in my life.  I felt the best, the most at peace, when I sensed other people’s prayers and when I was full of the influence of the Comforter, also called the Holy Ghost.  God doesn’t want us to suffer.  If we turn to Him, he will bring us comfort.  I felt the best when I felt wrapped in His arms. 

Being healed for me is not just about being functional.  Someone could be dying inside but still live what looks like a normal life from the outside.  The best definition I have heard is that a person who is healed is able to look at a picture or other reminder of the loved one and smile over the memories and blessings more than ache over the loss.  Six years after my loss, I am not there yet, but I’d like to be.  I have moments of peace like that, but they don’t last.  However, this portrait of a healed heart gives me a goal to work toward above and beyond just the goal of functionality.  I met someone recently who has bouts of depression but otherwise, arrived at the emotional state I’m still striving for within hours of delivery of a stillbirth.  The Lord sent her spiritual experiences that immediately brought the peace and joy that have been hard-fought for me.  Everyone is different, so everyone’s experience is different.  True healing is a gift the Lord can give in His time and in His way if we earnestly seek it and pray for it.  

The key is applying the Lord’s atonement.  When Jesus suffered and died for us, he didn’t just suffer for our sins.  He also suffered our pains.  He understands what we suffer.  He understands loss, sadness, and pain.  We need to reach out to him.  We need to seek His peace through obedience, through scripture study, and through bringing the Spirit into our lives so strongly that there is no more space for pain.  He will buffer us from agony.  He will bring us joy and peace.  

One of the general authorities of the LDS church, Elder Shayne Bowen, told the story of how his toddler choked on chalk and died.  Elder Bowen went through pain, anger, frustration, and guilt.  He rejected the comforting words of those who tried to reach out to him.  But as he focused more on gratitude for what he had rather than on his pain and loss, he began to find peace and joy.  The Lord “gave him a new heart," a heart full of light rather than “darkness and despair.”  He did warn that “you will never completely get over [grief] until you are once again with your departed loved ones […or] have a fullness of joy until [you] are reunited in the morning of the First Resurrection.”  But we can still have joy, love, and peace.  We can, as he says, “continue with good cheer.”  The Lord can heal our hearts when we seek Him in sincere prayer, service of our fellow man, obedience, love, and gratitude. 

We will never be the same person we were before.  But we also don’t have to suffer for the rest of our lives, either.  Each person has a different journey, but we don’t have to make this journey alone.  We have our fellow travelers here, but most of all, we have the Lord who loves us with all his heart and wants us to find peace and joy.  

Graduation

Recently, I went to my kids' graduation from their respective grades.  I had no idea that such a benign activity would lead to the kind of trigger I mentioned in last week's post.  As I watched the kindergartner's sing their song, it occurred to me that my little girl would have been one of them.  I usually think of my angel as a baby.  But the reality is babies don't stay babies for long.  It was one of those moments like in Disney's "Sleeping Beauty," where Maleficent scoffs that for years, her servants have been searching cradles for a princess that would long since outgrown them.  My imagination keeps searching cradles for a baby when children the age she would have been would have just graduated from kindergarten.  The tears sprang to my eyes when it occurred to me they were missing one of their number and always would be.  It was meant to be a moment of celebration, but for me, it was a moment of mourning.

I imagine there will be more moments like that as I notice more and more events she would have been part of had she still been here.  At the same time, I believe in the resurrection.  I believe I will raise her one day.  She will come back and do all of these things that it feels like she will be doing now.  But in the meantime, there will still be a hole in my heart, and I will still hit triggers like this.

Triggers

I imagine most people in mourning know what triggers are.  Those are the things that remind you of your pain, make you feel like your loss happened just now.  Triggers open the door, bypass all defenses, and confront you with the full force of your pain.  When I had just lost my baby, her blanket triggered a sobbing fit.  Pictures, especially the ones I didn't see often, had me curling up in a ball.  Words, items, anything at all can rip off the emotional scabbing built up to protect you from feeling.

This week, it was her song.  I fell in love with the first Josh Groban song I'd ever heard, "To Where You Are."  Unless I'm in the mood to cry, I can't listen to it at all anymore because it became tied to my pain.  It's a direct, visceral time warp.  It doesn't matter what I'm doing, how I'm feeling, what is going on.  If that song comes on, six years have not past.  I'm there.  I'm feeling that pain as if it were yesterday, and the tears are streaming down my cheeks.  That's just how it works with triggers.

When my loss was new, I was surrounded by triggers.  Almost everything was a trigger when everything around me reminded me of the day before or the week before when I still held my baby in my arms.  It seemed wrong that the world marched forward normally, that the walls and the floor and the furniture were exactly the same as they were before my arms became empty.  Now, so many years in the future, there are few physical reminders around of my baby, and the ones that I have are those I've seen so often, I have emotional scabs against them, too.  They are rarely triggers anymore.  But when her song comes on, I'm there and then again.

On one hand, I don't like triggers.  I don't want to cry without warning.  On the other hand, are they such a bad thing?  Mourning is healthy.  Forgetting or blocking the one we have lost out of our world entirely can lead to festering pain and a bigger emotional explosion when it comes.  It's okay to let ourselves feel, if only for a little while.  Triggers are okay.  We all need triggers, which is why they exist in the first place, as an outlet for our bottled up pain.  It's just easier when we don't hit them very often.

Healing Conversation

I have had healing conversations before, chats with people who make me feel understood and my concerns appreciated.  This week, I had one of the more healing discussions that I've had in a while. Just after my baby died, I joined all these support groups online and in person because that's what I needed at the time.  I haven't needed that for a while.  But I've also been a bit stymied about what else I could do to seek healing.  I have done everything I knew to do including reading books on healing, studying scriptures, sincerely praying, joining support groups, talking it out, and writing my pain.  I purchased a book I have been told I need to read about healing spiritually, The Infinite Atonement, so that's one item on my to-do list.  But otherwise, I was at a loss as to achieve forward momentum.

Then through a series of Providential events, I ran into my sister's friend who had lost her baby less than a year ago.  I was impressed with how much peace and joy she was able to attain immediately.  She had sacred spiritual experiences that helped her, but it seemed like a gift from God that she was able to accept and find peace with her loss before she even left the hospital.  Within a short time of her loss, through angelic visitations and inspiration, she was at a point where she could find joy in the memories rather than ache over her loss.  I'm sure she still has down times, but her healing process was nowhere near as rocky as mine has been.  I am 6 years out and still haven't found the joy and peace she received right away.

She hit upon a possible cause for this.  Just after our baby died, the state attempted to tear apart our family.  Through purjury, tampering with evidence, and other unlawful actions, they put my husband and I through hell for power and financial gain.  I won't go into details at this time, but needless to say, the situation made graceful, immediate healing impossible.

Through a series of miracles and divine interventions, we were eventually delivered from their power.  But whenever we start to think about our baby, the pain of that series of injustices we suffered eats at both of us.  I read these books about healing and finding consolation after loss, but the authors don't talk about complicated healing.  They don't talk about how to find joy and light when your world is plunged into darkness beyond just loss.  That's the book I need to write one of these days, particularly with the help of my husband since so little has been written by fathers of angels.

My new friend suggested that we write out the events of those months in all their lurid, ugly detail and then burn that record, bury it and let it go, forgive the people and events involved.  I thought I had let it go, but when she made this suggestion, it felt right.  Even though the supervisor was removed from ongoing cases for breaking laws in another case, even though the direct "investigator" who committed so many crimes against us is no longer in the area or even working for the same organization, we are still haunted, fearful, angry.  Every knock at the door feels like a threat.  It's hard to trust or feel safe.  There is so much pain still beneath the surface, and not all of it loss.

I pray I can find a way to follow this friend's very wise and inspired advice.  I pray I can let that part of my pain go, so I can continue to heal.  I also pray for those who suffer like this, who go through a loss complicated by family, legal, financial, or other considerations.  I know I'm not alone in this.  I know others need my voice, and one day, the Lord will guide me to a way I can use it.

Happy Mother's Day?

Mother's Day reminds me of those I cannot hold.  Mother's Day is supposed to be a day to celebrate motherhood.  But that day can be complicated by so many things.  Some people have lost their mothers, so Mother's Day is a reminder of loss and emptiness.  The same is true for those who have lost a child.  A mom can have 15 children and still have a rough time on Mother's Day because of the one she cannot hold.  That's where I am today.

I love the children I can hold, but I'm feeling the ache of today more than on most such holidays. A really good book I read on the topic is Josie Kilpack's Unsung Lullaby.  It's about a couple who wants nothing so much as to hold one of their own children and yet who face nothing but hardship and pain when it comes to bringing one into this world.  Mother's Day is a hard day for them because of it.  I think a lot of people can identify with that.  

I wish I could call Mother's Day a time of joy, but I can't.  I can still hug my mom, which is great.  And I've brought live children into this world.  I still have two I can hold.  But I have a fleet of angels, Allie and those I never got to hold, whose losses haunt me today.  It does not help that my brother, my best friend all through childhood, died on Mother's Day.  It does not matter when Mother's Day falls.  It will always be, for me, the anniversary of his death and a time of mourning.  

Tomorrow, I will feel nothing but gratitude for my children, my mom, all the many things with which I am blessed.  Tomorrow, I will remind myself that families are forever, and I will hold all of my angel babies and my brother again.  But today, I will feel the loss, allow myself to mourn, and look forward to better days.  

I Believe Gratitude is the Key to Happiness

After Alamanda died, I longed for another baby to fill my arms.  It made sense that if sadness came from empty arms and the absence of baby warmth, cooing, and the smell of fresh baby breath and even the sour smell of tiny baby diapers, all it would take to make me happy was another baby.  I knew another baby could never replace Alamanda, but he or she could fill the empty spaces and relieve the pain.  But instead, I had to learn the hard way that the key to happiness is not from getting what I want but from gratitude for what I have been given. 

When my baby died, the loss left a massive, bloody hole in my heart and my life.  I wanted to get my smile back, but in a world plunged into darkness, my smile was hard to find in a way that wasn’t fake.  Looking at babies, pregnant women, and ultrasounds caused nothing but agony, and in Utah, they’re everywhere.  I kept reading LDS books on healing that showed all you had to do to find healing from the pain worse than any I thought possible was to study scriptures and pray.  Both of these brought peace, as did prayers of friends and family.  But above all, the formula in these books demanded I have another baby for my healing and happiness to be complete.  However, as much as I studied scriptures and prayed earnestly, my rainbow baby never came.  Pregnancy after pregnancy for 13 in a row, I met with more heartache, sometimes a quiet ultrasound with no heartbeat, a hospital visit or other medical intervention, but no baby.  Each time, we bought another porcelain angel for my kids to name, so we could put him or her on the shelf to help them feel the connection and to help them understand the reality of their siblings.  But despite testing and medication from the doctor to prevent another loss, there it came.  I started buying porcelain angels in advance because I figured chances were I would need them.  Every time I prayed about whether to keep trying, I felt like it was not yet time to quit. I have come to believe the reason I was guided this way was because I needed that time to hope in order to heal.  I emotionally needed that crutch, so the Lord let me have it. 

Eventually, I started noticing a pattern in the scriptures and in spiritual thoughts, LDS General Conference Talks, and other places.  Again and again, I heard that joy came not in the getting such as getting a baby but in the gratitude for that which I’d already been richly blessed.  I did not need a baby to complete me.  The Lord would heal me and make me whole, or as whole as I will be until I hold my angels again.  Elder Bowen’s talk from the October 2012 General Conference Really struck me.  He told the story of his journey of healing after his baby died.  He talked of the joy I can have even in spite of the pain, the healing that comes when I realize “How grateful I am to my Father in Heaven that He allows us to love deeply and love eternally. How grateful I am for eternal families. How grateful I am that He has revealed once again through His living prophets the glorious plan of redemption.”  I realized healing is a gift from the Lord, and it comes, in part, through gratitude. 

The Lord has given me so much.  I was blessed with four blissful, though sometimes challenging, months with my angel baby, Alamanda.  She was a truly special spirit who will be mine forever because of Heavenly Father’s plan for families.  I have also been blessed with an army of guardian angels who will watch over me until they can come again and fill my arms.  I have been blessed with a loving husband and two wonderful, warm, vibrant children I can hold and love.  We have been blessed with several pets to fill my days when the kids are in school, including a cat sent specifically to be a hug from Alamanda to my little girl, who still misses her sister.  I have been blessed with talents and opportunities to bless other lives through them. 

I will likely never hold another baby of mine until the Lord comes again.  But I can still find joy and happiness because of gratitude for my blessings and the knowledge that the separation isn’t forever, just for now.