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.