The Terrible Two's

Today is Vivienne’s 2^nd birthday. In so many ways, I’m not really sure what to say about it. To think about what should have been breaks my heart every day, but today, it weighs heavily.

I should have a toddler wreaking havoc on my house. She should be talking and walking. Instead, the silence of her absence screams at me. We moved into a new house recently, and I didn’t have to think about little hands reaching for things they could break or would be dangerous for them. It’s a thought that crossed my mind with every object I put away. I would say to myself over and over again, it’s not supposed to be like this.

What I can’t stop thinking about is that my baby isn’t supposed to be a baby anymore. I can’t help but wonder whether she’s still a baby in heaven or if she is 2 years old. I can’t picture her as a 2 year old. I’ll only ever see her as a baby – the one and only time I got to hold her and soak in everything about her. We are “celebrating” (a word that does not fit, but there isn’t another one that does) her 2^nd birthday, and yet she is and will always be a baby to us.

It adds another level of grief to our journey. We will “celebrate” these milestones for our daughter, but she will always stay a baby. On her 5^th birthday, I will mourn not sending her off to kindergarten, but also try to reconcile that I cannot picture my 5 year old daughter. She will always be a baby, and each year will be a reminder that she will not grow up to match the number of candles on her cake. I’ll think about where she should be that year, but not be able to generate an image of her in my head. She’ll be a baby until the day I die.

I think of Vivienne every day, and I miss her every minute of the day. Some times, I can smile about the great privilege it is to be her Mother. And some times, she sends me signs that give me a big smile at my thoughtful and amazing daughter. But today, I feel profoundly sad about all that we are missing with her.

Missing her like this is painful to the very core of my being. And on days like today, I have to recognize that there will always be days like this. Days where her absence causes me an emotional and physical pain that I could never describe. And all I can do is tell myself to breathe, put one foot in front of the other, and hope that tomorrow will be easier. But, I live with the knowledge that even though there will be happy days, there will forever be days like today that bring me to my knees.

We do things to honor our daughter, but it’s never enough. We have decided to do a volunteer project for her birthday every year, and we ask our friends and family to do a random act of kindness in Vivienne’s memory on her birthday. While there is some comfort in knowing that good things are being done in her name, I still can’t shake the overwhelming sense of guilt. It’s never enough. Because I can never actually do anything for Vivienne, it will never be enough.

Vivienne’s birthday feels very different for me this year. I’m still sorting through how I’m feeling. I thought it would be easier this year – not easy, by any means, but easier than the first birthday – but it’s equally hard. For some of the same reasons as last year, but with some new reasons added in. But at the end of the day, it is a milestone for our daughter like it is for anyone else’s child. The difference is that it’s a milestone reminding us of what we don’t get to share with her.

I just miss her. So much that I don’t know what to do with myself.

Why I Write, and Why I Stop

When I started writing this blog about a year and a half ago, it was out of a moment of desperation. I felt incredibly isolated and misunderstood, and I was desperate to make people understand, even if just a little bit. Over time, the topics and words have flowed pretty easily. Sometimes, it takes some time and effort to describe something that I think is impossible to explain, but for the most part, I sit at the computer and furiously type because the words and feelings just come.

Over the past couple of weeks, that hasn’t been the case. I haven’t been as eager to write, and I don’t even know what I would want to write about most days. I thought maybe it was because I’d gotten it all out, which I know isn’t true. Or maybe I’m at a stage in my grief journey where the writing isn’t as healing as it used to be. Nothing I came up with felt quite right for what I was feeling.

And then I started to think about why I was writing. These desperate emotions of wanting to be understood have caused me to be pretty vulnerable. I bare my soul in this blog – the raw, ugly parts of loss and grief. Every time I write, I put my heart on the table to be examined and evaluated by anyone who reads about it. I’m not sure what it is that has made me comfortable with being this vulnerable in front of so many people, including a lot of strangers. It certainly was not my style in my Before Vivienne days.

For the first few months that I wrote the blog, I always pushed “publish” with a bit of hesitation. Each time I put my thoughts, heart, and soul out there, I wondered whether that would be the point when someone would tell me enough was enough. I waited for the judgment that what I was feeling was wrong, that it was time to move on, or to say something to minimize what I was feeling. I was always surprised that the judgment never came. I have no doubt that it was there, but at least the people who thought it were kind enough to keep it to themselves.

I don’t have any regrets about putting myself out there in this blog. I know that sharing my experience has helped some other people feel more understood and less alone. And I know that I have helped a few friends have a better understanding of how to help other loss parents in their lives. And because I have shared so openly about what we’re going through, I have received support from friends I haven’t spoken to in years.

But in being so vulnerable and sharing so much, I have to admit that it is starting to make me feel weak. I generally write about the struggle here, and I always wonder if the people who read it wonder how I get out of bed in the morning (sometimes, I wonder that too). Lately, I’ve been struggling with how this blog must portray my life vs. what really is my life. I want to be the person who works through their grief and loss and comes out stronger and more appreciative of life. When I write and read what I have written, I am not that person.

And I’m starting to feel that the blog is having the opposite effect than what was intended. I started writing out of a desperate need to feel understood. I continued to write because it was healing for me, and I really felt like I was helping people understand what it’s like to walk in my shoes. But lately, I feel the opposite effect. I find that when I write these days, I end up feeling even more misunderstood and isolated. Maybe I can’t get the words out right anymore. Maybe I’ve been through so much over the past 2 years that it has become impossible to make people understand. I don't think it's possible to make people understand what it's like to lose a child, followed by more loss, and ultimately being told you can't carry more children. I don’t know why, but I know that the blog is causing feelings that I don’t enjoy and I don’t want to feel anymore.

And so I think it’s time for me to step away from the blog for a while. I need to focus on the person that I want to become, not the person who I have been. Maybe I’ll come back to it, and maybe I’ll find other outlets that help me work through this grief journey I’ll be on for the rest of my life. I’m trying not to hold myself to what I think tomorrow should look like today. When I want to write, I’ll write. And if it doesn’t feel right, then I won’t.

You’ve all been so generous to read this blog and send me many encouraging notes and comments. I’ve felt a tremendous amount of support in writing about such a painful topic, and I’m very grateful for all of that support. As I’ve battled with this idea of not writing anymore, it only felt right to be honest and share where I am in my journey today.

Thanks for reading and for continuing to support us through our journey.

I Am Still Standing

Today is International Bereaved Mother’s Day . It’s not a Hallmark holiday, and you won’t see a card section for it at your local store. It was started by a woman in Australia who lost her son. It’s the Sunday before the standard Mother’s Day every year, and generally no one has ever heard of it until they’ve lost a child. I know that’s true for me.

For me, it’s a day to reflect. I think about all that we have lost, the challenges of a bereaved mother in parenting a child who needs nothing from her, and the knowledge that the rest of the world sees me very differently than I see myself. I think about all that my children have given me – an appreciation for the small things we take for granted, a better understanding of the fragility of life, a stronger marriage, perspective on what really matters, the knowledge of who will be there when life isn’t pretty, and the strength to get up and face every day.

This day is also about breaking the silence. For the life of me, I will never understand the taboo around miscarriage, neonatal loss, and grief. They are topics that make people uncomfortable, and people tend to shy away from them. I’ve watched it first hand – that steady backward step away from me as I talk about my children or my grief, the stammering in reply when I say I have a daughter who died, the flow of clichés on how to view my situation more positively (“there’s a reason this is happening” “just believe” – I could go on for hours).

There is no silence on this topic in my world. I know that my talking and writing about loss, infertility, and grief is too public for some people in my life. These are supposed to be “private matters”, handled and discussed as a family. Why is that? What good comes from keeping something so life altering and defining private? That only serves to make bereaved mothers feel even more isolated and different from the rest of society. If my daughter were alive and well, it would be perfectly acceptable, and even encouraged, for me to post pictures of her and talk endlessly about her. But because she died, I am supposed to internalize those maternal feelings, plaster a smile on my face, and go about my life as though nothing has changed.

Not talking about my losses and grief is simply not an option for me. I feel a responsibility to break the silence and tell people what it’s like to lose a child and live with infertility. I am responsible to my daughter, whose life and death have impacted me in ways I haven’t even figured out yet. I am responsible to the loss community to do what I can to lift the taboo and help people not feel so alone, so disconnected, so misunderstood, and so abnormal. And I’m responsible to myself to be who I am, feel what I feel, and not be worried about whether it makes other people uncomfortable.

I am the face of neonatal loss. I am the face of miscarriage. I am the face of infertility. I am the face of a mother who will grieve for her children for the rest of her life. How, I'm not so sure, but I am still standing. And I’m breaking the silence.

Remembering to Breathe

I’ve commented before that a big part of my new normal is that I have to remember to breathe. Even nearly a year and a half later, there are still moments where I have to sit and tell myself “just breathe.” Some days, that seems like the only thing that I can do. Just keep breathing, and hopefully that horribly difficult moment will pass.

I haven’t breathed deeply in a very long time. I try, in those moments where I remind myself to breathe, but I can’t. When I attempt to take in a deep breath, I can feel something inside of me that stops it short. It’s like I can feel the wall in my lungs and heart that just won’t let it happen.

Yesterday was a big reminder to me in my quest to just breathe. We had a big doctor’s appointment. I kept calling it our “do or die” test because it was. This was the test that would determine whether our surgery in November was successful, and if we could move forward with IVF. If the test showed the scar tissue and adhesions had returned, it would mean that I was unable to carry a child. I probably sound dramatic, but it was the big one as far as tests go. We have come to not expect much in the way of good news from our doctors anymore, so much to our surprise, we got it. Adhesion free and cleared to continue. 

Every time I think about getting that good news, I exhale deeply. It happened all day yesterday, and it’s still happening today (I just did it again as I typed that). Yesterday, I was struck by how odd this deep exhale felt. It was then that I realized that I’ve been holding my breath for months. It hasn’t been a conscious act – just the anxiety of not knowing how things would turn out. Yesterday, I breathed a little lighter and a little fuller. It felt good, but it also felt very strange.

I am, once again, very aware of my breathing. I have my deep exhale in knowing that my dream to carry and bring another child into this world (one we get to raise, please) is still alive. I still can’t take that full breath in that I’d like, but I’m making progress. Little by little, the ability to breathe without telling myself to breathe is coming back.

But I know not to get too comfortable in this state. There will be something that will knock the wind out of me again. It doesn’t have to be more tragedy – it’s as simple as a day when I’m missing my children more than I know what to do with. That day will come again and again over the course of my lifetime. And I will have to remind myself to breathe again. But at least I know I can work my way back.

When I started writing this blog, the topic of breathing was on my mind. But as I finish writing the blog now, I realize that it is January 18. One year ago today, I miscarried our second child. It was a very different experience than losing Vivienne. We got very little time to be hopeful and make plans for this little one. But this child was just as wanted, loved, and wished for as any child, and a part of our family. We gave this baby the symbol of a sun, as we'd just taken a vacation to Florida. So it's no coincidence that the sun was shining strongly all day today.As I looked out into the sunshine, I know that it's our Baby Sunshine telling us hello.

And there’s that deep exhale again, but for a very different reason.

Days Like This

I’ve been writing this blog for a little over a year now. As I think back on what I’ve written about, it’s clear that this has not been a linear journey. You can’t start reading the blog a year ago and see me steadily get “better” over the course of the year. There have been times when I felt like I was getting there, and times when I felt like I was slipping back. And that journey continues.

Today is one of those slipping back days. Tomorrow was my scheduled due date – the date when my daughter should be turning 1. Christmas is right around the corner. And New Year’s and the hope of a new and kinder year is just a little over a week away. And here I sit, mired in a funk that I probably won’t come out of for days and that, despite a year of practice, I’m still not sure how to navigate.

I do a lot of thinking and introspection on my drive to and from work. This morning, all I could think was “will it ever really get any better?” Sixteen months have passed since Vivienne died, and today is one of those days where I feel like it will never get easier. 

I feel frustrated because I’ve done everything I can to walk through the grief. I haven’t avoided it – I’ve confronted it at every stage. I have been to counseling, workshops, and support groups (in person and online). I have written (even more than in this blog) to get my feelings out. I have been honest and open about my grief, and I only plaster on the smile when I need to (mostly for social occasions and work). I have cried and screamed. I have been through bargaining, anger, acceptance, and all of the stages of grief multiple times. I have done what I’m supposed to do to get through this. And here I sit, 16 months later, unable to stop crying.

I’ve been told many times that losing a child takes a lifetime to get over – which is to say that it never actually happens. I knew this is what I was in for and set my expectations accordingly. And I don’t want to ever “get over” losing any of my children. What I do want is for it to stop hurting so bad. 

This grief journey is like climbing the tallest mountain you can imagine. You make some progress on the climb, and even though you know you may never make it to the top, you still feel good about any progress that you’ve made. But then, sometimes out of nowhere and sometimes expected and anticipated, something comes along and knocks you back down to the base of the mountain. You feel all of your progress washed away and are forced to look at how much of a climb there is ahead. It’s overwhelming, daunting, and completely debilitating. You know you have to start the climb again, and you know that at some point, you will be knocked back to base camp. There is no real hope of making it to the top, but you climb anyway.

On days like this, I am at the base of the mountain again. At some point, I will have to take that first step and attempt the climb towards progress. But today all I can think is how tall this mountain is and how I know that I’ll never reach the top. I have no choice but to climb, but when you know that something will come along to knock you back, it’s hard to think about starting that climb again.

Weak and Strong

It has been 14 months since Vivienne died. As I look at that number, and think about where I am, I am struck by how that number seems like such a long and short period of time, all at once. In one way, it feels like forever since I knew what it was like to carry and hold my daughter. And in another way, I wonder how it’s possible for a life to change so much in only 14 months. Time stands still and soldiers on all at once.

Over these past 14 months, I have had many people tell me how strong I am. I struggle with that label a lot. Partly, it's because I haven't had any choice about this strength. It was never an option to crawl into a ball and completely withdraw from the world. Trust me, on many occasions, I wanted to, and often, I still do. But, the world keeps on turning whether I want it to or not, and so I have been forced to figure out how to jump back onto this spinning world.

I also know that I’m not doing anything particularly special here. It’s been largely about survival for me, not strength, and the things I do and choices I make are only because that is what I need to do to work my way through this. It has nothing to do with strength – it’s all about necessity. And I know that if any of you were faced with this tragedy, you would do the same (and for many of you reading this, you have done the same).  I know that no one likes to imagine losing their child. A friend once told me that she tries to think about what it’s like for me, and that her brain just won’t let her go there. It is impossible to imagine, but I feel confident in saying that any of you would survive it – you would figure out your own necessities and how to navigate it. It isn’t strength, it’s just surviving.

Recently, someone said the opposite to me. They told me that didn’t know what to say to me because I’m fragile, and they didn’t want to say or do anything that would add to the hurt. Initially, I felt a little defensive at the label of “fragile.” But, as I thought about it, it is appropriate. It is an understatement to say that I’ve been through a lot over the past 14 months, and it would be expected for one to come out of that emotionally frail. No one ever likes to think of themselves as weak, but I would have to say that it’s how I feel most of the time.

And so, as I think about this, I have realized that it is possible to be completely weak and broken, while also being completely strong and tough at the same time. There are certainly times where I feel more strong than weak, and others where I feel more weak than strong, but as I sit writing this, I feel both equally. I feel emotionally battered and weathered, but I also know that tomorrow, I will wake up, get dressed, and go about my day. I will see the baby announcements, ultrasound pictures, and baby photos on Facebook and feel the wind knocked out of me again. But I will still keep going. Both fragile and strong – another part of my new normal.

Grieving the Loss of "Normal"

I know that I write a lot on this blog about “normal.” It must seem strange because I know that normal doesn’t actually exist. Most of the people that I look at and think they have a normal family and a normal life probably don’t feel the same about their own lives. But I think we also have to admit that there are a lot of families out there whose lives fall much closer to normal than mine. I don’t think it’s possible to feel further from normal than I do right now.

It’s hard for me to be around other people’s normal. I see them playing with their kids, chasing them around, taking family pictures, and it just reminds me how far my life is from that normal. I find myself wishing that things had turned out differently, and I could be a part of that normal crowd. Instead, I’m the person standing there uncomfortable and trying not to cry, for seemingly no reason.

I thought about this a lot yesterday. We were at a charity walk/run for some family friends. We were happy to be there to support them and their son. It was a nice morning with friends. It wasn’t until later in the day that I realized how affected I was by my morning. And it became a chain reaction as I dug deeper to understand what was really bothering me.

At the surface, it’s just hard for me to be around happy family times. I wish it wasn’t like that, because it makes me feel like a pretty selfish person. But it’s no secret that Gordon and I are fighting a very long and very difficult battle to try to get that happy family. It’s not a fight we have with each other, but with a universe that seems hell bent on making this as difficult as possible, and even potentially impossible. It is extremely difficult to be around something that you want so desperately, but is always out of reach.

So, that starts the sadness, and some guilt that I can’t just be happy for my friends who have something that I know is so precious. Then comes the wishing. I wish our lives could be normal like that. I wish that things went the way they are supposed to, and we could enjoy other’s happy family time because we knew it ourselves. Wishing for chasing kids around, comforting a fussy child, and taking family pictures that were complete with our whole family. It’s another layer of sadness when you realize that this can never be for our family. No matter what our future holds, we’ll never have that kind of normal.

And then the real sadness and guilt come. Because in wishing for this normal, it feels like I am wishing Vivienne away. In order for me to wish for that normal, it feels like I have to wish that Vivienne never happened. I understand that this isn’t actually the case – I can just wish that she never died (a lot of good that does me), but it feels more like I would need to deny her to have this type of normalcy that I wish for. There are no words that can describe the emotion I feel when I think about this. Once I had this realization yesterday, I spent the rest of the day just telling myself to breathe, because that alone felt impossible to me.

In the end, I know that I can’t change where we are. And I would never, ever wish Vivienne away. So I have to accept that this “normal” that other people get will never be for my family. And that becomes yet another loss to grieve.

A Lost Limb

I’ve heard the metaphor many times that losing a loved one is like being wounded. Initially, you feel sharp, blinding, and unrelenting pain. But over time, the wound heals to a scar – it never goes away, but the pain does. I’d heard this metaphor before losing Vivienne, and I’ve heard it a lot since her death. I never felt fully comfortable with this analogy – mostly because it’s presented as a linear process. You have a wound, it heals, you have a scar. Once it’s a scar, it doesn’t hurt any more – it’s just a quiet reminder of what happened in the past. Losing a child isn’t that linear – it hurts, it heals, it hurts again, and so the cycle goes.

Recently, I read an analogy that seems much more appropriate for the loss of a child. The comparison is to having a limb amputated. There are a few reasons why this analogy feels better for me.

Losing a limb is tragic. It’s not the norm, and it doesn’t happen to everyone. When it happens, it gets your attention because it’s not how we plan for our lives to go. We all get scars – but most of us get to keep all of our limbs and all of our children.

Losing a limb is painful. If you’ve ever had a doctor ask you to give a number to your pain, you know that 0 is no pain and 10 is “losing a limb” pain. Losing a child is a 10 on the pain scale (actually, I’d put it closer to 100, but you get the drift).

It’s life changing in every way. When someone loses a limb, they have to learn new ways to walk, drive, and do everyday tasks. When you lose a child, we have to learn new ways to communicate with our spouses, new survival techniques around new Moms, and how to answer simple questions like “how many kids?” It changes all of your relationships – some get stronger and some fade away. You have to relearn how you relate to the world.

You never get over a lost limb. You learn to adapt and find new ways to get the same things accomplished, but it’s always present in your mind. You never wake up one morning and think “I totally forgot that I lost my arm!” just like you never forget about your child.

There are always reminders of how your life is different because of what you lost. While you may adapt to living life without a limb, the world doesn’t adapt to you. Similar to losing a child – you adapt to life with a child in heaven, but the world goes on with pregnant women, baby showers, first birthdays, first days of school, graduations, and on and on to remind you that your situation is different.

This analogy seems much more in line with what I’ve experienced in loss. The biggest difference that I can think of between the 2 is how the outside world sees you. When you lose a limb, people notice that aspect about you for the rest of your life. When you lose a child, it is invisible to the people you meet, and eventually, invisible to many of the people who know you. The battle to adapt and deal with the reminders and pain happens on the inside.

The New Normal . . . So Far

It’s been a year. I’ve been writing for 9 months about this “new normal” of mine, and trying to figure out what it is. The short answer is that I don’t know yet. I’m still very much a work in progress. I’ve learned a lot over the past year, but I know that I’m still nowhere near level ground. It will likely take a lifetime to figure out my new normal, but here is what I can say it is so far.

My new normal is:

Being able to cry, hard, in a split second. It doesn’t take much to take me there, and I’ve learned that I can cry freely in front of anyone (friends, coworkers, strangers, even my boss).

Spending large amounts of time focusing on just breathing. Breathing is often a very conscious act for me.

Extreme introversion. I’ve never been terribly social or out-going, and I’ve only gotten more introverted over the last year. Part of it is that I recognize who really matters, and part of it is self-protection.

Recognizing that there are 4 types of people in my life:

·                            People that truly understand

·                            People that genuinely try to understand and actually empathize

·                            People that pretend to try to understand, but judge instead

·                            People who just don’t care

I’m learning to emphasize the first 2 and get rid of the latter 2.

Getting advice from anyone and everyone. Everyone has an opinion about how to manage my grief, how to cope with infertility, and what I need to do now. In the end, only my opinion counts for me.

Coping with changed friendships. I’ve had many close friendships change over the past year – some got stronger, some just changed, and some went away. There is more loss that comes with loss than most people recognize.

Living broken, but living. (Sarah, that one’s for you!)

A stronger, but changed faith. I've had my bouts of serious anger and questioning with God over the past year, and I know I'm not done. But today, I can say that my faith is stronger, but different in many ways from the faith I had before.

Experiencing multiple contrasting moods in a 5 second span – happy changes to guilt which changes to sadness which changes to bitterness in seconds flat.

Knowing what it’s like to miss someone so much that it physically hurts to the very core of your soul.

Feeling such bitterness and jealousy when I see or hear of someone who is pregnant or a small baby. I hate this ugly side of grief, but I can’t deny that it’s part of my normal now.

A stab in the heart every time someone asks “do you have any children?” And the moment where my heart stops as I know what will come next when I answer the question openly.

Balancing between not wanting people to forget my daughter, but not being defined solely by my loss. It is an impossible tightrope to walk.

Being able to count on 1 hand the people I really need in life and knowing they’ll be there in a hot second if I needed them.

Knowing that when life gets bad, there’s only 1 person I want to see, and fortunately, I married him.

Back to the Beginning

Yesterday was my birthday. This Sunday is Vivienne’s. I’ve been saying since last year that my birthday would be cancelled this year. It’s not because of any vanity I have about turning 40. It just doesn’t feel like an occasion to celebrate. My focus is firmly on Vivienne’s birthday on Sunday and figuring out how I will survive this next milestone.

I’ve written before about how the build up to milestones is more difficult than the actual event. That has been true for me with nearly every one. I was prepared for it with her birthday, and I thought I was managing it OK, or at least as well as I could. Today, it is hitting me with full force, and I feel like I’m back at the beginning.

I got to be distracted by my birthday with a whirlwind of travel and meetings. In my mind, I thought it was working out great because I could act like my birthday just wasn’t happening. I couldn’t be on Facebook for all of the lovely birthday messages. My coworkers knew not to make any announcements or have cake at the meeting, because it wasn’t what I wanted. So, I was able to go through the day with little acknowledgement of my birthday and have it exactly as I wanted. I even managed to make it home in time to have dinner with my husband, which was pretty much the only thing I wanted to do in acknowledgement of my birthday.

This morning, I realized that all this did was distract me from what was really on my mind. Now that my birthday has passed, I have no more distractions. There is nothing powerful enough to pull my attention away from what I have been dancing around for weeks. The time is almost here, and right now, you’d think by looking at me that it happened yesterday.

I’ve often said that one of my most used crying spots is my car. There is something about being alone with my thoughts that just makes it the place I cry most often. I often talk to her in the car, but I was getting better about the crying lately. This morning, as I started my drive to work, and seemingly out of nowhere, I started crying, and I couldn’t stop. As I pulled into the parking lot at work, I tried as hard as I could to pull myself together so I could get to my office, and I couldn’t even manage that (fortunately, I come into work really early, and there’s no one to see me cry my way into the office). As I sat in my office, it was all I could think about. And the tears just kept coming. People came to ask me questions, and I would look up at them with bloodshot eyes, telling them I’m having a hard day. It felt just like my first days back at work.

In every way, I feel very much back at square one right now. Much like the early days, I don’t know how I’m going to manage the next few days. I’m not sure how I’ll get myself out of bed tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll be able to stop the tears. And I don’t know how anything will ever feel OK again.

I’m back to my old routine that I exercised faithfully in the weeks after Vivienne died. I sit in my office with the door closed for the day, and turn my computer away from the door so no one can see me cry. I move as many meetings as I can, so I don’t have to show my puffy eyes. I go to the cafeteria and grab my lunch early, so I don’t have to be faced with the pregnant women or people asking questions. I race home so that I can be with the only person I want to be with when this happens. And tonight, I will go and cry freely with my tribe at my support group. I’ve figured out how to navigate through it, but I’m still not sure I know how to survive it.

I can now say from experience that I know this feeling won’t last forever. Eventually, I will feel better, and someday, I will laugh again. But as I sit here feeling almost exactly as I did in the days immediately after losing Vivienne, I am finding it very hard to believe. 

Two Weeks

It’s now 2 weeks until Vivienne’s birthday. Two weeks until we mark the day when our lives changed forever. I feel conflicted because I want that day to get here quickly, because then I won’t want to think about where I was a year ago. At the same time, I don’t want that day to come because right now, I can sit here and think about how a year ago I was happy. A year ago, I was hopeful. A year ago, it felt like our best times were still ahead of us.

Today marks the last ultrasound we had with Vivienne. It was the big 20 week ultrasound. Generally, it would be the time when parents find out if it’s a boy or a girl, but we already knew that. All we wanted to hear was that she was healthy. She was stubborn in that ultrasound, but she was healthy. She refused to show her face to the doctor, and he wouldn’t let us go until she did. She burrowed deep back around my spine and would not come out or turn around no matter how much I lay on my side or poked at her. After a little walk, she finally showed her face. The doctor proclaimed her perfect. We went on our way thinking we had passed all of the tests. We were halfway there.

That last ultrasound makes me smile, because it’s one of the few events where we got a peek at Vivienne’s personality. We wondered whether she would be shy (which she’d get honestly from her mother) or really stubborn (which she’d get honestly from both of her parents). We got to see a glimpse of who she would be. This tiny little person who we loved (and still love) beyond words, and who we will never get to know in this lifetime. We’ll never know what her personality would be. All that we have are these little clues she left us while we had her.

That last ultrasound is also source of pain for us. Because the doctor had difficulty seeing her face, we don’t have any good pictures from that last ultrasound. At the time, we commented on that making us sad, but we assumed (as we all do) that we would get another chance. We had 20 weeks to go – there would be more ultrasounds, and we would get more pictures. We did get pictures after she was born, but I find myself still wanting better pictures of that last perfect moment. That last moment we would see of her alive and healthy.

These next 2 weeks represent our last perfect days. Planning for Vivienne went into full swing. A baby shower started to come together. We started to do research for the baby registry and made our plans to register for everything she would need. We’d planned to go register on August 20^th – I went into labor the day before. We celebrated my birthday – my last birthday before I would have my first child. The last 2 weeks of hopes and dreams before our world completely shattered.

I’m not quite ready to let go of those happy and hopeful feelings of a year ago. But time doesn’t care if I’m ready or not. In 2 weeks, I won’t be able to look back on a year ago and remember a happy time. I will have to do my best to look forward, but somewhere inside, I’ll think about a year ago being the darkest time of my life. I’ll have to acknowledge that a year ago, it really felt possible to die from a broken heart.  A year ago, I did not know how I could possibly survive what had happened to us.

Maybe, on some level, I’ll be able to give myself some credit for how far I’ve come. I’ve spent the better part of the last year forcing myself to put one foot in front of the other and to keep going, even when I didn’t want to. Maybe passing the 1 year mark can be the start of just putting one foot in front of the other without feeling forced. I will never be able to put the past year behind me – it is a part of me and has made me who I am today. My daughter and the loss of my daughter is not something to move past or get over. But I hold out hope that this will mark the time when I can feel myself moving forward with a focus on all that this last year has taught me. I guess time will tell.

It Doesn't Go Away

We are quickly coming up on a year. I can’t even believe that. The last year has passed by in a haze of shock, anger, frustration, sadness, hopelessness, fear, anxiety, despair, and so many emotions for which there are no words. Yes, there have been happy moments, even some moments of peace. But if I have to summarize this last year of my life, I wouldn’t use many joyful terms.

In just a little over 3 weeks, my daughter will turn 1. We will have a celebration for her, but there will be no party. There will be no cake to smash, no special hat to wear, no blowing out the candle, and no “look who’s 1!” signs hanging at our house. As I searched for invitations to send to my family for the day, I was reminded of how different Vivienne’s first birthday will be. Every option on the market marked a happy celebration, the first of many birthday milestones. “Look at me, I’m 1!” they all seemed to say. We won’t get to celebrate Vivienne and her first birthday in the way that most other parents get to do. We will celebrate her life and how much she means to us, but it will be a bittersweet day.

I have known since August 19^th of last year that August 19^th of this year would be a very difficult day. What I wasn’t prepared for was the build up to the day. Many fellow loss Moms had warned me about it, so I knew to expect it. But there is no way to prepare for it. In some ways, this build up is easy to explain, and in many ways it isn’t.

The easy thing to explain is how it’s always on my mind. It is constantly thinking about where I was a year ago, that time before my life changed forever. It is always wondering how different things could be if I’d done just 1 thing differently. It is wondering what it’s like to prepare for your child’s first birthday with invitations, cake, and decorations that all fit a happy theme rather than wondering how they’ll react at the bakery when you ask for the cake to say “Happy Heavenly Birthday Vivienne.” It is longing to see her and hold her more than I could ever express.

The part that is difficult to explain is how the build up shadows everything else going on, without my realizing it. I feel out of sorts all of the time. There is always a sense in the back of my mind that life just isn’t quite right. It comes on without my recognition and doesn’t leave. I feel restless, like I should be doing something, but I’m not sure what that is. I feel like there is a dark cloud that surrounds me, and there is nothing I can do to lift it.

As we look to Vivienne’s first birthday in heaven, I know that the last year has irrevocably changed my life, and there is no going back. If I have learned anything, I know that the grief and sadness do not go away – they change, but they are always there. I know there are a lot of people waiting for the time when Gordon and I will be better. I hate to tell you, but don’t waste your time. It’s never going to happen. Over the course of the last year, we are learning to laugh again, to enjoy life, to appreciate the little things, and to hold tight to those you love who love you back. We are also learning to accept that there will always be sadness, we will always miss her, and we will never be whole. We are learning to live with a piece of ourselves missing, focusing on building the best life we can, and to always honor and remember our daughter. We are moving forward, yet always recognizing that the pain will never go away.

Will it ever stop?

That’s the question on my mind these days. It’s been 9 months since we lost Vivienne, which I know reads like a long time to a lot of people. I also know that it reads like such a short period of time to the people who have walked this path ahead of me. But still, it’s been 9 months, and I wonder if it will ever stop.

It is still more painful than I can describe to hear other women announce their pregnancies, seeing birth announcements, new pictures posted of the baby, and all of the cute things that your baby/child does. I want to be happy for people experiencing these blessings, but I have to admit, it’s hard. And it’s not getting any easier.

I thought with time, the bitterness would fade. I’m hopeful that it still will, because it’s not a feeling I enjoy. But I can’t imagine a time when I won’t feel bitter that I don’t get to have my daughter with me. I don’t know how it’s possible to not be bitter when so much has been taken from you.

When I was pregnant with Vivienne, it felt like the whole world was pregnant at the same time. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but it really was a baby boom at my office, and I had multiple friends pregnant at the same time. After Vivienne died, I watched each of them go on to have healthy babies. I got the messages at work or on Facebook that proudly welcomed their children into the world. I tried to take the high road and send my congratulations, which was usually (not always) met with a kind note in return. Let me tell you though, the high road is a painful place.

If you watch, you can see by my face and body language the exact moment it happens—the precise moment I feel the little dagger in my heart at someone else’s happy baby talk. Sometimes, it’s just a twitch of my face. Most of the time, I lower my head and wonder if I can will myself into the walls to remove myself from the situation. Every time someone shows an ultrasound picture, talks about being pregnant, mentions being up with a fussy or sick baby, watching her smile/laugh/roll over, pictures for every month of the baby’s life, going to the park/zoo/games, birthdays, preschool graduations. . .you get the point. The list goes on and on. And it still hurts every time.

It’s not that I don’t want good things for other people. Of course I’m happy for the good fortune of others, but I can’t help but see it as a reminder of our bad fortune. And I would never want people to stop sharing their lives—happy events should be shared. What I really wonder is will I ever be able to just be happy for those people or will there always be a twinge of bitterness to it? Will the bitterness ever stop? I don’t want to live my life as a bitter person always focused on what everyone else has that I don’t. But, it’s not like I envy someone’s house, car, or job. It’s that they get to have their child with them to raise. I will never have that with Vivienne. That’s a pretty big one.

It is hard for me to accept that the bitterness may never stop. It may always be hard for me to be truly happy for others’ happy pregnancy/baby/child moments, without having a sliver of bitterness along with it. That’s not who I want to be, but it doesn’t feel like something I can control.