There is no reason to compare pregnancy loss to the loss of a child, but today I did anyway and I think I have my answer. Losing a child is worse.
I was bored at work this morning and f'ing around on Facebook when I came across a number of condolences messages to a friend and ex-boyfriend from college. We had not kept in touch right after college but, thanks to Facebook, had more recently reconnected and exchanged a few emails. I would say in the past year or two. Actually I just checked my Facebook messages and got sucked into a rabbit hole of reading old Facebook messages. Wow. My friend and I were in touch back in 2009 for the first time since college. More than a year or two ago.
I will get right to it: his 6-year-old daughter was hit by a car and killed on Monday. This is unbelievable. Apparently she walked out between parked cars; there were no allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the driver. He and his wife have an older daughter who is 9, I think. This is just so sad. I cried and wrote something on his wall and spent the rest of the day being really out of it and unfocused at work.
I also told one of the secretaries and we talked about loss for a few minutes. Her sister died of cancer last year and she is a pretty understanding person. She is also known as the office gossip, so I figured after the fact that she was a good person to tell because she would tell other people what happened to explain why I was out of it (if anyone actually noticed). Later that day a card was being circulated for sympathy and condolences for one of the partners who works from home. I don't know her very well is my point. I signed the card, writing simply "my condolences," thinking about my friend and his daughter and whether or not I cared at all about whom this partner lost. I asked the secretary and it was the partner's uncle. On the day I found out my friend's 6-year-old daughter just died, I have to sign a card for someone-I-don't-care-about-at-all's elderly uncle? After that it was late enough in the day that I just chatted with another associate and then left.
But anyway, as I was reading the condolences on my friend's wall, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling to try to find a status update, I was thinking what could it be? He had come up in my news feed quite a bit lately and I was pretty sure his wife wasn't pregnant. He is an only child so it wasn't a sibling and it didn't seem like parents and then some posts mentioned his wife and one daughter but not the other. As I was thinking was it the loss of a pregnancy or of a 9- or 6-year-old child, I just knew in my heart that losing the child at that age would be devastatingly...worse. And I was just speechless and sad and I wish this never happened.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Saturday, October 26, 2013
2-2-2-2
My Lilypie ticker is aligned in 2's today. Is that good luck, like when you look at the clock at 11:11?
I have so many plates spinning in my head. This will generally be a logorrhea post. Or should I say blogorrhea? Of course I should! (Sorry.)
Well, I've been thinking about Blue a lot lately. And I'm not sure why that should surprise me. I guess I am surprised at how often I still cry about losing him. I cry about different things, like the way I felt getting the diagnosis or even when I found out both of us parents were carriers. I cry about how Sprout is here and Blue is not. I suppose this is the 2-year anniversary time of when everything felt so utterly hopeless. Then I am amazed that I could have a 1-year-old today. These extremes of emotion are very strange, almost childlike in the way that I can go from sad to happy to sad to happy in the matter of moments. So, I still miss my boy, that's not news.
So here are the things I have been pondering as of late. First, I wonder if there is a moral obligation, not simply a justification, for having an abortion when the baby is unwell. I think about this a lot because medical advancements have allowed the life expectancy of cystic fibrosis patients to soar into the mid-30's. There would seem to be a very good reason to give the chance of living to a CF baby. He could die before age 2 (or earlier), or he could die in his 40's. If you knew you would live to 40, you would still want to live, right? But what if you couldn't live without spending two weeks out of every four in a hospital? What if you couldn't live without dedicating hours a day to "percussive therapy"? What if you couldn't live without taking 40 pills a day, just so you could extract nutrients from the food you were eating? I mean, you would do it, once you were alive. So that is the moral question--if you know what kind of life a person is destined to, and we can all agree that that life is nobody's first choice of how to live (understatement), then is there an obligation to spare that life? Put more simply: you will live a life of physical pain, because you will struggle to breathe; one thing in your life will be certain, and that will be your mortality. If you are not permitted to live, you will never know of it. If you are permitted to live, you will live with the knowledge that your parents knew what pain your life would bring you, but brought you to your life anyway.
Obviously, if you don't know the child's condition until the child is born, then you are absolved of this responsibility for giving the life of pain. I know the problem with this analysis is that we can never know the severity of a prenatal diagnosis. And we can never know what that child would want. Which was the absolute worst part of making the decision I had to make--I would have done what Blue wanted. It was his life. But I was in charge of it. Dammit. . . . I don't wish I hadn't had the abortion. I only wish he were never sick and I never had to make that call.
I have also been thinking about how when you have a medical termination, you have this window of time in which you know your baby is going to die, but he hasn't died yet. I spent a week and three days like this. I remember how Chris stopped thinking about Blue as is if he still existed, but I still felt his every move. One day I was lying on the bed on top of the covers, having already gotten up for the day, and I was just staring at the wall and sobbing. Chris was down the hall in his office, and he came in to say he was trying to work. I don't give him much credit because he doesn't deserve it, but he did not say this unkindly. He took me outside for a walk. There we were in stark contrast--he working, while I was just trying to breathe. That time between knowing what is going to happen, and the waiting for it to actually happen, it is at once agony and a gift. The chance to say goodbye.
As I write this, I wish more than ever that I had held him after he was born.
...to be continued. Mr. E is out with friend tonight and I need to go watch Chopped or something.
Yes, it's been two years, two months, two weeks and two days since we said goodbye. But who's counting? It doesn't really get easier.
I have so many plates spinning in my head. This will generally be a logorrhea post. Or should I say blogorrhea? Of course I should! (Sorry.)
Well, I've been thinking about Blue a lot lately. And I'm not sure why that should surprise me. I guess I am surprised at how often I still cry about losing him. I cry about different things, like the way I felt getting the diagnosis or even when I found out both of us parents were carriers. I cry about how Sprout is here and Blue is not. I suppose this is the 2-year anniversary time of when everything felt so utterly hopeless. Then I am amazed that I could have a 1-year-old today. These extremes of emotion are very strange, almost childlike in the way that I can go from sad to happy to sad to happy in the matter of moments. So, I still miss my boy, that's not news.
So here are the things I have been pondering as of late. First, I wonder if there is a moral obligation, not simply a justification, for having an abortion when the baby is unwell. I think about this a lot because medical advancements have allowed the life expectancy of cystic fibrosis patients to soar into the mid-30's. There would seem to be a very good reason to give the chance of living to a CF baby. He could die before age 2 (or earlier), or he could die in his 40's. If you knew you would live to 40, you would still want to live, right? But what if you couldn't live without spending two weeks out of every four in a hospital? What if you couldn't live without dedicating hours a day to "percussive therapy"? What if you couldn't live without taking 40 pills a day, just so you could extract nutrients from the food you were eating? I mean, you would do it, once you were alive. So that is the moral question--if you know what kind of life a person is destined to, and we can all agree that that life is nobody's first choice of how to live (understatement), then is there an obligation to spare that life? Put more simply: you will live a life of physical pain, because you will struggle to breathe; one thing in your life will be certain, and that will be your mortality. If you are not permitted to live, you will never know of it. If you are permitted to live, you will live with the knowledge that your parents knew what pain your life would bring you, but brought you to your life anyway.
Obviously, if you don't know the child's condition until the child is born, then you are absolved of this responsibility for giving the life of pain. I know the problem with this analysis is that we can never know the severity of a prenatal diagnosis. And we can never know what that child would want. Which was the absolute worst part of making the decision I had to make--I would have done what Blue wanted. It was his life. But I was in charge of it. Dammit. . . . I don't wish I hadn't had the abortion. I only wish he were never sick and I never had to make that call.
I have also been thinking about how when you have a medical termination, you have this window of time in which you know your baby is going to die, but he hasn't died yet. I spent a week and three days like this. I remember how Chris stopped thinking about Blue as is if he still existed, but I still felt his every move. One day I was lying on the bed on top of the covers, having already gotten up for the day, and I was just staring at the wall and sobbing. Chris was down the hall in his office, and he came in to say he was trying to work. I don't give him much credit because he doesn't deserve it, but he did not say this unkindly. He took me outside for a walk. There we were in stark contrast--he working, while I was just trying to breathe. That time between knowing what is going to happen, and the waiting for it to actually happen, it is at once agony and a gift. The chance to say goodbye.
As I write this, I wish more than ever that I had held him after he was born.
...to be continued. Mr. E is out with friend tonight and I need to go watch Chopped or something.
Yes, it's been two years, two months, two weeks and two days since we said goodbye. But who's counting? It doesn't really get easier.
Monday, October 21, 2013
October 15
The day has come and gone but I am just now getting the chance to blog about it.
Last week we were in Oklahoma City for a horse show. I may start calling Sprout Sport, because he was such a good sport about getting dragged around to restaurants, the fairgrounds, the bombing memorial and museum, and about celebrating his birthday on the road.
He was so perfectly born 10 days ahead of schedule, on October 15. We ate cupcakes in Oklahoma, but I baked a rainbow cake for his celebration with friends and family at home the Saturday before we left town. I'm not going to be making any frickin' more rainbow cakes, it was so time consuming, but I am glad I did because there is nothing more perfect than a rainbow cake for your rainbow baby on his first birthday. Proof:
I can't believe he is one. I still look at him sometimes, thinking that he's really here and he's really all mine. He is starting to wobble around on two legs now, and today walked across the whole living room to greet me when I got home from work.
True to his nature, he appears to be back on track from the traveling, nursing to sleep before 8:00 tonight, but last night he awoke early enough into the night that it was painful to get up. There is one big difference between getting awoken at one or two--Mr. E and I can't agree as to what time it was--and three or four or five. He no longer gets up to nurse back to sleep, so my only trick is gone. Last night I put him back in his crib when he started squirming around in our bed, and I don't even know if I fell asleep again or not before I trudged back to his room to bring him back to our bed to try again. That time he nursed to sleep and I got to cuddle with my baby for a few hours. He is not as cuddly anymore as he gets more mobile and more curious. And I was thinking today how cuddly he was and has been and that even in utero I think he liked to cuddle. When I was pregnant with Blue and would lie on my belly, he would move all over the place, back and forth and back and forth. But Sprout would be still when I did the same. I had wanted him to move more like Blue did, but I am so happy to have had a cuddly baby. But all good things must end, and I think we are getting to the end of cuddling. i.e. and nursing. I am so torn about whether or not I want it to end! I have made it no secret that I want to get pregnant again ASAP, and nursing is still interfering with my cycle. But when I think about just stopping it seems an overly dramatic reaction to Sprout's turning one. He actually bit me a few times last week, and has been slapping and pinching for quite some time but when he's not generally beating me up I guess I really still love it. But I did wear an old B-cup bra today after realizing that my nursing bra had gaping space between it and my breasts. So, I think the end is near. Then I think how nice it will be to know when I can (theoretically) get pregnant. Or, in the alternative, how nice it will be to be neither pregnant nor breastfeeding for a little bit. Then again, I thought I would quit pumping at 8 months, then 9, then 10, and I didn't do that, so we shall see.
Anyway, that is my update. I lit those two birthday candles on October 12, but I didn't light a candle on October 15. Every day, though, a flame burns for my Blue.
Last week we were in Oklahoma City for a horse show. I may start calling Sprout Sport, because he was such a good sport about getting dragged around to restaurants, the fairgrounds, the bombing memorial and museum, and about celebrating his birthday on the road.
He was so perfectly born 10 days ahead of schedule, on October 15. We ate cupcakes in Oklahoma, but I baked a rainbow cake for his celebration with friends and family at home the Saturday before we left town. I'm not going to be making any frickin' more rainbow cakes, it was so time consuming, but I am glad I did because there is nothing more perfect than a rainbow cake for your rainbow baby on his first birthday. Proof:
I can't believe he is one. I still look at him sometimes, thinking that he's really here and he's really all mine. He is starting to wobble around on two legs now, and today walked across the whole living room to greet me when I got home from work.
True to his nature, he appears to be back on track from the traveling, nursing to sleep before 8:00 tonight, but last night he awoke early enough into the night that it was painful to get up. There is one big difference between getting awoken at one or two--Mr. E and I can't agree as to what time it was--and three or four or five. He no longer gets up to nurse back to sleep, so my only trick is gone. Last night I put him back in his crib when he started squirming around in our bed, and I don't even know if I fell asleep again or not before I trudged back to his room to bring him back to our bed to try again. That time he nursed to sleep and I got to cuddle with my baby for a few hours. He is not as cuddly anymore as he gets more mobile and more curious. And I was thinking today how cuddly he was and has been and that even in utero I think he liked to cuddle. When I was pregnant with Blue and would lie on my belly, he would move all over the place, back and forth and back and forth. But Sprout would be still when I did the same. I had wanted him to move more like Blue did, but I am so happy to have had a cuddly baby. But all good things must end, and I think we are getting to the end of cuddling. i.e. and nursing. I am so torn about whether or not I want it to end! I have made it no secret that I want to get pregnant again ASAP, and nursing is still interfering with my cycle. But when I think about just stopping it seems an overly dramatic reaction to Sprout's turning one. He actually bit me a few times last week, and has been slapping and pinching for quite some time but when he's not generally beating me up I guess I really still love it. But I did wear an old B-cup bra today after realizing that my nursing bra had gaping space between it and my breasts. So, I think the end is near. Then I think how nice it will be to know when I can (theoretically) get pregnant. Or, in the alternative, how nice it will be to be neither pregnant nor breastfeeding for a little bit. Then again, I thought I would quit pumping at 8 months, then 9, then 10, and I didn't do that, so we shall see.
Anyway, that is my update. I lit those two birthday candles on October 12, but I didn't light a candle on October 15. Every day, though, a flame burns for my Blue.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Help!
Well...for a variety of reasons. But really because I added the Lilypie ticker and it's cut off and now my name in the sand photo does not fit on the gadget bar either. Can anyone tell me how to fix this in the most loss-maintenance way possible? Love ya's!
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