I'm So Vain

I feel like this is a silly thing to feel that I have lost. And I don't know if it's more of a symptom of the problem, or its own problem. But here it is: I wish I hadn't lost my first pregnancy at 25 weeks so that I could have had the whole thing...so that I could have seen how small I might have carried that entire first pregnancy.

I have been known to be a little vain. This looks like vanity. And then I just feel worse for feeling something so superficial and unimportant.

But I feel it.

A friend is 18 weeks pregnant and said she has "no belly to speak of." And somehow, I am jealous. Or envious. I get those too mixed up. I just started feeling bad about not getting my first, tiny pregnancy all the way through.

I look at the picture of me pregnant with Blue at 25 weeks, and even in profile, I barely look pregnant. In the 3/4 view, pregnant.  

And I know that you sort of get what you get, genetically, with carrying big or small, high or low, with gaining a lot of weight or not gaining a lot of weight. (So I'm not really sure why we think small pregnant women are so virtuous.) But we all know that you pop out sooner--and sometimes farther--in subsequent pregnancies than in first ones. And I probably spent more weeks wishing I looked pregnant that first go around than I ever actually was. (I mean did. Look pregnant.) Then the second time I kept trying to convince myself I didn't have an obvious belly at 22 weeks. And I feel like my first pregnancy, and all that goes with it, was taken away. The cute, tininess of your first time. The blissful, invincible happiness that after the first trimester everything will be fine. But I focus now on the physical difference. I wonder then, is that what I really missed out on? Or is this just another way I missed out on having that baby? And that's what I really miss...that baby. But I can't shake this feeling that I really miss not having the tiny pregnancy.

People still told me I was small in months 7 and 8 and beyond with Sprout. Then I wonder, did my uterus stop stretching at that 25 weeks point, so that I am the same size I would have been with Blue at 7 months, 8 months? Like I'm trying to convince myself that I didn't miss out. But if that's the case then how could my uterus have been any bigger at 22 weeks with Sprout than it was at the 25 weeks point with Blue?

Photo evidence of the difference. I actually wore those pants with Blue at 25 weeks (above), whereas with Sprout I just squeezed myself into them for the benefit of the comparison photos. The comparison photos that I now hate.

Why do I care so much about this? Even Mr. E, who has been so wonderful and understanding about all these nuanced and confusing emotions, isn't empathizing.

Another blogger said recently that she was still so angry for being shortchanged when so many other people weren't. (I won't get into how I'm jealous or envious or whatever about the fact that she articulated the sentiment when I could not.) I think that pretty much nails it. Why does my friend get to have her tiny pregnancy and I don't? Why do other people get to have six kids with no losses and no problems* and I lose my first and it shatters me? I envy people who can't seem to stop having children. But I don't even want six kids! I just want to have had my first tiny pregnancy. God, what is wrong with me?

I just feel like I missed out. And it isn't fair. The whole ordeal of losing a baby--it isn't fair. I think I am feeling that more acutely now than before. I am mourning other losses, the ancillary ones that maybe I never focused on before. And maybe they are important. Or maybe I am just having a narcissist's meltdown.

*I know I don't know their story. Maybe they had six losses to go with their six living children. But the people with six kids usually make it seem pretty easy to have six kids.

Here, let's look at 20 week photos:

Can you guess which is which? Actually, I'm not even sure I can tell the difference. OK, so that's it, I am a vain narcissist. Dammit.

Fantasy in Blue

I have been thinking about what my life would have been like if Blue had lived. Last summer when I made a drive across all of Pennsylvania, I thought about Blue and I was very sad and missing him and reliving everything I had gone through the summer before. This time I was driving over two hours one way to attend a five-minute hearing for work. I would fantasize to a certain point and then trail off and have to remind myself to keep going. Because I didn't want to keep thinking about this over and over and over. I wanted to think it out to the very end and then be done with it.

Mainly the fantasy involved a healthy version of Blue. He would have been born in DC in the middle of November 2011. His dad and I would have been slogging through a mostly unfulfilling relationship. I never imagined what the birth would have been like. Chris would have been there though. A low bar, I know. But I can say with confidence that he would have wanted to have been there.

I was making new friends in DC and connecting with old friends, including two new moms. But I realized how hard it would have been to see them, as they both lived in Virginia, which is like Brooklyn if you live in Manhattan. So close, and yet so far. Chris would have buried himself in real or imaginary work. I would have been solely responsible for caring for our home and overwhelmingly responsible for caring for our baby. Our only help would come from new, hired help, or from his friend with whom he had the weird, intimate relationship. The one whose son I think Chris would have rather had than his own.

When I was newly pregnant with Blue, a childhood friend who had moved back to our hometown suggested I leave Chris, forget about trying to get a job in DC, and come back "home." I was so convinced at the time that I couldn't have a baby alone, and that I didn't want to ask my dad, yet again, to bail me out from something I had gotten myself into.* Well, I don't think it would have been long after Blue was born that I found myself jobless, lonely, angry and sad and moving back to my hometown, telling Chris that if he wanted to see his son he could figure it out himself. And then I think, what would I be doing for work? Would I be a lawyer now? Or soon? Or would I be working at a bookstore for flexible hours and any kind of money I could get? Would I have settled down with Mr. E? I certainly would have met him, but under such different circumstances.

In the alternative, I think about what would have happened had we found out sooner in the pregnancy that Blue was sick. We wouldn't have tried to stay together. I would have been heartbroken. I would have been angry, thinking Chris got what he wanted somehow. It would have been easier on me, that is for sure. It would have been a less intimate loss at 10, 12 weeks. I'm not saying it would have been easy. At all. Just easier than...you know. This circumstance is the most interesting to me, because in this case I might have moved back to Colorado. I might have made life-changing decisions, like having a baby with a good friend who was in his early 50s and still a little baby-crazy. I'm actually getting a little sad right now, because I think that might have worked. When I told him I was pregnant and that I wanted the baby but Chris didn't, I asked who would have a baby with me right away because now I knew I was really ready to have one? And he raised his hand. We met in Boulder right before I moved back East. We dated for a bit, and saw each other in New York a lot, but I could never get over the 18 year age difference. I see now that we don't really talk much anymore, and I miss him. I'm not going to call him the one that got away or anything, but if I imagine the two of us with a baby, it kind of works.

Finally, I think about what would have happened if I had had an abortion from the very beginning, as Chris suggested. Surprisingly (maybe), I still think that would have been the worst outcome. I wouldn't have ever known there was something wrong with my baby, something so wrong with him that I would rather he not live. And I would have never forgiven myself for not letting the unknown version of him live. I almost can't think about the outcome in this situation. I don't know that the depression that would have followed would have been something from which I could ever recover.

*It's not as bad as it sounds. My first job out of college was an internship paying $1000 a month and my dad offered to supplement my income so I could take the job. Then when I moved to the mountains and got a job selling radio ads I thought I would be making enough money in the next year to pay for the bikes I bought on my credit card. That may have happened more than once, but my point is that I wasn't, like, $50K in the hole from gambling debts or drugs.

Moving On: Coda; And My New Blog

Last post I mentioned that I did not want to share my new life here on this blog for Blue. But I kind of got hooked on this blogging thing, plus I would like to be funnier and talk about stuff that is not focused on baby loss. I hope you will join me on my new blog about being a lawyer and a mommy and about becoming both of these things at the same time. I hope to weave in episodes from the past that I wanted to blog about before I had a blog, while including ample attempts at humor. Hey, I said attempts. Don't blame me if you don't actually laugh. I am something like the 141st lawyer/mommy/blogger, so here is my new blogspot URL: http://latetothelawyermomblogparty.blogspot.com/. If I have 7 followers there I will know you joined me.

Since I'm here for a moment...I have gone a day or two now where I don't think about Blue. And when I don't think about Blue, I am not sad about Blue. And that seems very strange and I am starting to wonder if it was so easy to replace him after all? Which I think I am saying just to be mean to myself. But my second Christmas-without-Blue was a lot more like simply my-first-Christmas-with-Sprout than I thought it would be.

Moving On

One more first anniversary is looming, then I wonder if I will continue to post here regularly. This was supposed to be Blue's space, but I turned it into my own. I want to honor that, that I started this blog because my son died before he was born. Because now I have another son, and something feels...not wrong...but just off...to write about the ordinary joy of having a living child.

November 19 is the anniversary Blue's due date. Or as another blogger put it: the day nothing happened. Actually on November 19, 2011 we planted a tree. We stood in a circle in my parents' backyard on a clear but cold day, and everyone added soil to the hole from which Blue's tree would grow.

This year there will be no ceremony. It will just be another reminder of a day everyone else forgets. Strangely, I do not feel very sad as I think about November 19.

...

I met a real life BLM today. She came to our home to take pictures of Sprout, who is one month old today. She mentioned that her first daughter was premature. When I asked how early, I heard the hesitation that preceded her reply. Twenty-three weeks, five days. Her daughter's twin brother was born sometime earlier, took one breath and died. I motioned to the picture behind her of the little guy I lost. She scanned the bookcase for a photo of a child; I said it was just his name on the beach. She has one of those photos too. In the ensuing conversation we both cried a little. We talked about the stupid things people say.

I told her that if ever "things happen for a reason," it was true in my case. But that doesn't mean you would sacrifice your child. I think if I have any guilt over what happened to Blue, it is the admission that I didn't want the life I would have had had he lived. Because I know that if things hadn't "worked out"--that is, if Sprout were not sleeping and grunting across the room from me right now--I would still be a total mess of a person.

But I am not that sad right now, and that feels strange. It makes me feel like A Sky for Blue is not the place to move on, to live a new life with a new little boy. So on this blog, I will continue to check in about living life without my missing little person. But not about moving on without him.

Yes I Am Happy, But These Tears Are Sad

I missed the chance to take a picture of Blue's tree in fall colors. I believe it changed early, because even when I saw it a few weeks ago many of the orange leaves had crusty spots of brown on them. But here's a picture of what his tree would look like in fall:

And as more trees fell around it, once again Blue's tree survived. Hurricane Sandy did this to a huge tree on the other side of my parents' house:

Not good!

Sprout lost his umbilical cord last week and because it looks kinda gross, and mostly like the cheap plastic clamp that they use to separate it from the rest of the cord, we are going to bury it with Blue's tree. Brothers.

So...the sun has not come out here for over a week. We are still going out for walks, because what the hell else is there to do? I love the cool air and I wish I could be running in it. But yesterday after the longest walk in a while, I bent down to tie my shoe and good-ness it hurt! Like my back was all stiff and my hamstrings were all tight and I remembered how painful it is to run regularly and I felt old and, well, crappy! Like I will never run again. I will never be a triathlete again. I will never run another marathon (probably true but I am not really sad about that).

And I've had some other thoughts, about life and happiness and having one baby in my arms and one in only my heart. I am still sad about everything that happened, when I think about Blue. Naturally. But when I look at Sprout and I just love him so much, my tears are sad, not happy. Yes, I am happy. But they are not tears of joy. And I wonder what that is all about? And I wonder if there is a part of me that likes to be miserable? And I wonder if that is part of our human condition, our modern human condition, or just a part of me? Maybe if I am not miserable, I will have nothing to write about. I write music...sometimes...and there is no tension in the lyrics, or in the sounds, when there is not conflict in the origin of the song. Or so the troubled artist thinks.

I am a troubled mommy today too: dressed Sprout in a sleeper with monsters on it, and he has been acting like a monster today. They looked like happy monsters to me. Of course, the thing is, I don't care that Sprout's being fussy. He could be not here at all. I'll take this any day:

One for Good Luck (The Birth Story)

It seems to be a thing among BLMs to have natural childbirth. Maybe it is wanting to be as close as possible to our rainbows when they are born? To physically feel everything about the birth? Knowing that no physical pain is worse than the emotional owies on our hearts? Well, I tried to be one of those BLMs. And I almost succeeded.

And I am just so damn competitive that I am still a little disappointed in myself! As I was getting the epidural and could finally think and breathe and even talk, I said to Mr. E, "I'm a wuss."

Let's start from the beginning. My due date was October 25. Two Fridays ago when I left work I got a sort of nesting urge to make a to-do list. I used to work in sales and that was something that was emphasized for sales reps, that if you don't have a road map of the day then you won't know where you are going. I often make to-do lists. But this was a comprehensive to-do list, prioritized and all. I guess part of me knew it was time to just be prepared. I also took home my Fitball, because I thought I might bring that to the hospital with me to help with labor pains (a very good call, BTW). I told my secretary about the list, and we joked that we'd see each other on Monday.

On Saturday I hosted a wine tasting event that I've been organizing for 5 years now. It is supposed to be by bike, but obviously I was just riding in the car this year. We still had a few bikers and a few more also in the car. I had a few tastes of wine and drank a glass with lunch...so we like to joke that the wine started my labor. A friend on the wine tour who plays poker with Mr. E had guessed October 14 as Sprout's birthday...and there was money on the line. He thought he had picked the 13th and he was getting a little crabby that I hadn't gone into labor by the end of the day. Which is sort of funny because at 4:30 on Sunday morning I half woke up to a few mild contractions. I realized that I was starting labor, and I got up and washed my nursing bras (which only ended up being like 2-3 sizes too small), came back to bed and told Mr. E and he fell back to sleep for a while but I was having trouble relaxing. About 7:30 I was able to fall asleep for about an hour, then I started getting hungry and the contractions were enough to keep me awake.

I sent a few texts to family that my labor had started. Such a funny thing, two of my West Coast cousins called that day. One that I talk to regularly but hadn't for a week or so, so that wasn't weird, but another that, no matter how we try, we fail to connect more than once every few months. It was like we were talking to each other some other way. While I was on the phone a few times I couldn't talk through a contraction. But they were still erratic, even though steadily gaining strength. I had been warned to stay away from the hospital as long as possible. Around 3 or 3:30 I ate something and we started getting ready to go get checked.

We arrived at the hospital around 4:30, and waited in triage until a little after 5 for a resident to come check my cervix. In the meantime I watched the baby's heart rate on the monitor and noticed the number for contraction strength rising as I went through them. The worst was around 50 or 60-something I think. Sprout's heart rate was high at around 170 beats per minute, and when the resident came she thought maybe my water had broken some time before that day and the high heartrate might be sign of infection. Later when I saw the doctor he said there was nothing to worry about. Shew. The resident also bore some good news when she said I was 5-6 cm dilated. I would have cried if she had said anything less than 4. So I was admitted.

The couple who introduced me to Mr. E came by to hang out for awhile. I've known M since first grade. She actually stayed all night and watched the birth. T left, bored, after about an hour or so. He was there long enough to see me doubled over the Fitball a few times though. The contractions were getting really strong and painful and I had to "dragon-breathe" to get through them. At one point when Mr. E raised his voice playfully to M across the room I did, yes I did, tell him to shut the f up.

The nurse wanted me back on the bed to get checked again but I refused to move off the ball until the person checking me was in the room. I was kneeling on the floor and rocking back and forth over the ball, resting my head to the side between contractions. It was getting to the point where there wasn't much time to rest. At the next check I was 9 cm. Which was a bit disappointing because I was going to ask for the epidural. On the other hand I was like, OK, I made it, I can do this, not much longer. But the baby's head was high. As the resident (a different one) reached in to check his head position, another small bag of water broke. I'm not sure if that was relevant or not to her discovery that I had a "ridge" on my cervix. I guess there was some swelling that was created when the baby descended? I'm not sure, it was all a little fuzzy, I know I was checked again at 9.5 cm and the resident was kind of pissed that the nurse said I couldn't have the epidural. M told me that the nurse had said that--the nurse whose shift was over, thank god because I didn't really like her. For that and other reasons. Anyway the resident explained that it was too early to push and I had to wait until the swelling subsided otherwise I would tear my cervix. That sounded bad. She said if the anesthesiologist would agree to do the epidural that I should do it, because I was really feeling the urge to push. I was getting vocal with each contraction and trying hard not to push but it was kind of impossible. (Update: I saw the doctor the other day and I guess the "ridge" on my cervix was just that last half-centimeter or cervix that had to move aside. I'm not sure if I kind of stalled at that point, or if the urge to push, combined with not being fully dilated and the baby still being a little high all indicated that the epidural might be good to slow things down a bit. The doctor also said that if I hadn't had the epidural I "would have delivered a baby." But maybe would have gotten a laceration on my cervix, that he said can be fixed, but still. I think I'm still glad for the epidural.)

He came in and did his thing, I couldn't even look at him I was trying to get through the contractions. He wanted the bed raised up but I wanted to be able to push away with my feet and finally Mr. E squatted next to the bed so I could step on his legs. I thought the guy was taking long and I knew I was going to have another contraction while he was putting in the epidural. And I did so I just breathed and yelled and kneaded Mr. E's shoulders. There were one or two more painful contractions before the epidural kicked in.

And suddenly I could look around the room, hold a conversation, stop cursing at my husband. I have to say that having the epidural was good not bad. I do see how it slows down labor...but I needed to slow down my labor until I could get to 10 cm. I watched the contractions on the monitor without always knowing they were happening. That was pretty awesome. They were going up to 112. M said before the epidural they were up past 120. No wonder that shit hurt.

So at some point the doctor came in and said I was 10 cm dilated and it was time to start pushing and have a baby. That was around 10:15 p.m. on the 14th. Lots of pushing and two hours later...there he was! My gallery was getting bored, and tired. My mom, mother-in-law, Dad and M were there in addition to Mr. E, who held one leg and watched everything! I felt Sprout's head as he was trying to emerge but still rocking back. It felt like I was pushing and pushing for nothing for a very long time. I was feeling the contractions as they happened now, but they didn't hurt. After Sprout's head came out they told me to stop pushing so they could move the cord from under his neck. The doctor said that happens in one out of three births, so it's apparently nothing scary. Then back to pushing and I think when his shoulders came out I felt a pop that actually did hurt and I said "ow." I wonder what I would have said at that point had I not had the epidural! The doctor had asked if I wanted him on my belly after he was born and I said, "Yes, please." That was really the ONLY thing I wanted for the birth that was non-negotiable. Everything was fine and he came straight to me, that's when I said "oh my gosh" repeatedly as Mr. E cut the cord. M took pictures of Sprout on the warming table, getting weighed, the look on Mr. E's face as he watched all of this. She also took a picture of the placenta in the rectangular silver catering dish, haha. I just spaced out a bit and waited for the stitching to stop...I had a small tear that took "one long stitch" as the doctor described it. The resident did the work with the doctor directing her. I recall his saying "you can do it in two if you like," so I don't know if I have one stitch or two. I also don't know if I am still stitched or if it dissolved by now. I just know it gets a little better every day but is still not right down there. (TMI? Sorry.) 

So that's it. I'm a wuss. Jed is great. Since he was born after midnight my discharge date was Weds, but I wanted to leave on Tues. It felt like two nights already to me. And my room was right outside the nurses' station and the nursery and it was loud and annoying and I couldn't go outside and I wanted to take a shower but not in the hospital shower, and on and on. They let me go so long as we went to the pediatrician the next day. We had a deal.

As for two hours of pushing and getting the epidural and slowing down my labor...well, I guess it was meant to be that Jed was born on October 15, the day the real-life rainbow visited our town. Blue working some spirit baby magic? It was a double rainbow, actually, if you look closely you can see...so it was the day of three rainbows. One for good luck? My favorite day in all my life.

Two Rainbows

There was literally a rainbow the day my son was born. Utterly. Fucking. Amazing.

I didn't see it myself, but I heard and saw pictures. It's probably not amazing that there was rainbow somewhere in the world on October 15, 2012, but there was a rainbow in our part of the world on October 15, 2012.

Not only that, but he was born on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day of Awareness. (His due date was the 25th.)

Without further ado, meet my rainbow Jed Leon:

He looks JUST like his dad:

Seriously, if I hadn't spent two hours pushing this kid out I wouldn't be sure he was mine. Oh, actually, he has my ear lobes. :)

Funny we have all these pictures of relatives holding him. A few with his dad holding him. And no pics of me holding him without a boob in the picture!

Here's the one from the delivery room. Our new family.

(Whoa. Babies look weird when they are just born!)

He made his entrance just after midnight on Monday. At 12:13. He was 8 pounds, 2 ounces. I can't believe I gave birth to an 8-pound baby! A week and three days before at the OB the doctor eyed my belly and said he was probably 5.5 to 6 pounds. Not. He was 20.75 inches long. So kind of a big guy.

I am having a little sadness thinking about his brother who isn't here. But for the most part I am just so overwhelmed with joy and happiness. When the doctor put him squirming on my belly and the nurse was starting to clean him up, I just couldn't stop saying "oh my gosh." I'm from the Northeast--we use the actual curse words. I don't think I've ever said "oh my gosh" before except to be polite around strangers.

Speaking of his brother...I think in a way I am lucky now that EVERYTHING is different. Blue would not have been part of THIS family. It would have been a different family. Just me and my baby. So Blue and Jed are so completely separate from each other. (Although when I was pregnant and we were calling Jed "Sprout" I would mix up their names every once in a while. Of course, I also mixed up Sprout's name with our horse Fuzz.) But I am still sad from the sadness of it all. We went for a walk in the park the other day and I was struggling to keep up and I remembered how the day after the abortion I was walking slowly around the National Zoo with my parents and just breaking down crying about every 20 minutes. So there aren't really comparisons, but reminders of how different it is between then and now.

You know, I feel like such a cliche saying this is all wonderful, it's everything I ever wanted. I spent a good number of years thinking maybe kids wouldn't fit my lifestyle. I travel, I rock climb, I do triathlons, I get drunk. Making those things past tense seemed like such a sacrifice. And when I started to feel like something was missing, and I wanted to meet a man and I wanted to have a baby, I still felt like I wasn't quite ready for ALL the changes. And then came Blue and I loved him so much from the moment I knew he existed. I remember a comment another mom posted on Glow in the Woods: I wasn't sure I had time for a baby, now he's gone and all I've got is time and nothing to do with it. Those were my sentiments exactly.

My point now is that...this is not that hard. I know it will get harder, I know there will be nights that seem to never end with a fussy baby. Days of boredom, fatigue, irritability. But I signed up for this. I signed up for all of it. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

Next post preview: The Birth Story.
In a nutshell, I got past 9 cm without the epidural. Ended up getting one. Everything worked out.