Eighteen Months

Two years ago, I was blissfully pregnant.  I was nauseous, exhausted, and having trouble walking due to a pinched nerve, but still joyful and so, so happy to be expecting a baby come winter.  At 9 weeks along, we had gotten passed the misdiagnosis of a blighted ovum scare that happened from 6-8 weeks.  Everything was perfect.  I had a great job, a wonderful husband, great extended family, owned a home, and I was pregnant.  Everything was just perfect.  I was moving at just the pace I wanted.  Then 3 weeks later I received Mira’s initial diagnosis, and it was like I got hit by a train and my whole life derailed over the next 6 months. 

Over the next six weeks while we underwent tests and saw specialists and the news got worse and worse with each test, my life was in triage mode, just pushing through the chaos.  I kept working and pushing through everything. I couldn’t take time off; I needed the money and insurance.  I needed PTO saved for a maternity leave.  This is how things work in our country, no time for a break during a crisis, because the benefits don’t allow this.  I did everything I used to, while also fighting for this little life inside me. 

After finding out no treatment was available for Mira and moving to a palliative care team, life moved at a strange pace. I wanted time to just stop, but it moved forward just like it did before. I filled every moment I could with special time with Mira.  I talked to her in the car as I drove between sessions at work. I sang to her.  I read to her every night between dinner and my early pregnancy bedtime.  Joe and I took her to so many places and described them to her.  We took pictures and prepared for her birth so we could squeeze everything into the time we would get.   The world spun on around us, but for Joe and I, that time was lived in a bubble of nothing but Mira.  When you only get a few months with your child, you need every second to be about them.  We invited lots of people into our bubble and they got to know her too and share many special moments with her.  We invited some people in who walked away instead, but we just stayed in our bubble of love.  Time moved on while we existed in this bubble, and I was aware of every second going by.  Then she was born and died and our bubble continued in the hospital, but burst with an indescribable amount of pain as she was wheeled out of our room by a nurse, never to be seen by us again. 

Everything changed.  Everything stopped for me.  Things kept happening around me, but I couldn’t understand it, because I was stopped.  It was like standing in the middle of a six-lane highway.  Everything else was speeding by so fast I couldn’t make it out.  It was dangerous to move, to breathe.  Before I got a chance to figure out how to navigate this new world, I was pushed into.  I had to return to work.  I had to go back to life.  Everything felt so darn fast, everyone was living their life and I was drowning. 

Four to five months out is when I remember what felt like a big shift.  I wasn’t frozen anymore, the numbness was gone.  I started running like crazy trying to keep up with life but didn’t know how to.  I had to work so much harder than ever to just get through a day, the numbness was gone so the pain was there in full swing.  But another shift happened at the same time, the world, for the most part, decided I had moved on (or at least I should have), and they stopped offering a hand.  I was still drowning, but no one really seemed to notice as time went on.  Sure, they would check in here or there, but day to day, it was just me, still drowning.  It got harder and harder.  I would get to the point where I could come up for air, and it felt wonderful.  But all too soon I was underwater again and it was so much worse because now I remembered what it felt like to breathe. 

The first year after Mira died was hell, and it did not improve after that first Heavenly birthday like magic just because I was in the second year of grief.  In ways it got harder, as we had some rallying around us for the anniversary mark, but afterwards it felt like a lot of people just checked Mira off some list they had and moved on from her life.  We have a few people we can count on to always think of her and talk about her with us, but that list got very small after December 18, 2018. 

I am eighteen months out from Mira’s death now, and a lot of things are different.  First of all, I can say, out loud, and type, my daughter died.  I can say ‘the day Mira died’ or ‘when Mira died,’ instead of avoiding the word.  I can speak up for myself, most of the time, when I want to acknowledge my motherhood, Mira, or my grief, even if others don’t approve.  But the biggest thing, is 18 months out I know I can survive this.  I feel like I spent a good amount of time the first year practically begging others to notice my pain and please, please help me, but it often did little good.  It may have changed things for a day or so, but then everyone else moves on again.  (Of course, I never to want to forget to acknowledge those people who were there even when I didn’t ask! You are my lights in the dark!) But at 18 months, I may still ask for help, especially from those amazing people in my corner no matter what, but I don’t need to beg someone help pull me above water on the bad days, because I know I can survive them. 

You may think that over time grief gets to be about not having the bad days anymore, or at least having them very rarely, but that is not true.  It is about being able to live through them.  They still come.  A LOT.  Mira turned 18 months old in Heaven less than two weeks ago.  The was a hard, hard day, with hard days leading up to it.  No one reached out on her 18 month birthday to acknowledge her or check on Joe or I.  No one.  That stung a lot.  No, it didn’t sting, it hurt, badly.  But I never questioned if I could make it through.  I knew I could.  That is the big difference for me at 18 months.  It doesn’t hurt less that Mira is not here with me, I just know I can live through the hurt.  I have learned to live with the pain.  My life will always have this pain, it is part of me, but it does not define everything about me.

There have been more things that have changed, and more things I want to tell you all about, and I think I will write about over the next week or so, but for now, that is the important thing.  I know I can survive.  I know I can do it.  I miss Mira with every cell in my body, but I am surviving it.  And living a good life through the pain.

I love you, sweet girl, and I will make you proud of your Mommy!