I Know the Memories Rushing Into Your Mind

There are always reminders of Mira everywhere I go.  My desk at work has her picture, a painting I made for her, and a fox from Joe.  Every room in our house very purposefully has a picture or reminder of Mira in it. Just as living children’s love, laughter, and crying fill every room of their parents’ home, Mira fills every room of ours.  My parents’ home and my in-laws’ home have pictures of Mira up.  The admin area of my office has her footprint heart hanging year-round.  It seems everywhere I go I see a fox.  Reminders of love are everywhere, and I love them.

But triggers of pain and grief are everywhere too.  I have learned to handle them fairly well when they are expected.  I can scroll through Facebook and see the pregnancy announcements, pictures of children Mira’s age and newborn baby hospital photos.  Most of the time I can handle them just fine, I know when I log on Facebook they will be there.  I know when I watch Grey’s Anatomy there will be complicated pregnancies and when I go to the movies children will be there.  Sometimes I avoid these places and things because I know it will be too much, but often I can now handle them because I know what to expect.  It is those unexpected triggers that still get me, and as we approach one year without Mira, they seem to get worse.

It is the picture of the baby and birth announcement that greeted me on the work website I had to sign up for.  It is coming home to a piece of mail telling you that even though your baby is a year old they still need DHA, so be sure to use this formula in the ad.  It is seeing the first Christmas lights of the year on a house on the way home from work and being forcefully thrown back to one year ago when I first saw the 2017 Christmas lights going up and broke down because Mira would not be alive to see Christmas. Last year Mira was alive for Thanksgiving, this year she is not.  That is a hard, awful reality I live in.  Last year I was numb and unaware of what was going on around me on Christmas, not because I was sleep deprived with a one-week old newborn, but because my daughter died in my arms one week earlier and I was in shock still. This year a laughing, screaming 1-year-old will not entertain me on Christmas morning, I will light a candle and read an urn the Christmas Story from Luke with Joe.  Though I am always perfectly aware of these realities, they hit hard when unexpected triggers pop up that I did not prepare for.  With the baby announcement in an unexpected place, the Christmas lights, and the formula mailer all in one day, I am surprised I am still standing today.

Oh, Happy Day???

In a few days we will move from October, a month marked for me by Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness, into November a month dedicated to Thankfulness.  This time last year our time with Mira was ticking away much too quickly and November was to be our last full month with her alive.  The idea of Thanksgiving and thankfulness really overwhelmed me.  I think mostly because I knew I had a ton in my life to be thankful for, but I also knew, if I was being honest with myself, that it was hard to feel any thankfulness when your child is so sick.  I can be crazy thankful for all the support and good doctors and more, but at the end of the day, I would rather not need any of that and have a healthy child.

This morning while I sat in church next to my husband and read the bulletin that feeling came rushing back to me.  Our church was asking everyone to send in a picture of something they were thankful for and one of the examples listed was a picture of your family.  I immediately thought that we should send in a picture of Mira, because, as parents, the thing we are most thankful for is our child.  Then I felt the overwhelmed-ness I felt last November hit me.  Yes, I am thankful for Mira, but… there is always a BUT.  I am thankful for the time I had with Mira BUT I would rather it have been much longer.  I am thankful to have been chosen to be her mother BUT I would rather have been her mother and have had her healthy.  I am thankful that we got the miracle of meeting Mira alive BUT I wish we could have had the miracle of her being healed.

So Many Questions

Should we tell everyone right away?

Should we wait?

Should we find out: girl or boy?

Should we be surprised?

What color should the nursery be?

Which crib to buy?

Jogging or compact stroller?

Are the expensive car seats really safer?

So many choices to make!

All so much fun!

But All at once it changes.

Which is the best children’s hospital?

What treatment is better?

Can you breastfeed a baby so sick?

Which doctors have published better research?

Call the insurance, call the doctors, call HR.

So many questions.

It’s all so confusing.

A Day Still Standing

Still Standing Magazine, an organization dedicated to supporting parents who have experienced pregnancy and infant loss, encouraged their followers to share what 24 hours in their life looked life through pictures on Instagram. 

I don’t have an Instagram account, and don’t take a lot of pictures, but I do enjoy writing, so I thought I would participate by doing a blog entry about 24 hours in my life.  I am just going to walk through what would be an average a day, not an especially uplifting day or an especially hard day, just a day that shows my ‘new normal.’

My day starts much the same as it did 2 years ago, my alarm goes off.  Except now, I struggle to wake up even enough to hit snooze.  The medication for my PTSD keeps the nightmares and flashbacks under control but makes me so foggy in the morning.  I’ve never been a morning person, but now I have learned to set my alarm for at least an hour before I need to be out of bed.  Next, I get out of bed, and start the morning routine by getting ready and showering, making sure to angerly stare at the extra weight, that probably has a lot more to do with grief binge eating than baby weight.  After I’m dressed and ready to go, I carefully put on my wedding ring, my grandmother’s ring, and Mira’s footprint ring and then think through my day to decide if it is safe to wear one of my Mira necklaces, or if it would be too likely to get broken.  Before going downstairs, I stop in front of my dresser and gently touch the glass orb containing a small part of Mira’s ashes.

Mira's Memorial Video

This is the video that I put together for Mira's memorial service.  I watched it for the first time in a long time tonight.  Watching just hurts too much sometimes, but after an especially hard last two days, I embraced my pain instead of pushing it away.  Looking at all these beautiful pictures reminds me of how many memories we tried to pack into her short time with us.  We filled each moment with love.  If there is one thing I can feel proud of, it is that my daughter never knew anything but love. 

Miss you Mira, more than words can say, so I won't try to explain how much being apart from you hurts right now.