May We All Heal: Part Eight

May 29th: Day By Day

Everyone says you have to take it day by day right after the loss, just think of one day at a time.  But that is a lie.  You have to literally take it a moment at a time in the very beginning.  Then slowly you get up to an hour and then eventually day at a time.  I still take it a day at a time mostly.  Asking me to plan far ahead is terrifying.  I had plans, wonderful, beautiful plans.  They fell apart.  When Mira died, so did all the plans I had for life with her.  All the plans I had for my life.  It makes it hard to go about planning anything significant again.  I have certainly made progress in this area!  I have started an adjunct teaching position, and will be teaching my first class this summer.  That took a lot of planning and commitment!  I can plan ahead just fine at work and for anything professional.  It is personal planning that is still a major struggle.  Planning a trip, planning an event, planning a future.  It is still scary.  But I work through it day by day.

May 30th: Power

We have so little power or control over our own lives.  I did not fully understand this before losing Mira.  I knew and completely believed the God had all the power and was in full control, but I did not fully comprehend how little power I had.  I followed all the books' advice and doctors' recommendations for pregnancy from the time Joe and I started trying to have a baby, long before I was even pregnant, just to be safe.  I took the vitamins and ate the right food.  I avoided what I should and added in the right things.  In the end, it didn't matter. I lost my baby anyway.  When Mira was diagnosed, I researched like crazy and tried everything to save her.  I found I had no control over her health at all. I begged God, the one with the power, to save her.  And he did not.  It seems, I did not have any power at all to control my life or save my daughter's.  That was a hard, hard, lesson to learn.  And there is no sugar coating it.  My daughter died.  God did not save her.  I could not protect her. And I had no choice, and no power, in the matter.  In realizing this, all I can do is continue to submit to the One with all the power.  I have to trust that God has the power because He knows so much better than I what must happen.  I will never know while I am still alive, why He did not use His power to save my Mira, but I do have complete faith that He has a plan bigger than I do. 

May 31st: From Now On...

From now on....

I will keep loving you, Mira.

I will keep trying to live my life in a way that is honoring to you, your daddy, and Jesus.

I will not give up, even on the hardest days.

May We All Heal: Part Seven

May 23rd: Nurturing Myself

Nurturing myself has looked like learning to say no to some things, mostly events.  Somethings are just too hard to attend now.  I nurture myself and respect myself by not going.  I am still working on this though.  There have been a quite a few events I have attended even though I knew it wasn't overly important that I be there and even though I knew that it was going to be very overwhelming for me and cause some setbacks.  Typically I went only because I did not want to deal with the anger and lack of understand of other people, but that is no reason to do something.  So I am working on it.  But I have learned to say no sometimes.   I have learned how to help others when I can and how to gently step back when I can barely help myself and have nothing to give.  I am also learning to give myself grace in some areas and not beat myself up for everything I can't do perfectly.  I have a long way to go in nurturing myself, but I am starting to try.  

May 24th: Creative Healing

The creative things I have done as I heal have been the most meaningful to me.  I have created a memorial area for Mira in my home, with several of the items made by me.  I paint canvases with lyrics and imagines of my grief. I made a scrapbook and memorial video.  Writing in this blog of course is such a great help for me as well.  The creative things keep my hands busy when I would rather them be caring for a child.  They keep my mind busy when it wants to give up.

May 25th: Sound

The sound of Mira's heartbeat will forever be the best sound <3 

May 26th: What Now?

Oh, this is a question I ask myself all the time lately.  Not very many family or friends read this blog anymore, so "what now?"  Should I stop writing and sharing?  No, it helps me whether anyone reads it or not.  I may wish my friends and family would still read so I would feel more understood and be able to share my feelings with them in a way that is less intimidating to me than having to bring up the my grief with them myself.  But really, the writing does help me get things out whether it is read or not, and I do hear from some other loss Moms who come across my post and find them helpful.  And if it helps one person, than it is worth it. So what now?  Just write when I want to, don't when I don't want to. 

I have so many beautiful items for Mira, I have many things I have lovingly made, I have bought, or others have gifted us. I have foxes and memorial items in each room, just as I wanted, so "what now?"  Do I stop making and purchasing these small things that show my love?  No one else has to stop making/buying things for their children, so I think no, I won't stop doing these small things.  And I still recieve gifts, or cards, or mementos from others every once in a while and it lights me up!  So what now?  I think just keep doing what feels healing in the moment.  

These two "what now"s really get to me somedays as I feel like I am doing something wrong, but for now I will just ignore them, as it is working for me and not hurting anyone.  

May 27th: Spirit

Mira, 

The spirit of unconditional, never ending, never changing, fierce, motherly love you awoke in me will be with me always and forever.  Thank you for showing me this wonderful love.  

Love,

Mommy

May We All Heal: Part Six

May 18th: Luminous

To be honest, I am not really sure what to write for this one.  Luminous makes me think of hope shining through the darkness. It's just that hope is so complicated right now.  There is huge beautiful hope in that I will see my Mira again in Heaven, but honestly, that hope doesn't help me live here today, that hope makes me want to be in Heaven now.  There is a small shining hope that one day I will be a mother to a child I will get to raise here on Earth.  The small shining light is scary though, because having another child opens the possibility of losing another child.  What you need to understand is, when your first, and only, child has a fatal condition and dies, all you know of pregnancy and birth is death.  In my personal experience, pregnancy leads to pain (physical and emotional) and then death and grief.  So that hope of having a living child is present, but it struggles to shine through the darkness.  I do hope that one day it is luminous.  Though I have a feeling it won't happen unless/until I have a living, healthy child in my arms.

May 19th: Changes 

After infant loss everything changes.  Everything.  All your relationships change. Your perspective on work, children, illness, life, meaning, values, on just about everything changes.  Finances change.  Parts of your home change.  How you spend your time changes.  Your life changes. You change.  You learn that nothing is really a constant and everything will change. And that is scary, I once thought I had certain things in my life I could count on to be true no matter what.  I have learned the only thing that never changes is God.  Even in that though, my relationship and ways to relate with Him have changed.  So nothing is left untouched.  This is a big lesson I think we all learn slowly in life, but with a trauma like infant loss, you have to face it overnight.  

May 20th: Emerging 

Emerging back into life after loss is scary.  There is so much that can go wrong.  And the further back into life you venture, the easier it is to get hurt and the harder you can fall.  I had a great Saturday and Sunday with my husband and I was honestly feeling better than I had in probably two years.  I felt myself "coming alive" more and emerging further into the world again this weekend.  Then Monday I had a hard, hard grief day.  It was like a wave hit me for no reason completely unexpectedly.  I hurt so much more because I had been doing okay the last two days, maybe even doing well.  I had emerged further out of my safe space and then the waves pushed me all the way back, and it felt like it hurt more just because I had further to fall.
But I did have two really good days. And those days were triggered by God speaking to me through a beautiful painting of Jesus holding a lamb in a storm.  So I will keep coming back to that moment of truth and I am not letting that feeling of having emerged go, I know God is still holding me.  He didn't take the storm away, but holds me through it, even though I had to retreat a bit, he is there to continue to hold me when I try again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

May 21st: Wonder
I wonder all the time.
I wonder what would you look like now.
I wonder what would your first word would be.
I wonder if I would be a good Mom.
I wonder if you would laugh and giggle all the time.
I wonder if you would be stubborn and give me a challenge.
I wonder why you are gone.
I wonder why any baby has to die.
I wonder why others can't understand.
I wonder when I can hold you again.

May 22nd: Separate and Together
Mira and I are obviously separate, as she lives in glorious Heaven, and I live here on Earth where beauty can be found, but so can so much pain and evil.  But we are together still, as she lives on in me.  I make sure of it.  I do things in her honor to help others.  I speak of her as often as I can.  I love her fiercely.  Since I grew her in my womb, I carry her some of her cells and DNA in my body still. And I feel her here. Joe and I have both been blessed to smell her on occasion, so strong and so out of nowhere that we know it is her scent.  I will never forget her beautiful scent of the gentle flower soap we used to bathe her combined with her newborn baby smell.  It sometimes surrounds and overpowers me, usually when I need comfort the most, and always when I am not expecting it.  I know my daughter lives in Heaven, I don't believe she travels her to Earth to be with me.  I do however, strongly believe, no, strongly KNOW, that God sends us these signs to comfort us and remind us Mira is waiting for us.  She is with us in that way.

May We All Heal: Part Five

May 14th: If Only...

If only you didn't have such severe hydrocephalus..

If only it hadn't impacted your brain stem...

If only your kidneys were safe...

If only you had been healthy...

If only there had been treatment for you...

If only, if only, if only, you had lived...

...Then it would all be okay.

May 15th: Insights

I have new insight into grief, insight in the fragility of joy and new life, insight into pain and suffering, insight into "finding out who your friends are," insight into so much.  I think I would rather have my daughter.  I know I would rather have my daughter than all this insight.

May 16th: Joy

Joy was the stick finally having two lines.  Joy was hearing "I see a heartbeat."  Joy was hearing, "It's a girl!"  Joy was announcing her name.  Joy was showering her with love.  Joy was finally holding her in my arms.  Joy was seeing Joe look at Mira the first time.  Joy was making every memory we could in the hospital.  Joy is hearing all the ways Mira touched the lives of others.  Joy is hearing someone else speak her name.  Joy is having a friend to brings her up in conversation without pity or awkwardness.  Joy is knowing she is happy and loved.  Joy is knowing I will see her again.  Joy is everywhere she ever was.  

May 17th: On Coming Alive

Coming alive again after losing Mira has been a slow, hard process.  I have learned you don't get to just wait for grief and pain to pass you have to actually put hard work into the healing process.  When Mira first died, for weeks I felt numb and as if I were floating. Like everything around me was moving but I was just floating on the side watching.  It's hard to explain, but I am sure anyone who has faced a serious trauma can relate.  I was there, but I wasn't.  I worked on projects for Mira as time went on, but I was still only half there, it wasn't that I was necessarily avoiding processing things, but you can't just face it full on all at once, I think it would kill you.  After 8 weeks I returned to work.  That first day walking back in I still felt so lost and confused, everything was the same, but everything was so different.   I wasn't all back.  I slowly got back into the day to day of working, my memory no good, my concentration terrible, and my ability to process thing slow, it was hard, hard work that was usually fun for me.  I kept coming out of the fog slowly as my brain backed off of trying to protect me.

Around April (after about 3 months) I felt I was totally out of the "fog."  It was an important step in healing, but a horribly painful one.  The reality of the rest of my life without my daughter became clear.  It wasn't just the pain of now.  It was the pain of that missing piece being there for the rest of my life.  I would only be whole again in Heaven.  That is when the overwhelming desire to just be with her now hit.  I wished I had died with her.  I wished it was 1950 and ultrasounds were not routine, and Mira's birth defects were never caught and I had gone into labor naturally and without the use of a c-section, died from the complications.  I fought through this time period.  It was the hardest thing I have ever done.  But I did.  I reminded myself about the difference in wanting to be dead and wanting to harm yourself, and made sure I did not cross that (sometimes gray) line, and ask for help when I was too close to it.  Time marched on.  April to the end of May was some of the very worst, between the fog being gone, my birthday, Easter, and mother's Day, that time was just awful.  Then during the summer, I learned I had PTSD and started treatment, I took back some control and took some positive steps.  The pain was still there, but I was fighting.  I was ready to fight (some days).

During the fall and into winter I went deeper into addressing my grief and trauma.  It was often overwhelming, but I kept alive the desire to fight to heal, to honor my Mira.  Her first birthday into Christmas brough lots of emotional pain and constant physical ache of missing Mira with my whole being.  But I kept fighting, I kept working on healing.  I got stronger and pushed harder to advocate for myself and my girl.  January and February brought continued growth and healing, while still struggling with pain.  This April to end of May time has been a time of significant struggle again, as there are so many reminders of where I was last year and the deep dark pain of that time.  I still feel the pain, but it is bearable instead of suffocating.  There are days I feel I am drowning and want to beg for help, but there are more days where my head is above water.  It still hurts, it always hurts, even on the good days.  I mean, even if your head is above the waves, constantly treading water is still exhausting! But I have come alive in the sense that though I long to be with my daughter, I am dedicated to fighting for continued healing and want to live life as I wait to join her.  I am slowly coming alive again.  

May We All Heal: Part Four

May 10th: Understanding

Understanding has been something I have constantly searched for since Mira's diagnosis and continue to even today in some ways.  It started with trying to understand her diagnosis and prognosis.  I researched CONSTANTLY and in every way possible.  I searched through medical journals, even ones in other languages and had them translated the best I could.  I wanted to understand everything that was happening with Mira in an effort to protect the best way possible.  I searched for some understanding of why this was happening medically, I took every test I possibly could to try to find an answer. I have searched for an understanding of why, God, why do you let this happen to babies?  I have read and reread articles with their opinions, I have asked those who I trust, I was searched through the Bible for an answer and understanding.  I have pleaded for understanding from the people around me.  Begged them to understand how much I am hurting and be there when I need it.  I have searched for understanding every day since June 19th, 2017.  I have found some understanding, but still search for more.

May 11th: Keepsake

I don't think anyone could possibly understand the great value their is in tangible keepsakes after the loss of a child, unless you have faced it.  Some parents don't have any physical keepsake, they only knew their babies for a few short weeks and may not even have an ultrasound.  I am so incredibly blessed to have many keepsakes from Mira's life.  I have an area in our living room in the basement where her urn is kept safe and displayed proudly that is full of her footprints, pictures, moldes of her hands and feet, a scrapbook documenting every moment, and so so much more.  We collect foxes anywhere we find them as ways to continue to love her, and those become keepsakes as well.  

May 12th: Beauty

To me, all the beauty in the world is in this face, right here:

May 13th: Nature

Nature was to be the central idea that created the theme of Mira's would-be nursery.  I grew up in a very rural area with a forest behind my house that I spent so much time in as a child, it was my favorite place and filled with peace for me. I would play in the woods with my brother, go berry picking, and often climb a tree with a book and a walkman and sit and read and listen to music.  As soon as I knew I was pregnant I wanted my child to have a room that represented all that love and peace I remembered, thus I chose a woodland theme and quickly got Joe onboard (maybe forced Joe on board).  I planned sky blue walls and a mural of trees for around the crib.  I planned a crib and furniture that was the natural wooden grey of an ash tree truck.  I planned for bedding and accents full of woodland animals. Joe and I fell in love with a fox we found at Babies R Us and decided to make the fox our central animal.  I found cloth diapers and blankets with foxes and put everything on a list to buy/register for.  It was going to be just perfect.  Then at the end of August 2017, I deleted that list and said good-bye to the room I planned to raise my child in.