Birth Story

Mira has been gone from this Earth for 8 months now.  She has been gone longer than she lived here.  I was 34 weeks and 2 days pregnant when Mira was born and then died less than an hour later.  The first two weeks of pregnancy don't really count, because that time is actually just the time before conception occurs and life begins.  So Mira lived for 32 weeks and 2 days.  At 8 months, she has now been gone longer than she was here.  That hurts, we should have had a lifetime together.

When you have a child that dies, not many people want to hear about how they were born.  I have had a couple people (thank you, thank you, thank you) ask to hear every detail of my birth story, but most people change the subject when I try to talk about having my child or being pregnant.  Here, at 8 months without her, I want to take the time to write down every detail of the day she was born and share it with anyone who wants to read it.

Mira was born on Monday, December 18th, 2017 at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.  Since we live about 1 hour and 45 minutes from Philadelphia, with good traffic, my parents, Joe's parents and Joe and I went to Philadelphia the night before and stayed in hotel rooms.  I did not think there was anyway I would sleep that night, but I actually did.  Joe and I got up at 5 am on the morning of my scheduled c-section to take showers and get ready.  I took a shower and used the special soap I was given to use the morning of surgery.  I sat on the bed while Joe helped me put on my socks, as my feet, ankles, and leg were so swollen I couldn't do it myself.  I couldn't get my shoes on, none of them could physically get on my feet at this point.  My mom took the laces out of my sneakers so I could get them on.  My parents, Joe and I got in a cab and were taken from our hotel to the hospital.  We were over a half hour early.  We were told there would be traffic and to give lots of extra time.  We didn't need it.

All Too Well

I haven’t written anything in about a month. I keep thinking I should because I know it helps me to feel less alone and isolated. But I’m so very tired. I’ve said those words many times in my life, I think all of us have. I’ve been tired because I was a child/teenager with terrible insomnia. I’ve been tired because I was a college student not worried about sleep. I’ve been tired because I’ve been a grad student while working more than full time plus extra internship hours. I’ve been tired because I was up at night worried about clients I could not help. I’ve been tired because Sleep Apnea is hard to diagnose in young women. I’ve been pull over on the side of the road and walk around the car to wake myself up tired. I've been working full-time while carrying a child to term who won't survive tired.

But I’ve never been 'ready to give-up' tired. Not until these last couple weeks.  Its a whole new kind of exhaustion. Grieving is full-time work and being a loss Mom has not gotten any easier over time (yet).  I think it would fill my time completely if I could just focus on grief and nothing else for a few weeks, but that is just not how life works.  Instead, I have to deal with broken appliances, injured husbands, the fight to set up mental health care, a flooded basement, stolen bank cards, and all the usual day-to-day household maintenance and working full-time.  I know everyone goes through times where everything seems to go wrong and pile on.  But it seems like the last year and half, Joe and I have had one thing after another.  When just grieving alone would make it feel hard to go on, all this other stuff is just too much. Especially this last week, I have just felt that I am at my breaking point.  I've been just so tired, on so many levels, I know the exhaustion is affecting my ability to be a good wife, family member, friend, coworker, employee, and every other role in my life.

Where do you go with your broken heart in tow

What do you do with the left over you

And how do you know when to let go

Where does the good go

Where does the good go...

It's love that breaks the seal of always thinking you would be

Real happy and healthy, strong and calm

Where does the good go

Where does the good go

(Tegan and Sara)

Walking the Wire

More than a half year out from losing Mira and I find I am struggling with different battles at this point than in the very beginning.  I would like to be proactive and share some of those struggles in my effort to share grief in an open and honest way.

I am having to actively fight against isolating myself.  A battle I did not entirely foresee.  I have gone from having a passion to share my grief in an effort to make infant loss less of a taboo subject, to these last several weeks having to force myself to share these deep feelings and struggling with thoughts of what others may think of me.  I have to remind myself that the writing and the sharing is good for me.  That it will help.  That maybe it will help someone else.  Even just one other person who could relate and feel less alone would be worth it. 

You Can Sit Beside Me When the World Comes Down

It is astounding how much you can feel while grieving.  Over the last several months I have written about a lot of the pain, depression, and just overwhelming despair of grief.  I write about these things for two reasons.  One, it helps me to write it out, it helps move some of the obsessive thoughts and memories out of the front of mind for a bit.  Two, this is the part of grief that people don't like to talk about, the part that they shy away from.  It is much easier to talk about appreciating life more, or being happy for times you had, or how your life changed and you learned so much. I think it is important for the world to become more comfortable with the pain of grief.

With that said, I want to take the time now to write a little about the other side of this massive range of feelings you have while grieving.  It is amazing how in all the pain and suffering, you can also find thankfulness and even some joy.  I have found so much to be thankful for over the past year.  Now, that does not mean these things I gained are anywhere near worth the loss of my daughter, but they deserve to be acknowledged as well. 

Happiness is a Choice, and Other Lies I Was Told

 

Those are some really nice thoughts, aren't they? I see them and similar ones all over Facebook, hung up in schools and offices, and on the covers of journals and books.  They may be nice thoughts, but they are also some really inaccurate, unhelpful, and, sometimes, even hurtful thoughts.

 "Happiness is a choice" is said so often, and at times you do need to chose to be happy. But that statement is a gross over simplification that does more harm than good. People who are grieving, suffering from anxiety, depression, PTSD, or are facing trauma have often heard something along those lines their whole life and that leads to feeling like they are weak and their problems are their fault. These saying minimize true, deep, painful feelings. Thoughts along the lines of "You are exactly as happy as you decide to be" are there more so to comfort people who are happy, or at least have minimal pain in their lives. It tells them, 'good job, you are successful and created this happiness for yourself and, and don't worry you cannot lose it because it is just a choice.  Those other people, the ones who are suffering? They are choosing to be unhappy, so that cannot be you." They feel protected, it is the same idea, as thinking 'it can never happen to me.'  It feels good to the ones who are doing well.  And it is okay if that has been you, but maybe it is time to think of things differently.