Tuesday 18 February 2014

Mourning


I’m still in mourning.  I miss the boy I was supposed to bring home from the hospital in February 2012, alive and well.  There is a sore spot forever marked on my heart now that he is gone.  I assume I will always miss him.  I will always ache for him.  I will always need him in a way that I cannot explain to “the everyday” person who hasn’t lost a child. 
There is additional mourning that feels suffocating these days.  I’m hoping one day it will lessen in it’s intensity.  It’s the mourning of my old life. 
Everyday in which I muddle through my current hand, I get bothered.  Irked.  Bitter.  Frustrated.  Hurt.  Sad.  And I miss what life would have been like if that boy lived and made it home with us in February 2012. 
Daniel's sister (the youngest of the 3 older he has) had a baby 2 weeks after Theodore was born.  She was due in late June of 2013, but her daughter was born via emergency c-section on May 9th – 7 weeks+ early.  Her baby lived, and spent a good few weeks in the NICU.. but she is home now and otherwise really healthy.  She’s “behind” Theodore in certain developmental milestones, but after a year or so, her gestational age will pretty much not matter any longer and she’ll just be small in size for her age. 
My sister had her daughter in September 2013.  Her baby and Theodore are almost 5 months to the day apart in age.  I don’t hear much from my sister these days.  A lot has happened since the birth of these 2 (Theo and niece) babies in our family.  During this past Christmas my sister told me (during an emotional conversation about my grief and Alexander’s involvement at Christmas) that she wanted to be the first to have children between the 2 of us.  I told her it has saddened me that she hasn’t been more excited to know about Theodore and all the baby wonderfulness he possesses.  However, the fact that I had Theo just 5 months before the birth of her daughter, she’s needed to distance herself from being involved in how Theo is growing as she doesn’t want to feel cheated in experiencing it first hand with her own daughter.  She really wanted to have her children come first and for her to be a mom first.  And the fact that I'm experiencing everything first is something she's unhappily dealing with - and in that, she's had to become less involved in being an aunt.
I said to her… “then I guess you got really lucky when Alexander died..”.  I was angry, and she got angrier in the fact that I would say something so rotten.  But that’s how I felt in knowing she wanted to be the first to have kids. 
It would have been so very different had Alexander been my first baby to bring home and raise.  My sister would have the role of being an Aunt for the first time, and figure out how she wanted to do that in her own way… while planning her wedding and then planning her life.  But liked it or not, she would have been an aunt long before being a mom.
Every since Daniel’s sister had her second daughter, there has been a constant comparison to how she is doing compared to Theodore.  It doesn't bother me too too much, but it's something that can get under my skin.  This is the closest that 2 babies have ever been in Daniel's family.  And every time Theo does something, his Nonna often or always says, "A does this too now.. but she does it like this... ".  (yes, the new baby is an "A" baby).  And I feel it diminishes a bit of Theo's individuality.  Like, can I just have a baby and have him be the only baby we think about for a second!? 
Alexander was going to be several months ahead of this baby, (who is also an "A" baby... sigh) and comparisons would be had in the sense that he’s older and in a completely different stage of infancy. 
(And can  I just take a minute to mention that yes, both babies had by 2 difference sisters after Alexander are "A" babies as well.  Would have been the cutest thing in the entire world if Alexander, Adrian and Alessia were walking along, hand in hand... but now... well... we all know how the story goes...) 
I mourn these should have been scenario’s in my life.  I mourn the fact that I was to have the only child on my side of the family for my mother, brother and sister to experience.  I mourn the placement of Alexander among the slew of grandchildren on Daniel’s side. 
I think about how life would be between me and my family if I was the only member with a child.  Selfish I know.  But it was a nice place to be back in 2011 when I was pregnant and expecting.  In all things that are unfolding in life, I get so bothered by where I am.  It’s unhealthy.  And I rarely – if ever – admit these feelings to anyone but Daniel.  But I feel so suffocated by my current “timeline” and thoughts of family planning in the future. 
I think I can safely say that Daniels 3 sisters are done with having kids.  But my sister isn’t.  She claims that she is done, and that she cannot imagine doing this again and she had no idea having a baby was going to feel so hard.  But I know she’s not done.  I'll be bold enough to mark my words that by the end of 2014, she's pregnant with her second.  And once again, I feel anxious and frustrated that thoughts of my own future pregnancies and babies could fall so closely with hers.  Or worse, she'll be popping out baby #2 and the life of 2 babies under 2 will be had by someone else in my family other than me.  Had we had Theodore on the same timeline of having Alexander being born alive, life would be CRAZY.  And to see that craziness had by her family = me feeling gutted.  I’ve talked about the whole needing my space aspect around what my sister does.  And in the baby having department (both while gestating and afterwards) I need that space from her more than ever. 
And I mourn the normalcy of not having any of my children dead.  I mourn the “go with the flow” feelings I had with family planning I had when I was pregnant with Alexander. 
I mourn the emotional lightness there used to be in my family surrounding me and my life.  I mourn the lack of stigma attached to me. 
I mourn the me I was before baby loss.  I mourn the wholeness I felt.  I mourn the outlook I had towards other people’s lives.  I miss the way I used to REALLY not care. 
I wonder when I’ll breathe with the same lightness I used to have.  And not a lightness that doesn’t involve sadness and missing.  But a lightness in really feeling like my life is just as it’s supposed to be. 
I mourn the life I had where I wasn't burdened so much by figuring out something so fucking complicated. 

Today is Alexander’s due date.  I mourn the life where February 18th was a perfect and exciting day to welcome my first born son.

8 comments:

  1. Oh sweetie, I so know where you are coming from with this post. I too miss the me before. Sadly, I think our before selves are things of the past.

    It doesn't mean we can't grow to become better versions of ourselves. But baby loss forever changes us and really there's no going back. My goal is to grow into this new me. I'm hoping that in time I will grow to like her almost as much as I liked the old me.

    And who knows, maybe we will end up being better somehow as a result of the tragedy? Or maybe we won't. Either way we can only do the best we can. We have to feel how we feel in order to process and grieve.

    I always remember this saying even though I can't remember where I saw it first. "We grieve because we love." You love your little Alexander and that's why you grieve his absence.

    Missing him with you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't believe your sister said that to you. I mean, she's welcome to think that--we all have our own private ideas of how we'd like the world to shake out, but you don't say them out loud to someone, and you sure as hell don't say them out loud to someone who is a mom whose child died. It's appallingly insensitive.

    I know what you mean about the comparisons. David's niece is 2 months older than Zuzu and walked early so there were lots of comparisons. She's also much bigger, which may explain why all the clothes David's mom buys for Zuzu are 6 months too large for her. Wrong granddaughter!

    Anyway, I can say it's gotten easier but I still ache for my old timeline, too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It has gotten easier, but I miss that life and that me too. Missing Cale, his absence, ill always grieve that. But there are times where I'm comfortable in this life and this timeline and I'm learning it's ok.

    I wish Feb 18th was just an ordinarily day to have an extraordinary baby.

    XO

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yup, I totally get it. Sometimes when things go to shit around here I crumble a little and think to myself how much easier things would be if I had a three year old to entertain the toddler who is driving.me.crazy. Of course it's not true, but it's still how I think, ya know? :/

    I wish he had arrived on his due date. Or any of the next couple days after. <3 Sorry this is a shitty time of the year for you.

    Sorry your sister said that aloud to you- that's crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm glad you said what you said to your sister. Sometimes people need to hear that stuff, to be reminded, from those of us who can never forget.
    These are hard, hard days for you...I'll be thinking of you and of Alexander, who should have been first.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I would've totally said that same thing to her. It's what I was sort of thinking when I was reading the post about how your sister wanted to be the first one and all that BS. Makes me angry. Shocks me that people can be so insensitive and still seek out their needs and have such attitudes when you've been dealt the worst card in the hand possible.

    Sheeeesh. I'm sorry. I have to be honest... really thankful I don't have any sisters and that my brother and SIL did not and do not have children. Made losing Andrew not easy (at all), but not something I had to feel terribly guarded about since he was the first grandchild in our entire family. It sort of gave him the full spotlight and I'll always have that to cherish.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I would have felt the same way and said the same thing. People say ignorant and insensitive things but you'd think a family member would think before saying such a thing to her sister who lost her first baby.

    You are in my thoughts. Thinking and missing Alexander with you.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh do I get this! My sister's kids are all older and so Bode is a celebrity with them and I wish that for Bear too. But they are far away and Kirk's family is all nearby. My oldest SIL has two older kids and was done but Bear gave her the baby bug and they now have a little one who is six months older than Bode. They were already "ahead" of us with babies and are really great parents, so it was easier to deal with. But Kirk's younger brother and his wife (who is not at all motherly) had an unplanned baby exactly nine months after Bear died (and eight months older than Bode) and they are now prego again and due (with a boy) within a week of Bear's third birthday.

    Bear would have been the oldest of the babies with no cousins near his age. Because of these girls (thank God they are girls because I would have blown a gasket if the unplanned babe had been a boy!), Bode has been the youngest of the three babies and the comparisons are endless! The fact that Kirk's younger brother has the older kid has been so so hard and soon, they will have two living kids and be constantly talking about all of those challenges. We can literally not say a single thing about what Bode is up to without someone saying "Oh, well whitney..." It drives us f'ing crazy! My MIL also takes care of the girl cousins all the time and so she knows exactly what they are doing. We also have felt like she doesn't want to help as much with Bode because the others take advantage of her and wear her out. Ugh! Writing about how I feel negativity towards my niece makes me feel awful. And feeling so much jealousy about how birth order among cousins was supposed to be just makes me feel petty and stupid and I hate that about this new mourning life. But it is a byproduct of Bear's death that Kirk and I are really bothered by and it just sucks. I'm glad you wrote about it because sometimes I feel like I need to get over my pettiness about it all and knowing it bothers other people reminds me that I am not just being over sensitive and that it matters

    I also mourn that life where things could just be truly joyful. Bode and Theo bring amazing joy!! but I hate that even happy times are touched by the tinge of bittersweet and sad or stressful times are downright horrific.

    I have been meaning to comment and now that I am finally at the computer, it is the eve of Alexander's second birthday and I am thinking about you and him and I wish you were living that crazy life trying to party plan with two under two!

    ReplyDelete