It Came, I Saw, I Cried

Mother's Day. I am thankful it is over. It was such a difficult day, the most difficult by far. When I carried Wyatt through that very first Mother's Day it was just my husband and I. We were able to have a quite, gentle day. The year after when pregnant with our daughter it was a sad day but it was lined with hope and again it was just us. This year was so . . . different.

I could not have prepared for the range of emotions I experienced yesterday. I woke up to the beautiful voice of our almost seven year old who promptly dropped her Mother's Day packet (which she made at school) onto my chest and hopped out of the room. Our other daughters soon followed. It was the most delightful way to wake up. After my husband made breakfast I began to get ready for church. I began to cry, not just tears rolling down my face but full out sobbing. Of course this was after I applied my mascara and just before we needed to leave for church. It was then that I knew I was not going to make it to church, the tears would not stop.

I cried the entire way to the cemetery. We spent about an hour there. My daughters picked dandelion bouquets and I dug and pulled grass from the rock area around Wyatt's grave marker. My work kept the tears at bay. I felt almost as though a thick fog had entered my body. I easily became disoriented and forgot entirely what I was doing. Thankfully our daughters busied themselves by playing in the backyard most of yesterday. It was so unusual. Usually we go to the zoo because mothers get in free and get to ride the train for free. We usually go out to eat with my husband's parents and top it off with a good helping of a very unhealthy dessert.

Not yesterday. I couldn't go out in public. I was paralyzed by what I would see. Which in my mind would be primarily babies and pregnant women. How could it not be? I biked our two youngest to the park last Friday and it ended up being us and a woman with four boys under the age of 5, the youngest of which were twins probably less than 18 months old though I can't say for sure because I couldn't bring myself to look.

It was such a fine line letting my daughters celebrate me while I celebrated the sons I can mother no more. I am glad to get past another first in a year of so many, one that I will never occur again.

Reflections on Mother's Day

My first Mother's Day was spent childless. (Though technically I suppose this is not true because I was eight months pregnant with Wyatt the Mother's day before, swollen with the reality that our baby would not survive.) But the year after, my first official Mother's Day I was almost nine months pregnant with a healthy little girl and missing my first little boy with all my heart. I was lucky that day for many reasons, my impending daughter being the most obvious. But I also had almost eleven months to prepare for that day. And despite every day that transpired between Wyatt's birth and my first Mother's Day, 339 to be precise, it hurt bad. The year after was filled with giggles, snuggles and kisses from our little girl and the years after that I was joined by two more daughters.

This year of course is different. This year we should be celebrating with another, Eli. I should be glowing and radiant in my motherhood, just eight weeks old. I suppose I am if you consider a small chest, flabby midsection and dark circles under my eyes radiant - I however, do not. This time I have only had 58 days to prepare and it hurts worse.

I will celebrate Mother's Day anyway. Not for my husband or my daughters but for me. Mother's Day is for mothers. It is a day to recognize ourselves and the great labors we have endured to bring our child or children into this world. Regardless of how or when that child or children left or will leave the earth, their birth(s) make us mothers. Motherhood is not something tangible. It is not measured by the rooms in a house or the seats in a car. It is innate, private, even intimate. It is unique to each woman in what it means.

Mother's day is a day to embrace our children, either in our arms or our hearts. A time for us to reflect on our love for them. I have lost two little boys who never lived to see the sun set and a pregnancy that never progressed to a first kick. But I gained from those losses too. I gained a greater respect for life and the fragile process of bearing a child. I gained perspective on taking things for granted and which fights are really worth fighting. I gained moments so pure that time can never erase them, moments when I first saw my sons, their very first cries, the first time I touched their skin, moments they snuggled into my chest and their very last moments of life. I dreamed dreams for their lives at the beginning of each pregnancy and revised those dreams to be just a little smaller later on. I think of them always and love them even more often. These are the things that make me a mother. These are the things I will celebrate.

Because I'm a Mother

Because I'm a mother I wipe away others' tears while holding back my own. Because I'm a mother I am the last one to sleep each night. Because I'm a mother I am able to heal wounds with a simple kiss. Because I'm a mother I take responsibility for my sons' deaths. Only after now losing Eli have I truly come to this realization. It doesn't matter how my children died, I shoulder the blame for their deaths. Because I'm their mother. Our little boys were created inside of my body. Anything that went wrong with their development went wrong inside of my body.

When we found out about Wyatt's Potter's Syndrome we naturally needed someone or something to blame. We needed a reason. I questioned everything - if only I had done this differently or hadn't done that, what I drank, what I ate, physical activity, the bottles I drank my water out of - everything. I even believe that for a brief moment my husband blamed me in his grief. Eventually we came to the realization that nothing we did caused Wyatt's Potter's Syndrome and there was nothing we could have done to prevent his death.

Yet now after Eli's death from Potter's Syndrome I find myself again, asking those questions, wondering if I'm somehow to blame. Or worse perhaps, whether my husband is. You see, having Potter's Syndrome once is explained away by the medical community as a fluke, most people are given a 3-5% chance of it happening again but told not to worry because it won't. But when it does happen again those reassuring percentages disappear and then you are told it is probably genetic. You are left with no percentages, no answers. It boils down to your DNA and your partner's DNA and the knowledge that you may be somehow at least partly responsible for your child's death.

Because I'm a mother, my children's pain is my own. Knowing that I may be the cause of that pain is a very bitter pill.

No Parent Should Have to Suffer the Loss of a Child

Yesterday I finished reading "The Quickening" by Michelle Hoover. There is so much loss in that book. Loss of babies and children. In one passage, a mother speaks words something to the effect of "Children die. God does not do it."

I believe that one of the greatest injustices in life is the death of children, whether they are lost in pregnancy, infancy, childhood, teenage years or adulthood. No parent should have to suffer the loss of their child. No parent should have to face a day on this earth without their child. It defies the laws of nature. I don't think there can be a love greater than that between parent and child. A parent knows a child from the moment that life begins.

I've been thinking about how to explain what it feels like to lose a child to someone who has never lost a child. It is more than the excruciating immediate pain of the child's death. Beyond the feeling of burying your heart in the ground with your child. It is an ever present feeling that something is always missing. It happens when you see pregnant women, babies, babies or children that would be your child's age, babies the same gender as your child. It happens when your own children reach milestones and you are reminded of those that you have missed and will continue to miss. It happens when there is silence when your child's name should be spoken. It happens on days that are meaningless and is especially present on holidays and birthdays. It speaks to you even when you are not listening. Tears won't always flow and your heart won't always ache as painfully as it once did. It lives within every breath, every beat of your heart.

A perspective on loss

I don't recall many smaller details about my pregnancy with Wyatt, so I'm going to be a little indulgent with details  this time.  Within days of finding out we would lose this baby my hair started falling out.  Not big clumps or scary amounts, but every time I washed my hair I would lose alot, I am single handedly contributing to a higher water bill because my shower times have increased for this very reason.  Finally, six weeks later, it is slowing a bit.  To give a bright side spin, I am lucky enough to have very thick hair so  it is completely unnoticeable to others.

I have lost so much more than hair, and of all the losses, that is the easiest to replace.  I have lost my innocence again.  Something which was taken from me out of the blue during a time when I was most happy and expectant in my life.  It took me over seven years to regain most of the innocence, the true enjoyment which should be present in  all pregnant women.  I have lost my identity as a pregnant woman.  I don't want to be seen or acknowledged for the precious life that grows within because those things are often accompanied by difficult emotionally draining explanations or awkward avoidances of the truth and blinking back of tears.   I have lost my identity as a mother.  I have defined myself as the mother of a child in heaven and three on earth.  Now I must make adjustments for one more in heaven.  I had closed that door but apparently it was not locked.  I have lost a wonderfully (for the most part) carefree and easy relationship  with my husband.  In its place is one that is strained by the shadows of grief, worry and death.  It will need to be well tended in the months to come.  It is so hard to care for a partner when each is grieving privately and in his/her own way.  Seeing beyond your own pain is almost impossible some days.  I have lost desire to face each day and to do more, to be more.  Most days it is enough to be, to meet everyone's needs and call it good.

With loss there is gain.  I have gained a perspective on the fragility of life and family.  Of how very delicately we are intertwined.