Untangling the Knots

I feel that I am just navigating a complicated web of knots lately much like an unraveled ball of yarn.  Some strings are loose and easy and others have inexplicably wound themselves into the tightest of knots.

I think it has a lot to do with number four.  More than ever, watching her grow up and move through the babyhood stages has made it crystal clear what I am missing and what I will always be missing.  When I went through this stage with number one I was so overjoyed just to have a living baby it really didn't matter as much whether she was a boy or girl and though her babyhood was bittersweet it was also elating in the celebrations of each little milestone.  With number four I know what's coming and I know what has passed.  The surprises aren't what they are with a first living child.  There is still joy and celebration but there is also a level of comfort and knowledge.  I've done this three times before so the little things don't send me into a tailspin of doubt and worry like they used to.  There's an ease to raising a fourth child and that ease has paved the way for my mind to wander down a different path.  A path on which I have at least one little boy, though hopefully both, in my life.

It probably doesn't help that Eli's birthday is just two months away.  Last year at this time I was pregnant and all of my focus went into getting this little girl here safe and sound.  I focused on a little person wriggling in my belly.  She didn't have a face, a personality, a smile, a laugh or a cry.  I couldn't make her happy or scare her or soothe her bad times away.  This year that is most of what I find myself doing and it's just too much sometimes.  I wonder how things will feel once his birthday is passed.  As my four year old says, "One, two, three, wait and see".

The Rainbow Connection

This post is about what happens after my rainbow baby is born (rainbow baby for those unfamiliar is a  child born after a storm, in this case the storm which was Wyatt and Eli's birth and death) and what I have imagined would happen after my rainbow baby is born.   Mostly it will relate to our first rainbow, our first daughter, born just one year and four days after her big brother Wyatt's birth and death.

I spent nine long months pregnant with her imagining what it would be like to again hold a child of mine in my arms.  I imagined all of the late night snuggles that I had missed out on and the sweet coos that never graced my ears.  In my mind it was smiles, hugs and kisses.  It almost made the waiting unbearable.  And for the first few days it was smiles, hugs and kisses.  Then I took my baby girl home and reality set in, a reality which had not even cracked the outer edges of my imagination.  My little girl was fussy, only slept when laying on me or my husband (which may sound really awesome but it awful when you need to eat, drink, go to the bathroom or goodness forbid - shower, and then you must listen to your baby's awful screams for every second of your absence), she projectile vomited and was not a natural by any stretch of the imagination at breastfeeding.  There was a lot of physical and mental pain in those early days.

Pain which was only compounded by all those months of imagining what it would be like and then having it actually be nothing like that.  Now, in all fairness our oldest daughter was a pretty high needs baby and from what I later discovered by having other children she was not a typical baby.  Nonetheless, I know I am not alone with my imagination.  How could it be helped?  Many of our memories of our babies gone too soon are faces that are stilled, voices that are silenced.  My little boys never screamed, nursed or even wet a diaper.  My memories of them are gentle, much like falling asleep.

However, I've found that the reality of a rainbow baby is like being struck by a semi truck.  Life changes, it actually becomes about life, not death, and how to sustain and nurture that life while trying to maintain one's own delicate balance.  It's a celebration and a grieving simultaneously.  Gratitude for what has been given and a greater appreciation for what has been taken away.  No one said it would be easy but for some reason it's so easy to imagine...

She'll Never Know

As I look at my newest baby girl I realize that she will probably never realize what a special baby she is.  She is my fourth rainbow baby but a rainbow has not shined brighter in this house.  After weathering two storms this rainbow is especially brilliant.  Nothing against my two other rainbows but the two rainbow babies born right after a loss seem different somehow.  Both of my "right after rainbows" (RARs) were born just a little over a year after their brothers and as many of us know, carrying a baby after a loss, especially soon after a loss, is so very difficult physically, emotionally and mentally.  I hope she never understands that when I see her sleeping and her eyelids look purplish I immediately check to make sure she is breathing because at that moment I can only see her almost lifeless brothers.  I hope that her childhood is not tinged with the protective and fearful emotions left behind after her brothers' deaths.  Yet I do hope that someday in the future she can appreciate how special it is that she was born at all.

This poem, "A Different Child" written by Pandora Diane Waldron seems appropriate.

A different child,
People notice
There's a special glow around you.

You grow
Surrounded by love,
Never doubting you are wanted;
Only look at the pride and joy
In your mother and father's eyes.

And if sometimes
Between the smiles
There's a trace of tears,
One day
You'll understand.
You'll understand
There was once another child
A different child
Who was in their hopes and dreams.
That child will never outgrow the baby clothes
That child will never keep them up at night
In fact, that child will never be any trouble at all.
Except sometimes, in a silent moment,
When mother and father miss so much
That different child.


May hope and love wrap you warmly
And may you learn the lesson forever
How infinitely precious
How infinitely fragile
Is this life on earth.


One day, as a young man or woman
You may see another mother's tears
Another father's silent grief
Then you, and you alone
Will understand
And offer the greatest comfort.


When all hope seems lost,
You will tell them
With great compassion,
"I know how you feel.
I'm only here
Because my mother tried again.

Number Four? No, This Is Number Six

What's in a number?  Years, pounds, feet, inches...children.  We are now a visible family of six.  Two parents and four girls.  Which of course draws many good-natured inquiries when we are out and about.  People tend to ask if baby is a girl which is then followed by comments, many of which are surprisingly pleasant from other parents of three or more girls about how much they enjoy their daughters.  Some are teasing, especially when my poor husband is around.  Depending on how the comments are made, some lead me to mention our two invisible sons.  You see, there are really eight of us, there are also two boys.  We will never know what it's like to show them off or simply just observe them as we do our daughters while out walking in the evening.  I will never have the privilege of hearing them say "I love you, Mommy", not even once or seeing just how brightly a smile could light up their faces.  I honestly don't mind the questions or comments, I am immensely proud of my daughters and wouldn't trade any one of them for anything.  I no longer cringe or pause before answering, my responses are finely tuned to the question, the person asking and my own feelings that particular moment.  I no longer feel guilt in the times that I acknowledge only my daughters and I no longer feel guilt at the reactions I get when I acknowledge my sons.  It is what it is and nothing I can say or do changes my reality.  I own my feelings, my family and my love completely.

Russian Roulette

I have been transparently focused on a rainbow baby since Eli's birth even though conceiving again was like firing a loaded gun. We had no idea whether we would become parents to yet another Potter's Syndrome baby or whether we would be able to bring this one home. We did everything within our grasp to find answers and the best we could do was an eight percent chance of recurrence. It was unnerving to say the least. It was so much easier to jump into the pool again when I had been told that the first time was just a fluke. I compare our experience trying again this time to Russian Roulette though admittedly our odds of getting that bullet were a little lower. According to Wikipedia, the first shot fired out of a six shot revolver loaded for a game of Russian Roulette is 16.6% likely to be the bullet. But, if that gun is shot again without spinning the cylinder, the percentage of firing that bullet gets higher and higher. The second firing is 20% likely to be the bullet, the third is 25% and so on. Though my odds are lower, my percentage increase is about the same. After Wyatt was born we were given a 3-5% chance of recurrence, now we're at 8% and truly that is just an educated guess since the genetic (or not) pathway of inheritance or occurrence is unknown for our family and I have a maternal aunt who also passed away from Potter's.

The first four months of this pregnancy not knowing whether this baby was healthy were very trying. I compared every little symptom or lack thereof to Eli's pregnancy, searching for something, anything to either put my mind at ease or confirm my fears. We chose not to tell anyone for the entire first trimester and then only began sharing when my stomach was no longer easily concealed. We didn't even tell our daughters during the first trimester. If this weren't my sixth on the way to full term pregnancy I probably would have held out much longer. I didn't want to tell anyone about the baby until I knew one way or another. It just didn't feel right to share what should be good news and then have that worry-filled question hanging over all of our heads. I wanted to either be able to share entirely happy news or to be able to quietly process bad news and then parcel it out at a time of my own choosing, not on the day everyone knew I was having an ultrasound and would be waiting for results. We had fired the gun and had to wait an excruciatingly long time to find out whether there was a bullet in that chamber. Until we saw this baby with our own eyes there were no good answers to our daughters' questions about whether this baby would die too. Stressful is a highly understated description of those months.

I am beyond happy to be in the good percentage this time and to be able to give hope to other families who have lost pregnancies and babies, especially those who have lost two little ones to Potter's Syndrome. I scoured the internet while pregnant with Eli and after he was born looking for someone else who has walked my shoes and found the path to a happy ending. I wasn't able to find any stories with that happy ending (though I hope they are out there). Now mine is written for someone else someday.