Barely here

Sometime I feel like I am barely here. I look up and I’ve lost hours out of my life. What was I doing? Time is a mystery to me. Some days are excruciating to get through and other days it is if I barely blinked. Missing Time — I call it. I know the pyschologists have some explanation for this but I’ve forgotten what it was, obviously my long term memory did not think it was important. I can read a book and forget almost immediately what it was about. What a waste it seems. I could have been doing something else with that time, like cleaning the kitchen. Sometimes I feel like I’m waiting for something. Is this my subconcious still waiting for Norah to come?  I just feel like sitting and waiting. Odd. Rambling is what I am doing. I just find it an odd common occurrence.

And so it happens…

I shouldn’t be surprised and yet, I am. I always am. No one IRL ever remembers Norah’s angelversary, ever. Not my best friend, not my neighbors, not my parents (oh wait, they’re dead), not my siblings. My “Pea” friends on the internet remembered and put together a very touching tribute with candles and poems. Three friends from another internet site remembered. Every year I am torn concerning whether I should expect to remember or just let it all fade away.

It reasonates with me when other dead baby mama’s talk about how one day you feel like that shitty stuff must have happened to someone else or maybe that was a different lifetime. Then, I remember. No, it was us and she died only 2 years ago. We are the parents of a baby who died too soon. And so it happens that my own memories and the pain begin to dull and that others don’t even remember. My mind plays tricks on me. Did she exist? I look at pictures to remind me that yes, she existed and that she lives on in me and my kids. My emotions go up and down and I oscillate from being angry, to sad, to feeling OK, to just trying not to feel at all.

Dear Norah, I hope you are near. I hope that you are able to fulfill the journey that I was a part of. I hope that you get to hang out sometimes with the other babies that did not spend enough time on earth. I hope you are happy. Mom

“When we look deep into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds there could be no rain, and there would be no flower.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Norah, are you in that flower?

“A human being is part of the whole called by us ‘universe,’ a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest–a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prision for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to fee ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

-Albert Einstein

Peas Meeting

For 3 years now I have been chatting with a specific group of ladies online. I met them on one of those massive birth boards for babies that were to be born in May 2007. I joined a private group of about 30 ladies and shared intimate details of my life. I miscarried that baby, as did some of the other ladies. In 4 months, I was pregnant again with Norah. We all know what happened in the end there. This past weekend I went to go meet 5 of them with two of my children. Norah would have been 2 years old on Nov. 18. All of these ladies have their 2 year olds. Where is mine?

You might think that it was horrible seeing all the babies the same age as the one I lost. It wasn’t. I do not equate what someone else has with what I do not have. They are separate lives and separate stories. I was wistful thinking about what Norah would be doing with all of the two year olds. It was nice to meet people I had been chatting with for awhile. I can’t help but be sad that Norah was not physically here to experience it.

More Musings…

My son is 4.5 years old. Last night he said, “I think No-wah is still a baby”. I said, who’s Noah. No he said, No-rah (he slurs his r’s sometimes). I looked at him and said “yes, she is a baby angel.” My daughter, who is 6 just laughed, and said “you can’t have a baby angel”. Can you? Are there baby angels?  I know there are baby souls out there but I don’t think they sit on a white cloud in diapers. I found a note my daugher wrote to Norah the other day. She had placed in the highest location in the house that she could reach. By standing on our bed, she could reach the top of the window. I suppose she was trying to get it as close to Norah as possible.

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The other day I mentioned Norah’s middle name in a post. After I posted it, I realize that I spelled it wrong. What kind of Mom does that?  I can’t spell my daughter’s middle name. It is Clare NOT Claire. Uggghh. I suck.

The Present

Well my faithful 3 readers, I’m sorry to have been so silent. As the time that Norah passed approaches, I am becoming more introspective. I have been focusing on the event, the funeral, and the burial, remembering each moment. My grief for my daughter is intertwined with the grief of losing my mother 5 months later. I have also been remembering that event, the funeral, and the burial. Thankfully, the shock carried me through both times but by looking back, I can see that I was acting mechanical. I did what was expected of me at each point. Only now can I feel the emotion of these deaths and that emotion stays with me. I dream of my Mom, of Norah, of my failures, of my regrets. I brood and think. My life continues to move forward but part of me is still there with Norah and it always will be. In the coming weeks, I can only see myself moving more inward. I want to apologize in advance. I have a hard time articulating what this is like but know that I’m here.

Pregnancy and Infant Loss and Awareness Day

Oh my sweet Norah, it has been almost two years. My heart still aches for you. I feel you near only to reach for you and realize, once again, that your physical body is not here. I remember you every day. Not an hour goes by when I don’t think of you. I remember you with love, peacefulness, and a sense of regret. I regret that you are not in our lives sharing every day with your family. I wish that I could have willed you to live. I wish that I would known that something was wrong and got you here safely. I wish….

Your death has taught me that love runs very deep and is not bound to this earth. Your death taught me to be the most compassionate person I can possible be. Your death has taught me the depth of grief and sadness. I would give up these teachings and return to my shallow self if only I had you here.

So, today I remember you Norah Claire. I remember you everyday but my heart is with you today. I will light a candle at 7 p.m. today for you and all your baby friends whose parents are also missing them.

Love, Mom

Happenings

I’m going to have a brain dump on here right now. On September 28 and 29, I drove back and forth to Louisiana — 7 hours each way for a conference. I had to prepare the talk and give it the next morning. I spent a grand total of 2 hours at the conference and had to drive back to be home to put the kids to bed. It seemed like such a waste but I needed to fulfill my committment.

After I finished that trip, I immediate worked on the next essential task. My tenure and promotion package was due October 1, so all non-essential thoughts and writings and activities were delayed until I got the package in. After I submitted it, I spent a week trying to dig out from the workload that I created and I’m still doing it. I hope I get tenure but I will still live if I do not. I haven’t given it that much thought — it is a necessary hoop that I have to jump through in academia. I pulled an all nighter, an honest to goodness all nighter the night before it was due. I felt like a college kid again, although my body did not respond well. I did sleep an hour from 5:30 am -6:30 am and then got up to take my daughter to school. I was OK the day after but the day after that, I was totally useless but unable to nap to make up the sleep. I think I’ve recovered, a week later.

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For those of you who are baby lost mom’s I’m going to talk about pregnancy right now so you may want to stop reading.

I got an u/s on Tuesday to try and pinpoint a due date. The OB insists on using my LMP which would make it May 5 but I know that I didn’t get pregnant on that regular cycle. If I use a more responsible ovulation date, I get May 10. The u/s gave a date of May 10 but my OB won’t change the May 5th date. There was a heartbeat and maybe really tiny arms and legs but mostly, baby still looked like a bean. 

I am really going to have to work on acceptance at some point. I know it is hard to read this if you have struggled with infertility or have lost a baby but I am still struggling with the gift we have been given. It is not the logistics of a new car or more baby years but more the fact that I am so tired now, every night I fall asleep totally exhausted after speaking maybe 20 minutes to my husband. I get overwhelmed trying to imagine another baby in the house. I know that I have my older kids, and they are a huge help watching and entertaining my littlest one right now. But no one can help me with a baby. My husband does the best he can but the care of a baby falls to me. I think it is the full one year committment that has me overwhelmed. I have field work that needs to be completed, students that need to get work done, and I’m exhausted. Those things won’t happen. I will only be surviving day to day again. With my littlest one being 10 months now, she is only waking twice a night and I can see the end to the babyhood madness. But, now I won’t get a break, I’ll go into another one (hopefully because as we all know, carrying a baby full term doesn’t necessarily mean you get to bring it home). And I desperately want to bring this one home too but I’m tired thinking about it. I’m hoping this is first trimester exhaustion but I have a feeling it is going to stay around another 1.5 years. I have absolutely no right to complain, I had a full term baby after Norah and she is alive and healthy and awesome. Now, I am trying to accept our new gift and challenge. I think this is going to be a gradual process.

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On another baby note, I look pregnant. I’m wearing sweatshirts and baggy clothes to try and cover it but when I carry my little one around, which is all the time, my shirt pulls and I have bump. My belly button already sticks out at 9 weeks. I’m not certain how long I can *hide* the bump. I am so dreading the comments “Another one?” “Don’t you know how this happens” “What are you thinking” and my colleagues will roll their eyes and think of the work that they have to take on. But, you know, I’ve had 3 kids while here and I have not taken any time off. NONE. I have had a few professor cover possible 2 weeks of classes after Norah died. So, they can just SUCK IT!  I work as hard as I possibly can and I hate the double standard. I do the same amount of work at this university as a professor who goes home to a stay at home wife and pats his kids on the head. I am the Mom and that means that the extra special cuddles and care come from me, the reading, the conversations – I won’t ignore my kids. I know, a slight tangent, but I’m a little ruffled about academia right now, must be the tenure decision.

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I’ve babbled on enough. Norah’s death month is next month and I’m already starting to focus on that. I’m going to try to make the 10 hour journey to where she is buried at Thanksgiving. Plans are not set yet.

Curious

For the past two weeks, my blog has been getting hits from people searching for ”mirne and craig,  mirne and craig blog,  freyja-kees-lovedsomuch,  mirne craig” and I really didn’t know why. Yes, the story was terrible but seriously, what were people looking for?  I went searching on babylost blogs and found my answer. It seems some people suspect their story. Other things happened that I won’t mention here. This caused me to inspect how I felt about it. Was I angry? Indifferent? It turns out that the grief I hold for this couple is not aimed at the couple. It is aimed at all families with multiple late-full term losses. I know these people exist. I definitely know people that have had two, so why not three. I also think that the universe is so unpredictable that this could happen. I believe everything that people write about the loss of children and I don’t understand why people who make things up. I know there are people called “trolls” but I don’t understand them and expend no effort thinking about them. So, in reference to the couple in question, I have not stayed up at night to worry about what happened or didn’t happen, rather all my anxiety, grief, and fear is directed to those to whom it has happened and the realization that the death of a child could happen again.