My post about Elisa's delivery promised this next one to be about our time with Elisa at the hospital, but honestly, I can't get myself to write about that right now. It has been one week since our baby girl was born, born after her death, and I can feel myself slipping into the Pit (see post The Pit) that so many baby loss mommas describe. (Before I get too far on this post, I do want to make it clear that I know this road ahead is going to be hard, and I do have a counselor that I am seeing)
Tomorrow is her funeral service at Church and then on Thursday we will bury her, so I know I am dealing with heavy things these next few days, but I have lost my motivation. I know I need to finish up preparing thing for the funeral. Like gathering what we want to put in the casket. My uncle hand made a beautiful casket for her, and we plan to add to it a picture of Mr V and I, her little whale stuffed animal (our baby beluga) and also a rosary and some other memorabilia. We also want to write her a little note on the inside of the casket.
I know what I want to do, and what needs to be done (after all I am a planner by nature), but I just can't get myself to do it. It is all just so final. I know we will have to take the casket down to the funeral home this afternoon, regardless of if I am ready or not, so I just need to get up and do it. But it is easier to tell myself to do it, than to actually do it.
To add insult to injury, my engorgement pain has been excruciating since last Wednesday evening. I am basically limited to laying on my back, with ice packs or cabbage (weird, right?!) and taking pain medication. I am alternating between Advil and Vicodin, and even that isn't enough to relive the pain. It is to the point where I cant even lean over to get my own pain meds, Mr V has been having to wake up in the middle of the night to give it to me because even moving my arm to reach the bed stand to get medication hurts too much.
It just doesn't seem fair, that on top of all of this, I have this horrible physical pain, which feels like my body mocking me. This whole pregnancy I feel as if my body has not done what it was supposed to do. The placenta never gave my baby the nutrients she needed (I know, not my fault, and I did everything I was supposed to, but still it feels like my body betrayed me). Now that she is gone, my body still hasn't figured it out, and is producing milk for a baby that is gone.
It is just like a slap in the face, or a punch in the gut. And on top of it all, all I really want right now is to be held, to just have Mr V hold me while I cry, but instead I have to have him just hold my hand or rub my arm, while I lie in pain on my back trying not to move and agitate things more.
On Sunday it finally got to be too much, and the on call nurse finally had me go in. I was able to talk to a nurse practitioner, and I guess the silver lining is that she has not seen engorgement this bad before (so yay I wasn't just being a baby!) and that when we do have a living child I will be able to provide for them very well. She also OKed me to express a little, to at least help with temporary relief (at the hospital after delivery they were strict that I should not express any, but I don't think they expected it to be this bad)
Although the appointment on Sunday was good to get some relief, it was also hard, because there was a newborn getting checked the room over. And she just kept crying and crying, which caused me to cry and cry. Then I saw on the schedule that the baby girl was only 4 days old, and her name was Ellie....My Elisa, MY Ellie, would have been 5 days old if she had lived. So I just started sobbing more. The physicians assistant seemed confused as to why I was crying (why don't people read backgrounds!?) but luckily when the nurse practitioner came in she said she had read our background and she was so very sorry for our loss.
As I lay her writing, I am still in a lot of pain, but I hope starting on the road to recovery (psychically). I just don't know how I am going to handle these next few days. Having a funeral service for my baby girl and then burying her, just a few plots down from her older sister Luca. Burying one baby is enough pain for a lifetime, why are we having to bury another?
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