Our Daughters

Today one of the baby loss groups I follow posted this article "What I Wish More People Understood About Losing a Child" 

I connected with so much of what the writer said.  How there are so many misconceptions with childless. For instance, it assumed since you you eventually go back to work, and "normal life" that you are fine, but really a piece of you is always missing your child.  People are worried about bringing the child up in conversation, afraid to remind us or make us sad, when in reality we are ALWAYS thinking about our child. We don't just forget and then when you mention him or her we say "aw crap, why did you have to go and do that, I had forgotten" as if it is like when someone sings the song you just got out of your head..., the reality of it is you aren't reminding us, we didn't and we won't ever forget. Saying their name and talking about them is so uplifting to us, even if sometimes we might cry when you do.  The writer said it perfectly, "We would rather lose it because you spoke his/her name and remembered our child, than try and shield ourselves from the pain.... Grief is the pendulum swing of love."

When I read the article I really wanted to post it on facebook, just to get more awareness of what it is really like being in this club of child loss we have unwillingly joined.

But as I was about to submit "share", I got an overwhelming feeling like I was unworthy, like I didn't have the right to be sad about losing Elisa and Luca, because it didn't compare to the author's loss, who lost her son when he was a child, not in pregnancy like Elisa and Luca. 

It reminded me again of how isolating pregnancy loss can be.  In the eyes of so many a baby isn't considered a person when they are in utero, they are merely a fetus.

But Mr V and I fully whole heatedly believe and see both Luca and Elisa as people, our daughters. They each had a soul, a body and they lived.  They brought so much joy and love to us in the little time we had with them and they are our family.

So I posted the article anyway.  Because one small way to change people's perception is for us to be strong in our belief that our daughters are just that, our daughters.

One foot in front of the other

Last week I went for my first run in nearly 8 months.  Since I was on bedrest or just general rest for nearly all of Elisa's pregnancy it has taken the last two months since her birth just to get up to longer walks, and other small exercise. (Before I get too far, let's be honest, I am not a huge runner, I run to let off stress, and I by no means consider myself a "hobby runner"....we are lucky if I'll train for a 5K)

But last week I finally felt I had enough energy and muscle back to go for a little run. It was a sunny afternoon after work and it was wonderful to be outside.  I started out slow, doing more of a speed walk than a run.

After walking for a while I decided to go for it and start running. And when I did it was the weirdest experience, I literally felt like I couldn't remember how to run.  My legs were shaky underneath me and I felt as if I did not have control of my body or my momentum.  Even though I was on solid, flat ground, I felt as if I was spiraling out of control, running with no way of stopping, like when you try to stop while running down a steep hill.

When I was finally able to stop, I laughed at myself, wondering what I looked like....but then I also laughed at how this running seemed to mirror everything else in my life.  I truly feel like I am having to re-learn how to do things now. I am re-learning how to go to work when I feel so raw and vulnerable in my own skin, re-learning how to get out of bed every morning knowing that Elisa won't be here with us, re-learning how to live in a world where both of my daughters aren't here.

Right now everything that I do feels so awkward and takes so much effort.  Going to work and acting like everything is normal, when it isn't.  Having people ask me how I am, and answering "OK", because I feel like it is the middle ground between the "good" they want to hear, and the "missing my daughter" that I want to say.

So just like running, I am going to have to get up and put one foot in front of the other. Remembering my daughters with every step I take and doing my best to honor them with the new person I have become.

Will it?

It will happen...

Your time will come...

These are all things people say to me when they hear about our losses.  I know each person says it because they mean well.  They want to hope we will get our baby, we hope so too.  Maybe they don't know what else to say, and figure by saying that, they are avoiding saying something else completely wrong...which yes I appreciate that, because there are some bad things that have been said.

But every time I hear that, there is a little voice in my head that wants to say back "you don't know that" or "what if it doesn't?" and every day that voice seems to be getting louder

Because the reality of the situation is we don't know if "it will happen" or if "our time will come"

It took us 6 months to get pregnant with Luca, a year if you count the months we were "passively trying" And then we lost her

It took us nearly another year of actively trying to get pregnant with Elisa.  And then we lost her too.

I am batting 0 for 2 and each chance at the plate took me almost a year to get there.

The truth of the matter is my babies die, and it scares me.  It is the most anguish I have ever felt. I didn't know this much sadness could fill one heart.

To add to it we have no explanation as to why either of our losses happened, or why it took us so long to get pregnant.

The polyps seem to be the likely culprit for our infertility, but we won't know until we start trying again, and polyps can come back.  As for our losses, we never had any testing done on Luca, and with Elisa everything came back normal

So both losses are a fluke, a statistic.

Yes, we are grateful that we don't have a diagnosis that prevents us from having children for certain, but we also don't have any reason why it happened.  Nothing to work to fix, nothing to prevent it from happening again.

So we are left with the same odds as before.

Which for us is 0 for 2

So I am left asking, Will our time come? Will it happen?

Taize Thursdays

Taize Thursdays - March 19th

Wait for the Lord 

"Wait for the lord, whose day is near
Wait for the lord, be strong, take heart"

I need these words today...."be stong take heart"

Little did we know

To say these last few weeks have been hard would be an understatement. The one month anniversary of Elisa's birthday and the one year anniversary of Luca's due date falling on the same weekend. And returning to work was much harder than I expected.  I am typically a pretty strong person, and can get through all most anything as long as I keep in my mind and my heart that I get to go home to the best person in the world, my best friend, my husband. But the first week back at work I cried from the second we got in the car to leave the office, all the way home, and a good part in to the evening.

Through all of this Mr V has been my rock. He holds me when I cry, comforting me and validating that everything I am feeling is OK. And then he knows how to make me smile and get me to laugh when need cheering up.

I put so much on him, and he is always there for me.

Which is why this week has even more difficult. Yesterday was the three year anniversary of Mr V's father's death.

In February of 2012 Mr V's father was diagnosed with stage IV liver cancer.  He rapidly declined and a month later on March 15th 2012 he passed away at home.  Mr V's father was the most faith-filled, kindest person I have ever met, and he is greatly missed every day.

It just breaks me that the man I love so much, has had to endure so much in his 30 years of life.  Not only has he lost two daughters, but he also lost his father, his mentor.

And despite his loss, he still keeps his positive attitude. Yes he misses his girls and his father dearly, but he is still able to keep hope and be grateful for everything in life. He posted a beautiful tribute to his dad on Facebook last night, and I just wanted to share it here:

3 years ago today I arrived in California to see my family. Unlike the usual trips home which were pre-planned months in advance and carried with them a sense of hope and joy, this trip was not like any other. Earlier that day I received the message that my father passed away and so the next few days would carry with them a variety of emotions. As I look back at the past three years and all the happiness and sadness since that day, I constantly come across the thought I had on my trip there.
I was sad that my father would not be on this earth to be with this grandchildren. Little did I know, he would get to be with them and hold them far before I would.
Thank you dad for all you taught me about life, and along with Luca and Elisa be with us now and always.

And to this I have to add a thank you to Mr V's dad.  Thank you for raising a wonderful man, who is so loving and caring and so strong in his faith.  He is my rock and I cannot imagine making it through this journey without him.  Thank you for holding our baby girls while we cannot.  We thought we would have them on our laps, telling them stories about you, but now we know they are sitting on your lap as you tell them stories about us.

In an alternate universe

Today when I got home from work, I checked the mail as I usually do.  There was some junk mail, and adds, and of course medical bills.  I opened the first and it was a medical bill for some of the lab work I had done at my follow up appointment.  The second I opened was from the hospital, so I assumed it was going to be the big whammy...the cost of Elisa's delivery.  I prepared myself for the amount before opening (we had already seen from insurance how much we would owe) and for the emotional impact it would have on me to flash back to that day of her birth.  But despite trying to mentally prepare myself, I was blindsided by what I found when I opened it.  Not a medical bill but a note from the hospital 

"Our records indicate that you are scheduled to be admitted to the hospital on or around 4/11/2015"

Elisa's scheduled due date...

You see we had to submit a form to the hospital before we reached 20 weeks, estimating her due date, giving the hospital a "heads up" for when we might be there, standard protocol for all births at that hospital.  After losing Luca, I was apprehensive to plan anything ahead with Elisa, so I waited until the last minute, which is not something I typically do.  I submitted it around 18 weeks, after the doctors appointment where the confirmed the subchorionic hemorrhage was gone. Less than a week later we she was diagnosed with IUGR and given a less than 10% chance of survival.

I am not upset at being reminded of her due date, I know it is coming up, and I know it is a date that I will never forget, just like I will never forget Luca's due date nor both of my girls' birthdays.  What upset me was the image about of what could have been that this note signified.

Thinking about how, in an alternate universe, I could have been opening that envelope standing with my belly bumping into the counter top, with so much hope of meeting and holding my baby girl.  But today I opened it weary from another day at work where things have gone back to "normal" but my world is upside down.

Taize Thursdays

Taize Thursdays - March 12th

Oh Lord Hear My Prayer

Oh Lord Hear My Prayer
When I Call Answer Me
Oh Lord HEar My Prayer
Oh Lord Hear My Prayer
Come and Listen to Me

No other words necissary...just this

The Eyes of a Child

I had another lovely, unexpected interaction with my niece "P" this weekend.  My nephews and niece were all having an overnight at my parents house last night, so Mr V and I went over to have dinner with them.  After dinner, Mr V wanted to show my nephews a TV show, called "Brain Games" that shows how your brain works and talks about optical illusions. (If you haven't seen it, it's really neat and it's on netflix)

P is 4 and a little too young to understand a lot of the information in the show, so a few minutes in she asked me if I would you upstairs with her to play my little ponies. I said of course I would! I love playing games like that with her.

On our way up the stairs as she walked ahead of me she said:

P: You know, I know why babies eyes didn't have color".

Me: What babies? What do you mean?

P: Your baby, you know in the picture, her eyes didn't have color (Elisa was born  at 28 weeks, and her eyes were actually open)

M: Oh you remember her picture? (I had shown her pictures before, meaning to only show her the Now I Lay Me Down to sleep pictures, and not the ones of her face, because of the very fact that she didn't look like a "normal baby" she looked like a 28 week gestation baby, but at the time, P took my phone and found the one of Elisa's face)

P:  Yea, and I know why she didn't have colored eyes, she was just too little. If she had grown bigger, she would have had color in her eyes

Me: Oh (I was a little taken aback that she remembered so much) You are so right! Did your mom tell you that, or did you figure that out on your own?

P: I figured it out on my own

Me:  Wow you are are right, you are smart! Thank you for thinking about that and for telling me about that.  It makes me happy when you talk about our baby

P: yeah, I know it does...which my little pony do you want?

We had made it up stairs, and were already on to a new topic, just as to be expected from a four year old. But I love her simplicity, talking about Elisa, like any other baby.  She wasn't afraid to bring her up, or talk about her around me, like so many people have been lately.

I love that P remembers her, in her own little way.

Second day back - harder than the first

Today was a lot harder than yesterday, which I wasn't expecting.  Yesterday I had welcome backs and albeit only a few, a couple of sorries.  I was also consumed yesterday by the 700+ emails I had to catch up on, so I was occupied by relatively mundane tasks .

Today however, everything was pretty much fully back to "normal" only one person asked how I was, and my normal workload started pouring back in. Meetings, analysis requests, reviewing and finalizing reports.

It's as if I was never gone, as if nothing happened and I was screaming inside all day saying "Say something!"

I am not saying I wanted everyone going around giving me a pity party.  The hardest thing for me is that people don't acknowledge that my baby girl existed.

Mantra for now...One day at a time....

Going Back to Work - The Good and The Bad

Today was my first day back at work. I have really been dreading it.  Not because I hate my job (I don't)  or because I thought I couldn't do it (I knew I could), but because I didn't want return to "normal"

That's because nothing is normal anymore.

I knew going back would be hard, and I also knew thinking about it would probably be harder than actually doing it.  It was more the anticipation of it that was bad.

So my first day back today had some "goods" and some "bads" and luckily the "goods" outweighed the "bads".

Bad - Driving the same route to work brought back the memories of driving that road every day when I was pregnant with Elisa.  I remember driving those roads thinking about her, being excited she was finally there after trying for so long.  At the stoplights I would hold my belly and talk to her.  I am happy to have those memories, but knowing I don't have her here now makes me so sad

Good - Since Mr V and I work at the same company we drove to work together.  It was such a blessing to not have to worry about driving and to have his company as I worried on my way in to work. Multiple times he joked that he was just going to take a wrong turn so we wouldn't have to go in. I love that man, he always knows how to cheer me up

Good - No one said anything super offensive (no "how's the baby?", no "well at least you can try again") Although I know I shouldn't speak too early, I am sure I will get some of those at some point.

Bad - Most everyone acted like nothing happened, like I was back from a long vacation. I totally understand that people didn't want to upset me, and also that they themselves might have been uncomfortable, but one of the things I put in my email to my boss about how I wanted people to approach the subject, was that I would rather someone even say "I am sorry for what happened" if they don't know how to talk to me about it, than them just ignoring it.  I just wanted people, to knowledge what happened, knowledge HER, but most everyone avoided it, even avoided saying sorry

Bad -  They started an art project gallery in our kitchen. 1. One of the first pieces of artwork was a drawing from a coworker's little girl.  I find it hard to see anything associated with little girls, no matter how old, because it reminds me of what I will never get with Elisa or Luca. 2, one of the art projects had a basket of peanuts next to it, for people to take and eat (I guess it had something to do with the art?) sooo there were peanuts, and peanut shells all over the kitchen....I am allergic, like stop breathing allergic. So not the best welcoming feeling in that kitchen.  From what I have heard, this is not supported by the company, but something a random coworker started, so I think if I say something they will at least get rid of the peanuts...I don't like to be a Debbie Downer, but I also don't like going into anaphylaxis either

Good - My team members  all greeted me with hugs and were genuinely happy to see me.  My team director made me coffee cake (without nuts!) and best of all they COVERED my whiteboard with post-its of what happened while I was out.  Some work things, but mostly random things, and inside jokes that happened while I was out, so I wouldn't be in the dark about their sayings

Good - our account lead came up to me and gave me a huge hug, and I could tell in his eyes how sad he was for what had happened.  He said everyone missed me and that he was so so sorry

Bad- we are an open office environment.  Since Elisa's birth I have definitely seen that I have signs of PTSD that can accompany baby loss.  Loud noises really impact me, and nearly bring me to tears.  I can't watch movies that are too loud or have yelling in them, and I am very easily startled.  (I have  talked with my councilor about this, so I am getting the help I need).  But back to the open office environment. I had a really hard time today with people walking behind me (my cube and desk face so that my back is open to the hallway) and was really shaken up when people came to talk to me and I didn't know they were there.  A couple of times I had to take a deep breath and close my eyes just to keep myself from crying.

Good - I had Mr V to drive me home.  I was so tired after my long day I was so glad I didn't have to drive.  And once again, my husband was wonderful.  When we got in the car, he said "OK, tell me about your day, the good and the bad, vent, I am your counselor"  So I told him everything and as always he was so empathetic.  I am so grateful to be married to a man who listens to me and talks things through with me.

Good - Stemming off the above, I am now home on the couch with my lovely husband

So the good definitely outweighed the bad, but I know it is going to continue to be a struggle. Tomorrow is another light meeting day, but Thursday will be hard again.  It is my first day with meetings at our client's office, and that is where I am worried I might get some of the "how's the baby?" or other well meaning, but hard questions.

But I am not going to worry about that right now.  One day at a time....

Follow Up Number Two

On Friday we had our follow up appointment with our regular OB, Dr. K. The appointment two weeks ago was with the high risk office, because they had to "clear me from delivery" before I could go see my regular OB. I was so happy to finally be able to see Dr K again.  She is so sweet, and really knows our whole story, infertility, losing Luca and just how much Mr V and I want a family (a large family, God willing)

 I went alone because Mr V had to work, but it was also kind of nice because I felt like I could get some 1:1 time with Dr. K.  I wanted to tell her everything that happened during delivery, without her feeling like Mr V and I were "ganging up" on her or anything.  We knew for sure none of it was her fault, because it was with the high risk office, but I wanted her to know what happened, and how I was still feeling really scared and vulnerable and like I was abandoned by the medical system.  I told her about the delivery, about my engorgmnent pain, and how the MFM office kept telling me I was over reascting, until they finally saw me, and realized I was way too engorged.  And I told her about how I tired to call the office multiple times without getting resonses.

She was so very sorry for everything that happened.  I know it was not in her control because it wasn't her office, but I just needed her to know, so she could know why I was feeling so scared.  And hopefully she can pass on my feelings to her counterparts in the MFM office.

She said likely next time I would have to go see the MFM specialists for at least the first half of the pregnancy, basically until things went downhill with Elisa (~19 weeks), but that I would see her at least every two weeks, and them only as consulting, every month or so.  Then if the next pregnancy checks out ok up to 20 weeks, I would most likely not have to go back to the MFM after.  She also said she would be o anything in her power to make sure she is the one delivering our baby next time.

It felt so good to hear her reassuring words, and that she cares enough and knows how much it would mean to us if she delivered our next baby.  I feel safe with her, which is what I need right now, since I have lost so much confidence in the medical system cares.

One thing that was a bit difficult about this meeting though, was our discussion on how long to wait to try again.  After checking me out, she said we could try after only two cycles.  Because Elisa was so small, and I am physically healing very well, she said we could start sooner than later.  The high risk specialists said 3 months....and when I said I heard 6 months, they said I might want to wait that long to feel safe, but they did this without checking my physically, and after Dr K's exam she didn't see any reason physically for us to wait that long.

I know I am not in a place to think about trying again now, but hearing from Dr K that physically we only needed to wait 2 cycles, was a bit of a mental game changer for me.  I was thinking we would have to wait 6 months, no questions, but now that the option for starting earlier has come up, I am not sure what to do with it.  After all with our infertility record, we could start trying in 2 and still not be pregnant for a whole year or longer.  So I don't necessarily want to wait too long to try, but I also don't want to try too soon.

I know for sure this is not something I have to decide today, or anytime soon.  I know I don't want to start trying until after Elisa's due date (in April) and wouldn't want a baby born on or before her birthday. So I know I don't need to think about this now, but just leave it on the back burner to mill over