How time has gone

Wow, it's been a while hasn't it? I'd love to say that life has gone by without a hitch and things were just lovely butterfly magical....but that's not life. That's not the way things work..is it? Yes, the kids are wonderfully alive and happy. The boy is robust and big and just delicious. The big girl is blossoming into a perfectly awkward preteen and all is as it should be with the living children..the husband even has a job now. You would think I would be swimming in the glory that is "shit has finally worked out". SO why aren't I? That's a great question. I guess that as my world slips slowly back into what the common interpretation of "normal" would be, I am feeling more and more like a sham. Like as I smile more and laugh more, and enjoy my life more, I am caking the happy face makeup on heavier and heavier. The cake is starting to crack I fear. Lately I have noticed that I am snappier, moodier, not as easily amused (and I used to genuinely laugh at the stupidest things), and generally more depressed. I thought maybe it was my cycle coming back and I was just PMS'y but it has lasted pretty consistently over the last few and it doesn't seem to back off really. I KNOW I am in need of a job change (I think once you have lived through the nightmare of burying/cremating your child the petty ridiculous bullshit of most people's lives means nothing.. so don't come wha wha to me when Betty in accounting didn't put your special kitten mug away in the break room like you wanted...really people....really?). I have no tolerance for stupid crap or plain mean spirited people. I guess I am re-evaluating my choices in life and seeing if they jive with my new outlook and priorities. I started running and working out and was doing it every day for about 6 weeks....then had to stop when my schedule changed. That is unacceptable so I will be waking up at 5 to keep that up. I felt better and my head was clearer. I am working with a local hospital to start a peer support group for loss and finally have connected with some great ladies through SHARE (about damn time!) so that is a great thing. I started midwifery school and so far it is kicking my ass but that's good because I'd rather suffer in school and know my shit than coast and end up killing someone. I don't know....this grief stuff is hard and it sucks and I want my baby girl back. Maybe I need a good bottle of wine, a good movie, and a good tantrum so I can get back to getting shit done.............

This is the pendant that will house Sage's ashes. I ordered the collection kit and finally brought home her ashes tonight. Let's see if I can actually manage to put some in the little container they sent......

A new SHARE group and a new baby for a dear friend.

SO we have been going to real SHARE group meetings now for about 4 weeks!! Its amazing and wonderful to make these connections with other couples. We are the "veteran" couple there and it is actually kind of enlightening to see just how far we have come. I hear the words that the others say and think "oh my god, I remember saying that!" There are a couple couples that I really like alot. Overall, it has been really great. I has though, brought up a slew of feelings and emotions that I wasn't ready for. It's all good though. I think sometimes that you need to revisit them just to remind yourself how far you have come and how far you still have to go.

On a happy note, my dear SHARE friend had a living breathing screaming baby girl about 7 weeks ago. She is beautiful and cute and my friend is over the moon. I couldn't be happier for her. Sqweeee!

A tiny casket and one mourner

As I was racing down the freeway to class after work I passed a cemetery. I pass it every week when I travel that way and I noticed before that the children's plots were closest to the road. It always bothered me as they seemed relegated to the furthest corner and always subjected to the sounds of the roadway. Anyways, I always found myself glancing over when I drove by....I can't help it. Today was different. Today there was a small tent erected over a tiny hole and above that sat a tiny white coffin. Two chairs stood nearby with one silhouetted figure hunched over shrouded in black. It was stark, heartbreaking, and raw. I wanted to pull over and scream, to what I presumed to be the mother, "You are not alone, I am so sorry you are burying your precious baby". Then I was angry, angry that they were alone to grieve this child, angry they had to bury their child at all, angry that every time they go to visit that little plot the view they will have is of cars racing by and angry that the sound they will hear is droning engines and honking. Then I cried for a few miles, straightened myself up and realized how silly it was that I cried for someone's burial choices when I didn't even bury my own. I didn't even do anything with her ashes......maybe it's time I did.

Another change

So I found out today that I will be starting CNM (Certified Nurse Midwife) school in September. I am thrilled, scared, and take this new direction as an honor. I know enough about myself to know that I am not ready to deliver babies just yet. I think I will focus on woman care for a while until I know I can come to birth without bringing my fear with it. :)

A warm welcome to baby Sabrina!

A dear BLM that I have come to be good friends with online and on the phone has had her rainbow baby!!! A sweet girl named Sabrina. I want so much to call and squeal with delight  and gush on about how beautiful the little peanut is, but ......but I know the painful dichotomy that often accompanies the intense joy that comes with a living baby in your arms. You are hyper vigilant, worried, obsessed with every breathe, sound, and fluctuation in temperature. Normal new baby concerns are blown into major panic worthy events. This new wonder may be shadowed by a newly rekindled sense of loss....what if the other one(s) had cried...would they have sounded the same, looked the same, made the same funny fists with their thumbs tucked inside. I know these feelings are not exclusive to me...actually they are downright normal. So I guess I will let them settle in at home, get comfortable and let the initial wave of mega emotions ebb out ....and then I'll call and have her describe her delicious daughter to me in excruciatingly wonderfully perfect detail.

Broken

It's been almost 2 and a half years since Sage was born and died. One would expect that you would be "okay" by now...and you had a beautiful healthy baby since that you are more than just "okay"...you should be good...great....thankful for life's blessings and ready to get back up on that horse and be the brave little cowgirl everyone expects you to be. Right? Wrong....I have come to the conclusion that even though life has moved on and I am able to kind of keep up with it and even though I DO have a wonderful son and daughter that are my universe, I realize that I will always be broken. I will always be just a bit off, socially awkward and lonely. I thought that I would get back to some sort of normal by now. I thought that she wouldn't creep into my thoughts as much now, but she does...not her face, but the idea of her....reminding me constantly of what I didn't get to keep. I wonder if I am mentally ill....maybe the depression was worse than I thought and I should have stayed on the meds longer. Maybe it's the rest of my life being insane that fuels the rest to follow suit....I don't know. I just know that I'm tired, broken, and I am nobody's cowgirl.

She becomes less and less

It seems that I am moving further and further away from my little girl...The pangs of loss are not as sharp and don't cut as deep as they once did. I guess that's time's gift...It drags me away from her though more and more. I can't remember her now...no face, no hair, no soft skin. All I have is the images from the pictures. Another gift of time or have I been robbed? I don't know anymore. I guess I have fallen into a grim reconciliation of the reality that she is gone, she's never coming back, and I will never ever have my Sage.

Time has been playing tricks

So it has been over 2 years now and I swear it has been a time warp. I know earlier on here I talked about how time flexes and bends when you are grieving. I guess it keeps on doing that even after you are over the big nasty hump and on to the never-ending road of smaller bumps. What catches me is that I forgot quite a bit already. I can't recall her face without a picture. I remember the general things but they blend now with the photos and I can't remember if it is memory or a picture I conger up in my head. I've accepted that as a symptom of time  and maybe that's a blessing....I don't know.

Transplant day

2 years ago at this moment I was awake...waiting for the morning and the NICU to call to say Sage had been matched and what the OR time was for surgery. I sat and waited....I think I was as anxious as the recipients' moms were. We were at the end of our journey...our 6 day expedition through organ donation and trying to do right by our daughter. The events of that day are time stamped in my mind and I just hope they go by smoothly this year.

This is a special day for the recipient families as well....I keep in touch with the liver recipient family.....their daughter did not make it...after a year and another transplant she lost the fight. The heart recipient's family has maintained silence...I try not to let it make me sad. I know he is doing well and get updates sporadically from the transplant hospital. I wish they would say something though.....

Happy birthday Sage

At 816 tonight Sage turned 2. Instead of chasing a squealing dark headed girl down the hall we handed a bag of clothes and baby dvd's to the manager of the NICU where she stayed while here. Instead of cleaning up cake crumbs from a nonstop jabbering mouth, I scrubbed blackbeans and rice from the pot in which I cooked dinner. Instead of holding my toddler girl I light a candle in her name and wish she were here. Happy birthday my baby girl...my Sage. I bought you a party outfit in just your size...I will keep it safe just in case you decide to send another sister our way.

Her birthday...and her last day approaches

Sage's tree is blooming..sweet pink and yellow flowers...5 more days until her second birthday. 11 more days until her second anniversary of the last day I held her. It seems more and more like a dream....sometimes I don't even think it happened to me...to us...then I get a flashback and WHAM...it is right there again. The screaming...the ambulance ride and my midwife with her hand up inside trying to keep her head off her cord....the surgical suite with the anethesiologist forcing a mask over my face with no air in it and me shoving him away....the team yelling at me to push when I had nothing to put my feet into for leverage...the sound of cpr being performed on my little girl...still warm and pink but already flown from this world...The cocky doctor saying to give me Versed "she doesn't need to remember this"...the sound of the trauma helicopter coming to take Sage to another hospital...then the smell of betadyne...the smells of the NICU....the sights of the smallest ones struggling and thanking all the gods that my girl was spared that fate....she was perfect...still...warm...pink...but gone...so very very gone. These memories flash back to me every day like a smack in the face just for an instant and then gone...then they return again and again....I change the radio station, TV station, web page...I hum a tune...I walk in a circle...I rub my pendant I've worn ever since and try to ward them off....I cram my life full of thoughts and worries and good memories trying to drown them out but still they come...slowly at first when the weather turns colder building up to a barrage. It will suck for the next few days...weeks...and then they will recede like the tide...I will be left again with faint images and occasional skipped heart beats until next year...when the air turns cold, her tree blooms again, and her movie starts to play once more in my mind.

Choices and conflicted feelings

SO things have been chugging along beautifully with Eli. He is robust and big and healthy and BOY through and through. There is nothing soft and frilly about him. No, he is loud, brash, tough, and just as flirty as can be. Total opposite of girl....that's for sure. And time is flying by. He is 6 months old already and I can't believe it has gone by so fast. He is no longer the little infant but a scooting, eating, yapping, bouncing baby. It's amazing!!! So on one hand I should be grateful for the miracle that he is and call it a day, right? I am, after all now considered "advanced maternal age"......ugh. I can't even type that without sneering. But when we look at him and hold him my hub and I can't stop thinking about maybe another. Maybe one more so he can grow up with a sibling more his age. Iris is great and loves him but she is 10 years older. Before we know it she will be out of the house and Eli will be by himself. That happened with my younger brother and we are only 6 years apart. He says he always felt so disconnected from my older brother and I and kind of lonely. I don't want that for him. On the other hand, I want to finish my doctoral studies, get more on our financial feet, have Iris more stable emotionally, and I have to admit, I am liking being more in shape again (but I looove my body pregnant just not the after part so much). We are torn. We don't want o wait too long as we want to be young enough to enjoy our kids but not sure the timing is right......ugh what to do what to do. The fact that I haven't gotten my monthly cycle back yet kind of is deciding it for the immediate future. Maybe I should just let it go.....cause I do that SO well....;)