Tonight I fed my unborn child McDonald's for dinner.
Yes, I am ashamed of this.
Earlier I was running errands for Georgiana's memorial service and brunch, which we're having Saturday morning.
I ran to drop off the programs at Kinko's. Here's how the conversation went.
Lady behind the register: "Ok, so you need 50 of these?"
Me: "Yes."
Lady: "Can you pick them up tomorrow?"
Me: "Sure."
Lady: (upon opening the file I brought on my zip disk) "Oh! What a cute baby shower invitation."
Me: "It's a...memorial service program."
Lady: "Oh...sorry."
(cue awkward silence)
(cue exasperated sigh as I walked to the car)
One hour later while still running errands, Kinko's lady calls me.
Lady: "Ma'am, I just wanted to let you know I found a typo on the program."
Me: "Oh, ok, what is it?"
Lady: "It says here 'Born March 21, Died March 20.' I think the dates are switched"
Me: "No, that's actually correct."
Lady: [cue awkward silence] "Oh."
Me: "Thanks for calling. I'll pick them up tomorrow."
[cue flinging phone across the room]
Ok I didn't actually throw the phone, but in my mind that's what happened. At that point, I decided to get McDonald's. And as I ate salty french fries and a Quarter Pounder, I felt a little better, if slightly ashamed.
And when I got in bed tonight, I felt a little more better as I cried over my second baby dancing around in my swollen belly.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Plans and Panic
Well, plans are underway for my daughter's "first birthday in heaven" party. I am trying to stay on a more positive note with this, as I want it to be uplifting and not overwhelmingly sad. So, anything that makes me sad is not making the cut. That includes a birthday cake, anything that says first birthday (other than the invitation) and anything that should have been used and now can't be used because my daughter's gone.
But, that leaves room for a whole lot of things that we can use that don't make me so sad. I bought a beautiful glittery little spring-y green tree, and it will have ribbons, owl ornaments, bird ornaments, butterflies and all kinds of other wonderful things that are just my version of what I think heaven must look like for my little girl.
This makes me happy.
I'm also making a menu of foods I craved when pregnant with her. Since I'm now pregnant with her little brother, I have enough experience to know that it's not just pregnancy that made me crave those things, it was pregnancy with her. And so--her. And the foods she liked. This menu includes:
-grilled peach salad (I ate peaches by the pound when pregnant with her)
-chinese chicken salad (also craved this)
-bruschetta (tomatoes and basil, couldn't get enough)
-fruit salad (I could have lived on fruit alone with her)
And what party is complete without cupcakes and cake pops? These are just cute and girly, and I know she would have been. Well, she was.
I look at pictures of her brother in the womb and I realize how much she looked like a girl, and how much he looks like a boy. It really is amazing, even from so early on.
We are also having a memorial mass said for her, with some beautiful readings and beautiful musical selections. I'll share all this later.
In between planning for the party, which is Saturday morning, although her actual birthday is March 21, I also have serious bouts of panic.
Cue to last Sunday. We were at mass, and I realized I had barely felt little guy move for the entire hour. A little more time passed, and we found ourselves at L&D triage. I was on the verge of a full blown panic attack.
We hooked me up to the monitor, and suddenly he was moving. A lot. It sounded like thunder on the monitor every time he moved, and I relaxed a little more.
All I could think going in was "It's March. It's Sunday. I'm screwed."
Now, I'm not a jinxy kind of person, but talk to any BLM and it's really hard not to be, especially during the awful and cursed month of your baby's death. Did I also mention before that my grandfather died in his early 50s on March 20 of a brain aneurysm?
March 20, and March, has started to feel like a totally jinxed and screwy month for my family.
I remember my girl in this month, and am grateful for that, but otherwise I just want to fast foward and wake up April 1.
After everything was good at the ER (with a wonderful nurse, by the way, who will probably be receiving flowers from me in the next week) and we left, I was exhausted. But I immediately shifted back into birthday plans for Georgie.
Anybody else out there just totally spent?
But, that leaves room for a whole lot of things that we can use that don't make me so sad. I bought a beautiful glittery little spring-y green tree, and it will have ribbons, owl ornaments, bird ornaments, butterflies and all kinds of other wonderful things that are just my version of what I think heaven must look like for my little girl.
This makes me happy.
I'm also making a menu of foods I craved when pregnant with her. Since I'm now pregnant with her little brother, I have enough experience to know that it's not just pregnancy that made me crave those things, it was pregnancy with her. And so--her. And the foods she liked. This menu includes:
-grilled peach salad (I ate peaches by the pound when pregnant with her)
-chinese chicken salad (also craved this)
-bruschetta (tomatoes and basil, couldn't get enough)
-fruit salad (I could have lived on fruit alone with her)
And what party is complete without cupcakes and cake pops? These are just cute and girly, and I know she would have been. Well, she was.
I look at pictures of her brother in the womb and I realize how much she looked like a girl, and how much he looks like a boy. It really is amazing, even from so early on.
We are also having a memorial mass said for her, with some beautiful readings and beautiful musical selections. I'll share all this later.
In between planning for the party, which is Saturday morning, although her actual birthday is March 21, I also have serious bouts of panic.
Cue to last Sunday. We were at mass, and I realized I had barely felt little guy move for the entire hour. A little more time passed, and we found ourselves at L&D triage. I was on the verge of a full blown panic attack.
We hooked me up to the monitor, and suddenly he was moving. A lot. It sounded like thunder on the monitor every time he moved, and I relaxed a little more.
All I could think going in was "It's March. It's Sunday. I'm screwed."
Now, I'm not a jinxy kind of person, but talk to any BLM and it's really hard not to be, especially during the awful and cursed month of your baby's death. Did I also mention before that my grandfather died in his early 50s on March 20 of a brain aneurysm?
March 20, and March, has started to feel like a totally jinxed and screwy month for my family.
I remember my girl in this month, and am grateful for that, but otherwise I just want to fast foward and wake up April 1.
After everything was good at the ER (with a wonderful nurse, by the way, who will probably be receiving flowers from me in the next week) and we left, I was exhausted. But I immediately shifted back into birthday plans for Georgie.
Anybody else out there just totally spent?
Monday, February 27, 2012
Dear Georgie
Dear Georgie,
Please talk to your little brother. He seems to find it funny to play little pranks on me and not move when I jiggle him, poke him, sing to him or talk to him. You were always really good about this when you were inside of mommy. Well, now mommy needs that reassurance more than ever. I'm sure you saw my frantic attempts this morning to get him moving, including wolfing down Cap'n Crunch at breakneck speed (which did result in about 30 movements in 10 minutes) as a last resort.
Please talk to your little brother. Please tell him how afraid mommy is this time around, as if he didn't feel it enough. Please tell him I need him to move just a little more regularly for me.
Love you. Miss you.
Mommy
Please talk to your little brother. He seems to find it funny to play little pranks on me and not move when I jiggle him, poke him, sing to him or talk to him. You were always really good about this when you were inside of mommy. Well, now mommy needs that reassurance more than ever. I'm sure you saw my frantic attempts this morning to get him moving, including wolfing down Cap'n Crunch at breakneck speed (which did result in about 30 movements in 10 minutes) as a last resort.
Please talk to your little brother. Please tell him how afraid mommy is this time around, as if he didn't feel it enough. Please tell him I need him to move just a little more regularly for me.
Love you. Miss you.
Mommy
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Parallel Plans
Dave and I had our 24 wk growth ultrasound on Friday. Twenty minutes before the appointment was to start, I was convinced our baby boy was gone, or at least dying. He hadn't moved much that morning, and I was convinced I would show up for the appointment with eager anticipation, only to have the ultrasound tech tell me there was no heartbeat.
The ultrasound went great.
Trauma and PTSD are powerful grips on the heart.
I am in a strange place.
Today I received some fabric samples for my baby boy's crib bedding. I was convinced for a long time I wasn't going to set up his nursery until he was here. After some thought and reflection, I think it will be really good for me to focus on this in preparation for his arrival. I am hoping to keep the fear and panic at bay so that I can do that for him.
Today I also bought some cupcake cups and decorations (owls, of course) for Georgiana's first birthday in heaven. God, it pains to me even type those words. Today is one of those barely breathe kind of days, where the sheer sorrow of her death is enough to overwhelm me completely.
I came home and set the cupcake decorations next to the fabric samples on the kitchen table. I wasn't even thinking about it, as I was tidying up, coming home, and cleaning the kitchen. When I was finished, I looked over at the table and realized the two items were sitting right next to each other. And it was too much.
Her birthday: I don't even know how I feel on this. I have received a couple of disappointing responses to this from close family members, and have tried to let the anger and disappointment go on that. It's much easier said than done. I feel torn. I want to celebrate, and I also want to crawl into a hole and maybe never come out. March looms, and there's nothing I can do about it other than admit myself to the crazy ward and beg for medication until April. I'll get an idea for her party, and then I think, no, that will make me too sad. Or, no, that will make someone else too sad. This is so hard to do. Life is so hard right now. How can I have so many years left without her?
My son, his nursery: He doesn't feel real in a lot of ways, although I know he's real because I feel him move. I have dozens of pictures of his face, more in fact than I have of my daughter at this point. I thank God for his little nudges, and then I go into near panic attacks when he goes to sleep and doesn't move for awhile. Three months left, and...I don't know. Women have done this before me, so I'll do it too. I need to go into the nursery and separate out what he can wear that I had for her, and then figure out where to put the rest of her things. Or the rest of the baby girl things. Whatever they are at this point. It's too much right now, so the door stays shut.
Parallel plans, and my heart feels torn not just in two directions, but in a dozen different directions. I am taken back to the last day I saw her coffin above ground, and I wonder how I have survived. When the heart smashes and breaks and never goes back to what it was, how does the body survive? How is it that we survive this?
The ultrasound went great.
Trauma and PTSD are powerful grips on the heart.
I am in a strange place.
Today I received some fabric samples for my baby boy's crib bedding. I was convinced for a long time I wasn't going to set up his nursery until he was here. After some thought and reflection, I think it will be really good for me to focus on this in preparation for his arrival. I am hoping to keep the fear and panic at bay so that I can do that for him.
Today I also bought some cupcake cups and decorations (owls, of course) for Georgiana's first birthday in heaven. God, it pains to me even type those words. Today is one of those barely breathe kind of days, where the sheer sorrow of her death is enough to overwhelm me completely.
I came home and set the cupcake decorations next to the fabric samples on the kitchen table. I wasn't even thinking about it, as I was tidying up, coming home, and cleaning the kitchen. When I was finished, I looked over at the table and realized the two items were sitting right next to each other. And it was too much.
Her birthday: I don't even know how I feel on this. I have received a couple of disappointing responses to this from close family members, and have tried to let the anger and disappointment go on that. It's much easier said than done. I feel torn. I want to celebrate, and I also want to crawl into a hole and maybe never come out. March looms, and there's nothing I can do about it other than admit myself to the crazy ward and beg for medication until April. I'll get an idea for her party, and then I think, no, that will make me too sad. Or, no, that will make someone else too sad. This is so hard to do. Life is so hard right now. How can I have so many years left without her?
My son, his nursery: He doesn't feel real in a lot of ways, although I know he's real because I feel him move. I have dozens of pictures of his face, more in fact than I have of my daughter at this point. I thank God for his little nudges, and then I go into near panic attacks when he goes to sleep and doesn't move for awhile. Three months left, and...I don't know. Women have done this before me, so I'll do it too. I need to go into the nursery and separate out what he can wear that I had for her, and then figure out where to put the rest of her things. Or the rest of the baby girl things. Whatever they are at this point. It's too much right now, so the door stays shut.
Parallel plans, and my heart feels torn not just in two directions, but in a dozen different directions. I am taken back to the last day I saw her coffin above ground, and I wonder how I have survived. When the heart smashes and breaks and never goes back to what it was, how does the body survive? How is it that we survive this?
Monday, February 6, 2012
The One Where I [Almost] Saved Her [Him]
I had a nightmare last night. If I mention that to the non-BLM world, the comment at this point is, "You're pregnant. Don't pregnant women always have crazy dreams?"
Alright, listen up, world that knows pregnancy but not baby loss: You want to talk about crazy dreams? Talk to a mommy who has lost a baby and is now pregnant after loss. Or even better. Just talk to a baby loss mama. You don't even need pregnancy thrown in there.
The dream world is interesting. In the beginning, I used to beg God to let me see visions of Georgiana in my dreams. I still long for that, but it doesn't seem that's going to happen anytime soon. Instead, my mind replays her death in my dreams. Either (1) I tell someone (usually urgently) that she died; or (2) she dies; or (3) she has just died and I am looking at her in her coffin.
I know. Fun.
Now that I'm pregnant, a lot of different elements tend to mesh together, and my dreams are a place where all my sorrow and fear come to the forefront to play out in scenarios. In my dream last night, it was a replay of what happened with Georgie, only different. I was in the hospital and my water had just broken and I was bleeding (this happened with Georgie, only after we found out she was gone). Only this time it didn't seem to be odd to me that I was bleeding. I kept saying to the doctor that we were going to save this one. I can only assume I was talking about the little baby boy currently growing inside me. At the end, I gave birth.
And at the end, I had no idea whether the baby (Georgiana or her brother? Not sure, the dream wasn't clear) lived or died.
I woke up to that. My heart started out heavy this morning.
I went to work and had an email from a friend from the BLM community. She had her rainbow baby. I was so happy about this. This is a woman who has tried for a living child for probably 8 years or so. She had several fertility issues, miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, and then lost her little girl at 22 weeks. She has had a very hard road, and her little rainbow boy is just beautiful. My heart felt lighter.
I then received the news that another good friend of ours lost her baby boy this past weekend. He had several health issues that were diagnosed in the womb, so it wasn't necessarily a surprise, but you all know that really doesn't make a difference. My heart is so heavy for her and her husband. I just think back to where I was, almost a year ago, shattered in pieces and trying to find a dress for my daughter's funeral.
No words of wisdom from this post. Just a lot of sadness.
Alright, listen up, world that knows pregnancy but not baby loss: You want to talk about crazy dreams? Talk to a mommy who has lost a baby and is now pregnant after loss. Or even better. Just talk to a baby loss mama. You don't even need pregnancy thrown in there.
The dream world is interesting. In the beginning, I used to beg God to let me see visions of Georgiana in my dreams. I still long for that, but it doesn't seem that's going to happen anytime soon. Instead, my mind replays her death in my dreams. Either (1) I tell someone (usually urgently) that she died; or (2) she dies; or (3) she has just died and I am looking at her in her coffin.
I know. Fun.
Now that I'm pregnant, a lot of different elements tend to mesh together, and my dreams are a place where all my sorrow and fear come to the forefront to play out in scenarios. In my dream last night, it was a replay of what happened with Georgie, only different. I was in the hospital and my water had just broken and I was bleeding (this happened with Georgie, only after we found out she was gone). Only this time it didn't seem to be odd to me that I was bleeding. I kept saying to the doctor that we were going to save this one. I can only assume I was talking about the little baby boy currently growing inside me. At the end, I gave birth.
And at the end, I had no idea whether the baby (Georgiana or her brother? Not sure, the dream wasn't clear) lived or died.
I woke up to that. My heart started out heavy this morning.
I went to work and had an email from a friend from the BLM community. She had her rainbow baby. I was so happy about this. This is a woman who has tried for a living child for probably 8 years or so. She had several fertility issues, miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, and then lost her little girl at 22 weeks. She has had a very hard road, and her little rainbow boy is just beautiful. My heart felt lighter.
I then received the news that another good friend of ours lost her baby boy this past weekend. He had several health issues that were diagnosed in the womb, so it wasn't necessarily a surprise, but you all know that really doesn't make a difference. My heart is so heavy for her and her husband. I just think back to where I was, almost a year ago, shattered in pieces and trying to find a dress for my daughter's funeral.
No words of wisdom from this post. Just a lot of sadness.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Distractions
I've been trying to keep myself distracted lately. Dave and I are still working through Friends, and our next plan is to watch The Borgias, which he got me for my birthday.
Most days I can keep my you-know-what together. Other days (mostly nights) I can get on what feels like the verge of a full blown panic attack.
Like the other night. I woke up at 3 am, convinced baby boy was gone. He had hardly moved the day before, so the panic had been building. I laid there for about an hour, going through all the scenarios in my head, steeling myself for the worst.
I decided to get out of bed and use the Doppler. The dogs came with me into the living room, I put the wand on my belly, and heard what I thought was his heartbeat.
I went back to bed and tried to will myself back to sleep. It didn't happen. I started to wonder if maybe the sound I heard was the placenta, or my blood flow, or worse, my heartbeat. I started Googling these sounds to try and figure out if I heard his heartbeat.
Suffice to say that I didn't go back to sleep until 7 am, only to wake back up at 8 am. Bleh.
SO I am trying to keep myself distracted. I'm sort of decorating the house we just moved into, although we don't have a lot of extra money, so that's a little limited. Another thing I've been doing is trying new recipes.
In the past couple of weeks, I've made
-chicken enchilada casserole
-Thai marinated steak salad (this one was delicious, I could eat it every day)
-dijon mustard chicken
-french toast
-BBQ chicken in the slow cooker
-spaghetti and meat sauce
I also eat a lot of this (though with turkey bacon):
Most days I can keep my you-know-what together. Other days (mostly nights) I can get on what feels like the verge of a full blown panic attack.
Like the other night. I woke up at 3 am, convinced baby boy was gone. He had hardly moved the day before, so the panic had been building. I laid there for about an hour, going through all the scenarios in my head, steeling myself for the worst.
I decided to get out of bed and use the Doppler. The dogs came with me into the living room, I put the wand on my belly, and heard what I thought was his heartbeat.
I went back to bed and tried to will myself back to sleep. It didn't happen. I started to wonder if maybe the sound I heard was the placenta, or my blood flow, or worse, my heartbeat. I started Googling these sounds to try and figure out if I heard his heartbeat.
Suffice to say that I didn't go back to sleep until 7 am, only to wake back up at 8 am. Bleh.
SO I am trying to keep myself distracted. I'm sort of decorating the house we just moved into, although we don't have a lot of extra money, so that's a little limited. Another thing I've been doing is trying new recipes.
In the past couple of weeks, I've made
-chicken enchilada casserole
-Thai marinated steak salad (this one was delicious, I could eat it every day)
-dijon mustard chicken
-french toast
-BBQ chicken in the slow cooker
-spaghetti and meat sauce
I also eat a lot of this (though with turkey bacon):
It seems like it's all this kid wants to eat.
Other than that, my wonderful husband and sweet doggies Quatro and Bing try to keep me distracted too. Quatro (the little black and white one) has been my buddy for a long time.
Bing is the sweetest dog I've ever known. He's a little shy with strangers, but all he wants is love and affection all the time. His body has some genetic issues which have made him a little more high maintenance than the average dog, but by the time we realized that about him, we already loved him, so sending him back to the breeder just wasn't an option.
Bing is also special to me because he came into our lives the same month Georgiana did--July 2010. We bought him the week before I found out I was pregnant, though it's very likely he and Georgie actually did show up in our lives during the same weekend, maybe even the same day! I've always called him Georgie's dog. I know he would have been a great companion to her. He used to lay in her nursery after she died, when even I couldn't go in. It just broke my heart. We also got both of their names from the same book, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (Bing is short for Bingley). He's connected to her.
Living with sweet dogs like this tends to make me agree with C.S. Lewis's proposition that dogs also go to heaven. It seems to me that God made dogs just for us humans, and I love the thought of all of us together in heaven one day, with Georgie running and playing with her Bingley dog.
So here are a couple of examples of what these sweet dogs have been doing lately to keep me distracted. The top video is an example of a nightly occurrence with these two. It's pretty hilarious, and it doesn't just happen in our bedroom. They chase each other all over the house.
Enjoy!
And the second one, taken last night...
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