Ignorance = Bliss?

There's nothing that irritates me more than a pregnant woman who seems to think she is immune to loss.

Guess what, honey? You're not. Nobody is immune.

In fact, most of the loss mamas I know are extremely educated, received great care (and would not switch their OBs post-loss for anything other than simply not wanting to invite flashbacks), ate well, rested, read every pregnancy book they could get their hands on, and loved their babies with everything in them. Society projects this idea that healthy people with solid medical care (especially with all that technology)don't lose babies.

I realize this is why there are so many smug women out there who truly believe they will never lose a baby (or babies). Ok, fine. So do we blame society? Then again, that mentality isn't even what pisses me off so much as that many of these blissfully naive and ignorant women also flaunt their seeming invincibility against harm (if you think I'm exaggerating, stop it. I'm not. I could give you countless specific examples of said flaunting that has been done in front of myself as well as in front of other loss mamas who have shared their frustrations with me, but I won't. At least not today).

And, well, there's just no excuse for that smugness. None at all. Nobody is immune to tragedy. Who in their right mind truly believes they are?

I hear some speak of "God's plan" and knowing it. Well, all those weeks when everything was PERFECT with my babies, I thought God had a hand in that too. I felt blessed too. Doubly blessed. What happens if/when your blessing(s) gets taken away? How do you reconcile that in your mind with a God you believed to be all-loving, all-powerful, and knew your heart and your innermost prayers? Did God fall asleep at the wheel? And please stop with the "Satan stole your baby" crap. I swear, there is nothing that makes you sound much crazier. (Yes, I had someone tell me that.) I've had extremely religious people during my pregnancy literally say that God spoke to them and told them both of my babies would be born healthy and safe. Why would they say that? Post-loss, they expect me to not grieve because it's "part of God's plan". Really? Wait, I thought God told you his plan, and this wasn't going to be part of it. So...Did your signals somehow get crossed? *sigh* These women who apparently feel they have a direct line to God, know his plan, know his plan could never entail heartache or tragedy from them because they are "protected" or invincible somehow, they SERIOUSLY get on my last nerve.

Show some humility. Show some respect.

Realize that the unfortunate reality is that loss happens more frequently than you'd think (thanks, society, for covering that one up with all the shiny happy baby shower bull!), and that loss does not discriminate. It doesn't care about your color, race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, education level, morality, finances, state of health, or anything else.

In fact, the day after my loss, one of the L&D nurses came to visit me and shared that she has suffered a full-term stillbirth. She gave me her phone number, and she shared some very personal things about her loss, and I will forever be grateful to her for not only those things but for the lesson she gave me. Which is that even doctors, L&D nurses, doulas, and midwives experience stillbirth. EXPERTS in the field of pregnancy and delivery.

This shouldn't come as a surprise, but for me it initially did. I have had to take a hard look at myself and my perceptions about loss and confront the fact that I must have also thought that with enough knowledge, care, and caution, people wouldn't lose their babies. So why, you ask, do I have a "right" to get frustrated with others when I may have had a similarly naive view? Here's why. Even before I had EVER experienced a loss, I was always cautious about the topic of pregnancy. I was never one to shout it from the rooftops the first sign of a "plus". I was always aware of the pain and suffering in the world enough to call my best friend and tell her the news but then follow it with, "Should I tell anyone else yet? I mean, what if, God forbid, I lose this baby?" (Then, I did miscarry.) Never once did I feel "above" experiencing a loss, even with all those things that I admittedly felt would put the odds very much in my favor of a successful outcome.

So no, there's no excuse for the arrogance. That's the part that drives me bonkers.

Is there some correlation between being a cautious, mindful, caring, humble person and experiencing loss? Because it seems that I have met the most amazing people inside this very community, the loss community, and it really makes me wonder.

I used to believe in karma. Well, karma is crap.

I have a photo of him alive, and I'd give anything to go back to that day and try to rewrite the rest of his story.

I know I haven’t been writing a lot lately. I hope to change that. But seriously, I am not dealing well with this. At all. And what’s worse is that everyone THINKS that I AM. So I get to hear, “You are so strong,” and other such nonsense. I am broken. Broken beyond repair. My heart is shattered in a million pieces. I have so many regrets. My pain is too raw for me to even convey with words in a blog. Days like this, I don’t even know what I was thinking starting one.

Thankfully not many friends call. I do not have the energy for chit chat, as most of my energy goes into just making it through the day, or the hour, or the minute. Having a newborn makes it convenient so that when friends do call and say, “What’s wrong? You sound so tired!” I say, “Yeah, Evy kept me up all night. I am really wiped out.” They have no idea how exhausting grief is, that dealing with a newborn who wakes up a few times a night (every night, because she’s teething) and having to work full-time with unruly teenagers is NOTHING compared to how tired I am just from the sheer physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion of grieving this immeasurable loss.

We have two memory boxes underneath Evelyn’s crib in the nursery. One is an Elias box, and one is a box for anything twin-related. All the books on raising multiples, the “Got Twins?” and “Doubly blessed” maternity shirts, etc. Twin-themed items from my shower, “two peas in a pod” napkins and favors and decorations carefully and lovingly chosen by my mother and my sister in celebratory anticipation of the twins’ arrival. It’s all in there. I stumbled across my pregnancy journal, and I crumbled as I opened it up and saw a grainy 3-D ultrasound photo from the specialist. The specialist who deemed Elias healthy but sent me to the hospital for observation, where they agreed that Elias was healthy and sent me home only to find out three days later he had died. The only indication of anything being off was decreased movement, which was why the specialist sent me to L&D for monitoring. But he HAD been moving and scored points on his biophysical profile for trunk movements, his heart rate was healthy and strong, his fluid levels were great, he was practice breathing, he had grown beautifully, and he showed no distress through my contractions. He had completely normal test results.

So I went home, 36 ½ weeks, waiting to go into labor, and my son died inside of me, and I didn’t know it.

I never got to have the special 3D ultrasound photos that some women get. I was on bedrest and not permitted to do anything non-medical. I will regret not having those images for the rest of my life. At the time, I quelled my disappointment by telling myself that I wouldn’t miss the 3D images, that I would have millions of pictures of my precious twins as they grew up together.

The one grainy 3D ultrasound photo I do have from the specialist was from when I was 22 weeks and 6 days along. At the time we had not given the photo much thought, as the quality left much to be desired and we figured I would be going soon to get the nice 3D photos done. We had also been disappointed that the OB only was able to get a shot of one of our twins. So I had thrown it into my pregnancy journal, mostly because attached to it are the photos that read "it's a boy" and "it's a girl", which I thought would be a nice keepsake for their baby albums. Today, I looked at the bottom of the 3D photo and saw "A" typed there. Elias was, and always will be, baby "A" of my twin pregnancy. It was beautiful and heartbreaking to view a photo of my son's face while he had been alive.

* * * * * * * *

After visiting the memory boxes, I found my journal in a drawer. The old-fashioned, just write down your thoughts in a twenty-five cent spiral notebook journal. I used to journal constantly when I was a teenager and in my early twenties, but not so much after. I found a few entries that killed me and think I may periodically share them here. I may also share some entries from my pregnancy journal as well, who knows. I don’t know if that will be healing or not or helpful to others who may someday stumble across this or not. But I just can’t quite put into words this journey of ours. I just typed “mine” – but it isn’t my journey. It’s the journey of how our family came to be. I feel like it’s been so complicated that I can’t even wrap my mind around it. And the religion thing is just going to keep coming up here; it’s inevitable. You see, I clung to faith after my miscarriage. It made me feel closer to God. So now where do I go from here?

I feel like I need to reflect more on the past and where I’ve been before I can truly write about the present or potential future.