Evolution

I was walking across the street from the bus stop when I realized loss evolves.  The anger I once had and the way I rationalized last year's events no longer exist.  It isn't about what happened to me any more.

In the beginning, I carried the feeling of loss and of being victimized.  And I tried to understand why I lost my daughter.  I justified it, saying it had to happen to make me a better mother, which sounds ridiculous now.  This event appropriated the importance of things by showing what is not worth sacrificing.  Looking back on this, I feel guilty.

I only feel loss now.  I walk around empty and deflated without trying to stamp a reason for it.  No matter why or how, she is gone.  I frequently wonder if I made the right decision.  It's something that happens when I catch the date and calculate how old she would be.  There is no right answer when it comes to TFMR.  It's a decision made for the welfare of your child, but it does not have defined wrong/right boundaries.  It's your best choice made from the worst circumstance and you mourn your decision and you grieve for your loss because you lost your baby.

I used to think having another baby would help relieve my pain and though I still believe it will help, it will not make up for my loss.  I have been TTC since the return of my cycle and a part of me gets sad thinking about conceiving a healthy baby because that child will have the life my daughter deserved.  She will never experience a life with her parents.  She will never learn what sounds or tastes make her smile.  She'll never know what it's like to wait on Christmas day for presents or what snow feels like when it falls on her face.  And so TTC is a painful process because as much as I want another baby, I think about the little person who should be with me now waiting impatiently for a brother or sister.

I try to keep these feelings from peaking, but it's difficult.  I can only keep my momentum forward, hoping to maneuver physically what cannot be done emotionally.        

Why?

I only had a 1/282 chance that my baby would have trisomy 21 when I went in for my nuchal translucency test at 13 weeks.  The chances increase as maternal age climbs, but that's where I was at 35.  Yet when you put the numbers into perspective the statistics are really in a woman's favor at any age because even an event with a 1/100 chance (at age 40), there is still a 99 percent probability a baby will be born healthy.  Those are great odds.  But after Nahuatl's diagnosis, the chance may as well have been 1/∞ because higher or lower chances don't change being that one no matter what the denominator is.  

And if that's the case, what was so special about me?  Why was I that one person out of all those healthy births?  Medical professionals and genetic counselors tell me it was a fluke, but random isn't a good enough answer.  So I scream why without saying anything else.  Or I regress in time looking for something bad I did to deserve what happened to her.  I wonder what I didn't do enough of or if I was too much.  Sometimes I wonder if I was being tested by someone or something.  If it was my life course to make me a better person or an appreciative one. And without answers, I get venomous.  I glare at mothers who smoke while pushing their children in strollers.  I get upset at women who have multiple unplanned pregnancies with different fathers and mothers who walk out on their kids.  It's not that I judge anyone for their choices.  It's that I don't understand why their choices led to a healthy baby and mine didn't.

I think that's why I stopped participating in things I believe in.  I used to care about sustainability and supporting local commerce.  I ate organic and strove for a healthy lifestyle.  I donated to social causes and I kept myself informed.  I wasn't perfect, but I wanted to leave the smallest imprint on our environment and I wanted to be socially responsible.  So I tried.  But now it's exhausting and I find it unimportant.  I can't bring myself to consider the world around me when I see careless people happy. I don't have enough energy to push myself because my stores were depleted when doing what was best for my daughter.  

     

    

Breaking Down & Moving Forward

"Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle.  Everything I do is stitched with its color." W. S. Merwin 

I don't think there is any real way of getting up after losing a child. No matter what the circumstances are surrounding such a loss there is an emptiness that lingers.  And unfortunately, the decision to terminate for medical reasons comes with personalized guilt. The culture we live in only adds to it and I've noticed it pins mothers against mothers (those who did not elect against those who did).  But we all lost someone we love and struggle to move forward.  Sometimes our momentum is slow and sometimes we lose direction.

I find listening to other women on support groups comforting.   When I'm up late worrying about a misdiagnosis or wondering if my baby could have been the highly functional 1% with minimal health problems, I go through TFMR boards on Baby Center. The stories there are similar to my own and I walk away feeling as if the women from each post are holding me up and helping me inch forward.

Because the thing is ... many people don't know how to respond to a friend or a family member mourning the loss of a pregnancy, baby, or infant.  Sometimes people don't understand how losing someone in utero or a stillbirth can be devastating   Or they simply lack words to convey their sorrow and stand back. So it's difficult to recover because you're isolated and overwhelmed with grief. And it feels as if you're experiencing this alone. That's why I turn to support groups and counseling.  The idea of better hasn't happened yet, but the only security I feel comes from knowing I'm making an effort to find it.  And that others are going through the same pain and many women have found a sense of peace despite it.