Grief

i lost my first baby October 16th 2007. my first daughter was 16 months old, and i hardly remember anything about her from then until after she turned 2.

i had been bleeding for a few days. i started to get anxious so my oldest brother and his wife came watch my daughter while i went to the emergency room.

i only had to wait 30-45 minutes to see a doctor. they did an ultrasound and told me the baby had died. i went home and told my brother and we cried. then i turned into steel. i refused to talk and yelled at anyone who talked to me. a day or two later the real miscarriage started. i felt like i was dying, but that didn't seem as bad as my baby dying.

we didn't have insurance, so there was no testing to see what had gone wrong.

the stress from the medical bills hurt me so bad. how can it cost over $4000 for the doctor to tell you the baby died and they don't know why? i started grinding my teeth and having headaches. we even bought me a mouth guard. but i don't completely regret going to the ER because those ultrasound pictures are the only ones i will ever have of that baby. i named her Opal which means "precious gem."

my husband was so unhelpful. he didn't understand anything about what i went through because to him it wasn't a baby. besides, he thought everyone had miscarriages. i had never known anyone who did. i know i wanted that baby and my body let me down. at the time the miscarriage wasn't something that happened to "us," it happened to me.

i started going to meetings for pregnancy and infant loss and i really liked going there, even though i couldn't cry in front of those other mothers who had lost babies who really looked like babies.

when i lost Opal i was 12 weeks pregnant, and my mom and i worked at the same place and she had told everyone. i hate that she did that. i hated people telling me 'congratulations' and having to tell them she had died.

for me night time was when i was most haunted. my daughter would be asleep, my husband would be playing video games and i would be silently crying in bed. it was like the fingers of grief would creep from under my bed and take hold of me.

during the day i would feed my daughter and myself, but a lot of the time i spent the whole day (or most of it) napping in her bed while she played around me and fended for herself. i missed out on so much of her life it turns my stomach. how could i leave her, at that perfect age, to wander the apartment alone, so i could sleep!?

i find it so easy to hate when I'm grieving. i hate my body. i hate pregnant women on sight. i hate happy people. i hate women who have three kids in three years. i hate people who complain about stupid stuff. i hated my mother's grief.

she never lost a baby. why is she crying about it? why is she talking to me as if she understands? does she really think that she's helping when she tells me to stop eating. i know she thinks I'm fat, but give me this one thing PLEASE!

it has taken me over two years to not feel hate at some point each day. but when i read a blog about grief, or a book about loss, it is the hate and anger that i identify with.

i found out i was pregnant again over Christmas and lost my third pregnancy (who i named Levi) February 1st, 2008. that just sucked. the name Levi means "joined in harmony."

that time i had insurance and didn't have to worry about how much it cost to have them do an ultrasound and tell me he was dead. my older brother's wife was so wonderful. she came to help me with my oldest daughter at the WIC office when i started miscarrying there. she visited me and got my daughter a kissing frog from Target. i will never forget how loved she made me feel.

less than a week after i lost Levi i was at a support group meeting. we were making memory spheres for our lost babies. i had told them at the last month's meeting that i thought i was pregnant. i was uncharacteristically quiet so they asked about the pregnancy and i told them that i had lost another one. there were only four of us at that meeting, all of whom i had built a rapport with, which is probably why i was able to cry.

husband's parents came to town a couple of weeks later and i was able to talk to them about how i was feeling too. my mother-in-law has lost 3 babies, so of everyone i knew at the time she was the one person that i felt would be able to understand how i was feeling. losing Levi really started my grieving process moving. before i lost Levi i had been stuck in the hate and depression part of the pendulum.

there is no right or wrong way to grieve, except when you get stuck and don't move through the grief. grief is a living thing, really. it has to keep moving, changing, and maturing in order for it to achieve its purpose. i really only like a few phrases I've heard about grief. one of them is "sometimes you sit with your grief, and sometimes you walk with your grief." both are important, but if you only do one (either sit or walk) you won't grow through the grief.

about 2 weeks after losing Levi i started to think i was pregnant again. part of me thought "this one is doomed" while another part could visualize being 6 months pregnant. the next month i told the support group that i was sure i was pregnant again, but that i had a huge sense of peace about things. as the pregnancy progressed the peace was intermittent. every time i went to the bathroom i expected to see the signs of miscarriage.

somewhere around 14 weeks i thought i should start the insurance application just in case. i had my first doctor appointment around 17 weeks and everything was good.

i recorded the heartbeat on my phone so i could hear it every time i started freaking out.

at 21 weeks i had my only ultrasound and found out it was another girl!

the hope started to build.

i was due in December; around October i started to feel like i was coming out of a fog. at the walk to remember on Oct 16th, we had a balloon release, and i went home feeling light as air.

the crisis pregnancy center i was using had a volunteer doula, who i lined up to help me in my labor. she and i talked before labor about what role my grief would play in the delivery room.

i asked to be induced as soon as my doctor would allow (which was one week after my due date). i had 5 hours of labor and one push to get my daughter out. i remember saying as soon as she was out, "is she crying? she's okay? can you believe that only took one push?"

life felt amazing! i felt like i was finally the person i was supposed to be all along. i ran on relief and pure adrenaline for at least the first 3 months (with only a few bouts of "nothing is safe, nothing is guaranteed, life isn't fair, so when is the next thing going to go wrong?" moments).

now it has been three years since my last miscarriage. life is moving along at light speed. i feel like most days i have a life i love.

i didn't ship my grief off when i had my new living baby, but I'm no longer its prisoner either. it lives in every corner of my house and in my rocking chair. i don't introduce it to everyone that i meet, but from time to time it makes itself known. today it is almost a badge of honor; i don't know what it will be tomorrow.