I lost
-my daughter, the biggest piece of my heart and my favorite person I have ever met. She lived for 22 days.
-the little faith I had left in the goodness of the universe (I was
always thinking of the bad things that could happen, but now I really
believe they will)
-the warm love circle between my baby and me,
her sending me her tiny love and me glowing fiercely back at her. Now it
just pours out of me into nothingness.
-enjoying talking to my family and friends and updating them, giving them a little window into my life.
-giving advice on pregnancy and childbirth, I love to talk about my
experiences usually but no one wants to hear about your pregnancy with
your dead kid.
-late summer days with her in my arms, sitting under lazy trees and showing her how beautiful nature can be.
-sending her to the summer camp where her father and I met, where she could learn to think and do for herself.
-graduating from medical school on time, with my classmates.
-living in a house filled with mess and laughter and screaming and crying and chaos. My house is so quiet.
-being a mom. This is probably the most controversial one, but
Kestrel was my first child and I feel that I am not a mom anymore.
People keep trying to reassure me that I am a mom because she existed
and her spirit is with me, but I am so filled with aching mothering
feelings that I can't express. I don't get to do any motherthings, my
life is empty and I am alone, I don't feel like any kind of mother I
know. I feel like there should be another word for what I am. Not quite a
mother, not quite childless. Maybe there is some kind of very long
German word for this; I wish I knew.
Monday, September 5, 2016
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Birth
When my daughter was born, I did not push her out with all of my will, muscle, and might.
I did not scream, or cry, and not once did I howl "I can't do this any more!"
My body was not torn apart; it did not give way as a new being spilled into the world
And though my ears searched desperately, with little hope, for a cry
There was only vast, bright silence in the moment of her birth.
I did not scream, or cry, and not once did I howl "I can't do this any more!"
My body was not torn apart; it did not give way as a new being spilled into the world
And though my ears searched desperately, with little hope, for a cry
There was only vast, bright silence in the moment of her birth.
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Impossible, improbable, unlikely
I have recently had the painful realization that possibility is a concept most frequently used metaphorically. We use it all the time to refer to unlikely situations; interpersonal problems where everyone can't be satisfied and compromise seems too far away to contemplate. Impossible as a stand-in for frustration, used to lament that a bad end is hurtling towards us.
But the one thing I want more than anything is now truly impossible. Impossible. 100% certain never to happen. I will never see my baby again, hold her close, kiss her soft hair, peer into her eyes so we can learn and memorize the landscape of each others' faces. I was fortunate to do all of this while she lived, most of it in our last moments together, and now I will pine for it forever because it is impossible in this timeline of reality that I have landed in, haphazardly and without reason.
I used to be, and perhaps still will be, an extremely cautious optimist. I went through every scenario in my mind, budgeting outcomes carefully using an extensive knowledge of statistical likelihood cultivated from a lifetime of reading and of close observation of the world around me. The way I have lived my life is to fact-check and predict. My main source of hubris has been to always know what's coming, what's happening, never to be surprised by an option I hadn't considered.
To that end, I had of course contemplated the possibility that my daughter would die, from the moment she was conceived. I knew it was possible. I didn't share my pregnancy news until the likelihood increased that she would survive, even though everything went well for many months. When the pregnancy specialists told us she had developed hydrops, I mentally calculated the exact odds of her death at every week during the rest of our time together. I knew she was likely to die, and yet...
I hoped.
I even prayed, though I am a hesitant atheist. I went to rounds every day in the NICU (except the last two days, more about that later) and learned all I could about every aspect of her care. I thought about every possible outcome, every treatment modality we might use, but in the end all I could do was hope. Hope, and be Kestrel's Mama. Love her, sing to her, treasure her for every moment she had on earth.
Because while I knew she might die, I never considered the finiteness of it. Never understood the true meaning of the word impossible. When she was alive, anything was possible. Yes, she might die, but I did not believe it would happen. I didn't believe it when she finally did die, in my arms, and part of me will never believe it as long as I live, although her ashes sit in an urn in my bedroom. Reality has confronted me with its cold, unrelenting elimination of possibility, and I may never accept that it is impossible to have the one thing I desire more than anything in the world.
But the one thing I want more than anything is now truly impossible. Impossible. 100% certain never to happen. I will never see my baby again, hold her close, kiss her soft hair, peer into her eyes so we can learn and memorize the landscape of each others' faces. I was fortunate to do all of this while she lived, most of it in our last moments together, and now I will pine for it forever because it is impossible in this timeline of reality that I have landed in, haphazardly and without reason.
I used to be, and perhaps still will be, an extremely cautious optimist. I went through every scenario in my mind, budgeting outcomes carefully using an extensive knowledge of statistical likelihood cultivated from a lifetime of reading and of close observation of the world around me. The way I have lived my life is to fact-check and predict. My main source of hubris has been to always know what's coming, what's happening, never to be surprised by an option I hadn't considered.
To that end, I had of course contemplated the possibility that my daughter would die, from the moment she was conceived. I knew it was possible. I didn't share my pregnancy news until the likelihood increased that she would survive, even though everything went well for many months. When the pregnancy specialists told us she had developed hydrops, I mentally calculated the exact odds of her death at every week during the rest of our time together. I knew she was likely to die, and yet...
I hoped.
I even prayed, though I am a hesitant atheist. I went to rounds every day in the NICU (except the last two days, more about that later) and learned all I could about every aspect of her care. I thought about every possible outcome, every treatment modality we might use, but in the end all I could do was hope. Hope, and be Kestrel's Mama. Love her, sing to her, treasure her for every moment she had on earth.
Because while I knew she might die, I never considered the finiteness of it. Never understood the true meaning of the word impossible. When she was alive, anything was possible. Yes, she might die, but I did not believe it would happen. I didn't believe it when she finally did die, in my arms, and part of me will never believe it as long as I live, although her ashes sit in an urn in my bedroom. Reality has confronted me with its cold, unrelenting elimination of possibility, and I may never accept that it is impossible to have the one thing I desire more than anything in the world.
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
"She was very good company for a tiny baby. She liked all the songs and stuff, and had lots of medical problems I could think about while we were together so it wasn't even boring like hanging out with a regular baby."
This is a text message I sent to Boyfriend shortly after Kestrel's death, while I was lamenting the fact that I now hated to be alone. 22 days is a short time, but I had already become used to her silent company. Like a minute mime she kicked her tiny feet, pried open her swollen eyes to shoot us piercing gazes, and sucked fervently on the much-hated tube in her perfect pink mouth. I never felt remotely alone while she was alive in the NICU; even at home, even in the middle of the night, we had the babycam to show us a series of still, blurred images of our beloved daughter. What was she doing? Wrinkling up the spot between her nose and eyes in a silent wail of protest? Lying still, having finally submitted to exhaustion? Constantly wondering was a kind of company in itself, never being quite alone when your child is alive and experiencing the world, whether you are there or not.
Now I'm here, but Kestrel isn't. I still wonder in the middle of the night, but now it is all about myself. Will I survive wading through this crushing emptiness for the rest of my days? Will I forget the softness of her hair or the arch of her pale eyebrows? Nothing about Kestrel herself, she is dead and for me there are no what-ifs, so there is no wondering. Grieving is selfish and lonely, where mothering was supposed to be suffocating companionship. I am unable to consider what she "would have been like." In my heart she was the most perfect tiny baby ever to exist, and she will remain that way forever. No wondering about the winding limbs of her life's trees, cut so early that her forest looks like a flattened field. I am alone, left only to wonder about myself, and to pour out tears of self pity that the child who was my life's companion is gone forever.
This is a text message I sent to Boyfriend shortly after Kestrel's death, while I was lamenting the fact that I now hated to be alone. 22 days is a short time, but I had already become used to her silent company. Like a minute mime she kicked her tiny feet, pried open her swollen eyes to shoot us piercing gazes, and sucked fervently on the much-hated tube in her perfect pink mouth. I never felt remotely alone while she was alive in the NICU; even at home, even in the middle of the night, we had the babycam to show us a series of still, blurred images of our beloved daughter. What was she doing? Wrinkling up the spot between her nose and eyes in a silent wail of protest? Lying still, having finally submitted to exhaustion? Constantly wondering was a kind of company in itself, never being quite alone when your child is alive and experiencing the world, whether you are there or not.
Now I'm here, but Kestrel isn't. I still wonder in the middle of the night, but now it is all about myself. Will I survive wading through this crushing emptiness for the rest of my days? Will I forget the softness of her hair or the arch of her pale eyebrows? Nothing about Kestrel herself, she is dead and for me there are no what-ifs, so there is no wondering. Grieving is selfish and lonely, where mothering was supposed to be suffocating companionship. I am unable to consider what she "would have been like." In my heart she was the most perfect tiny baby ever to exist, and she will remain that way forever. No wondering about the winding limbs of her life's trees, cut so early that her forest looks like a flattened field. I am alone, left only to wonder about myself, and to pour out tears of self pity that the child who was my life's companion is gone forever.
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