Tag: infancyloss

Waiting on Oliver…

June 20th, 2022

Aftermath

My own bodies enemy

The what if’s

It’s been a while y’all, welcome back. This entry is kind of unorganized and all over the place but I started typing an entry a few weeks ago and then just didn’t have anything to say and didn’t feel like posting a half finished entry. But without further adieu here are my thoughts from the past couple weeks.

June 11, 2022

It’s been eight weeks since the second worst day of my life. The first was finding out this would be our outcome. It truly feels like a lifetime ago that I gave birth to death and our worlds were flipped upside down, shook like a snow globe and put back on the shelf.

It’s been weird being back home and everyone gone. The house was filled with people, chatter and laugher. Now it’s just quiet. I have a morning routine where I open the spare bedroom door and blinds and then I walk to Oliver’s room and open his door and blinds. Prior to now, I would usually keep all the doors closed but now it feels like the walls are closing in on me. So, I open them. I never don’t have him on my mind but being in his room is so overwhelming. Seeing his things is a painful reminder. I don’t dare put any of it way. I don’t want to box up what’s left of him. I also don’t want mini shrines everywhere. But that is exactly what has happened. In our room, a shelf with his chicken, bear, candle and urn. Pictures surround it. In his room, all his stuffies from his cousins, letters from his Lola, rosary from his Tia abuela. It’s all there on his dresser.

They tell you to give your body time to heal and that most likely you won’t have a real period for months. Well–not my body. She decided to clean house and act like nothing happened 4 weeks to the day. I’ve heard from other moms how betrayed they felt by their body when they lost their baby. I was the opposite. I was so proud of mine. For getting pregnant so quickly. For an extremely mild pregnancy. And for the easiest labor. I mean–I didn’t even have to push. He effortlessly slipped right out. But now, now I hate her. I feel like every inch of me misses him every second of the day. Except her. She’s ready for a new resident. Out with the old and in with the new. I wanted more time, to justify in a way waiting to try again. My mind wants a baby so bad. But my heart and guilty conscience just feels like I’m replacing Oliver. Even though I know I’m not. It’s quite the mental struggle.

I started therapy. I’m not sure what I’m looking to get out of it. All I can think to ask is for the massive waves of sadness to stop. I don’t think that will ever happen. I have long streaks of good days and then a really bad day hits and it knocks me on my ass. I just want to know why? Why did this happen? Why did it have to happen to me? Our first baby. How can I move forward and try again without knowing this won’t happen again? I’ll never know.

June 20, 2022

Oliver’s due date was 6/22/2022. What would this week look like? Would I have been induced early and home with him? Would we be preparing to go in this week and welcoming you to the world? I struggled on whether we should have finished him room. I daydreamed for weeks on how it would have all come together. The saying “you’re never ready” is very true. But deep down in my soul I was so ready to have Oliver in our home. I was ready for that life shift. I wanted it so bad. I want it so bad. I knew 3 other expecting mothers who were due within days of our due date. They have all welcomed their boys. I feel so left out. I feel like I had to forfeit the race. A failure on the sidelines. I’m slightly embarrassed. I’m that girl. I’m the girl whose baby died. I am the elephant in the room. I will always wear that scarlet letter.

I want to strongly preface what I’m going to say next with I am very much aware I don’t know what it’s like and everyone is entitled to feel what they feel. Each and every time I hear someone say “they’re growing so fast, I wish they’d stop”. I immediately want to say no you don’t. You absolutely do not want your child to stop and miss all their milestones. My child has stopped. I will never know what his favorite color will be, which sport he would gravitate towards, his favorite school subject. Time stopped for us. I want to shake moms who complain daily about their kids. What I would give to have a sleepless night, to have my brutally quiet home filled with cries—hell, I’ll take getting peed on at this point! I’ll take every horrible night to just see him again. To hold him. To smell him. To have seen him alive. I’d give up every worldly possession. I’m so jealous of their innocence. To say things so recklessly and have no fear. If only they knew how very possible that could be. How they would live a horror story every single day. I wish I didn’t know this reality.

Happy Due Date, Oliver. I hope you know how wanted you were. How missed you are. How much you are loved.
Welcome Oliver…

May 10th, 2022

New Normal.

Home.

Is this still parenting?

May 2, 2022

Today was my first day alone. Truly alone. You aren’t in me. I wonder where you are always. Are you like a dreamy angel floating around behind me? Are you sitting at the bar top watching me walk back and forth in the kitchen? Or are you truly just sitting on a cloud in heaven looking down? Where are you, Oliver? I’m told to not cry. That he wouldn’t want to see me sad. But I don’t want him to think I don’t think of him. I think of him every second of the day. There isn’t a thought in my mind where he isn’t flooding it.

I hope there is a parallel world where everything went right. Where he is alive and I’m starting our day together. Waving goodbye to his Daddy as his truck drives off and we walk into the house together ready to take on the day. Where there are no sad tears and what ifs.

We are headed home next week for a whole 8 days. And when I say we, Oliver is coming too. I’ve never been more ready and excited to go home. To be in that southern heat. The thick summer airs. Where the sun just beats down on you and covers you in its rays. My soul needs this so bad.

Home. A funny concept when you are a military family. Where is home? Is it our house that we live in? Is it where I was born? Where I grew up—because for most military families that’s in so many places. Or is it where I spent most of my life? Or is home just a feeling? Washington isn’t home. I’ll miss this state. But I wont miss having to drive down 512. Where driving by the hospital is inevitable. Where you get a perfect view of that top deck of the garage where I had to hand you to a stranger who put you in a bag and drove off. Where I literally felt my heart breaking. My body wasn’t mine anymore. I felt empty and useless. I’m ready to go home—my beautiful North Carolina. Where my momma and daddy live down the road. Where my sister and her husband host Sunday dinners. Where I know every winding back road even with my eyes closed. Where I can call my brother and he’s always down for a ride around town.

This grief journey I know will be long—a lifetime. Full of ups and down and a few sideways too. I want to continue to blog my journey. Our journey together as a family moving forward with loss. I hope that you find it as therapeutic as I do. My goal in this isn’t to have people feel sorry for me and think I’m a broken person. I mean, I am but I’m putting the pieces back together. Grief comes in so many shapes. I hope that when you meet a loss parent or know of someone going through a loss, you send them in my direction. I learned so much from the parents I have met throughout our ordeal. I can’t thank them enough for the gift they unknowingly gave me. I want to give that gift back to as many people as I can. I plan to write Oliver’s birth story and share it with you all. Will most likely be in parts and probably take me time to get it all out. Thanks for reading

May 10, 2022

One month. A whole month has come and gone. The worst part was that it was without you. It’s crazy how time can seem to take an eternity and in others, it flashes by. For months I envisioned how many ways your birth would have gone down. Honestly, I thought about it all the time mainly to prepare myself. I thought of the best-case scenarios mostly. Ya know—to “stay positive”. I only allowed myself to envision the worst case one way. It would happen, I would handle it with grace and not lose my shit. (spoiler alert, I lost my shit).

Months ago, I looked forward to what I’d have you wear for your one month picture. I would lay you down on those cute blankets. Make silly noises and faces to get you to look at the camera. But instead, I stole an picture of one of the blankets we were undecided on getting you from Amazon and I layered an image of the outfit I had packed for you in the very small chance we took you home. You would have been swimming in it. But you would have still looked so stinking cute.

In reality, right now, on your one month…. what do I even call this? Your birthdate? Death anniversary? We’ll brainstorm that later. Right now, you’re in your “travel case”. It too, is stinking cute. We had to use a biodegradable urn so we could get through TSA with no issues. Your normal urn is in our checked bag. Your cute little travel case has a PNW tree line vinyl wrapping it and your name is included.

Call me weird but I felt like I had a little skip in my step knowing I was carrying you around the airport. Butterflies in my tummy knowing soon you’d be where I love to be the most. Jason and I sleep with him in the bed every night. Each morning we put him on his shelf. When night falls we fight on who gets to keep him on their side. Our parenthood is weird but its ours.

Tag: infancyloss

Waiting on Oliver…

Welcome Oliver…