Anatomy scan

My anatomy scan for baby number 3 is tomorrow. When Oliver died, I knew something was wrong. It was less than 24 hours between healthy baby confirmed by Doppler, and me waking up certain he was gone. I knew. I was sure. So why an I do afraid to trust my instincts now?

I'm terrified that we will go to this scan and get bad news, that the little peanut we saw on my dating ultrasound will be gone and that I will have missed it.

When you lose a child, support groups can help immensely. The relief of knowing someone understands, that your story isn't the most horrific thing they have heard. It's comforting and wonderful. And yet.

The hardest part of a support group is the other stories. The first group we went to, a man told us the story of him and his wife, their first loss, and then all the subsequent losses. As of that meeting they were still childless.

Mothers whose child was lost at full term. Mothers who learned at the anatomy scan. Every horror story you can imagine, if you go to enough groups, you will hear it. And once you hear it, you can't un hear.

You walk into every appointment, especially ultrasounds, carrying the weight of those stories, of surprise bad news. I knew last time, but would I know again?

Could we survive another loss? Would this be the end of my dreams for a large family? Would it be worse? Easier because of Elliot? Harder because we know it won't fade away?

So I try to push the fear away and focus on right now. If I found out tomorrow that the baby was gone, would I regret not enjoying being pregnant today? I try to dwell on the possibility that the baby is just fine in there, and that in under 24 hours we will get to see him or her again.

Due date

I never really know which hypothetical to think about. Oliver was delivered in May, at 31 weeks so we celebrate that day as his birthday, but if he had been full term his birthday would be today.

If he had been full term he would be 2. And everything would be different. There would be no Elliot. I can't think about that, but on days like today I can't stop myself from wondering; what would life be like?

Losing a baby is one of those things that defines you. It becomes part of who you are too the core, and changes you to the point where you might not recognize your old self. Back when you were safe, in the bubble.

Losing Oliver has defined me as a mother. I was loss mom first. The first baby I delivered didn't come home with me. It has overshadowed everything since. It's the reason that every morning, no matter how early he wakes up, the noise Elliot makes lets me breathe a sigh of relief. My parenting has more fear and more gratitude I think, and that's because of Oliver.

All day today, at the back of my mind will be the what ifs. The hypothetical. The impossible to think about. A full term Oliver. Would he be like his brother? More like his dad? Would I be different? Less afraid. Protected by the feeling that bad things happen to other people.

We miss you today Oliver. Your dad and I both, we think about you every day but today you will be a little sharper in our minds. We love you.

nothing new

I ran out of new things to say.

About once I week I think about posting here. At night when I'm rocking Elliot to sleep and smelling his head and feeling the weight of him change as he falls asleep on my chest, I think about how I should write something.

I miss Oliver every day. This is our second Christmas without him. This year he would be a toddler. Climbing. Talking.

I can't help but picture it. The family of 4 with the two little boys. Playing together. 4 stockings. 2 heads to kiss goodnight.

Its all the same things I have written before. The grief comes on hard at first painful and on waves, but then before you know it life heals over and you just have this deep scar that stays the same every time you look at it. Same scar. Same grief. Same love. Oliver, I still miss you.

I still wonder what you would be like. What your voice would have sounded like when you called me mama. But that's not new, I started wondering that from the beginning. From the day I found out I was pregnant, I wondered who you were. And I always will.

In a lot of ways losing your baby puts you on hold. At first your whole body is on hold. Your mind, even your heart seems to have stopped. But after that, when you start to do normal things and your life resumes, that part of you is still on hold. Still waiting to know someone you will never get to know. Still feeling phantom kicks sometimes at night. I will feel those kicks forever. The kicks I wished for so hard. Lying in the hospital bed waiting to be told what I already knew, that there wouldn't be anymore kicks.

I think the holidays bring the pain of loss to the surface more than normal days because they are the days we had pictured in our minds. You get pregnant and you start doing the math. How old will my baby be at Christmas. What will his first birthday be like. First day of school. First thanksgiving. Will he be old enough to walk? Will we have to baby proof the tree?

These moments are so vivid while you are lying in bed dreaming of your future with your child. Then as your baby gets older the real moments crowd them out. The first imagined Christmas gets replaced by the first real one.

So I will write the same feelings over and over. Cement the same thoughts I had of Oliver time and time again. The Christmas we should have had last year with our baby who was 5 months old (based on due date) or maybe the  7 month old we would have had if he had been born alive.

I will hold on to my what ifs . I will look at my scar and remember the wound. Remember what I lost. Remember what could have been. And those new, wonderful memories we will make with our amazing son, will be stored along side all the plans for what could have been.

Oliver's jammies

My only experience on dealing with a funeral home has been for Oliver. We asked the hospital to do a full autopsy, so it was several days between leaving the hospital and having his little body sent to the funeral home. They told us to give them something to dress him in.

We had so many things. So many outfits for a baby so anticipated and so loved. But they were all too big. All for the chubby full term baby I was expecting, not the 4 pound 18 inch 31 week baby.

My mom went to the store to pick something. I couldn't do it. I call David "Ours" which is French for bear, so we referred to the baby as the bear cub. My mom found a preemie sleeper at babies r us with little green stars and a bear on it. It was perfect.

I put it on the stuffed monkey we had bought ( one of all too many toys) and I snuggled that outfit, knowing it would be the only thing my baby would ever wear. I didn't want it to smell like the store, or like clean laundry. I wanted it to smell like the mommy who will always always love him.

When we went to the funeral home to say goodbye, they had dressed him in the sleeper. It was still big, but it was just for him. Not a hand me down like the rest would be. The jammies he would wear to be cremated. My baby. With the sweet bear and little stars.

Elliot came very soon after we lost Oliver. Surprisingly soon. So soon in fact, that there was still a sleeper, sized 6 months from that same collection left in toys r us. I almost didn't buy it. I almost let the green stars belong only to Oliver, but I wanted to do the thing I had wished for for the other sleeper: put it on my baby. My living, breathing, eating, smiling baby.

Tonight I did that. I put the larger star sleeper on to Elliot and I watched the stars fold as he twisted. Rubbed the soft fabric while I nursed him. Made him laugh.

Elliot tonight- 4 months old

It makes me cry to see those stars, and think of the cremated ashes of that sleeper sitting in the urn on the piano, with the ashes of my baby.

I don't believe in heaven, or that Oliver still exists somewhere, but I do believe I can keep putting the love I have for him out into the universe. I can give some to Elliot, who won't understand why I hold him just a bit tighter tonight. I can honor his memory, and carry that with me. And someday teach this baby about his brother. And looking at the matching sleeper makes me feel like they are connected through me, and through all the love I feel for both of my sons. Both of my little bear cubs.

rainbow baby

I put my hands on your tummy
Softly above the swaddle
I feel you breathe
I feel you live

I watch you learn and grow
I watch you stretch and laugh
And I watch you cry

I feel you nurse
I feel you squirm
So vibrant
So alive
So dynamic even in sleep

And when you are still
I place my hands on the swaddle
To make sure
To make sure you are not too still

Your life is a gift to us
Your body is whole
Not yet dissipated into the universe like your brother
But a force within you

And in that force you carry him
Just like I carry him
Along our journey

My one year old.

If everything had gone right I would have a one year old today.

I try not to think about the hypothetical, because if i had that one year old baby I wouldn't have the beautiful 3 month old who woke up all smiles this morning. And today might not have been Oliver's birthday anyway. But I woke up this morning with thoughts of what if. what if I had carried him to term. What would my life be like? Would we be thinking about a second baby? Would we be going crazy from exhaustion as our mobile baby zoomed everywhere? Would he be a good sleeper like his brother?

The only thing I know for sure is that if Oliver had lived he would have been showered with love, just like Elliot is.

Happy would-be one year birthday Oliver.

Love mama

Mother's day

Mother's day last year was the hardest day of my life.

In most cases, giving birth on mother's day to your first baby would be cool. You could celebrate becoming a mother. We celebrate mother's day to honor that day, and every day that a mom spends parenting her baby.

But it didn't work like that for me. Mother's day will forever be the day that I met my baby, who never met me. The day I didn't hear him cry. The day I didn't get to feed him. That was the day I spent looking at his perfect, still face and wishing my life could be different.

And now the whole world celebrates. Kids make pictures of flowers out of handprints. Breakfast in bed. Brunch. Everyone takes this day to celebrate. TV. The internet. Stores. It's mother's day everywhere. Elliot will grow up to make me cards. Do projects at school. He won't understand that the picture he drew for me, and the breakfast he helped make and the flowers are all for a day that marks the hardest day of my life.

I also have something to celebrate now. Having Elliot here, literally in my arms as I write this brings me joy. And I'm glad to have a day to celebrate him. Two years ago on mother's day I was just someone child. Last year I was a grieving mother. This year it's more complicated. I never knew joy and grief could coexist so seamlessly, or that I could feel both with the intensity that I do.

So I will focus on the joy. I'm going to celebrate the one day I had to hold Oliver. The 31 weeks that he existed. The fact that I got to feel him kick. The way that he changed my life. Made me a mother. This mother's day I'm going to celebrate having both of my sons. This mother's day I'm going to celebrate the two beautiful boys I gave birth to, even though only one of them is alive. I plan to celebrate the tiny hands pulling my hair and the tiny hands that never got to feel my touch. The tiny eyes that look up at my face and the tiny eyes I never got to look at. Because I am a mother to both of them.

Elliot and Oliver

Dear Oliver,
You have a brother now. I want to say little brother, but it doesn't quite fit in my mind that way, because he will grow up and you won't. You will always be my baby and Elliot will age.

He is aging already. the bottom drawer of the dresser is full of newborn clothes that he has grown out of. They are mostly clothes I bought for you. But I bought them for him too. We know we want a big family, so they were always going to be hand me downs, we just didn't know they would be new.

He doesn't look like you. You had your daddy's nose and my chin, and he has it backwards. He was skinny at birth, not as skinny as you but skinny. He is getting fatter now though. And you were both born tall. He was 21 inches, to your 18.

Oliver

Elliot

The biggest difference between you both was not the birth, or even the recovery days, but leaving the hospital. When you walk out of the hospital clinging to a memory box, it is the exact opposite of leaving the hospital with a tiny baby strapped into a car seat. When we left the hospital with you, it was the end. I knew I would never get to hold you or sing to you or touch your perfect little nose, ever again. We said goodbye to you and I walked out of there empty, with nothing in front of me except missing you, and days of pain.

When we left the hospital with Elliot, it was the beginning. It was his first time being in a world that he will get to know and explore. But he won't do it alone. As he grows up, I promise you he will learn about his brother. You will always be there with us. Playing in the snow, going on a walk, snuggling and reading stories.

Elliot isn't you. Lots of people want him to be. They want it to be over. Want things to be happy again. That is what I wanted too. The reason I got pregnant so fast was that I was desperate for a baby, to cry and feed and care for. I wanted him to be you, and to take your place. But it doesn't work like that. I could have 10 babies and  would still miss you the same amount. Probably more, because each baby would remind me exactly of what I am missing.

I miss you every day and I love you always.

Love mama