Anxiety

An Ode to The Nurses of Speare Memorial Hospital – Part 1

/ Isaac's Mom / 7 Comments

From the moment I found out that I was pregnant, I had a lot of ideas about what Isaac’s birth would be like.  I was scared about all of the different birth scenarios that ran through my head, but none of those scenarios involved giving birth to Isaac, stillborn,  in a 25-bed hospital in Plymouth, New Hampshire at 32 weeks gestation.  We had chosen Chester County Hospital in West Chester, Pennsylvania.  For the sake of comparison, Chester County has 245 beds, a level 3 NICU (the highest level of care available for sick babies) and a brand new maternity ward.  I’m not saying there is anything wrong with a small hospital, but I am saying that Speare was the exact opposite of what we had planned.

From the moment they wheeled me into Speare, I spent my entire stay in one room.  I actually didn’t get out of my bed a single time from the moment I first laid down on Thursday until Sunday morning.  I didn’t realize that I had not moved rooms at all until my husband and family told me.

The most surprising thing about this tiny hospital in New England was the nursing care I received.  It may sound cliché to say that nurses don’t get enough credit, but this experience showed me that it is undeniably true.  They could not possibly be getting enough credit.  The nurses at Speare were incredible.  I can’t imagine I would have received quite such personalized care had I been at a bigger hospital.  I had several nurses, but each one of them provided exactly what I needed at some crucial point in time.  They were so amazing that I’ve decided I need to share some of these stories and thank them.  I’ll start at the beginning.  For the sake of anyone reading this, I am going to split this into two parts.  Yes – these women were that amazing.

Kathy
When I arrived at the hospital I was in denial.  I think that deep down I knew Isaac was gone hours before being told as much.  I simply couldn’t wrap my head around it for another few hours (maybe I still can’t wrap my head around it).  I had called Speare’s Labor & Delivery Department on my way in and spoke to a nurse, Kathy.  She was expecting me when I arrived, quickly got me changed and set to work looking for Isaac’s heartbeat.  She kept me calm, repeatedly reminding me not to panic.  She could find no heartbeat and the first doctor came in for his own attempt.  Fast forward a bit, the doctor has just said, “I don’t see any cardiac activity.”  My husband and I are crying and confused, and, eventually, I have to send my husband to call my parents to have them come to the hospital.  I remember laying there in shock and repeating over and over, “I knew it.”  Kathy swooped in quickly with her unfogettable barbie pink glasses and comforted me.  She reminded me that despite any fears I had previously, I couldn’t possibly have known something like this would happen.  She told me how sorry she was and held on to me as I cried.  I know there was much more to our story that I can’t remember.  Shock will do that to you.  The last time I saw Kathy was at the end of her shift.  She told me I was about to get a new doctor.  She knew I wasn’t particularly comfortable with our first doctor and the last thing I remember was her telling me I was getting a new doctor and she thought I might like him more.  It provided a glimmer of hope to my otherwise bleak outlook.  I didn’t realize I wasn’t going to see her again.  I never got to thank her for her kindness at the most heartbreaking moment of my life.  Kathy, you are a gem.  Thank you so much.

Janice
Things happened quickly after we found out Isaac was gone.  I didn’t realize what was wrong with me (Preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome), but I was immediately put on an IV bolus of Magnesium that had me really uncomfortable and sick.  That was followed by something to reduce my anxiety and some pain medication.  I was totally out of it and drifted in and out of consciousness for the 12 hours or so of Janice’s shift.  I remember Janice, but the bulk of what I know about her comes from my family.  I know she let my parents and three younger sisters stay in the room with my husband even though it was certainly more people than I was supposed to have there.  She knew I needed them.

Days later, I learned that I cracked jokes throughout the hospital stay.  At some point, someone in the room said some now unknown thing.  It doesn’t matter what it was, but it must have been about food.  As I prepared to blurt out one of my go to lines of the summer in response, Janice beat me to it and said, “The snozzberries taste like snozzberries.”  It was exactly what I had been about to say.  She even nailed the voice. I still can’t believe that of all the funny lines to drop, she dropped my favorite one.  It’s like she was in my head.  I also have a vague recollection of her telling me not to fight her as she repeatedly tried to check my reflexes.  I know Janice sat at the little table at the end of my bed and kept an eye on my vitals as the hours slowly passed.  Janice is another nurse I don’t remember leaving at the end of her shift.  So – thank you, Janice.  Thank you for putting up with my large and loud family, and for knowing that I needed them there.  Thank you for keeping a sense of humor on the longest day of my life.  Finally, I swear I wasn’t trying to fight you as you checked my reflexes.

Meghan
Gosh – where to begin.  Meghan and her pink scrubs had me for my most intense moments in the hospital.  She was there with me my second night in the hospital when I suspect I was the most difficult, but she never lost her cool.  She had me for five terrifying hours of epidural free labor.*  She had me as I refused to breathe through contractions and as my BP skyrocketed into the 200s.  I can’t imagine I was particularly charming after finding out my son had died before I ever met him and 24 hours of labor.  I vaguely remember cervix checks and being intensely frustrated when I found out I hadn’t progressed much at all.  Then things escalated . . . quickly.  I went from 3cm to 10cm dilated in less than an hour.  I guess I didn’t realize that the doctor wasn’t at the hospital anymore, but he was not.  Things had been moving very slowly and it was really late.  Despite the doctor’s absence, at some point, it became clear that Isaac was on his way whether we were ready or not.  I said that I felt like I needed to push and I know Meghan told me not to.  I couldn’t have stopped myself even if I had wanted to.  Meghan delivered Isaac at 12:06 AM.  The doctor arrived at some point soon after.  I know she cleaned Isaac off and let me hold him, despite my ongoing inability to remain conscious.  I know she took pictures of my husband, Isaac and I.  They aren’t the pictures of his birth I had imagined, but considering the circumstances, I love them.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up at dawn.  I was comfortable and didn’t realize what had happened at first.  Meghan came in at some point and gently explained that she had our son in the nursery.  She brought him to me as my husband lay sleeping and I had the only moments alone with my son that I will ever have.  When it became too much for me, she woke my husband.  We spent some time alone and at some point she gently took him away.  I never saw her again after that and was initially disappointed.  I found out a few days later that Meghan had been exhausted (rightfully so) and, at the end of her shift, had gone home and passed out.  Then she woke up and called in tears.  She was so upset that she hadn’t said goodbye to us.  I’ll never forget Meghan or how grateful I am for her.  She delivered our son under scary and unusual circumstances without ever skipping a beat, and that’s remarkable.  I needed to be kept calm, and that’s exactly what she did. Thank you, Meghan.  You handled an incredible difficult situation with such patience, compassion, and composure.  I can’t imagine a way that it could have been done any better.

*I didn’t want to change my own recollection of things, but my husband has pointed out that Meghan was also my nurse during my first night at the hospital.  My father has also told me that he remembers Meghan having quiet and peaceful conversations with me to manage my anxiety and confusion.  I clearly do not remember either of those things, but am grateful all the same.

There is more to come on the amazing nurses at Speare, but I do want to recognize that I can’t cover every single nurse that helped me during my hospital stay.  I know a lot of patient nurses and technicians made their way in and out of our room.  Heck – there was even a lovely nurse who got down on the ground next to my bed to take blood from my fingertips when my veins refused to cooperate.  I can’t remember each and every one of these amazing people.  However, I am endlessly grateful for all of their help.

Feeling Blue

/ Isaac's Mom / 4 Comments

I know I’ve been quiet the last two weeks.  I  realize that I don’t owe anyone any explanations, but I’ve been in a funk recently. I think it started last Tuesday.  We started telling close friends that we were pregnant with Isaac a bit after the 12-week mark.  On a cold day, we cuddled up on the couch with our 12-week ultrasound images and Facetimed our friends down in North Carolina.  With one particular set of friends, just after we showed them our pictures, they responded with their own.  They were expecting too and just two weeks behind us.  A bunch of our North Carolina friends ended up expecting Fall babies, but no one was due quite so close to Isaac.

Last Tuesday, our friends gave birth to a healthy baby boy.  I saw it on Facebook while I was laying in bed, and, at first, I was okay.  I was happy for them.  Then I started to worry about telling my husband.  Should I tell him?  I had recently told him that another friend of ours was pregnant, and he had told me that he didn’t want to know that.  I ended up waking him up to tell him.  Moments later, I was crying.  I am so happy for them.  It just hurts so much to see what we are missing out on.

The next day was even more difficult.  I woke up in a bad place and things just kept going wrong.  I had to challenge a contractor on the project I am managing, and I stressed for most of the day over how to do it. A package I was excited to receive that day got delayed.  Then the MFM we were supposed to meet with Friday called to say they couldn’t see us Friday and needed to reschedule even though my husband had reworked his whole week to be home Friday.  Then at the end of the day, in response to my questions, the contractor quit.  Every last one of those things ended up being resolved just fine, but I was a wreck on Wednesday.

We ended up getting to meet with the MFM on Thursday.  It went well.  They have a plan, part of which is getting my arthritis under control before attempting another pregnancy.  It seems there is some link between autoimmune diseases and preeclampsia.  They even got us an appointment with a rheumatologist in the same hospital for this week (I had tried independently and was told they couldn’t see me until next year).  I actually left the hospital smiling, because I felt so much hope.  Then, I saw another baby boy had been born to a sweet girl that I went to high school with.  I didn’t have any immediate reaction.  However, then I started thinking more about our new doctors and how seriously they take our care.  It made me realize how NOT seriously our care was taken during my pregnancy with Isaac.  Isaac deserved this care just as much as our future baby does, but he did not get it.

If the doctors had taken us more seriously and paid even half as much attention as they are now, we’d probably be cuddling Isaac instead of figuring out how to keep living after losing a lifetime with our baby boy.  It’s hard to see how easy it is for doctors to help us now when it is too late to save Isaac.

All of this stuff has made be feel a bit uninspired lately.  I’m not excited about my pottery class and I haven’t been able to come up with coherent blog posts.  It’s even resulted in me struggling to write the letters to Isaac in his journal. Times are tough, but I know that’s to be expected.  Hopefully, if I keep plowing forward day by day, things will get a bit more manageable.

You Have A Baby . . . in A Bar

/ Isaac's Mom / 5 Comments

I know that I am prone to depression.  Not just a bit of a funk, but the won’t get out of bed except for in emergencies (like bathroom breaks) type of depression.  Here I am faced with a tragic loss that could send even the strongest of individuals into a downward spiral.  If I do what I feel like doing right now, I know that I could quickly devolve into a pajama-wearing mess sitting in a pile of tissues, who requires some sort of professional intervention.  Recognizing this tendency, I have realized that I need to find things to keep myself busy – things that will get me out of my pajamas and out of the house.  I’ve mentioned previously that for obvious reasons it is EXTREMELY difficult to be around pregnant women and babies.  This means that nowhere was safe.  I go to the movies and a pregnant woman sits down next to me.  Malls are the stuff of nightmares.  The more people, the more likely I am to run into a pregnant woman or a new mom with a baby.

I started with baby steps.  I’d stop at a grocery store on my way home from grief therapy.   I’d go hang out with my mom at their pool next door.   Eventually, I decided I needed to find a baby free way to get out regularly.  A few weeks ago, I was in my old room at my parents’ house when I saw a small bowl I had made at a pottery class as a kid.  I remembered how much I loved and looked forward to that class.  I’ve always enjoyed a good craft or DIY project, so I looked up the place I’d gone to twenty years ago for a class.   Low and behold they had an adult pottery class beginning this past Monday.  My husband and parents encouraged me to sign up and I did.  It’s 3 hours every Monday morning until mid-December.  It seemed like a perfect fit.  It’s an adult class where I can meet people and learn something fun.

I went on Monday.  I was nervous.  Most outings make me nervous.  I knew the class was all levels and that there were likely to be people with loads of experience.  What if I was terrible at this particular craft?  I found the classroom and checked in.  The teacher is extremely nice.  A few minutes later, another student checked in.  We’ll call her “B” and she was instantly extremely nice.  I started to relax a bit as we waited for other students.  An administrator came in and let our teacher know that the afternoon class didn’t have enough people signed up and we would be getting a few extra students.  What happened next is almost funny in retrospect.  The teacher told us that we were waiting for a student who had a newborn baby.  No big deal.  I’d be jealous and keep a reasonable distance.  Nope.  The woman’s sister-in-law had already arrived and let us know that this woman couldn’t rearrange her babysitter and would be bringing the baby to class.  What!?!

I’d love to see what my face looked like at that moment.  I quickly and quietly warned the teacher and B of what I had recently been through.  I said that I would do my best, but that I didn’t know if I could handle three hours around a newborn baby.  Eventually the woman and baby showed up.  I did my best to ignore them.  However, every time the baby cried, I would flinch away from what I was working on.  I couldn’t help but eavesdrop as other artists oohed and ahhed over the precious little baby.  I couldn’t help but be jealous.  I want someone to ooh and ahh over my baby, but people don’t do that for babies who die.

I signed up for that class thinking this class would be a safe zone.  There wouldn’t be babies in a pottery studio.  Apparently, I was wrong.  Nowhere is safe!  Pottery studios are filled with silica dust and paint fumes.  While I don’t mean to sound like I’m passing some unfair judgment, I have no idea why someone would bring an infant into that environment.  To be clear, she didn’t do a whole lot of pottery work.  I’m also shocked that it isn’t a liability for the arts center to have an infant in a space like that.

For some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about the scene in Sweet Home Alabama in which Reese Witherspoon’s character responds to an insult from a former classmate by pointing out that she has a baby in a bar.  babyinabar

I guess it’s that this mother had her baby in one of the last places I would expect and a place that I would never have brought my own baby.

I survived the class.  I even enjoyed parts of it (when the baby was out of sight and out of mind).  Fortunately, she isn’t planning to bring the baby in the future.  I went up to her at the end to explain my “situation” and to find out if I should switch classes.  To be honest, one of the hardest parts of the entire ordeal was that this mother didn’t even flinch or show any hint of empathy/sympathy as I told her I’d recently lost my son towards the end of my pregnancy.  I would have thought that a new mother would have some sort of reaction to what I was telling her.  I suppose everyone reacts in their own way to this sort of thing, and I can’t be sure what was going through her head.  Oh well.

When You Have to Avoid Your Favorite (Internet) Things

/ Isaac's Mom / 1 Comment

I talked a bit previously (here) about how I’d been needing to avoid my pregnant friends and family and the resulting babies.  I noticed the other day, though, that there are more pieces to this puzzle.  I am a huge online consumer.  I follow hundreds of blogs with topics ranging from lifestyle to food/cooking to fashion.  I love a good blog.  I am also a major Pinterest user.  Then there is online shopping.  I mostly window shop, but I even buy our trash bags online.

As soon as I found out I was pregnant, my search history, blogs, and Pinterest feed started to reflect that.  On Pinterest, I had a board where I stored general baby ideas (called “Maybe Baby”).  I had a board called “Baby Instruction Manual” filled with tips and tricks for managing every detail of a newborn baby’s life.  I also had a board full of nursery ideas.  I was following every major baby brand’s pins.  Pinterest and other similar platforms recognized this baby trend and filled my feeds with ideas and advertisements geared towards a mommy-to-be.  Every time I scrolled through there were ads for diapers, tips for getting your infant to sleep through the night, and guides for how much milk your baby needed at each stage of infancy.

In my blog reader, I had a full section of baby/pregnancy blogs.  These blogs varied in subject matter but generally featured some picture-perfect pregnant woman or new mom writing about their perfect lives.  Then, there was the shopping.  I had signed up for some ridiculous number of shopping newsletters trying to get the best deals on the million items it seemed we needed in preparation for Isaac’s arrival.  I received daily offers from companies like Giggle, Munchkin, Pottery Barn Kids, Baby Gap and the list goes on (and on and on).

I certainly had moments during my pregnancy where I couldn’t believe that I would actually have a baby boy to take home and care for.  Especially in a first pregnancy, I think it is difficult to picture a real living human inside of your belly that will one day kick and scream.  I worried something would go wrong as many expectant mothers likely do.  However, at the end of the day, I didn’t really think that at 32 weeks we would suddenly lose Isaac.  Somewhere around 27 weeks, it sank in that this baby boy was healthy and with some assistance could live outside of my body.  Maybe he’d be born early or have an unforeseen problem and need to spend time in the NICU, but we were having our baby.

Then we heard the words no pregnant couple ever wants to hear.  “I don’t see any cardiac activity.”  Then I woke up cozily propped up in a hospital bed at dawn on July 16th to realize it wasn’t a dream and our baby was gone.  Here’s the thing about all of the Pinterest boards, blogs, and email promotions.  They don’t magically disappear when you lose a baby.  My husband did a fantastic job of sneakily deleting all of the pregnancy tracking apps, kick counting apps, contraction counting apps and calendar reminders from my phone.  He even smartly kept my phone away for the first week or so.  I didn’t miss it.  I did, however, have my iPad once I left the hospital.

Browsing through Pinterest and blogs was a favorite activity long before I was pregnant.  I opened up those apps, desperate to distract my mind from the traumatic loss, labor and delivery of Isaac.  I did realize that there would be some reminders, but I seriously underestimated the level at which the “baby stuff” had taken over my digital world.  I had to wait another week before going into Pinterest and Feedly (the RSS reader I use) and painstakingly eliminating all things baby.  With Pinterest it took an entire afternoon of unfollowing users, marking posts as “not interesting”, and eliminating ads.  With the blogs, I had to get on a computer to eliminate each baby blog one by one.  There are still a number of blogs in my feed where the blogger just happens to be pregnant or have adorable little kids.  I still have to swipe through those posts without reading them.

I have a feeling I will either be pregnant again (hopefully) or we will be expanding our family in a less traditional fashion, and I will still periodically be receiving email promotions from baby brands that I have overlooked in my unsubscribing marathons.  I cannot count the number of email lists I have unsubscribed to over the past four and a half weeks.  However, at least once a day, I see another email from some adorable baby brand.  Each time it breaks my heart a little bit more.

No one wants to be surrounded with reminders of what they have lost.  To clarify, I want reminders that my baby boy was real, but not regular reminders of what could have and should have been.  Then there are the moments when I have to open those baby emails to unsubscribe.  I still see adorable onesies in those emails and have an inexplicable urge to buy them for a baby who will never wear them.  That is not fun.

Maybe I should invent a service that helps couples purge the baby reminders from their digital lives after this type of loss.  I might create a page that provides instructions for each platform that directs you how to actually eliminate the baby pins, blogs, and emails.  It was not as easy as I had hoped.

The Girl Who Runs Out of Movies

/ Isaac's Mom / 4 Comments

There seems to be a very delicate balance between not being ready to face certain emotional triggers and just not wanting to at all.  It’s hard to discern whether things are too raw for me and I should wait, or I have to just push through a bit of discomfort and basically face my fears.  Yesterday we accidentally misjudged which category a particular outing fell into.  There are a number of movies out right now that I want to see.  One of those movies is The Secret Life of Pets, and in an effort to get me out into the world, my husband bought tickets for us yesterday.  That it was a children’s movie didn’t even cross our minds.  We’ve always loved animated movies.  The first movie that my husband and I ever watched together was How to Train Your Dragon.

When my husband booked the tickets (it’s one of those theaters with reserved reclining seats), not a single ticket had been reserved yet.  The movie had been out a while, and we expected an empty theater.  We were quite wrong.  When we arrived, it was empty.  Then a steady stream of mothers with little boys walked in and took their seats.  I sat there anxiously and mentioned to my husband that this might have been a bad idea.  A few years from now, that was supposed to be me with Isaac and his little buddies from pre-school.  However, I decided that these were emotions that I could push through.  I probably could have.

As the previews started, I continued to doubt our decision to go to an animated movie. The first preview was for a movie called Storks, a movie playing on the tales parents tell their kids about where babies come from.  The preview put a lump in my throat, but as it ended the feeling passed.

Then the unthinkable happened.  A couple came in, right as the movie was about to start, and sat down in the empty seats to our left.  So we weren’t the only adults in the area who wanted to see a kids movie on a Friday at lunchtime – no big deal.  However, this wasn’t just any couple.  The wife was extremely pregnant and happy.  I’d venture she was about as pregnant as I should have been right now.  Today I would have been 36 weeks pregnant.  I couldn’t stop peeking over at her.  Did they know how lucky they were?  Did they know how quickly it could be over?

Maybe the pregnant couple shouldn’t have been so upsetting to me, but – you see – there was a reason we didn’t see the movie right when it came out.  I was saving up movies to see as a way to escape the August heat while waiting for Isaac to arrive.  We were supposed to be that happy pregnant couple, but instead our baby boy is already gone and I am the woman who can’t stop staring at the pregnant girl in the movie theater.

I had mentioned to my husband that I was struggling, and he told me that if I was unable to enjoy the movie he would gladly leave.  However, I wanted to see the movie.  I tried to get distracted by the cute animated animals that were doing ridiculous things on the screen.  It didn’t work.  It was hard to breathe, and I was overheating despite the AC.  Eventually,  I whispered to my husband that I couldn’t do it.  I tried to get up slowly and leave, but it turned into a weird high-speed escape.  I got into the hall, where I knew I needed to wait for my husband and his mother, and immediately started crying.  I cried the entire drive home, curled up in bed, and then cried some more.  I spent the whole afternoon and evening trying to distract myself in bed.   Day over.

So, as it happens, this was a case of not being ready to face certain realities.  It’s too soon to surround myself with reminders of what could have and should have been us.  This isn’t the first time I have ended up in a situation that I needed to escape, and I am sure this won’t be the last.  To those of you in this same depressing boat, there is no shame in not being ready.  Grieving is going to occur on its own schedule.  There is no need to force it.  Know that you aren’t alone.

Anxiety

/ Isaac's Mom / 1 Comment

I’ve always been an anxious person.  Long before Isaac, pregnancy or any of this, I was always worried about bad things happening.  I have vague memories of calling my dad’s carphone over and over again (before they had handheld cell phones) when my parents were at all late coming home.  Something must have happened to them, I’d think to myself.  In my junior year of high school, I survived a pretty horrible car accident.  Nearly a decade later I would be driving and suddenly be convinced that I was about to be hit by another car.  I did see someone for this, and while I would still worry about things periodically, the worst of my anxiety was managed.

Needless to say, pregnancy exacerbated my anxiety.  The internet is a scary place for a pregnant woman prone to anxiety, such as I was.  Early on I was convinced I had an ectopic pregnancy or some other complication.  Finally, around week 20, I started to calm down.  I could do this.  My body was doing this.  My biggest anxiety at 31.5 weeks pregnant was that I wasn’t going to finish the nursery in time.  Obviously, there were things I could more validly have worried about.

Losing Isaac and the trauma of giving birth to him under life-threatening circumstances has reignited my anxiety.  That’s perhaps an understatement.  I’ve been told it’s normal to be anxious after such an experience, and it does make sense.  However, it is pretty paralyzing.  A little less than two weeks after losing Isaac, my uncle’s arrival at the lake house triggered a panic attack.  Facing new people (new meaning those people who last saw me happy and pregnant) is pretty terrifying to me still.

I also find myself particularly attached to my husband.  I didn’t think anything of it until it was a “symptom” I could check off on a list at the grief specialist yesterday.  I’m nervous with my husband back at work.  I worry more than ever before about my husband’s safety on the drive back from work (he does spend nearly 3 hours a day commuting).

Today, I walked outside in the sweltering heat to call our 8-month-old Golden Retriever, Mowgli, back for his lunch.  We live at the back of a 12-acre lot, so this can be a difficult task.  We have a particular whistle that we do to get Mowgli to come running.  However, even after walking over to my parents’ house whistling the whole way, I didn’t hear the tell-tale sound of Mowgli’s tags.  The painters working over there hadn’t seen him.  He wasn’t in my parents’ house.  The guy, who maintains the property and usually can be seen with the puppy in tow, wasn’t even here.  I quickly started to panic.  My husband wasn’t here, my parents are away, and my dog was missing.  I spent an entire half hour imagining the worst.  Mowgli had chased someone down the driveway.  Mowgli had run through the invisible fence.  Something was wrong.  I imagined someone calling and telling me there had been an accident.  I imagined I’d never see our baby dog again.

I found him.  He’d gotten himself trapped in the meadow after following the gardeners down through a gate that had ultimately been closed.  He was sitting outside the fence crying, waiting for me to find him.

I don’t have some magical way to overcome the anxiety.  The hospital doctor gave me anxiety medication, but those drugs are addictive, and I only use them when I’m in an uncontrollable downward spiral.  I understand why I am anxious and know I am not alone in feeling this way.  I also know that anxiety is just a feeling, and is something I can overcome. Wish me luck.

IMG_0015

Mowgli

 

 

Day 18

/ Isaac's Mom / Leave a comment

August 4, 2016

Dearest Isaac,

Daddy gave me a pleasant surprise this morning.  I remember being cuddled by Daddy in the middle of the night.  It amazes me the myriad of ways you have changed me.  For years, I have despised cuddling, but now? Now, I need that closeness.  Anyway, even in my state of semi-consciousness, I was panicked about daddy returning to work.  This morning, I woke up and rolled over, crushed that I didn’t have your Daddy to ease the wave of sadness I now wake to every morning.  So I grabbed my phone and sent him a panicky face.  As it happens, your intuitive Daddy knew I wasn’t ready to be alone yet.  He had woken up and decided he needed to stay home.  I was so epically relieved.  This does, however, mean he will be gone tomorrow.

The good news is that we did check some stuff off the to-do list.  We got Mowgli’s medicine, grabbed my mini cooper’s title, got some groceries, and even stopped to get some more embroidery floss to practice with.  Afterward, we stopped by the house I grew up in.  I didn’t make the connection until now, but I grew up on East Grand Oak Lane, a street named for its big strong oak trees.  Now, we’re planting oak trees for you.  Fitting, I suppose.  It was nice to show Daddy where I grew up.  We even r grabbed Pepper Mill cheesesteaks on the way home.

This afternoon, I practiced my embroidery.  You won’t be shocked that I am using your name for practice.  I told you I would write your name everywhere, and I plan to follow through.  I am waiting for nicer fabric to arrive for some more practice.

I have faced some harsh realizations today.  So far, since losing you three weeks (not sure how that’s possible(, I’ve had this weird sense of waiting.  It’s like I have the flu.  If I rest, hydrate and wait, eventually I’ll wake up feeling better.  With time, you forget  exactly how terrible the flu felt and life returns to normal.  That’s not going to happen this time.  No amount of time can fix this.  No amount of sleep and soup can fix you being gone.  Even a smudge on the wall from Daddy smushing a scary bug hurts me now.  I was laying right here nearly 7 months pregnant, and your daddy saved the day by getting rid of a scary bug on the ceiling.  Just seeing that smudge hurts me so badly because it reminds me that I was pregnant with you.  I miss you so much, and nothing can “fix” that.  I just want you back with every fiber of my being.  I wanted to give you the world and I never got that chance.

Love you dearly,

Mommy

Day 16

/ Isaac's Mom / Leave a comment

August 2, 2016

Dearest Isaac,

Today Daddy and I went through the boxes that came while we were in New Hampshire.  Lots of great things came for you from people who loved you.  There was so much to love in such a tiny package.  We tucked some away for another day, but other things I had picked for your room we decided to keep out as reminders of you.  We kept and adorable bright textile from Australia.  We kept a mini globe that says “Adventure Awaits”.  I hope you are on a fantastic and dreamy adventure somewhere.

I missed you so much today.  Hardly a second went by that I didn’t think of you.  Today’s fixation was your smile.  I think I can imagine what it would have looked like.  Gosh – you were cute.  I would do anything to make you smile.  I would also do anything to hold you again one last time.  I also wish beyond anything that I had known our time together was about to end so abruptly.  I wish I could have said goodbye, or known that I needed to memorize the way your kung fu kicks felt in my belly.

Today we saw one of those things that is as close to magic as we will ever get.  It started with your Daddy convincing me to go outside with Mowgli.  Then I saw a big yellow butterfly.  No big deal – right?  But then I realized that the entire bush below was covered in perfect yellow butterflies.  I don’t know why they were there, and they were gone a few hours later, but they were so perfect in that moment.  I called your Daddy out to show him and he found a way to top the butterflies.  The trees next to our house were filled with tiny gorgeous goldfinches.  I’ve never seen anything like it – there were tiny yellow creatures flying all around us.  It had to be you.

Until that moment I felt so lost today.  Even eating felt like a chore.  It scares me.  Your Daddy has a haircut and an interview tomorrow, and I wish I could say that I will be OK tomorrow.  I just haven’t felt up to the chores of daily life.  Daddy wants your Grandma Cindy and Aunt EB to come up and keep me company and take care of me.  I don’t want them to see me so broken.  I don’t enjoy not wanting to get out of bed and not wanting to do anything.  I am embarrassed enough that your Daddy has to see me so destroyed and pathetic.   Anyways, Mommy could use an extra dose of strength from you tomorrow, baby boy.  I know that’s a bit backward.  The Mommy is supposed to be the strong one.  I promise I will be your strong Mommy again.

Love you forever,

Mommy

Day 15

/ Isaac's Mom / Leave a comment

August 1, 2016

Dearest Isaac,

Grief is a funny beast.  One second I feel like I see a path forward or I pause and I think I can enjoy things, the next I fall totally to pieces.  I miss you, I obsess over you and I feel like my heart and soul have been torn out.  Being back in Pennsylvania feels like torture.  Your Daddy continues to be a champion, my hero and my rock.  I know how lucky I am to have him.  He keeps reminding me that we are a family.  It just feels so broken right now.  I have told you before, but i will tell you again – I will someday fill this journal with happy stories.  I will tell you about your Daddy, your grandparents, your aunts, and uncles.  I’ll tell you about fun things we do.  Someday, I’ll tell you about your little brothers or sisters.  For now, I will vent.  I keep feeling guilty about it, but I’ve promised to always be honest with you.  To be honest, things are still too raw to write letters with any joy.

We took Mowgli to get some much-needed grooming today.  We dropped him off and went to the grocery store.  Your mommy stinks at grocery shopping.  We did get some good frozen ingredients.  We bought a freezer to fill with meals in preparation for your arrival.  I had always wanted an extra freezer.  I said I would fill it with meals for rainy days.  I do wish I had filled it sooner.  The days sure feel rainy right now.  I will fill it eventually.

After the store, we picked up Mowgli.  He is fluffy and adorable.  As I write this, he is rolling around in our bed like a big goober.

We received some news about you today.  You were a beautiful, perfectly normal baby.  In my sadness and anxiety, I had convinced myself that something was wrong with you – that perhaps I thought you were perfect just because you were my son.  I can see how someone might get blinded by love.  The doctors, however, agreed that you were perfectly normal.  There were not infections, not a hair out of place on your adorable head.  In part, I am relieved.  Yet the guilt – however unfounded – is overwhelming.  But for my body’s failure, you would have been okay.  I’ve never wanted to change something so badly in all my life.  In fact, I can’t remember wanting something so badly in life that I could not obtain with some amount of effort.  Maybe with things I wanted previously I did not put in the effort, but I always could have.  Losing Bup Bup was similar, but despite how much I loved him, it is nothing compared to this.  There is nothing I can do to bring you back.

I hope, at least, that I can be a person, a mother, you would be proud of.

I love you,

Mommy

Day 14

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July 31, 2016

Dearest Isaac,

Today we went home.  Every second of it felt wrong.  I know you are with me and Daddy always, but it still felt like saying goodbye.  Bringing you home in a tiny box, containing an even tinier red velvet bag, felt so wrong.  Traffic was brutal, I cried until I was sick, and both Mowgli and Cali ended up sick.  Daddy held you in his lap the whole ride home.  It’s not a  ride in a car seat back from the hospital, but it is the best we will ever have.

This house feels like a prison of memories.  Seeing the nursery returned to a guestroom brought me to my knees.  Thank goodness your Daddy was there to catch me.  I found the package of positive pregnancy tests I had saved.  The so comforted me once, proving that you really existed.  I couldn’t believe we could be so lucky and so I proved it to myself every single morning.  I’ll never part with them – my concrete proof that this wasn’t just a terrible dream.

Daddy keeps trying to comfort me, saying there will be another baby.  While I so want a baby, there will never be another Isaac Immel.

Unfortunately, I’ve become a bit obsessed over what happened to you.  I know my body failed you, but I can’t help wondering if there was something else we missed.  Maybe your toes, while perfect to me, might not have been normal?  For all I know you were genetically perfect – I mean you were perfect and we love every millimeter of you.  I just want to know why I am not laying here cuddling you.  What did we miss?  Could we have prevented it?

The doctor in New Hampshire said we would have results in a few months.  I need answers now.  The wondering is eating me alive.

Mommy’s are supposed to be strong and I promise I am trying.  I will be better for you.  I just need more time.

Your Grandpa almost finished your signed for me today.  He sanded it down and hammered on a gorgeous copper border.  It still needs varnish, but it came out better than I imagined.  I am certainly going to make one for home.  We also got a letter from Grandpa’s friends.  They’re going to get us a pin oak for home too.  I can’t wait.  We want to have a physical place to feel close to you.  We will put a bench under it and it will be lovely.  This isn’t how it was supposed to be, but we will try to make the best of it.

Love you,

Mommy