losing it. perhaps literally.

“She’s got such a pretty face. It’s too bad she can’t do something about her weight.”

This remark can be attributed to a member of my own family. One I’ve secretly never forgiven.

My love/hate relationship with my physical self started very early. I have a crystal clear memory of being on the school playground in the third grade being called fat by a friend who was angry with me for one reason or another.

I spent high school in a fog of self conscious, shirt tugging anxiety, never happy with myself. Not until someone fell in love with me did I feel remotely confident. That helped, as did the roughly 30 pounds I lost over the summer following graduation. It wasn’t a conscious effort; I simply worked on my feet and rarely stopped to take a breath. Even relatively thin I dressed conservatively for someone my age, feeling as though other people shouldn’t have to be exposed to any more of my body than necessary.

Fast forward, past more than ten years of student and office life spent largely on my arse and I was back to where I was at 15; softer around the edges and thicker around the middle than I’d like.

And pregnant.

By the time Sadie was born at 42 weeks I had gained just under 60 pounds. I was comically rotund but somehow I loved every stretch-marked inch of myself. Even though my knees creaked when I climbed the stairs and I couldn’t get out of bed without rolling out, I felt better than I had ever felt before. My mind was as clear as my skin. Months of clean eating and plenty of sleep had made what I thought would be an indelible impression on me.Within two weeks of Sadie’s birth I had lost 20 pounds. Four weeks later she was gone.

If I’m being honest, I completely lost interest in caring for myself the morning we said goodbye to her.

I’ve spent the past year eating and struggling and drinking and feeling excessively. I joined a gym and went sporadically for two months before abandoning it altogether for three. I suffered from random insomnia and popped pills in all moments of weakness: hangovers, backaches, constipation, and depression. Rest certainly hasn’t come easily for me since her death, not without some sort of help. Whether that was a glass or four of sauvignon blanc or a couple of herbal sleeping pills, it was always something. Like many parents here will understand, it’s when the lights go out and I’m left along with my thoughts and memories that is most painful.

So much for my body being a temple. At the moment it’s barely a lean-to. I can’t decide if I enjoy punishing myself or I don’t believe I deserve to feel good in the first place. Whatever the case, I feel as vulnerable now as that third grader in the schoolyard.

Less sensitive people have been asking us whether we’ll try again for months. Others have tactfully left it to us to bring up if and when we’re comfortable. I have often wondered if Sadie hadn’t been our first, would we be where we are right now. I am doubtful and terrified that my abused old body may not even be capable of making a healthy child. Am I strong enough, physically or emotionally, to try? Am I too far beyond repair to risk it?

My husband has lost more than 20 pounds since Christmas; regularly pounding out God knows how many frustrations at the gym. It wasn’t until he started annoying me with a daily ‘calories burned’ report that my latent competitive streak was roused. Then it got even worse: the bastard started shrinking (damn those men and their superior metabolism). I’ve literally had no choice but to get off the couch and pick up my sneakers.

I’m not making any promises, least of all to myself.

If I were brave I might ask myself why I’ve let the idle lifestyle go on so long. Knowing I won’t allow myself to get pregnant again without being in suitable physical shape first, I might also ask if there is a chance I’ve been using my body as an excuse to put off trying again. But I’ve never been much in the bravery area.

How has your body image changed after pregnancy, and after your loss? Have you ever knowingly punished your physical self, it be with neglect or otherwise?

This post is a part of The Body Shop at Glow in the Woods -- a month of themed reflections and memes that explore what we do in an effort to occupy these physical selves with grace after babyloss.

thinking back, looking forward

It was a year ago this week that we began what would end up being a weeklong stay on the cardiac and then ICU wards at the children's hospital. In my mind's eye the memory is seen from a point of view over my shoulder, blurry as though through a filtered lens, all mottled edges and underwater sounds.

The brunette receptionist.

Being buzzed in.

The nurse I ignored as she greeted me, thinking she couldn't be old enough to know a thing.

Me holding tight, one hand held protectively against the back of Sadie's head, the other under her tiny padded bum.

My utter disbelief that we were there to begin with.

Why did they know who we were? Why were they expecting us?

Of course, the emergency room doctor at our local hospital had called ahead. She had already sent me home to pack a bag and call my husband before arranging for an ambulance to bring us across the city. She understood long before we left that the size of her heart made Sadie a very sick little girl.

There was a bed waiting for us. I distinctly remember feeling panic rise in my chest over not understanding what anyone was saying. I didn't want to take her out of her sling to hand her over to anyone. The strongest bond she and I formed over her six short weeks on earth was when I held her, cheek nuzzled to my neck. She was soothed instantly by it. It made me understand what it meant to be willing to give your life for another’s. I don’t have to explain to any of you the depth of devotion one feels toward their child. The strongest love that exists, full stop.

The walls were painted a vivid yellow; the enormous privacy curtains around each bed pumpkin orange. They were such happy colours to use as the backdrop to a thousand layers and personal brands of fear, doubt, and confusion. By mid afternoon they cast a warm glow on one’s skin when the sun shone through the wall of windows at the end of the ward. As though the fiery determination of all of those terrified parents was burning from their insides out as they learned to administer meds and monitor heart rates.

Shortly after arriving we met the specialists who would diagnose her Cardiomyopathy and tell us how rare and difficult it typically proved for infants. I was knocked out of my daze into the present, struggling to comprehend his intricate explanation of how a healthy heart works versus how our daughter’s did. I slowly understood that I needed to think of her as a ‘Heart Baby’ and what that meant to our future. I began to write stories in my head to her. All of which included how to explain her special circumstances, in which her special heart needed extra special care, because she was different from other people in a very special way.

One morning, for the first time, she looked right at me as I leaned over her hospital bed and smiled the most beautiful smile in history. Machines beeped and children cried and she sealed her spot as the love of my life.

A week later we would watch a team of intensive care doctors try in vain to save her life.

Neither of us has been the same since, in too many ways to mention. But together we're so much stronger than apart.

.::.

I told my husband months ago that I wanted very much to escape from our lives on March 31st. I didn’t want to have to face anyone else but the one who understands what is happening in my heart. He understands that if anything, a year is but a minute when it comes to grief.

The difference between today and a year ago is not that the pain of our lost girl has diminished. It has only changed. Morphing from a life size mask to become an inky black fragment of my shadow. Always there and forever a part of me, but not the first thing you’ll see when you meet me. Sadie would have wanted me to take the mask off. I am still her mother. I am still me.

Next Tuesday, on the morning that will mark a year since we lost her, I will wake up early beside the man I love and watch the sunrise. We’ll have breakfast on the roof of our riad in the heart of Marrakech. Then we will travel to the Atlas Mountains with the solitary goal of drinking in the natural beauty of the exotic Moroccan landscape. I want to spend our time walking by his side, exploring the medina together. Breathing in the scents of spice and soaking up the turquoise sky. Losing ourselves in the city described as one that time has forgotten. All that matters is that I will be far away with him, remembering her.

.:.

How did you spend the first anniversary of your child's death, or how do you intend to?

birthday blues

I’ve been struggling to the point of physical sickness this week, obsessing about what should have been. Imagining balloons and cake and hours of smiling video. Sadie would have been one yesterday. It was frankly one the hardest days I’ve had so far.

Everything that’s been mercifully floating around the periphery lately crashed in on me over the last few days. I was back at her bedside. Pacing the waiting room in the PICU. Saying goodbye.

.:.

I’ve been trying with great difficulty to find something hopeful to say here as I’m typically not one to be dark or melancholy. But it occurred to me that this is exactly the place where I will be understood if my armour does slip momentarily. Even the most resilient grow weary on occasion. And truth be told, I’m just really goddamn tired.

I’d like a free pass that says I can shut the world out for a time in order to selfishly tend to myself. Be it sleeping away a day or reading a book in one sitting or walking central London in silence, I earned it when I suffered this loss, didn’t I? My pass would read, ‘Get out of my face and just understand. I’ll be back when I’m ready. I promise.’

Of course it doesn’t work that way. God knows disappearing or shutting out the world completely would try the patience of even our most perservering family and friends. But to drop all pretense on my random dismal days, with friends and colleagues and strangers in the street bearing witness, doesn’t really jive either.

I feel the only thing to do is go back to polishing my metal. Ride out days like this causing as little collateral damage as possible. Look for the next bright one. Wonder if anyone realizes how I'm cursing pretty much everything in my path until it comes.

.::.

My deepest desire, aside from having her here with us, has been to be assured that she knew how deeply she was loved. That she changed my life distinctly and forever for the better. That my heart aches always in her absence. That she knows I would love nothing more than to pull her into my arms and sing, "Happy birthday, Baby," softly in her ear.

.::.

How do you deal with dark days? Are you better on your own, or does it help to be surrounded by people?

Home

Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule.~Frederick W. Robertson

My husband and I recently agreed to stay in London for one more year. It will be our third. Taking into consideration how swiftly time seems to pass despite the pain or pleasures life hands us, I’ve been thinking about what this place means to me, and what it will mean to return to Canada.

In the weeks following Sadie’s death we flew back to hold her funeral and to spend time with our family. Angry and desperately sad, I vowed to return permanently as soon as possible. I listened and believed those around us who said it was time, all things considered, to be closer to our friends and loved ones. It was all well intentioned; something to offer when there was no other way to help: Come back, and while you don’t have her, at least you’ll have us. We are both so loved.

I was emotionally chaotic; I viewed our return as the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Yet after months passed and I did what was the right thing for me – getting a job – I started to doubt my hasty proclamation. Despite it being the polar opposite of what I wanted to be doing, I believed that distracting myself with work challenges and making new friends was the healthy, responsible way to channel my grief.

I began to experience this home from a different perspective. I was extraordinarily sad, and still am. But I was forging a path as a new person. Everything I looked at was at once starkly different, as though through the eyes of someone else. It has taken many months to understand how deeply losing Sadie has changed my very essence. And now, ten months later, I can see how London has been a integral part of this transformation.

I’ve always told my husband that I am an adaptable person by nature, and he knows all too well how much I enjoy change. In the years before we bought our Toronto home, I moved both on my own and with him no less than once a year over the span of six years. Needless to say, the idea of moving overseas and making a life for ourselves in a new country was particularly appealing.

I believe that being here throughout this time has taught me what I’m made of.

Now, faced with the reality of our time here coming to an end, the thought of leaving saddens me more than I ever expected it to. I know how quickly this year will fly by. This is the place where my husband and I chose to strike out independently of everything we knew and make a life distinctly our own. It’s where our daughter was conceived, and where we came to terms with what becoming parents meant to us. It is where we were fortunate enough to experience the barely describable love and joy that was being her mom and dad.

It is where we shared both the most glorious and the most heartbreaking moments of our lives.

How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you - you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences - like rags and shreds of your very life. ~Katherine Mansfield

.::.

Do you associate a certain place with your lost child, be it a city, home, or otherwise? How has that relationship changed since your loss?

'tis the season

For every adult in the kitchen there appeared to be two or three children running between rooms, blitzed on sugar from the chocolate fountain and marshmallows they were using for dipping. Wrinkled party dresses and cheeks smeared with sweetness, they were enjoying the freedom granted by their parents’ own distraction – mainly champagne and a recently restored vintage jukebox. A head collided with the stem of my glass and kept moving, unfazed, back to his friends all up way past their bedtimes.

.::.

'Cardiomyopathy is a chronic and sometimes progressive disease in which the heart muscle (myocardium) is abnormally enlarged, thickened and/or stiffened. The condition typically begins in the walls of the heart's lower chambers (ventricles), and in more severe cases also affects the walls of the upper chambers (atria). The actual muscle cells as well as the surrounding tissues of the heart become damaged. Eventually, the weakened heart loses the ability to pump blood effectively and heart failure or irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias or dysrhythmia) may occur.'

.::.

One of the younger boys came in, crying over some rough play happening in the next room. He’d been wearing a toque the whole time and now pulled it off as he found his mother. He was soothed with some kisses to his cheeks and bald head before running back to the action.

“Yes he’s bald. He’s got leukaemia, he’s been in remission since March. We’ve got two more years of treatment.”

She went on to tells us about how she worries for his future; as a teen and adult will he lead an incredibly healthy lifestyle, or will he feel invincible having beaten cancer, and abuse his perceived strength?

The hostess, the wife of a friend, went on at length about how scary it must be – the thought of losing a child. How utterly terrible it would be to lose an only child.

It was right around the time the walls began to close in on me.

.::.

'Cardiomyopathy is nondiscriminatory in that it can affect any adult or child at any stage of their life. It is not gender, geographic, race or age specific. It is a particularly rare disease when diagnosed in infants and young children.'

.::.

He found me on the front porch, trying to regain control of myself, tears streaming down my face. I was as embarrassed as I was upset and wanted to scream when he asked me what was wrong. I stared through the picture window at the enormous twinkling tree he and their two kids had decorated that morning. I forced some deep breaths and pulled out my mobile to call a taxi.

.::.

We finally received Sadie’s post mortem report a few weeks ago. Any hope I had been holding on to that it would reveal some extraordinary insight about her condition was dashed. Waiting had given me a reason to tuck that part away; I could put off thinking about future children because I didn’t yet have all of the information I needed. There had to be something else, some tiny scrap of information resembling an explanation for it all. Going through the document with her doctor made me face what I have been refusing to believe since he told me so on the day I met him. We would likely never find out the cause.

With nothing left to wait for I know I should be thinking about what I expect from the future. Our genetic counsellor told us that based on what information they do have, the odds of us having another child with cardiomyopathy are 1 in 10. She chose to pitch it as a 90% chance that any future children will be perfectly healthy.

My husband asked me afterward whether I’d buy a lottery ticket given those odds. My answer was simple. Of course I would. Because I know I would survive losing.

We’ve all become much too aware of the fragility of life, regardless of what took our children from this world. I would like to hear how other babylost mamas who went on to have more children came to the decision to try again. How long did it take for hope to outweigh your fear?

back and forth, back and forth

Three days after we’d arrived at the hospital I was standing over her, staring in amazement. Her legs and arms were cycling away, occasionally bumping herself in the head, not used to the weight of a heavily bandaged arm. How could this beauty possibly be sick? My little Munckin. She smiled at me, a real smile, for the first time. My heart came close to exploding with something a thousand times stronger than love.

“Oh, Munchie! What are we going to do with you?!?”

In spite of our surroundings, I was ecstatic to see that perfect miniature grin.

.::.

“I thought you would be rolling on the floor, screaming and inconsolable.”

“You’re so strong.”

“Do you know how many women would have ended up in a mental ward?”

“I don’t know where you find the strength.”

“My God Jen, you’re just so strong.”

.::.

When they told me she was gone I didn’t understand at first. A woman, who remains faceless in my memory to this day, appeared at my side. She knelt down next to me and I think she took my hand. We had been pushed to the side to give way to the chaos.

“But... but... they’re still working...?”

Things still seemed to be happening. I was waiting for the miracle I just knew would happen. I was confused.

“I’m so sorry. No. Sadie’s gone.”

Four NICU doctors and nurses who had minutes before raced into the room still stood around her tiny bed, doing what they do. The yelling had stopped, but they were still moving. Machines continued to beep. It wasn’t until we walked to her side that they all stopped and looked up. When I saw how reluctant they were to look me in the eye, I knew. Two stayed with us, unhooking her as they asked if I wanted to hold her.

.::.

There are days that are darker than others. I want to call the office and be free to say, “Sorry, but I just can’t do it. It’s all meaningless don’t you see, because today I’ll be useless to anyone but her. She’s dead and I can’t bear to wash my hair and I really just need to stay at home to be with her.” I start to cry in the shower and hate the world for expecting me to stop and get on with it. The only her left for me to be with is not one anyone else understands.

Yet it’s exactly what I do: stop and get on with it. I smile and charm and make plans for the weekend. I maintain what others have built for me and wonder what parts, if any, I can actually lay claim to.

.::.

It was my husband who told me he’d expected me to be inconsolable. It was meant to be a testament to my strength. Like every other grief related ‘compliment’ I’ve had since. My dear partner, who on the darkest of days when I can’t bring myself to utter a single word, hugs me tight through my fragile silence. Having learned it’s easier to not make me vocalize, he simply holds my hand, finds me a tissue.

“It’s ok honey, cry.”

I am silent. I turn away. No words, inside or out, seem able to do what I feel justice. I wipe my tears and will myself to regain control. I want to tell him how bad it still is, but can’t help but feel guilty for forcing it all to his surface when he seems to have found a safe and quiet place to keep it. I know he hurts. I love him to my core and don’t want to magnify his pain with my own unyielding grief.

.::.

I prop myself up. I make my most valiant effort to be what everyone sees. I hope for balance at best. I wonder if the continuous memories playing like home movies in my mind make me a little too broken still.

What I can’t tell people, the fear I barely allow myself to acknowledge, is that I am terrified of what would happen if I did let go. What if my so-called strength is really just a farce? What if I did give in, outside of my own head, and found I couldn’t make it stop? It feels entirely possible. I can’t bear the thought of being so exposed. Like a fish in a bowl, examined from every angle, unable to escape the waiting eyes of those who used to call me strong. The jig would be up.

In the list of adjectives I’d use to describe myself, strong doesn’t even register.

.:.

I’m still so utterly raw; seven and a half months later, but most days feel I’m now left to navigate this journey independently, even with a supportive and loving partner. I wonder if other Babylost Mamas feel an obligation to keep up an appearance of togetherness after a certain amount of time has passed?