not the enemy

Tash's post reminded me of how easy it is to get caught up in the bullshit of everyday life and how difficult it is for couples in our situations to communicate well.  Taxes, taxing situations, too many to-dos and no desire to do them can turn a simple afternoon sour.  Suddenly we're sniping and sneering.

Slamming doors.  Seething rage.  Eventually I realize that I'm not mad at her at all.  Well, maybe a little, but the quiver and clench, they are not her doing.

That tension and anger, it's a force that fills me when I realize how impotent I am to change the past I hate, or alter the immovable fact I cannot stand.

All I can control is my perspective and my response.

 

I attempt to embrace calmness despite adrenaline and energy.  Over and over, every day of my life now, it is an exercise in calmness.  There are too many triggers that click and spark the gunpowder in my soul.  There are too many holes that should be filled with moments with my son.  I fall into those voids suddenly so I've tried to learn how to fly.

Most of the time I fall.

That's the pit in my stomach.  It is the sensation of endlessly falling into another day that is filled with the absence of what I want most.

I fill those voids with anything I can think of and I try to stay calm even when I'm falling and all I can do is yell for help.  Luckily Lu is strong enough to pull me back when I start to shout because she knows all I'm really doing is looking for Silas.  Even when I'm yelling at her.

Inside I'm panicking because I can't find him and then I remember that I have to try and stay calm.  Lu helps me like I help her when it's the other way around because quietly, silently, and straight out loud shouting we both know that Death is the enemy.

Worst of all:  it is nothing we can fight or do anything about.  This immovable fact.  This hole that is a wall that is our son that is impossible.

That impenetrable barrier silences me when I get too pissed off about the daily bullshit that's easy to fight about.  We'll argue about some dumb thing, some mis-communication and then that spirals deeper, past our petty disagreement to the true source of our sadness and anger.

Suddenly I see that we are sharing that space and my anger is gone.  I'm not mad at her.  She's my rock and my partner.  Lu is my biggest fan and best friend.  Whatever fight we're having it has nothing to do with what is really going on.

The problem is that what is really going on is nothing we can fight, not even together.  There is us, here.  There is Silas beyond reach.  And there is his death between us all.

I fight against that every day, even without realizing it.  By getting up and going out.  By facing the day and whatever it brings.  By attempting to excel at whatever is before me, in each action and step I am battling the enemy that could all too easily consume me.  The Void, his absence.  Death.  I feel it in my stomach, in my heart, in my skin.  But I brush it off, again and again, determined to live bright and true.

Still, sometimes I have to shout.  I need to shout to get it out of my throat and still it sticks there, his death lodged in my soul like a vein coal.  I trace it like a labyrinth, round and round, all the way down, calmer by the moment as I see that it spells his name and that I will never be without him, even though I will always be without him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What calms you?  Are you able to pull back from the anger and sadness of your loss when you turn that on the people around you?  What do you do to fight against Death, against the absence of your lost child?

As if losing a baby wasn't loss enough

Well, it's official.

According to today's "Motherlode" blog at the NYT titled "Breaking Up After Miscarriage" (sign-in may be required), a Michigan Study (discussed here and) published in Pediatrics  (Abstract) claims that couples who experience a miscarriage are 22% more likely to break up.

More pertinent to those who read here: Those who experience stillbirth (they say nothing of neonatal death or late-term termination as causalities, but I imagine the same applies) "had a 40 percent higher risk of their relationship ending."

Impressively, the study ran for 15 years, and contains information for 7,700 couples. It concludes that "for a miscarriage, the risk persists up to three years after the loss. For stillbirths, it persists up to nine years after the loss, according to research data."

Yikes.

:::

My husband and I are one of those crazy couples that met the first week of college. We dated (at times long distance) for eight years until we moved in together, and another five until we got married. This summer we'll celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, and our 23rd year as a couple.

Our miscarriage way back in '02 didn't threaten our marriage. At least not in the immediate "holy shit" sense. The almost two years of infertility that encompassed the miscarriage was a bit . . . well, let's say it wasn't all rosepetals. We remained quite candid with each other about what was going on, and I guess we always thought "If we can pregnant once, certainly . . . " That is to say: there was hope. Even when the timed sex and timed vacations and the constant onslaught of pregnancy announcements filling our mailbox got old, we felt we were in it together and eventually, with enough time or money or pharmacology, it would happen.

And it did.

So even though Maddy's pregnancy rather sucked, as a couple I felt at the time of her birth that we were fine. Sure, he had been overworked for months, and I was at the end of my rope with exhaustion and longed for him to be home for a few hours, but that would come now with the baby, right?

We went through Maddy's week on earth with the same simpatico used to renovate our kitchen or purchase art together: an occasional opinion might sail slightly adrift, but eventually the other person followed. There were no raised voices, no conflicts, no epithets -- at least at each other. More often than not, we were exactly on the same page, if not the same sentence. In fact, when the doctors said they wanted to take a tissue sample of Maddy while she was alive, I wanted to ask a question and couldn't get a word out of my mouth I was choking so hard on vomit/tears. My husband simply turned to the doctor and asked, "Is there a risk she could die while she's under?" which is exactly what I was going to ask. I have no idea to this day how he knew what I was going to say. Deciding whether and when to take her off life support was less a decision than a shared feeling. Not just the same sentence, the same words. It was time.

I thought we were strong going into this, we had never had problems, and I wouldn't have described our marriage as anything other than strong and happy. And yet about ten days after Maddy's death, I made a phone call to a therapist for the both of us. I could no longer speak. I could no longer get off the couch. And given everything I had ever read in popular literature or seen in a movie or a bad Lifetime tv special, we were doomed to fail. Hell if I was going to lose my husband along with my baby.

In retrospect I don't think therapy saved our marriage. Was it good for our marriage? Absolutely -- it's always good to have an hour set aside to discuss what's eating you with a neutral sounding board in the room so you don't end up throwing the piles of poo at each other. I think we're just one of those couples that came in with fairly good communication skills and a rather solid marriage and needed some reminding and nudging and support. Not to mention four walls, an uninterrupted hour, and a sense of safety and security discussing the worst thing that had ever happened to either of us, as individuals let alone as a couple.

I guess I'm one of those people that looks at this study and on the one hand, I'm thinking I should probably not be so naive as to not check my husband's email or text messaging some time; and on the other I'm not wholly surprised nor am I afraid. I think I feel that your mutual experience of a trauma as a couple is only as stable as what you bring into it. That is, I'd like to see if these stats are much different for couples who experience financial ruin, for example. And that if you're not communicating horribly well, it probably takes far less than a miscarriage to start to fray at the edges.

Sadly though, according to this study, there's still time. Six more years, in fact, of an increased risk for hubby and I. So I can either wring my hands, or fling myself into it. We can continue to talk -- or not. We often find ourselves -- humorously -- asking each other how we "feel" about certain things, in our best therapist voices. But even though it's brought up with a smile, we are asking the question, aren't we? I feel as though we've been tried by fire, and made it through.

At least, so far.

How would you describe your marriage before and after the death of your child(ren)? Are you a couple that's finding it difficult to work through this particular tragedy, or is it one of those things that you feel will make you stronger? Did you do anything as a couple after babyloss that you feel helped you (or in retrospect, do you wish you had done something)? How far out are you, and does the above study's extended timeline of risk worry you? Please reply anonymously if you need to.

Hey...

As weeks go, this one is a whopper. Easter advertisements everywhere, even in my junk mail. All pastel colors and adorably grown up kid outfits. On, you know, actual kids. Kid models, sure, but still kids. Smiling, making like they get along, all of them, but most especially brothers and sisters.

This week, of course, is also Passover. Which is all about saving a people, or forging one. It is a holiday about family, both in the sense of the story at its core and in terms of who one traditionally spends it with. But it's also about dead firstborns. A minor detail, that.

And this weekend will be a lot about, you know, resurection. And lovely pastel outfits.

So I thought it's time for one of these again, a how are you thread. So...

Hey... How are you? How is this new season treating you? How are you treating yourself?

work in progress

This time of year is really good at hitting me while I’m down. 

There are a string of dates that, starting around Valentine’s Day, tend to make me feel as though I’m on the losing side of a boxing match.  Chronically blurry-eyed and a bit battered, I’m just dragging myself to an upright position as the next blow is dealt, reminding me precisely where my weakness still resides. 

I cower, hands shielding my head, praying for time to fly. 

My husband’s birthday,

Sadie’s birthday on the following day,

Three weeks of in-your-face marketing that culminate with the UK’s Mother’s Day, and

Pulling up the rear – last but not least – the anniversary of her death. 

Next week, two years will have passed.

I bought myself pink and yellow tulips last Sunday. A Mother’s Day present to myself. I still have my first and only card from my husband, telling me how great I was going to be.

I really need April to just get here already. 

.::. 

There are some things that have gotten a little easier for me, with time. 

Saying it out loud, for example.  In the first year after she died, saying the words was physically impossible to do without a full-on breakdown. To respond to the question of whether or not I had children with a no felt like a betrayal. Yet for the longest time to respond with, “We had a daughter, but she passed away,” was akin to reliving the day she died.

Living quietly with it has always been easier than actually forcing those words out into the universe.  Now, while the lump in my throat may not be any smaller, talking around it no longer renders me speechless, or awash in tears.

Hearing pregnancy news from friends has also grown easier, if not the source of excitement it once was. And who’s kidding whom - I doubt it ever will. I remember thinking many times that people were no better than we were. That they hardly deserved the joy that had been so cruelly and unexpectedly taken from us, over us. My anger knew no boundaries, from friends and family to, curiously and in particular, strangers on the street. 

Then out of nowhere came the realisation one day that one had nothing to do with the other. Absolutely nothing. Instantly and surprisingly, it became easier for me.

.::.

But whoa boy, there are some biggies that haven’t changed.

To me, and much to the chagrin of my husband, I still cannot be around newborns. As in truly INCAPABLE. I learned that lesson the hard way over and over again in the grocery store, at the office, and on the riverboat I occasionally ride to work.  The soft newness and the quietly opened-wide eyes do me in. What they do, when I really sit here to think about it, is send me back in time. I can feel them without touching them, and I can smell them without getting too close.

Every last fibre in my body tenses up with the physical equivalent to missing. I miss her. I miss miss miss MISS her. More than I could ever adequately describe and I know that in this space I don’t need to. Extended exposure to newborns = one really fucked up Jen.  

Working up the nerve to try again remains my biggest of biggies.

It’s on my radar. I know that people in my life who I love very dearly are waiting for it.  If I had to have eleven kids or none at all, I’d be signing up. If only someone could tell me that it wouldn’t happen all over again.

It’s a tough subject. It’s truly amazing what lengths I've gone to in order to distract myself from it. Or how many times I've nervously asked the universe to not write me off while I sort myself out.

I have learned to put one foot in front of the other and survive. There are even some areas of our life together that have thrived. Yet I have no way of knowing if that switch will ever be flipped with honest conviction. From all talk and no action to real life and taking the leap. 

Perhaps all I need is a shove? 

.::.

What my distracted mind can surmise with the modest reflection that I allow myself is that two years on, I remain a work in progress. 

I can live with that.

.::.

For those of you more than a year or two out from your loss, will you share what’s gotten easier for you, if anything? And what hasn’t?

Vices

They squeeze me.  Thousands of them.  Millions.  Billions.  Tiny, invisible, impossible little clamps on every molecule of my body compress my form making me dense and heavy.

The twists are powered by hopes halfway and memories the other.  The leverage of those screws cannot be denied. They press me into myself and I fall into bed leaden.

How often do you feel like the only person in the World that feels like you do?

How often do you cry?

My dreams are a mystery and a refuge.  Sometimes I wake up thinking I was just where I should be, not here.  Not this.  Not again.  Nonetheless, yes.

No, not none.  Me-the-less.  This World-the-less without Silas. I'm still not sure how it is possible, that I can still be missing him.  That he needs to be missed. That cognitive dissonance disorients me every day.  It fucks with my soul, it complicates friendships, it makes family distant and uncertain.

Silas didn't do that to me, but his absence has.  And there is absolutely no way to miss him more, but I've been missing him for so long now that it feels like more.

Deeper and deeper this longing has wormed its way into my being.  Each day without him and each day without another child compresses me, packs me tighter into myself.  This pressure of reproduction is devastating.  Staying positive and letting go and having faith in love and science and sex all sounds so easy and right, but all of that is almost impossible to contain in these tightly packed cells of mine.  I have room for so little beyond survival of my psyche sometimes, but sometimes my dreams take me deeper.

In one dream I am driving and it is pitch black.  Black so black the light of my headlights that I know are on are swallowed only inches from the paired glass at the front my speeding car.  I'm certain the wipers are working, but I can't see them because the windshield is obsidian except for the brief flecks of white that must be snow.

Downhill I drive, the car faster than I want it to be but I have places I need to go down the road, just beyond this hellish storm.

My hands are white and bloodless on the steering wheel.  A deathgrip.  I'm breathing only through my nose.

And then it happens as I knew it would.  The car just goes.  Out from under me it goes.  Wheels suddenly spinning, loose and free, sliding frictionless through the snow-flecked darkness I feel the whole machine lose purpose and coherence around me.

The steering wheel is jellied spaghetti.  There's no turning back because I'm pretty sure I'm airborne, spinning and spiraling into disaster and I remember something I heard from my brother I think: That if you're in a car accident that the reason the fucking drunks are always okay is because they are so trashed they don't tense up and so they don't get as fucked up when physics take over.  All that in an instant I remember and so I go loose.  I relax as the car spins through the air, through the endless darkness, through the blizzarding, blowing snow.

And then it's over.  The car catches back onto the road.  Not airborne.  Not crashed.  Torque and control return in an instant and as I clutch and slow I see the destination up ahead.  It's a road-house of some kind.  A way station and restaurant and hotel maybe out in the middle of no where, but it's where I was going.

I get out of the car and it's really snowing now.  I find some people that live or work or play there and I asked them about Lu and everyone I was supposed to meet.

Surprised and dismissive they tell me I'm wrong.  Not the place I'm looking for.  Not where everyone else is.  Not my destination at all.

Up that way, they tell me, and point back up the road I almost died on just now.  An hour, maybe two, someone says and I feel the clamps of inevitability twist another turn on every cell of my body.  I'm sputtering, distraught.

You can't stay here, man, he says to me.  You gotta go back up that way, back out of the storm up the road.  Back exactly the way you came.  I want to tell them that I can't.  That I almost died there.  That the path I just came from is impossible for me to traverse again.  I open my mouth to speak, but they're gone, there's no one for me to talk to, no one to argue this impossibility into nonexistence.

So I do what I must, as always.  The door shuts me into the car like the vices I feel in my skin.  My mind tightens to focus on the road ahead.  My hands clamp the wheel, I accelerate into the darkness, uphill and snowy.

Lu is that way, so I've got to go.  No point staying where I'm not supposed to be.  No point in being afraid of death.  After all, when I die someday far along down this dark, snowy road, maybe Silas will be there.  And if not, maybe someone will know which way he went.  And wherever that is, anywhere in the many brutal & beautiful Universes of this World, someday I'll find him no matter what the weather, no matter how long I must be without him.

Lu will be with me I'm sure, but I've got to go get her first.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What are your dreams?  Where are you going?  How do you describe the pressure of your loss and grief?