the past

I have an old friend from long ago who went on to become a doula and builds her whole life around pregnancy and childbirth.  She is getting more involved in still birth, infant loss and miscarriage and introduced me to a website which honors the BIRTHDAY of babies who didn't survive.  It's really intense stuff, and I visit these thoughts and emotions when I can, but I cannot breathe it all in daily.  The poignancy of that particular website is that it honors and remembers lost lives, when the general population dismisses these lives and tends to say, 'Don't Worry, You'll Have Another...'

Many of the therapeutic approaches I've been thrown into involved shedding the past, forgetting about it, and just move forward from this point on.  Doctors had been quick to diagnose me and medicate me, telling me it was all biological brain chemistry.

But trauma is different.  I read this quote yesterday from one of the docs at the center I go to:

"...if the events have been recurrent or we are young and vulnerable or have inadequate support, we can be left with a host of intense responses and symptoms that 'tell the story' without words and without knowledge that we are remembering events and feelings from long ago.'

I grew up with violence, had a terribly violent high school boyfriend, and while I've risen above it and try not to live in the past, it happened.  I have come a looooooong way.  I remember fear stifling me any time I ever encountered aggression in the workplace.  All kinds of scenarios would trigger responses.

Now that I'm getting a better handle on my 'responses,' I feel like I'm on a more, hmmmm, what's the word....'steady' path.  But I still have a long way to go.

longing.

It's such an overwhelming feeling to have longed for something for years.  I don't know how these sensations develop except that it's part of innate biological makeup.  It can seem so mysterious at times, too.

And different people long for different things.  Of course they do.  Everyone is so damn wildly different.  What would the world be if we all sought out the same things?

I don't know what the future holds for me and my 'longings.'  But after talking to different women who are older and I've come to know through all the trials and tribulations I've watched them encounter, I've been assured that my longings aren't 'silly' ones, for lack of a better word.  It's very hard for me to express, but this text slightly touches upon it:

"If motherhood didn’t matter so much, it wouldn’t merit such feelings of the heart. Only because motherhood is a sacred responsibility of boundless importance does it engender such depth of feeling.

Motherhood is not a checklist of attributes. It’s a description of a person who loves another more than life itself. No two mothers are just alike. Not a single one is expected to be perfect—or close to it. Mothers with foresight know they do their best simply by doing a little better every day.

Mothers nurture and love; they create homes of warmth and safety; they cultivate strengths and see potential. “A mother is the first and most important teacher in a child’s life.”[i]

No one can adequately take a mother’s place. She willingly walks into the valley of the shadow of death as she gives life. And then she walks alongside her children, sustaining them until they venture on their own. Even then, her heart follows close behind and skips a beat every time she hears their footsteps—every time their thoughts turn to home."

---

[i] Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen, The Belonging Heart: The Atonement and Relationships with God and Family (1994), 294.

I am heavied by these sentiments.  I don't know if  it's going to happen. 

Hugest thing of my life.

It's huge.

La tristesse d'une vie

There are so many things that have happened in my life that nobody ever told me were even possibilities that could happen.  So much has happened that I could have never been prepared for.

Nobody around me ever told me that depression and anxiety could cause a breakdown which could lead to hospitalization.  And nobody told me it could hover for years, and that people would say terrible, judgmental things that would be permanently fixated in the mind.

Nobody ever told me that the joy and excitement that pregnancy brings could end abruptly in a tragic loss.  Nobody really mentioned that the grief could last for years, and quite possibly, the remainder of one's life here on earth.

The general response from people surrounding you after losing a pregnancy is, "Oh, don't worry.  You can try again."

The first doctor to approach me to discuss the delivery and implications of surgery being that I was almost five months along said just this:

"Some women go through this 7, sometimes 8 times before they are able to go on and have a healthy, happy family."

Other things people said:

"There was probably something wrong with the baby so it's a blessing this happened."

"Don't worry, this will pass and you'll heal and you'll go on to have a whole house full of children."

"Take some time to yourself to heal, give it a year or more, and you can try again."

"So, you have a history of depression.  Are you currently in treatment?  You ought to discuss medication with a psychiatrist as soon as possible."

"I believe you will meet this soul again in your life."

"It will be hard the next time you try, but next time everything will be just fine."

"I'm so very sorry.  I had a miscarriage once.  But look at my beautiful family I have now!"

"You're still young enough.  You've got plenty of time."

"The same thing happened to Vince's wife.  Except she carried the baby full-term before it died during delivery.  Didn't she have to carry around a doll or something for awhile after that?"

"Even if you go on to not have any kids, just get some dogs."

"God has a plan for you so put your faith in His hands."

Oh, and so much more.

I kind of brushed myself off for years after it happened.  But the sorrow is still there.  My therapist says it will always be there.  That I will always be that baby's mother.

What is so difficult to grasp with perinatal loss is that it's a sort of an abstract loss.  You don't have memories to hold onto like you do when you've lost someone who was always present in your life.  It's more of a feeling of loss of a certain hope.  An abrupt loss of joy.  I can't quite put my finger on the right words.  I don't know that I ever will.

Writing about it helps, talking about it helps, but only when I'm up for it.  Coping with all difficulties in life requires putting on a strong face and going forth in the world.

But it's important to take time out from Moving Forward and take time to breathe and grieve.

Shedding 100mg of emotion

I have an overwhelming feeling right at this moment and all I want to do right now is pull the blankets over my head and hide and do nothing.  I don't want to open my journal to write about my therapy session today.  I don't want to talk to anyone.  I don't want to do anything but curl up in a ball and let sadness become me.

I was reading a plaque on the wall at the center about healing from trauma before my appointment and it made me focus solely on that word:  trauma.  Maybe it was a KEYWORD that I needed to see today to encourage me to release some of the depression surrounding my experiences with trauma.  I've covered it before in other sessions, but maybe it was the 100mg less of a pill that really allowed me to release tears and let my therapist see my physical agitation of associated feelings deeply affecting my mind, body and soul.  She asked me one question that I don't think I've ever been asked so directly before and man, the dam burst and years of agitation shivered out of me and tears rolled and rolled and rolled off my face and followed me on the train and bus rides home.  There's nothing worse than crying on public transportation.

Birth trauma is something I have not really discussed with too many people.  I had never heard much about it, and even after giving birth over six years ago, I still haven't really encountered the appropriate measures to talk about perinatal loss and release the years of layered emotions that I carry with me every day.

The thing about trauma is that it does not go away.  I am going to forever remember the doctors, the ambulance, the contractions, the delivery, the legal questions, the religious questions, the blood, the way my body responded to an abrupt change and how my body changed from those few days in the hospital forever.  Leaving the hospital with no child in my arms.  It happened over six years ago and yet at times the grief feels like it just all happened again a few days ago.  I carry this with me.  Every day.  

I think about the child.  I've had dreams where I'm a mother and the happiness I feel in those dreams resonates when I awake.  I will never forget the sound of the baby's heartbeat.  And I will never forget the nurse showing me the baby's heart in the ultrasound monitor and how it was no longer beating.

Suppressing emotions of sadness and grief and masking the body's natural emotional response with loads of psychiatric pills doesn't work for me.  Maybe it works for people who just like to mask their pain, kind of like an acceptable form of "self-medicating," but I need to allow my body to release this stuff.  I need something different.  

I need optimism, because this is very heavy stuff.  I'm getting there, but days like today are grueling and exhaust me. 

In Memory Of....

Had a sad crying spell at an annual perinatal loss memorial service today.  We were supposed to have a tree ceremony in the courtyard and place our flowers on a tree but alas, il pleuvait.  (it has been raining all day...)

But it was followed by ice cream and some new music.

You really never, ever, ever, ever forget.

(That is a real scan of the little angel's little footsies.  I also have a picture of her in her little March of Dimes crocheted hat but that will not be plastered on the internet.  Some things must remain sacred.)

She would have been 2 years and 3 months today.

Sigh.

Orphan

Saw the movie Orphan today. I hesitated.... one side of me just simply loves a scary creepy movie yet the other side of me has to be careful with themes. Art, film, books....to experience something then find it roaming around there in the universe like that. Sometimes I experience artistic sensory overload. I prefer it this way. Makes one not feel so alone in the universe, nest-ce pas?

I read Time Travelers Wife while on medical leave on what they call 'pelvic rest' after a specific sort of trauma had occured. A nurse from the insurance company called to check on my pregnancy after she noticed something was happening from recent medical claims and I had just gotten to the part where the character in the book was in the the same hospital I was in after several days of lots of blood and no more little heartbeat or movement inside the womb. I had just gone through it....this same very experience....had that book sitting on the shelf for months...and just picked it up on a whim...same exact hospital as mentioned in the book and well....I just kinda lost it on the phone with that nurse. They say to stay away from certain themes and surround yourself with sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, but sometimes connecting to a fictional tale at that particular moment of pain is kinda God's way of sayin, "I wish this world was perfect and one never had to endure pain, but darlin' (at this point God brushed the hair out of my teary eyes with a tad of an Elvis-like swagger) women's pain is one of the most defining moments of divinity you may find yourself floating in. I am Here."

Mr. T and I caught the first showing of the film Orphan this morning. Even the opening scene was difficult for me to watch. Flashbacks. Surrounded by doctors and nurses in a hazy fog hearing, "I'm so sorry for your loss." Over and over and over again. Sitting on a bench outside the hospital while Mr. T went to pull up the car two years ago, my white box filled with items from the March of Dimes as a woman was rolled up next to me with her newborn baby in her arms and balloons and flowers and family all around. Yes, the opening scene of today's movie and whispers of it throughout the film were very difficult reminders.

But if I had to express myself and my experience, an angry horror film isn't too far off.

Sooooooo soooo many themes in this movie and I don't want to give away any of the twists. Controversial? What ISN'T controversial these days?

Anyway....

my heart feels a lil heavy during this time of the year.
i'd change the lyric in Lucinda Williams' 'Heaven Blues' from 'mother' to 'child.'

connective tissues

In the spirit of subconscious signs that I am to follow without speaking of (my secret new year's resolution which I just broke), I am finding lots of resonance in simply enjoying moments. Any film I watch, any new piece of music I discover, I am allowing it to resonate, sans critique, sans comparison. Just enjoying for the sake of enjoying. Certainly there will be things that don't jive, people who don't float my boat, anger that I will find repulsive, unneccessary angst, but I will quickly move on and seek the next moment in my path.

Am I on a path? Certainly I must be. We all must be.

A year and a half ago, I spent a few days in the hospital delivering an almost five-month old fetus. The extremes of emotion were relentlessly brutal. What was John Lennon saying...life is what happens when you're busy making other plans? I was preparing to take that journey toward parenthood, to step away from Self, to devote my world to this new creation and I was neck-deep making those plans.

Then death stops you in your tracks.

And you return to the Self to deal with it.

We never found a scientific explanation for the loss, so I turn to the Spirit to duke things out. When you turn to the Spirit, see, you no longer have to deal with the Self.

I was in the hospital two other times prior to the miscarriage. And the focus at that time was a psychiatric focus where I was forced to turn away from the Spirit and deal with the Self. Because I was told the Self was not well. I often wonder what those 'friends' who veered me down that road are up to.

These were all very strange times in my life. And they seem like a distant dream I once had. They don't even feel like they happened.

But the point of all this is that we are all searching. Or rather, those of us who are truly ALIVE are still searching. This is only further demonstrated to me when a big rock star comes in and buys Paulo Coelho and self-help spiritual guides from me.

I often wonder where my focus should lie in my Great American Novel I need to chisel away at. Maybe the topic of miscarriage is a journey I was guided to write about?