My Girl

I was watching My Girl in the hospital.
I was a strange mix between being tired and being emotional.
They'd just given me the medicine to start my contractions (so I could give birth to my dead daughter) and I was convinced it wasn't going to work (In that moment, as in most of my pregnancy after I found out Mia was sick and would die, I just wanted it to be over with.)
"You need to give me more," I cried to the nurse, unsure of why I was crying. I was wrapped up in some of those blankets from the warmers. I had an IV in my left arm, medicine that was supposed to help me give birth to my dead daughter flowing into me.
"You're fine," The nurse assured me, "Just try to relax, darling. Labor will start before you know it."
But I wasn't convinced. I was hysterical. More, I needed more.
I just wanted her out, just wanted this nightmare to be over. I was terrified of the idea that the medicine meant to induce labor wouldn't work.
I kept trying to get up out of bed and go somewhere (I'm not really sure where). I kept asking for more medicine, kept hysterically sobbing and telling the nurse it wasn't going to work.
In the end, I did end up needing more medicine.
In the end, I got an epidural. I pushed and screamed and cried, the warm blanket that was quickly losing its heat wrapped under me, stuck to my back with sweat.
And there she was, so tiny, so fragile, so perfect.
This wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want a dead baby. In that moment I would have done anything to put her back inside me, where she belonged, where she was safe and alive.
All the while the closing song from My Girl played from the TV screen in the corner of the hospital room. I don't even know how it was still on, but it was.

My Girl, My Girl, My Girl.

Hatred and Loneliness

Someone I know is having a baby. I woke up one morning, checked social media, and saw status updates from my friends about someone having died, a little one having passed on. Immediately my breath got stuck in my throat. Had something happened to my friend's baby?
It turns out there was another little boy in our community who drown.
I hate that I live in a world where babies die.
***
I came home from work today, exhausted. I barely made it into the house before I was hit with a wave of nausea. I stumbled to the couch and lay there, sipping on water and chewing crackers until the urge to vomit passed. But as I was lying there, I thought about how much it felt like the morning sickness I'd had with Mia. All of a sudden I was bawling on the couch, gagging over a bucket, screaming for my little girl. Because this moment, being so sick I could barely move, it reminded me of her.
I hate that the one thing that reminds me of her is sickness.
***
I got an email today from an old friend of mine. I haven't seen him since pre pregnancy, pre Mia, pre becoming a dead baby mama. So he sent me this nice, chatty email apologising for the lack of communication, asking how I was and how my Easter was.
What do I say to him?
Do I tell him about Mia? If I did, would that make me seem like I wanted pity? How would my friend respond to hearing about my dead baby? When he asked how I was, did he really want to know how I was or did he just want a glossed over, 'fine' answer?
Do I not mention Mia? Would not mentioning her feel like lying betrayal? I could just say I'm fine, but that, of course, would be a lie, but how do you tell someone you doesn't even know you were pregnant, and had a stillbirth, that life sucks so much some days I can't even get out of bed without sounding like a suicidal nut case?
I hate that I have to think about these things now.
***
I'm numbing the pain with too much to drink, not enough to eat and countless hours spent in front of the TV watching TV shows on DVD. It's not a permanent fix, I know that, but I don't know what else to do right now. Feeling hurts too much...

On Monday, I had a rather upsetting conversation with my friend. She basically told me that losing Mia was preventable (It wasn't, the doctors have assured me, there was nothing Cam nor I did that caused her medical conditions and, ultimately, her death, though that doesn't stop the guilt from washing over me) and she told me if I wanted to have any chance at a future and becoming a powerful, strong, inspiring woman I needed to get over my daughter's death.
What the hell?!?!
I wish I would have been witty that day, coming back with a sharp, sarcastic remark.
Instead I went home, locked myself in my room and cried. I got snot all over my pillow and my eyes were red and puffy and my hair was messy from raking my hands through it as I screamed and I looked more like a zombie and less like an actual human.
I hate that I have to deal with people like this, and especially hearing this stuff come from people I thought supported me and were there for me.
I hate that everything I feel hurts and I just want to run away from my life
I hate that this is my life

If you wanna leave a comment in response to my baby loss angst and venting, tell me what you would do in regards to my friend who sent me the email. Tell me the ways you numb yourself (or if you do...), tell me what you would have said to this 'friend' of mine who said those rude things about my daughters death (in case I decide to send her a strongly worded email). Tell me about you, and how you've been doing. What makes you miss your babies? What makes you burn up with anger and hatred?
Or just talk to me... cause I've been feeling a little lonely now that I'm here all by myself.

It should have been different...

I've written here before (I think) about how a friend of mine has a baby girl who was born only a few days before I lost Mia.
I am in love with my friend's daughter. While every milestone baby S reaches is a reminder of the milestones Mia will never reach, it also feels like an honor to get to watch baby S grow up and have that physical reminder.
So, last night, I offered to watch baby S so her mama and daddy could go out.
Our evening was full of fun, including a poopy diaper (Which went everywhere, including all up her back and on her feet and on me) and a leaking bottle (Spilling milk all down her and all over me)
At bed time, I took baby S into a dark room, and held her to my chest as we walked back and forth across the floor.
I let myself imagine, for a minute, that I wasn't holding baby S, but Mia.
I imagined that I wasn't waiting for her parents to come home, but for Cam to come home from a night out.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the baby scent and imagined Mia was here.
I absolutely love my friend's daughter. I am the best non-official auntie ever. And I've promised to go with her mom to take her for her first pedicure and I want to be the one who teaches her how to drive in an empty grocery store parking lot and maybe take her to get her ears pierced or her first tattoo.
Because we should have been doing that together, little S and her mama and Mia and me.
And instead of hiding under my covers because I don't get to do those things with my daughter, I want to do those things, to honor my daughter.
It just hurts so much sometimes because she should have been here.
Things should have been different
But they're not
and it sucks

7 Months

I imagine she would look like me, with blonde curls and wide eyes full of curiosity.
She would have my tender heart and her daddy's tough spirit. She would be reckless and dangerous, just like her father, which would give her mother a heart attack.
She would have the best giggle, and her smile would light up a room.
She would be a daddy's girl, with a soft spot for her mama.
She would be stubborn and opinionated but with a charm that got her out of any trouble, just like her daddy had.
She would be able to melt my heart.
She would be my world.
Cam would walk with her when she cried, colicky during the night, letting me sleep between feedings. His eyes would be bloodshot when I found him in the morning, but she would be sleeping on his chest, and he would have a smile on his face.
We would live in a little trailer, barely scraping by, but living off of love.
I can't imagine my life being more complete than it would be if I was with them.


But here's the thing, I'm not with them. For 7 long months I haven't been waking up for midnight feedings or holding our girl or watching her grow up in front of my eyes and seeing she has a great dislike for green beans but loves mixed berries. My acts of parenting have been reduced to these: sobbing into my pillow in the wee hours of the morning, her ashes sitting on my bookshelf. I held her once (for a few minutes) and I dressed her (In an outfit that was much too big for her tiny body, as we never expected her to be born so small) and we burned her (ashes to ashes, dust to dust) and I cried (all I know of her is grief)
And here's the crazy thing, I wouldn't take any of it back. I wouldn't trade any of the tears or the pain because those few moments I got with her (that didn't seem long enough), they were magical.
It's 7 months out and this time around I felt like my body remembered before my mind did. Usually it's the other way around. Usually this date is marked on my calendar, the only day unscheduled, and when the day comes I sit for it, upright, tall, perfect posture, taking a warrior position as if I can fight against the emotional pain that comes along with this day.
I grew tired and cried when I was in the shower or in bed or watching TV or just sitting on the couch. I felt like I was walking around with the flu, though I'm not sick.
And then today came...
My first anniversary alone...
I don't know how this is supposed to work... I'm sitting here, chewing on my lip, trying to decide what to do (I've been terribly indecisive as well, standing in front of the open fridge for nearly half an hour before deciding I want take out), wondering how I am supposed to deal with this day.
I'm not there to hold my girl or kiss her face or watch her grow up.
He's not here to share it with me, to hold me while I cry, to remember her too
So I do the only thing I know how to do
I let the tears fall (Grief is all I have left of them) and I pull her ashes out from behind the stack of books I'd purposefully set there so I didn't have to look at them every day and remember what I lost, and I turn on some music and order that takeout and turn off the phone
And then I fall onto my bed and have a good cry

I miss you, sweet Mia girl. I love you. Happy 7 month birthday