If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever

It is a beautiful spring morning, a few hours before the sun will rise. It is cool, damp, the birds are beginning to sing sleepy songs, and you can, finally after an endless winter, smell the hopeful scent of flowers.

Every bit of me longs for sleep, for rest. But I have been driven out of bed by spawn-induced insomnia and thoughts of Harper.

I woke up drenched in sweat, our bedroom uncomfortably warm as the house adjusts to the new paradigm of spring and warmer weather. As the yoga teachers say, my mind was like a mad monkey, and rather than settling back down to sleep, I began to run through my mental to-do list.

And I thought about Harper's bushes.

We planted them on Mother's Day last year. They served as the backdrop of her memorial service, chosen in haste from a garden center because the blaze of pink azaleas reminded me of everything I wished my little girl could have had, every stereotypical girly urge that I didn't realize I had until I lost her.

They didn't survive the winter, unfortunately. And the failure of that stings me, makes me feel I have let Harper down once again.

But now, at 4 AM, I have become obsessed with replanting them. It doesn't matter to me that they're not the exact same bushes. I want that visible reminder, something I can point to for Shea and spawn to come to say "these help us remember our Harper bean."

And then I began thinking about benches. How nice it would be to have a little stone bench between them, So, it is now nearly 5 AM, and I have spent the past hour obsessively Googling stone memorial benches, because these are the sorts of irrational behaviors one engages in when awash in a sea of mourning and pregnancy hormones.

I haven't found the perfect bench. But I may have found the perfect sentiment to put on it, "If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever."

If only.

Shea cheerfully told our new neighbors today about Harper dying. We were on a family walk (or, in my case, waddle), and introduced ourselves to a recently moved in family, out doing yard work. Spring is like that; we suddenly encounter people we've not seen through the long, hibernating winter months.

After introducing Denver dog, Shea began the kind of monologue unique to small children, "We also had London girl, but she died. And baby Harper died, too. We had baby Harper, but she died."

He is rightfully proud that he remembers these things. That he gets his facts straight.

Sometimes I inadvertently confuse things for him. I've been struggling with constant headaches for the past couple of weeks, just one of the joys of late pregnancy. It finally got bad enough that I checked in with my doctor's office.

"Is this your first pregnancy?," asked the kind voice of the nurse.

"No," I told her, "It's my third."

"So, you have two kids?"

"No, I have one kid. We lost a child."

At this point, Shea, who had been eavesdropping near by, piped in, "No, you didn't, mommy. You didn't lost a child."

I  hushed him to finish the conversation, but when I hung up, he persisted. "But you said you lost a child and you didn't lose a child."

I explained to him how "lost" is another way to say someone has died, and in this case, I meant Harper bean. He didn't ask any more questions, but I wonder if that's what put the thought in his mind as he introduced himself to the new neighbors. Or maybe his brain is now wired to think Denver-London-death-baby Harper.

Soon, I will be up at this time nursing spawn. I suspect it'll be a lot harder to type and nurse at the same time, nor am I sure I would want to. It's different than the wee hours I spent pumping for Harper, hooked up to that awful machine, strategically placed pillow and laptop on my lap, trying to expunge my sorrow into a computer keyboard.

I don't know if this blog will survive the birth of spawn. If I will need the therapy of it anymore. Maybe that's OK.

The birds are chirping more loudly now.
Like the bushes, it will help me remember, make sure I don't forget.

The inability to whine

So, here's the thing about being pregnant after you've lost a child: you feel incredibly guilty about complaining.

After being blessed with a healthy, normal pregnancy, a second chance rainbow baby, it very much feels like I've lost my right to complain. I've now spent a lot of time with women who have experienced loss, or multiple losses, or are struggling with seriously ill children or infertility, and it makes many of them very angry when women who are having normal pregnancies complain about the downsides of being pregnant.

I get that. I've felt that, too.

But what do you do when you're, frankly, kind of miserable in the last few weeks of pregnancy? When that healthy, big, baby boy is crushing your pelvis, wreaking havoc on your internal organs, fostering agonizing heartburn, and just generally making you uncomfortable?

It makes me realize, ironically, how spoiled I was with Harper. She was such a tiny little thing, we never reached this last miserable stage together. Plus, I was so over the top with anxiety about her medical conditions and fear of her arriving early that I barely had time to think about my own condition. Every pain and twinge immediately made me worry something was wrong with the baby.

The spawn is not tiny. And he is making me intensely uncomfortable. I ache all over, and I can't sleep. Sometimes I catch myself thinking, "Am I done yet?"

And then I remember.

How desperate I was to get to the full term mark with Harper. How scary the idea of a premature baby with a heart defect seemed. How horrible life in the NICU was. How lucky I am to be pregnant again, with a healthy baby. How others I know are not so lucky.

So, I bite my tongue.

The anxiety doesn't help. The way I deal with anxiety is to get things done. It makes me feel better. It's why the days and weeks after Harper's death were a whirlwind of cleaning and organization and errands. Every fiber in me itches to combat the paranoia I feel about these last few weeks of pregnancy with similar activities.

Impossible to do when one can barely move. Swollen, lumbering, painful me is physically incapable of getting the stuff done that I want to, I need to, get done. It's part of what keeps me up at night. That, and the baby trying to break my ribcage and pummel my kidneys.

Everyone tells me to take it easy. Slow down. But I can't do it. When I stop, I think. And thinking is not good, right now. Thinking leads to worry. I'd rather be doing.

But I'm just so damn tired...

11 months gone

It is the final anniversary of Harper bean's death before the arrival of spawn.

One month from today, I will be holding my son. Hopefully healthy and whole.

The month of April has already brought with it a flood of memories and milestones. One year ago today, I reached full term in my pregnancy. It was a huge milestone for me, and I remember feeling enormous relief that at least my baby would not be born prematurely. That, somehow, it was all going to be OK.

This weekend is the annual April show of the Sugarloaf Crafts Festival. I went last year, at this time, to distract myself from worry about my heartbroken bean and upcoming birth. I love this show - it's wear I bought my wedding ring, our dining room furniture, countless gifts, and half the art in our house.

Last year, I bought a dress.

It was black and artsy and stretchy and unique. "Hopefully it'll fit," I remember joking with the artist, "since I clearly can't try it on now!"

The first time I wore it was to Harper's memorial service.

About this time last year, we went to Opening Day at Nats Park, as we did yesterday. We joked about going into labor at the ballgame.

At least the sea of Harper jerseys no longer causes me pain. At least, not more than a twinge.

I can't believe it's been almost a year since we lost her.

I wonder a lot about what these anniversaries will be like after spawn is here. Will my calendar feel as haunted?

Is it OK if I forget a little?

My spawn paranoia is getting worse. I keep myself busy because when I'm not, I think about everything that can go wrong. The heartbeat just stopping. Listeriosis. Deafness. Blindness. Heart defect. Getting caught on the cord.

Fortunately, spawn has been reassuringly, painfully active. No missing that he's alive and kicking.

Except for right at this moment. Right at this moment when he's not moving at all, and I am trying not to think too much about it.

26 more days of waiting.

One month to spawn

One month from today, we will meet spawn.

Time feels like it is dragging by so very slowly, punctuated by big baby kicks.

I remember taking it one day at a time with Harper at this stage, thinking "if only I can keep this baby inside one more day, her chances will be so much better. "

(Little did I know prematurity would be the least of our concerns, in the end.)

Shea managed to somehow hit a button on our voicemail yesterday that resurrected old, saved messages. I listened to a message from the perinatologist about a CVS appointment, a little stunned.

"I can't believe that's still in there," I told Lou.

What's the big deal, he wanted to know,  it probably just didn't get deleted. It wasn't that long ago.

Not a message about spawn, I told him. Wrong doctor. That was a reminder about the CVS for Harper. From the day we got our first clue something might be wrong. October 2012. Still there. Lurking in the voicemail.

I wonder how many more emotional landmines I will run into between now and spawn's birth?

Stupid irrationality

Something stupid happened this week.

Shea was sick and missed a few days of school. No big deal, he bounced right back.

Except it ended up being a big deal, because the consequence of this is he missed the narrow window of enrollment for his karate class. Shut out. For stupid, bureaucratic reasons.

On one hand, whatever. I can intellectualize it. Tell myself he's 4, he's adaptable, this is such a first world problem, it's not really that big of a deal. It's not like he's training for the Olympics, for god's sakes.

But if I have learned nothing else over the course of the past year, it's that emotions are totally irrational.

And my irrational emotions tell me that I have totally failed. Again. I blew it. Not only was I completely helpless to save my daughter, but I have to tell my son something that I know is going to upset him greatly, even for a short period of time, because of something I didn't do.

Worlds apart in terms of magnitude, but in my mourning, pregnancy-hormone-addled heart, they kind of feel the same.

The thought of that, the thought of failing another one of my children, even in this small, stupid, meaningless way, is crushing me. If I was not so busy weeping, I'd have to laugh at myself. Crying over a karate form. Good grief.

Another example of never knowing where grief will sneak up on you.

The idea of explaining this situation to Shea - probably over and over again, because that's the way it works with 4 year olds, makes me feel like the old train in one of his favorite books:

I cannot, I cannot, I cannot...

In truth, he'll probably be totally understanding, because that's the type of kid he is. "That's OK, Mommy," he'll often tell me, when I apologize for a slip up on my part or disappointing situation.

He's a great boy. And that makes me feel worse.

The angry part of me is pissed at the bureaucracy of it. It's a bad system, and we got screwed because of it. We were responsible enough to follow the communicable disease policy of the school, and Shea is paying the price now. Angry, carefully worded emails, expressing our displeasure, have been dispatched.

But the raw part of me tells me I should have done more. I should have dropped off the form the one day he was in school that week. I should have dropped off the form, even in his absence. I should have done something. 

Surely there must be something I can do to fix this?

As with Harper, the answer appears to be "no." Nothing to be done. It is what it is.

And the irrational part of me cries and cries, even as I recognize this whole thing is just all so very stupid. So not me, or who I want to be. But irrational stupidity is enough to keep you up at night. As if I needed another incentive for insomnia.

Meanwhile, on the SLOS board, there is an effort to collect all the names and dates and addresses of babies lost to this disease. A sad list that has been getting longer throughout the day. I've not yet added Harper's name. I'm not sure why.

I wish I could sleep.

Are we there yet?

Time has slowed to an agonizingly slow pace even as I am overwhelmed with how quickly everything is flying at me.

The wee hours of the morning are here, and again, I find myself typing instead of sleeping.

The heartburn, the random weeping, the lack of comfortable sleeping positions, the occasional sharp contraction. All normal pregnancy discomforts, all aiding and abetting the anxiety in keeping me awake.

I broke down recently, crying, to Lou. I missed Harper, I told him. It was both so hard and so easy to love her. What if I can't recapture that for this next baby?

I've begun to wonder a lot more about Harper's experiences in this world. Did she feel pain? Was she sad, scared, did she know when she was alone? Did we really make her happy, did we soothe her with our touch?

(Of course, she did, Lou reminded me. She wasn't shy about making it known when she didn't like something.)

Did it hurt, those last moments of dying? Did it help that we were there?

These are the thoughts that hit me when I least expect it, and leave me wide-eyed and thinking, deep into the night, when all I really crave is sleep.

Then there are the daily small minefields.

It happened again today - speaking before a group of Chinese women scientists about career issues and work life balance, I was barraged with kindly meant questions after the talk, "Is this your first?", "This is number 2?", "Another boy? Do you also want a daughter?"

Each question stung.

I answer these now reflexively, inwardly wincing because there's no good choice between answers that are not quite right and answers that are more than a casual interaction deserves.

It reminds me of the weeks after Harper was born and died when I would reflexively answer the question, "How are you?", which I discovered is asked dozens of times in the course of a normal day.

"Fine," I would say, "OK. Hanging in there."

Even when I was as far from fine as possible.

Maybe I should just print a card I could hand to people and walk away. It might say, "This is my third child - we have a four year old boy and a daughter we lost as a newborn. We would love to have a daughter but 1) have no desire for a third child, 2) are unwilling to go through the agony again of conceiving as carriers of a fatal genetic illness; and 3) are too busy being excited by our healthy and happy new baby boy on the way."

Sigh. I shouldn't gripe. The questioner always means well, it's not their fault they're causing unintentional pain.

And as impatient as I am to meet spawn, I'm not ready yet. Too much to do. Too many anniversaries lurking on the horizon.

While feeling the baby kick, a few days ago, Shea remarked, apropos of nothing, "I think baby Harper will be sad because she didn't get to meet the new baby."

Cue immediate tears in maternal eyes.

I stumbled on the answer. "I like to believe she'll still be with us in spirit," I told Shea, "We'll still remember her, she'll still be part of our family, even if she can't really meet the new baby in person."

Although I don't think he really understood what I was trying to say, Shea is looking forward to spring largely because he wants very badly to plant the seed-embedded paper heart sent to us by hospice in memory of Harper. "We need to plant Harper's seed," he tells me, at least once a week, fretting over whether the snow will melt and pondering where best to locate them. He is keeping her spirit alive in his own way.

That's my boy.

Good night, Harper bean. I'll be thinking of you on the day your brother is born and every day in between. Maybe that's spirit enough.

Fear

You want the truth?

I'm very scared.

It's not something I like to admit, even to myself, except in the deepest, darkest hours of the night. These are thoughts I lock away, in a tiny black box, at the back of my mind. Otherwise, I would go crazy.

Once your innocence is lost, it is gone forever. This should be an easy pregnancy. Everything is perfect. All indications are that spawn is completely healthy, right on track. If this was my 2nd pregnancy, right after my perfectly easy, textbook experience with Shea, I would be relaxed, unworried.

Instead I worry all the time.

When something is seen, it cannot be unseen. I've been introduced to the world of support groups, in which perinatal loss includes not only people like me, who have lost newborns, but also those who have suffered stillbirth or other third trimester loss. I have heard heartbreaking stories, so many, many stories, of little ones lost at birth or at 30+ weeks of pregnancy.

And the thing is, most of the time, they thought everything was fine, until it wasn't. One day the baby's fine, the next the movement stops.

So, I worry. I never feel like it's safe. I feel like I can't become complacent, lest I jinx myself.

Anecdotes aren't data. I know the odds are on my side. I've done this before, I have a beautiful little boy to prove that there is such a thing as an easy, stress-free pregnancy. Happy endings do happen. Heck, happy endings happen most of the time.

I don't want to rush anything. I want spawn to cook as long as possible. May 2nd sounds like a great day to be born, and that's what I want the plan to be.

But 6 weeks is suddenly feeling interminable.

"In the home stretch!", people say. "Almost there! It's coming up fast!"

All true, but the closer we get to the finish line, the more anxious I feel. I just want to curl up on my bed and gestate. Just lie there and focus on my baby boy kicking and growing until I can actually hold him.

I'm so frustrated, I feel like this should be getting easier, but it's getting harder. I'm distracted and manic and lethargic and overly sensitive, all at the same time.

So I force myself not to worry. I ignore the anxiety. It is too paralyzing, and I have no time for it. I put one foot in front of the other, I get through every day, I do what I need to do.

Still... it's what I think about when I wake up in the middle of the night.

I miss normal anxiety, the reasonable worry of "how do I do this?" or "will I be able to handle two kids?" or "do I have everything I need?"

For the first time, tonight, I read through the notes that people wrote for us after Harper's memorial service. I needed that. It made me cry. Quite a lot, actually. It is making me cry now. But it also reminded me that along with the fear and the changed world view and the anxiety and the sadness came a lot of love, a lot of positive emotions. A lot of lives touched.

Like, Shea, who is terribly sick today, reminded me that the worry doesn't end when they enter the world. It never really stops. All you can do is muddle your way through, do the best you can, and hope your love is enough.

Just 6 more weeks.