Time

It has been a long, long time.

It's late here. M and Bee are sound asleep, and I've been up late studying. I started nursing school last month. It's ok. A lot of typical first-year hoop jumping, lots of busywork- quizzes worth next to nothing, group projects and the like. The material is interesting but shallow at this point- lots of introductory courses. The meat comes later.

Death has come up often. We have addressed the topic of how to handle a dying client. We have discussed pastoral care and referrals and the importance of learning to sit quietly and hold a patient's hand. There was even one entire power point slide on "when an infant dies". We were told in a sentence or two about mementos and helping the family say goodbye.

There is so much I can comment on, so many things I could add to the conversation. So much experience I've gained in my short life. More than I wish I had. I tend to stay quiet.

I am known to my class as a mom to an almost-one-year old baby boy. They know I had a complicated pregnancy; I have often offered hospital anecdotes in class. I have not shared about Charlotte.

***

How many lives do you live anyway? It certainly seems more than one, at least for me. The last two and a half years have been an entirely different lifetime than the years before. Everything, absolutely everything, changed. I kind of like the new me- I owe so much of my current personality to my sweet baby girl- and it's so hard to remember the old Heather. It's hard to remember much of anything, really, even still.

I was on GITW tonight, for the first time in a long time. I was scrolling down the page and the links to past posts were on the left, organized monthly, like they are on all blogs. The months scrolled by, and there were so many of them. You see, GITW was launched in Charlotte's month. I found it a few weeks later, and have followed ever since. All those months. I have been changed for all of those months. It is a long time. An entire new generation of dbm's are posting now. There are new members to our club, all the time. Still.

***

Adam turns one next week. He's happy and well-adjusted. He's learning to walk; he can take two steps. He's a beautiful little boy. Really is. I love him so and I still miss his sister. I want them both, but can't have it that way.

It's such a long road. It never really ends.

2 years

So, yesterday was Charlotte's 2nd birthday.

It was a crappy day. A crappy week actually. I find the days leading up to her birthday are the hardest- memories of hospital stays and bad ultrasounds, quiet-spoken doctors, hopeful moments and tragic moments. The day itself isn't as bad. Of course, yesterday was Easter Sunday so I had to be on my best behaviour at church. There was much difficult, celebratory music to lead, the most important service of the year for me.

There was a small vase of flowers on the organ bench. Little yellow tulips in a vase covered in butterflies. No card. I don't know who they were from, but I was touched that someone remembered. Whoever it was the only person who acknowledged the day.

Anyway, I made it through the service, and came home to a Bee sound asleep in his swing and M outside digging a hole for a new tree. After the tree planting we headed to the cemetery for a visit and brought balloons, like we did last year.

It was sad, but not as sad as last year. More wistful now. Easier to turn off, if that makes any sense.

We've kept ourselves busy this week. M has been his usual self: painting and gardening, little home projects here and there. I cooked. A lot. I baked cinnamon rolls and bread, a birthday cake for Charlotte. Made some yummy pork recipes and a few new soups. This is a new mechanism for me- before I was paralyzed, incapable of doing anything through the grief. Now, it's easier to keep busy. Keeps my mind off things. I'm amazed that I can turn my mind off now- I never ever thought that would be possible. I guess that's what happens over time.

I also gained three pounds. Oh well.

I feel so very far from Charlotte now. The last two years have felt like a separate lifetime. I can't imagine her as a toddler or even a chubby baby like Adam. I can't imagine our lives with her present, here, on earth, without the grief and anguish and everything that has reshaped us as people over the past two years. She changed us infinitely, likely more than we would have changed had she lived.

Happy Birthday, baby girl. We love you.

Changes

After Charlotte, I wanted everything to change. I quit my job. We contemplated moving (but instead just repainted and rearranged furniture). I lost touch with friends and moved into different circles. Everything did change, over time.

I remember reading (somewhere?) that you should wait for at least a year after a loss before making any drastic changes in your life. I had been planning to quit my job anyway, so I figured that was ok. We didn't move. I found another job in the same field. Time passed.

Then Adam came. Everyone told us, over and over, what a change that would bring into our lives. I was surprised how little things actually did change. Sure, it takes me longer to get out of the house than it used to and our living room is taken over by large plastic apparatuses, but I feel a lot less changed now than I did before/after Charlotte. Perhaps I already knew the biggest lesson of parenthood: how it feels to have a child be the center of your life. It's a lot easier when that child is alive.

Now that the 2-year mark is looming, I feel like I have some perspective. I don't think my decisions now are made out of grief, but are real, true decisions. I have decided to go back to school. I actually decided this early last summer, while still pregnant, and have been taking a couple of prerequisites this year. Starting in September, I'll be taking a full-time program in nursing.

If three years ago someone had told me I would be doing this, I would never, ever have believed them. I was (am) a musician- as artsy as it gets. I make a living by doing what all musicians do- a little teaching, a little gigging, a bit of everything. It's a labor of love, and requires so much passion to do it well. After Charlotte, I lost the passion.

When she died, my love for music died too. That didn't come out right. I still love music, but in not the same way. I no longer have the patience to sit and work through one phrase of Beethoven for hours at a time to get every note exactly right, to find the hidden meaning behind the notes. Before, it was worthwhile. Now, there are so many more important things in life. I need a change.

So, nursing it is. I don't know what discipline of nursing I want to explore, but I do know from a patient's perspective how important a nurse can be. Like you all, I had great, wonderful nurses and also horrible ones. I hope to be one of those wonderful ones.

So, a new chapter for me. We'll see where I go.

Checking in

I had no intentions of fading into blog oblivion. Time came and went, and now it's been almost three months (!!!) since my last post.

Things are well. Bee is growing like a weed, is about 17 lbs now. He giggles and reaches for things, twists and turns. He's a joy, really is.

I still miss Charlotte. So, so much now. The two year anniversary is less than a month away. It falls on Easter Sunday this year, which means I have to actually face the world that day. Go to church, conduct the Hallelujah chorus, smile and focus. I'm sure it will be ok, although not what I would choose.

Two years. Really? Where did the time go? It seems like forever and nothing all at once. There aren't a lot of memories from that time. The first-year fog, then the months of bedrest and stress with the pregnancy, and now he's here. It all rolls into one really, and it's hard to believe that I've only had Adam for four and a half months. He was always present, it seems.

As he grows and starts to really develop a little personality, I find myself thinking, more and more, if Charlotte would have done this or that; would she have had the funny little head shake or if she would have been a redhead too. I'll never know.

I will post more frequently, I promise.

The other side

Since we brought home little Bee, the world has opened back up. People who never even acknowledged Charlotte have been all over Adam (a whole other blog post), and we've been invited out a lot. Apple Picking parties, a wide assortment of Christmas family celebrations, dinners out, etc. All family-oriented and baby-friendly. We've even gone to some of them.

I have found myself exactly where I never, ever, wanted to be. Friends of ours suffered a misscarriage at 12 weeks the day after we lost Charlotte. They started trying again right away and it took over a year for them to get pregnant again. Then another miscarriage. Right now they're in the early stages of IF treatment, and the last I heard they had been planning an IUI for October. I don't know if they went through with it or if they were successful (or not). I've only seen them at these large gatherings where it's inappropriate to yell across the room, So, how 'bout that IUI?

When Adam came home we didn't see them, for a long time. There was a congratulatory phone call but then nothing. I understood. Completely. I didn't know for sure if it was hard for them or if they were just busy, but I couldn't imagine it NOT being hard, and I understood. If they wanted to come meet Adam that would be great, but if not, that was ok too. I got it.

Anyway, we have now rejoined the social circle that we were absent from for so long. Our first get-together was a couple of weeks ago, a cider-and-sweets post-Christmas parade thing. It was the first time they saw Adam, and I don't think they expected us to come (why would they really, as we hadn't gone to anything in so, so long). The wife was interested in Adam and asked to hold him. She cuddled him for a bit and talked to him.

The husband almost ran away.

It broke my heart, really did. He had that look, the one we all know because we've worn it ourselves. The one where your heart is breaking and if you don't get out of there RIGHT NOW you're going to lose it, your chest aches and head pounds and the grief becomes physically painful. I'm probably assuming too much but I know that look.

I can't believe I caused someone else that horrible pain.

I've read other bloggers who say that there should be a t-shirt or a badge for us babylost with new babies- so the strangers in the grocery store can know that this didn't come easy and I am not one of them. I agree. In this case though, they know all about Charlotte, watched us walk through the past 20 months or so and now we're out on the other side. And they're no closer (as far as I know, anyway). It must be hard, it has to be.

I've certainly had my share of pregnancy and babyloss emotional pain, but infertility is not something that was ever put on my plate. So, even with my new-found empathy I still don't know what to say or do. I just despise the thought that I'm making someone's already-hard-holiday a little bit harder.

Bee pic take 2

Let me try this again...

My little bee at 5 1/2 weeks. So very very sweet.

Bee pic

My little bee, at 5 1/2 weeks.  Such a sweetheart, I love him so much.