While D.G. is away, I decided to catch up on my dead baby mama reading. For some reason it drives me crazy when he sees me reading and asks "What are you reading?" I don't know if it's the being interrupted that bugs me or what, but it's even worse if I am crying while I am reading too.
First I decided to re-read An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. I read it at the beginning of May when everything was still very fresh, when I was still in shock. I stayed up late last night reading and bawling my eyes out. I haven't cried like that for a long time, probably because I didn't have to worry about holding back so that I wouldn't freak out D.G. I read the whole thing and the two things that stuck with me were both from the end of the book.
"... and that love isn't morbid or bloodstained or unsightly, it doesn't need to be shoved away."
This what I feel has been denied me by most of the world. Of course, here in Dead Baby Land, I am allowed to love my child however I need to. Out there though, it's like somehow wrong to love my child and to want others to remember he existed, and not just as a thing that happened to me to make me sad, but as a baby boy who was beautiful and big and made his mommy hate garlic for months.
"... extraordinarily thankful that I got pregnant again so soon, and that the pregnancy held. I am not sure what sort of person I would be if that hadn't happened."
This is where the book doesn't quite satisfy me. Yes, it's a wonderful book and I am glad that there people who can share their stories so eloquently within this community but I am that person who didn't get pregnant again so soon. She got to hold her "new" baby just a year after he son died while I have to accept that it is very possible that I will not even be pregnant by the time my son has been dead for 1 year. Her perspective on the year following her son's death was strongly influenced by the fact that for most of it she was pregnant with her second child which makes it harder for me to connect with her writing. Some people can start to heal and move on without getting pregnant again (and some are forced to do so because of other complications and I ache for these women and admire them at the same time.) but I seem to not be one of them.
I am glad I read the book again and I'd like to make a whole list of people in my own life (or maybe more precisely people who used to be in my life) read it, but they're not exactly asking me for book recommendations so that they can understand me better.
4 comments:
i may have to read this book soon. although i don't know if i want to cry that much quite yet. i do it on my own easy enough without a book to help.
i am also "... extraordinarily thankful that I got pregnant again so soon, and that the pregnancy held. I am not sure what sort of person I would be if that hadn't happened."
and i so hope that this comes true for you very very soon.
I feel like I can relate to so much of what you write...I so hoped to get pregnant again after we lost Bethany and yet I ended up miscarring 3 more babies within the first year after her. It was so hard. I never wanted to replace her, that can't be done, but I thought at least I could have a happy ending....I felt like I was ALWAYS on an emotional rollercoater....I just talked about my medical issues on my blog, but the crazy thing is even with my clotting issues they had no clue why I kept lossing my babies, they said my blood clot was not the reason. I think I spent most of the first year crying over everything...Im glad your getting to do that now!
I felt the same way about that book. I mean, I could relate to a lot of it of course, but when I read it I wasn't pregnant again when I wanted to be. And it hurt that the author (who was close to 40 and got pregnant easily without any medical intervention at all and delivered a normal baby) did. So yeah, I don't have anything to say that makes it easier, but I just thought I'd write and say "I agree".
Only my sister in law has ever asked me for a book recommendation to help them understand what happened. And that keeps making me mad. No one understands but they don't even seem to try, which is far worse than not understanding.
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