Flowers

Just before of all the horrible and painful things that have happened this week something good did happen to me. Last Sunday, the 6 month anniversary, just as I was backing out of the garage to go to my support group meeting I looked out the rear view mirror and saw our doula standing in the drive way. She brought me flowers and lasagna and garlic bread. The food is in the freezer but will likely be supper on Tuesday. The flowers are still looking pretty good.


I have always loved gerbera daisies and now they are extra special because the birth flower for April is the daisy. In fact I have decided that I am going to get a tattoo for Reid and it's going to be a red gerbera daisy. And if I don't get knocked up in the next 2 cycles, it will be done on December 18th! I hate that I have to wait that long, but the artist is a mom with 3 kids and only works 2 days a week. I met her on Saturday and she was really understanding and never said anything like, "It was probably for the best" or "You can have another" or any of the other horrible baby loss cliches. All the artists in the shop are women so no one will be freaked out if I get all emotional and cry. I just have to decide where I want the tattoo and then count down the days. Now I have something to look forward to in December instead of just dreading Christmas. And despite the fact that I am well into my 30's, I really like the idea of freaking my parents out at Christmas with a tattoo.

(Right now I am debating between lower calf/ankle, inner arm or shoulder. Any advice would be welcome. I am a tattoo virgin so I am pretty much clueless.)

Bad and Good

I had one really awful day while we were away. I spent an entire afternoon crying my heart out. It was like everything I had been holding in for the first 5 days of the trip just built up and poured out. And it wasn't that I had to deal with anything extra horrible during the trip, no one was pregnant and I didn't have to see any babies close to the age Reid would have been. One of the other couples we were with had a miscarriage a couple months ago and is dealing with secondary infertility. I talked about Reid when ever I wanted to and no one looked freaked out (if they were, they hid it well and that's just as good). The worst thing I had deal with was seeing D play with Baby S (who is almost walking and not technically a baby anymore but that's what everyone calls her). D would make faces and fuss over Baby S and every time my heart just broke because it should be Reid that she is playing with. D is so ready to be a big sister and now who knows if she will ever get to be a big sister to a living baby.

So back to my awful day, I ended up by myself on the beach (the cabin had it's own private beach). The wind was so strong that I probably would have had any beach to myself that day. At least once, I cursed the damn lake for being too shallow. It was not a fun time on the beach that day, but I did get something out of it. As DBM's frequently do, I wrote Reid's name in the sand.


Northern SK beaches do not have big stretches of damp sand for writing names, besides I had a plan. Last night I turned the picture into this:


I kept all the rocks that were used to write his name and brought them home to put in the shadow box. (See, I didn't just have bad ideas while sitting on that beach) I don't know where its permanent home is going to be yet, but it's the first picture related to Reid that I have framed and I want it to be where everyone can see it.

Nail polish

I have attached an irrational significance to some completely insignificant things since Reid died. The most visible one is the nail polish on my toes.

Going for a pedicure was one of the things I did the week before Reid died. One last chance to relax and pamper myself before I became a very busy mother of 2. Now I look at it as one of the last things I did when Reid was still alive. Even though my feet look horrible, I won't even consider taking the nail polish off my toes. (I have managed to trim my toenails so polish has disappeared that way). The purple is all but gone from toes 2 to 5 so all that's left is the polish on the big toes and that is half gone. It's like my own biological calender of how much time has passed since Reid died. Maybe by the time it's completely gone, I'll have started to figure out where I am supposed to go from here.

8+ Weeks (The Dead Baby Blahs)

It seems that the flood of new and painful emotions and feelings has stopped. They are all still there, but not new anymore. It has almost been 2 months since Reid's death. This past Friday was the first Friday evening I didn't spend sobbing followed by spending all of Saturday morning in bed. I don't feel better, I just feel blah. Maybe the weather is contributing. It was been snowing here (yes I know I live in Canada, but it shouldn't be snowing at the end of May) and all my plans for Reid's first few months revolved around hanging out outside while his big sister played in the yard. It hasn't been warm enough to spend much time outside in the last week so I didn't have to deal with him not being there.

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We attended the annual memorial service for babies who have died at all the local hospitals. I'm not sure what I expected, but of course I cried, a lot. They had these little papers for everyone to write notes to their babies. I couldn't write anything, I tried but nothing would come out. Months ago at one of my pre-natal yoga classes, the instructor asked us to write a letter to our babies. I couldn't write anything then either. It's not that I didn't believe that my baby would be born healthy and alive (I fully believed that until the third time the doctor yelled, "I can't get a heartbeat") It's just that I can't put into words my feelings for someone I haven't met. Love is too mild a word for the primal feelings a mother has for her child. I know I couldn't have got up in church full of people and spoke about Reid, so if nothing else going to this memorial has confirmed our decision not to have a funeral for Reid. Maybe a public recognition of Reid's death would have helped some of our friends or family but it would have been far too painful for DH and me and we get to be selfish now.