This is my contribution to Angie's 2012 edition of Right Where I Am. If for some reason you have not read about this wonderful project yet (although I can't imagine what that reason could be), all the other contributions are here.
My post from last year is here. Please forgive me if this post doesn't make sense, sleep deprivation is not good for my thought processes.
Last Sunday we attended the annual Spring Memorial service for babyloss families in our area. It was our 3rd memorial and a reminder of how much some things have changed and how much others have not changed in the last 2 years. At the first service, I was a grieving zombie, sobbing with shock and horror at what my life had become. At the second, I could hold back the tears long enough to look around me and see all the other grieving parents around me. I could recognize those whose pain was fresher yet not any deeper than mine. We sat with a group of families from my support group who had all welcomed their subsequent babies and I wondered if at the next service I would be holding a new baby or lighting candles for another loss. At this third service, I cried into C.S.'s fine baby hair and used her blanket to wipe my tears. I listened to the poems about little babies playing in Heaven and a God who took them there before they could feel any earthly pain and and still wanted to yell out "Bull shit!" (I restrained myself because this was not the place to work out my issues with God.) I felt bad that I could not give my full attention to the service because C.S. needed me.
Right now, grieving is one of the things I have to make room for in my daily activities. I think of Reid many times a day, but I don't have the same amount of time to devote to grieving for him that I did a year ago. Would that have changed without the arrival of C.S.? Likely it would have, but there would have bitterness about infertility and new sources of grief to take up my time, not diapers and feedings and baby smiles. I do wish for more time to give to Reid (and my blog and the rest of the babyloss community), but the live and loud baby cannot wait and the silent child will always be there waiting.
I feel badly for being unable to devote my time equally to all three children but I have a hunch that this feeling it is a normal part of parenting more than one living child.
I still feel bitter towards people who have built their families without struggle, especially those who have older daughters and younger sons. I am jealous of those who get to raise all the children they created and nurtured in their bodies. I can go out in public and be around these people without loosing it, but the feelings are still there.
I am very careful to refer to D. and C.S. as "the girls" and not "the kids". My girls are here and I love then fiercely, but right now I need that distinction to acknowledge Reid.
Right now I still have a lot of things to deal with that a a direct result of Reid's death. However, for the most part I can avoid them and usually do. Right now, I need to focus on taking care of my girls and myself. I know I'll likely have to deal with them at some point and maybe that will come in the next year, but I'm not planning on it. Plans are still scary things around here.
9 comments:
Yep, I have found since welcoming a second living child in to the world, I have really had to work hard to make time just to grieve. I mean I grieve every day, but to be alone and to just actively grieve, like I once good, those days are few and far between now. But I'm grateful that i'm so busy and life is so rich now. Stark contrast to this time almost four years ago.
Love to you and missing Reid with you.
xo
I've worried that having Ben has made it harder for you. I really hope it hasn't been too much and I'm sorry if reel,ing in him has been unbearable. I would have hated myself a year go, I guess.
It's so hard, making room. I find it so hard when people say 'at least you have your boy now.' My sil has just said 'you have 5' and I found I could take it, but I mind it when others say it more than when I choose to not say 6.
But I'm lucky, I shouldn't mind.
Lots of love.
I meant revelling. I don't know why the iPad made up a word :/
I feel the same about families with two girls, or all girls. And now that has even extended to families with two girls and 1 boy. I'm jealous of those who get to keep all their children, and that I don't think will ever change. Like you, I can be around them but it still hurts. I just don't show it or tell them it bothers me.
Plans scare me as well.
I am also bitter towards`those who built their family with no struggle...i would never wish loss on them but i am full of jealousy...much love to you, thank you for sharing <3
Like Jessica, I also do feel very bitter on occasion towards families who have had no difficulties having as many children as they want. I think that G's death and the 'difficulties' I had conceiving a third baby have coloured the way I think about pregnancy and childbirth. I consider far more miraculous than I once did but I hate to see them taken for granted. I think it is especially difficult when you encounter a family that has the 'configuration' that you might have had.
I loved your description of the different services and how time has passed. I also have the occasional moment when I have to bite back a retort.
Remembering your dear Reid do
That bitterness, I feel it, too. Especially when it comes with blithely confident pregnancy announcements and public birth plans. I feel like I bite my figurative tongue every other day that I check in with family on fa.cebook.
Parenting living and missing children at the same time can be so hard - I think you just nailed the wistful, busy, craziness of it all.
Love to you, and remembering Reid with you.
"I am jealous of those who get to raise all the children they created and nurtured in their bodies."
Oh yes. It's three and a half years since Emma died and I can normally bury those feelings quite deeply now but they are still there.
And like you, I find that grieving has to fit in with everything else and it's quite strange to miss the rawness of early grief sometimes.
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