Things you never want to read in an autopsy report

The appointment wasn't horrible, well at least no more horrible than going to get an autopsy report should be. Dr. K again proved she knows how to take care of a DBM by having all the clinic staff prepared for me. I didn't have to even set foot in the waiting room with all the pregnant women. There was crying of course, but there were hugs too.

So the report itself doesn't have any answers about why Reid died. There are a couple indicators that might point to undiagnosed gestational diabetes which leads to higher risks of stillbirth, but all my blood work was normal. However, since there's nothing else to blame, we are going to keep a very close eye on my blood sugar from now on. I am going for the less than fun 2 hour glucose test at the end of the month. If I don't manage to get knocked up in the near future, we will repeat the test when I do and then we will do it again at the normal 26-28 week mark. And maybe a few more times too just to be sure.

Coming home with a copy of the report and not being able to stop myself from reading it was way worse than the appointment.

Fun and Guilt-Inducing Autopsy Details:

1. Reid had brown eyes. Not a surprise given that all three living members of the family have brown eyes, but I would have rather seen that for myself.

2. He was above the 97th percentile for height and weight and just below 90th of head size (no wonder I couldn't deliver naturally). Normally you find out these things when you take your baby for check ups and vaccinations, not in autposy reports.

3. He was dressed in a blue sleeper. On one hand I am grateful that one of the nurses put clothes on him. (I couldn't bring myself to pick him up the last time I saw him and he was all swaddled up in blankets so I didn't know what he was wearing.) On the other hand I am consumed with guilt for not having been the one to dress him. Every time I read about how someone spent hours with their baby, bathing and dressing them and taking pictures, it's like a knife in my heart because I DIDN'T. It just NEVER OCCURED TO ME that I would want to do those things and no one even suggested it beyond someone asking if we wanted pictures right after I got out of surgery (when I was just a little in shock). I can spread the guilt around a bit to D.G. and the hospital staff (they are more used to dealing with stillbirths when the baby dies before delivery and the parents are not in total shock), but that doesn't change the fact that I will never have the change to do those things for my son. AND I have no "nice" pictures of him.

4. There were signs of hypoxia so his oxygen supply was cut off before he died. Of course they can't tell when or how he lost his oxygen supply but he did. It makes me worry that he suffered before he died. That during labour he was literally trying say. "Get me out of here, I'm dying!" and no one could hear him. That if I had just told my doctor I wanted a c-section at 38 weeks, he never would have been through stress of labour. Maybe he would have died anyway because life is stressful, but we might have gotten a few minutes or hours or days with him before he died.

I'm sure that there are more things in there what would freak me out but I am trying not focus on the fact that I could know how much all my baby's internal organs weighed. Not really the kind of thing you can brag about at mom's group.

Six months and 3 days later

I got a call from the lovely Dr. K yesterday. The autopsy report is finally done, a mere 6 months and 3 days after Reid died. So there is still no definitive reason for Reid's death, but there are some things she wants to rule out so I have an appointment with her tomorrow. D.G. declared that unless there is some reason they can give us for Reid's death talking about the autopsy is just a waste of time. This led to a less than pleasant argument in front of D which ended with a 3 year old telling us in no uncertain terms to stop arguing. (that was another dose of mommy guilt). The outcome is that he is not coming to the appointment because I am tired of making him do things just to support me. Expect there to be a very emotional post sometime tomorrow after the appointment.

And in case you are wondering a wedding anniversary, an autopsy report and ovulation are not a good combination.

Enough already

Okay, that's enough, it's just not funny any more. It's been six months and I am ready for the giant cosmic joke that my life has become to be over. I proved I can take it. I can survive without my baby, but I don't want to have to. Time for it to be over, to go back to Saturday April 3rd at 1:20 am and change the way things happened from that point on. There will be a squirming 20 lb boy on my lap right now, not a computer. There will be cloth diapers drying on my clothes line, not collecting dust in a basket. There will be hundreds of pictures of him on my camera, not pictures of balloons with messages for dead babies. I will be tired from getting up at night to nurse him, not from staying up late mourning him. There will be pictures up of all the friends' babies born this summer and I will be looking forward to the arrival of my first niece or nephew (please let it be a niece since none of the rest of this can be changed). There will be no talk about another baby and the giant pile of baby crap will be slowly being given away or sold as he out grows it. There will be a bay sleeping in the crib, not a box of ashes. Just make it all be the way it is supposed to be because the way it is really sucks.

Going for a Walk

Today was the Walk to Remember here in Edmonton. It was a beautiful sunny day, the best you could possibly wish for in October in northern AB. I was so happy to see that they had invited Kate Inglis back to speak again. (I just found her amazing words from last year in the Stirrup Queens Creme de la Creme of 2009 list a few days ago.) I even worked up to the courage to walk up to her and say thank you for Glow In the Woods. Is it okay to be a DBM blogger groupie because if it is I will be her groupie. She was very kind and didn't freak out when I walked up to her and started crying before I could even get the words "Thank you" out of my mouth. Overall it was a good day and it felt good to be able to include D in an event for Reid.

Here are some pictures from today:

The note I wrote to Reid




The sidewalk of names




The name we were looking for

Our balloons on their way

Tomorrow, which starts in 87 minutes, will not be such a good day. Many times today I thought "6 months ago, I was ... so happy, so pregnant, so clueless, so not the way I am now."

Things you never want to tell your MIL

The next week and a bit is going to be jam-packed, with some good things and some not so great things. On Saturday we are going to the local Walk to Remember. It won't be an easy afternoon but I am still looking forward to it and it will be the first memorial event that I have felt was appropriate for D to come to with us. Then as soon as we get back, my MIL will be arriving (this is not so great, but I would never tell her). Just being around my MIL stresses me out for many reasons. I am not looking forward to this visit as she basically just announced she was coming (and no other weekends worked for her) without really asking if it was a good weekend for us. I don't think she has a clue that it is 6 months on Sunday. That brings me to Reid's 6 month anniversary on Sunday, which the Walk to Remember saves me from having to think of a way to commemorate. And to add to the fun, next Wednesday is D.G.'s and my 9th wedding anniversary (I literally just realized that tomorrow will be 14 years since we got together, holy crap). Neither one of us really feels like celebrating anything these days and there is a distinct lack of babysitters here. The only night that the MIL could watch D is on Reid's 6 month anniversary on Sunday and I am NOT celebrating my anniversary then. I told D.G. on the weekend that we should get U2 tickets for the concert here next June. I might feel up to going out in public again by then and since it's only 8 months away, we won't have a baby by then no matter what. ( Even if we get pregnant soon, I am not afraid of pre-term labour, just miscarriage, stillbirth and full term death, that seems reasonable right?)

Which brings me back to the blog title. There's one more thing happening in the next week. I should ovulate about a week from now. My MIL wanted to stay from Saturday until next Tuesday. The guest bedroom is directly below our bedroom and we have hardwood floors and a somewhat squeaky bed. Do you see my problem? What man wants to try to get his wife knocked up with his mom sleeping 10 feet away? Okay, don't answer that because there probably is someone that messed up out there. I told D.G. that he had 2 choices, DTD with his mom there or let me tell her she has to leave for her sister's sooner than planned if she wants another grandchild because I wasn't going to skip trying this month. To my surprise, he told her himself, but it doesn't change the fact the my MIL knows way too much about my sex life.

P.S. Thanks to the three five lovely ladies who gave me an award in the last few days. It means a lot to me that you are out there reading my blog. Now my problem is that I think nearly every blog I read has already been nominated because I am so slow moving these days. Please don't think badly of me, I was terrible with these kind of things before my brain got scrambled.

The big race

"...baby-making shouldn’t be a race." from the lovely and wise Julie, mom to Jon Evel.

In my head, I know that this true, it shouldn't be a race, it should be about what is right for D.G. and me and even D. But it feels like a race against so many opponents. A race against time because my eggs aren't getting any younger and because the age gap between D and any living siblings keeps growing. A race against fear because now I know how bad things can go in a heartbeat ( or non-heartbeat in my case). A race against bitterness and anger because the pain I feel every time I see someone walking around with the baby/family I thought I would have has to be corroding my internal organs including the reproductive ones. And even a race against the other DBMs because as they start on the path toward a living child, I feel like I am being left behind here in the middle Dead Baby Land all over again.

Every day I feel like I am losing the race by a little bit more. Like the finish line is further away instead of closer.

It finally happened

I have been waiting for something like this to happen for months now; waiting for someone in our families to deny or at least fail to acknowledge Reid. It finally happened today. My MIL sent us an email with a submission she was planning to send in for a local history book being published about D.G.'s home town. (It's a pretty common thing for small towns in SK to publish history books, my home town did it about 25 years ago and it is WAY smaller than D.G.'s) The line about D.G. mentioned me, D and his job but not Reid. This lead to a less than pleasant exchange between D.G. and myself, a session of sobbing on the bathroom floor for me and then a long emotional discussion after D went to sleep.

The result is that D.G. says he's "OK" with mentioning Reid as long as I am the one to tell his mom. I really want Reid to be mentioned and besides it's a history book, there should be plenty of families with mentions of dead babies over the last 100 years. (If there isn't then, it's not like I have to be there to get weird looks for daring to break the taboo.) However, I don't believe that D.G. is really OK about it. I do believe that he could put it out of his mind and forget about it, but that's not the same. Which should take priority, my need to acknowledge Reid or D.G.'s need to avoid reminders? We are such different places when it comes to grief. (The long emotional discussion revealed just how far apart those places are.) I don't want to hurt him, but I hate the idea of ever pretending that Reid didn't exist.

"Do you have to go there?"

Yesterday we were sitting outside watching D play with some junk from DH's tool box. She was so proud of her "new tools" and was carefully lining them up on a ledge at the top of her playhouse. I asked her why she didn't use the shelf right at her eye level. She didn't answer but DH said, "She is putting them up where no one else can reach them." I replied, "If only she had someone here that she needed to protect her things from...". DH then said, "Do you have to go there?" and I had to tell him that I don't have to go there, I am there all the time.

I live in Dead Baby Land and the "what-if's", "should-be's" and "I miss Reid's" are all around me all the time. Right now I live right smack in the middle of Dead Baby Land. Maybe someday I'll get to move to the edge or even just come here for visits but I am a citizen for life and there will always be times when I "have to go there".

Now I don't know what to do

I was right, I have messed up my living child. After DH's birthday, I thought D might be using Reid's death to try to get what she wanted. Well, she isn't really trying to manipulate us, but she thinks that she should say "I miss Baby Reid" every time we ask her why she is sad/crying. This morning she started crying when we told her she couldn't watch her favourite TV show (it's not on on the weekends). When she quit crying, we asked her why she was sad and of course it was "I miss Baby Reid." We told her that it's okay to miss Reid but he isn't the only reason to be sad and she shouldn't use him like that because it hurts our feelings. I'm guessing she understood none of that but we will see. ARGH. I am just so frustrated. I don't know how to deal with my own issues about Reid's death, let alone hers. I better start saving for the child psychologist bills now.

Birthday

Tomorrow is DH's birthday, the first birthday we have had to celebrate since Reid died. We are going to try to make it a nice day for him. I bought him a football related present that I hope he will like and I framed a bunch of pictures of D that we have taken in the last few weeks. I really wanted to sneak in one of Reid's U/S pics but I know that would just upset DH and it's his birthday, not mine. D and I baked muffins today so he could have a nice breakfast before he goes to work and we are going to make birthday brownies while DH is at work. I really hope it goes well as D's birthday is only 2 1/2 weeks away and she won't understand why mommy would be sad on her birthday.

Birthdays

Ever since Catherine wrote this post back in May, I have been looking for the not so hidden meanings in every Dr. Seuss book I read to D. This week it's Happy Birthday to You!. DH's birthday is next week and D's is next month so she is understandably obsessed with birthdays. Maybe not every line can literally apply to Reid, but it still gets to me every time I have to read these pages.

If you'd never been born, well then what would you do?
If you'd never been born, well then what would you be?
You might be a fish! Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob! Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full of hard green tomatoes.
Or worse than all that...Why you might be a WASN'T!
A wasn't has no fun at all. No, he doesn't.
A Wasn't just isn't. He just isn't present.


If you'd never been born, them you might be an ISN'T!
An Isn't has no fun at all. No he disn't.
He never has birthdays, and that isn't pleasant.
You have to be born, or you don't get a present.

3 months

In 2 hours it will have been exactly 3 months since Reid died. By some lovely twist of fate, it's also 13 weeks so the anniversary is falling on the same days of the week as the actual events. It made it very hard not to spend the whole evening thinking about what happened 3 months ago. (At 5:30 3 months ago, my water broke. At 8:00 3 months ago we were driving to the hospital. )

I talked to one of my university roommates today. I must admit that we have been out of touch for the last few years (we finished university 10 years ago). After Reid died she sent me an email and told me that she and her husband had been forced to end a pregnancy at 14 weeks last year. I knew that they had had trouble conceiving but I didn't know how bad things had gotten. She called me today and we had a really good chat. Even though our losses are very different we were very much on the same wavelength. It was good to talk to someone who I have known for a long time and who gets "it". Although I hate that being dead baby mamas is what has brought us back together, I think that we are not going to drift apart again. It's nice to think that maybe a friendship can be renewed in the middle of all this crap, unlike all the other ones that seem to have been erased.

Speaking of messed up friendships, the friend whose baby announcement on FB I posted about on Thursday morning, left a message for me Thursday evening while I was outside. So I guess she did call me after all. Now I have to work up the courage to call her back. (Talk about a weird feeling hearing that message after writing that post)

In the mail

Today the mailman left this in our mail box...


It arrived from my friend R. (it was her son's birth that freaked me out back in May) Despite the fact that she is not a DBM (thankfully), she understands. (She is okay with the fact that I wish her son had been a girl)

I love that someone bought a gift for Reid. There have been things for me and things for D, but this is the only gift for Reid we have received. It's a real baby rattle and somehow that makes me feel like someone sees him as a real baby even though he never needed any baby toys. The red stone is red jasper, one of the birthstones for Aries. It seems extra right as Reid means red haired and he had red eyelashes. I think there may be some purchases of red jasper jewelery in the future.

Fridge Magnet

My mom has this magnet on her fridge. I used to think it was cute, now not so much. Bonkers is too cutesy for the way your baby dying messes up your life. Why isn't there a word that describes how I am sad and angry and bitter and confused and lonely and scared and numb and "blah" and a million other bad things all at the same time?

Running Away

I am fleeing the province for 2 weeks. D and I are heading out Monday morning and making the +800 km trip to my parents' farm. A whole day driving, alone with an almost 3 year old might make a normal person crazy, but since I may already be there, I am going to risk it. After 9 days, DH is flying to SK and then we will spend a few days with his family. Don't know what in the world we will do at his mom's place but it's only 2 or 3 days max. (DH parent's split up just after D was born so it makes for extra fun times when visiting the in-laws).

I can't wait to take D to the farm, but of course I keep thinking that I should be taking Reid for his first trip to the farm. This trip will also be my first chance to see my grandmother in almost a year and a half. Her first son (the baby before my mom) was stillborn more than 60 years ago, so I know she will have things to share with me that we have never talked about before. I haven't talked to her since Reid died since she is losing her hearing and I haven't felt like shouting my feelings into the phone while crying so I hope she isn't too upset at me either. ( is it weird that this image makes me giggle? more dead baby black humor I guess.)

June 3rd

Reid should be 2 months old today. The worst thing I should have to deal with is whether or not to start his immunizations on the recommended schedule. Now everything is crappy and shitty and completely fucked up.

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.

---

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.

7 weeks...

I thought I was doing better. I didn't spend all day Friday dreading Friday evening/early Saturday morning like I had for the last 6 weeks. Then Friday evening came and I cried from 8:30 until I fell asleep and I spent most of today either crying or just avoiding the world by staying in bed. I am tired of the grief rollercoaster. Why can't I just be somewhat miserable all the time instead of semi-okay or completely miserable? It would be be much easier to handle and much less confusing for DH. When I am completely miserable, I just want someone to cry with me and he can't do that for me. (He is willing to rub my back or hug me while I cry, but I don't like him watching me cry, it just makes me more sad that he doesn't feel the same way I do.) If I could get off the rollercoaster and just stay somewhat miserable, maybe I could start to adjust to the altered reality of my life. It would be nice if something besides the fact that my baby is dead and gone would stay the same from one day to the next.

Thanks universe...

for yet another giant "FUCK YOU!". Yet another friend has delivered a beautiful perfect healthy baby BOY. Yay, another child to watch grow up and remind me of what we lost when Reid died. It's not that I didn't want her to have a healthy baby, but why couldn't she have a girl?

No "good" nights

I thought that Thursday was a "good" day. (At least as good a day as you can have when you have a pelvic exam and the last 6 weeks of time weren't erased/rewound.) So then why the f@#k am I awake at 3:42 am and have been awake for the last 2 hours? I hated it when I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night while I was pregnant. I would lay there with my mind wandering all over the place. Thinking about all the things I wanted to do before the baby came, what to name the baby, how was D going to adjust to the baby, how would I function with a almost 3 year old and a baby. I had no idea that it could get so much worse. Now I lay there trying not to break out into huge loud sobs because I should be able to function just fine because there is no baby keeping me up at night. How was I supposed to know that I would end up in a place where I was desperately wishing that I had a screaming baby in my house at 3:55 in the morning? Why didn't somebody warn me that my life was about to be completely FUBAR'd?