Mommy Odyssey

The lessons so far…

This will be the final post in the series. From here, it is time to move on. This blog will continue as a space for me to learn how to live again. For me, for Shmerson, for Nadav, and for the children that we will have in the future.

Losing a child before he or she has been born is a different kind of loss. Yes, the child was a person, but mostly in our minds and hearts. We had only a little bit of a past with Nadav. No memories except for little glimpses of him on a screen or the feeling of him moving inside of me. Losing Nadav meant losing a future.

The path we were on was cut off exactly three weeks ago today. We are now on a divergent one. What we mourn is not what was, but rather, what could have been.

I am proud to say that more often than not, we have embraced the new path we have been given. To say that we prefer it to what could have been would be a lie. Three months from now, I was supposed to be holding my Nadav, my beautiful baby boy in my arms.

Now, I will not be. Nadav’s birthday will never be June 22nd, 2012. It will always be February 21st, 2012.

And it will also be a birthday of sorts for us.

Shmerson and I have changed profoundly. So profoundly that to put it into words seems impossible. The way we view the world has changed. The way we live our lives has changed.

It starts with small things.

I now leave the house with a little bit of make up on and wearing my fabulous jewelry which had been gathering dust. I now have the confidence to sit in front of a new client and ask for the wage that I deserve, and no less because I’m no longer afraid they’ll “like me less.”

Shmerson now sticks up for himself more and speaks his mind with more conviction. He enjoys doing little things around the house. He defends me more loudly and fiercely than he ever has before. He speaks with and sees his friends more often.

We now load the dishwasher immediately after finishing a meal, rather than letting the dishes pile up in the sink. We now buy flowers for our home, to fill it with beauty and color. We now hold each other just a little bit tighter.

It goes on to the bigger things.

Our life choice discussions now also involve what will make us happier, and not just what is “practical”. Our relationships with each of our parents has become more openly loving. I tell my parents that I love them every single day.

Those are just a few small drops in a giant ocean.

Every singular change is part of a whole. They all add up to the fact that we have become completely different people. We are still us. But profoundly changed.

Everything has been turned upside-down. But we are working hard to make sure that this turn will be for the better.

When I look back at this moment in time decades into the future, I know I will see it as a moment that changed my life completely, and I believe – in the long run – made it a happier one. And Nadav, my precious son, is who made that happen.

The last few days have been insane, I’ve been overloaded with work and I let myself drown in it. This morning, it took me a few hours to realize what day it was, and again to let it sink in that it’s only been three weeks since we lost our Nadav. It seems like ages ago, and yet no time at all.

Later in the day I realized that during the packed few days I had had, I hadn’t sunk into thoughts of him at all. I felt guilty about it. I am no longer crying every day. Just once every few days. I’m enjoying my work.

Does that mean I’m forgetting him? That I’m not doing his memory justice?

I was drowning in that guilt today. Finally, I talked about it with my mom and my therapist, and they both said the same thing: he will always be here.

A scar, yes.

A small empty space filled with light reserved just for him.

But also a catalyst for healing myself. For healing my family in a lot of ways. For healing my marriage.

He will always be here because of the understanding that he left behind.

Nadav’s death made me begin to truly live again. And live well. For him. For my husband. For the children we will one day have. For myself. For myself.

This will forever be his legacy. And hopefully I have captured it well on this blog as a memorial to him, and perhaps a comfort to anyone who comes across this little space in the blogoverse.

I now give myself permission to return to the snark and the humor this place had before we lost our son. I now give myself permission to write about frivolous things when I feel like it. I now give myself permission to gradually bring this blog back to where it was before. Only better, because its writer has decided to make her life about more than bringing a baby into this world. She has decided to live it.

And that is something that has been a long time coming.

Thank you Nadav, for teaching me to live life for today.

Thank you for making me appreciate a beautiful blue sky.

Thank you for helping me find some of my old self-confidence.

For teaching me to acknowledge and appreciate…

The tiny moment of satisfaction that comes when I know I’ve cooked something delicious for dinner.

The scent of your father’s hair just after he has come out of the shower.

The view from our balcony just as the sun is setting.

The little conversations I have with your grandfather, when I feel he is truly listening.

The smile on your grandmother’s face when she walks into our apartment and sees that we’ve managed to keep it clean.

The moments when your uncle makes me laugh so hard that it hurts.

The sounds Luna makes when she’s dreaming.

The warmth of a home filled with fresh flowers.

The simple act of sitting on the couch with Luna and your father while we watch a stupid TV show, snuggled under a blanket.

The satisfaction of looking at myself in the mirror and feeling that today, I actually look kind of pretty.

The warmth that surrounds me each time your father holds me.

Every tiny little joy in life that has gone long ignored. Far too long.

Most importantly – thank you for showing me the beauty and unfathomable power of a strong marriage, true friendship, and a loving family.

You will forever be a part of our family, forever in our hearts. Every smile, every laugh, and every tear will echo with what you have taught your parents. We are forever changed, and for the better.

This is because of you, my beautiful baby boy. You did this. I will never ever forget that.

I will never ever forget you, my firstborn son.

On the night of February 21st, 2012,  when their son passed away, a mother and a father were born. 

Tags: grief, hope, stillbirth

The lessons so far…

It’s kind of strange, the way your psyche can react when you get devastating news. Shock first, of course. The shock sometimes leads to tears, or sometimes the tears come right after, when the news starts sinking in.

But then your mind can go to places you never expect.

This is what happened with me. We got the news that Nadav probably won’t make it at 4am. By 4:30 I was admitted into the hospital. By 5am, I was hugging Shmerson and two sentences just spilled out of my mouth:

I want to enjoy our marriage.

I want to go study art therapy. 

Translation, now that I can look back at that moment:

I want to live my life again

A few moments before uttering those sentences an unexpected feeling was flooding every part of my being: relief.

As my mind was racing in those moments I couldn’t help but judge myself harshly for that feeling. Relief? My son is dying and I’m feeling relief? I was sickened by it until I recognized the cause.

I was finally, after almost two years, released from anxiety. The worst had happened. The worst possible thing. I didn’t need to be afraid anymore. It was, as my psychiatrist called it during our session today: Instant Immersion Therapy.

But it was also more than that. I was now finally out of the race. Because after such a devastating loss, how can you not be out of the race?

I know those last two sentences don’t necessarily make sense out of context. So allow me to give you some.

I used to be a vibrant, ambitious, energetic woman. I had chutzpah. I had dreams. I had goals. I went out with friends. I had fun. I dyed my hair silly colors. I would buy crazy jewelry and crazy shoes.

The decline – the gradually growing distance from that person – started happening before our first loss, but our first loss tossed me into a spiral. As I’ve written here before, my brain broke. Even after getting happy pills to address the problem, I still wasn’t the same person. Even medicated, my other identity continued to slip further away. Everything became about a singular focused mission: I needed to “make up” for this loss. I needed a baby. Stat.

And I pulled Shmerson into the spiral right after me.

Just so you have a general idea of how this has affected our marriage: We were married at the end of May 2010. My first miscarriage happened in July. We’ve been in the race since then. I have been pregnant for approximately 75% of our entire marriage so far.

Or in other words, I had only two months to truly enjoy my marriage before I dragged Shmerson after me into a baby making race. It consumed us. He wasn’t as vocal about it as I was, but everything was about “when a baby comes.” Or “after we have a baby.” Or “If I’m pregnant”.

Each time I saw a cute dog up for adoption, my mantra was: “Baby first, second dog later.” When I considered any major change in my career, with which I’ve been unsatisfied with for a while, it was always “Baby first, career change later.”

Everything was “baby first.” With the exception, of course, of things that would be good for a baby, like moving into a bigger place.

Baby first.

Even my lame attempts at self-improvement and “living for me” during the break between loss #2 and loss #3 weren’t for ME. They were for “a baby”. Period. I lied to myself and to you by saying otherwise. I was convinced at the time that “just relax” would work and we’d finally have a successful pregnancy. We all know how well that adventure turned out.

Over the course of these two years, Shmerson and I gradually became hermits. We couldn’t go out with friends, because we needed to save money for when a baby comes. We didn’t plan anything too far into the future because – what if I’ll be pregnant?

Once I was pregnant with Nadav things just got worse, specifically with me. What I wrote here was the tip of the tip of the iceberg. The fear was paralyzing. Apart from going to teach twice a week, I never left the house. And I’m not just talking about when I was on bed rest.

For six months, I. NEVER. LEFT. THE. HOUSE.

I also barely spoke with my friends, “real-life” or “bloggy”. I sunk into my own cyclical, self-destructive, anxiety-ridden thoughts. It was its own special form of hell.

No wonder I felt a sense of relief to be free of it.

Back to the race: The freaking race that we all call TTC. That race stole 2 years of my life. It put my thoughts of a career path change on hold. It kept me from my friends. It kept me from traveling. It kept me from enjoying my marriage. My new marriage with my best friend and the love of my life.

Instead of spending our “newlywed years” enjoying each other, we spent them in mourning, in anxiety, and in a race to fill a void that began with our first loss and just became bigger and bigger with each subsequent one.

The race. The obsessive race. It put our life on hold.

As women, we all desire a child. That desire can overcome us. A loss, naturally, throws that desire into sharp relief and makes it even greater. There is no getting rid of this desire. It’s ingrained into our DNA.

However

There is desire and there is obsession. My desire to fill the void morphed into an obsession. One that consumed all of my time, energy and thought. One that did me harm.

And let’s be honest, there will always be a void. Nadav left a hole that will never be filled with another child. It will be filled with love and light for him, and no one else. I can say the same for each of my other three pregnancies as well, though of course, I will always consider Nadav my firstborn.

St. Elsewhere recently wrote about her new baby Figlia, and the one she lost, Cbub: Figlia is my rainbow baby. Cbub is my unicorn baby.

Like she so beautifully wrote, this is not a race to fill a void that is impossible to fill. And making it one leads, at least for me, to obsessive behavior.

I used to look at myself as two different people. The Mo before the losses, and the Mo after the losses.

That was the mistake. We are one and the same. I just forgot to grow and nurture the “Before Mo”. I ignored her. I let her whither and starve.

“Just in case a baby comes” I ignored her dreams.

Because “we should have a baby first” I told her not to go back to school to get a Master’s in Art Therapy.

I kept her from going out with her husband, seeing her friends, and enjoying her marriage because “we need the money for a baby.”

The “Before Mo” and the “After Mo” are not two different people. They are one and the same. They are me. And I need to be nurtured. Yes, I need to fulfill my desire to have a child, but I also need to grow. I also need to have fun. I also need to live my life.

There is no “Before” and “After”. There is just a woman, already a mother in her heart, that needs to remember that she should mother her own body and soul first and foremost.

Thank you, Nadav, for bringing me back together with the half of me that was missing for so long.

Tags: grief, hope, stillbirth

The lessons so far…

Since I was a teenager, I have been terrified of giving birth. I can’t really explain why. Just the pain of it. The massive undertaking that it always seemed to me. It scared the bejeezus out of me. It’s ironic that for the longest time I was actually convinced that I would never ever want to get pregnant because of this.

The fear of giving birth has followed me into my journey toward motherhood. The way I comforted myself was by thinking that it’s common for a woman, by the time she hits the end of the third trimester, to be so eager to meet her baby that labor just doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore. The prize at the end is too big. Too precious for the pain to matter.

Plus, there’s the epidural. I always knew I’d most likely go for an epidural.

And then, in a hospital, having understood that my son was gone, I now had to face yet another one of my biggest fears. Without the precious prize. Without nurses or midwives cheering me on. Without the smiling husband and the eager family. Just Shmerson and I, in a small room in the middle of the night, going through a world of pain.

At 6:30pm on February 21st I was induced. I really wanted the option of just being knocked out, but the hospital that I was in didn’t have that option. I would have to go through labor, wide awake.

I asked to not be put in labor and delivery. I knew I wouldn’t be able to survive going through this while there. I was put in a small private room at the end of the hall in the women’s ward of the hospital.

But since I was away from L&D (and I think for some other reasons that I can’t really remember), an epidural was not an option. And nobody bothered to tell me that. All I had was an IV drip that made me kind of stoned, but didn’t help the pain in the slightest.

Contractions started at 9pm. They gradually got worse, and by 10pm they were unbearable. We called the nurse and they started the IV drip, while I was hoping for some relief from the pain. None came.

All that the IV gave me was the inability to concentrate, and the urge to sleep between contractions.

The on-call doctor was an a-hole, and the poor night nurse meant well, but I don’t think she had really been through anything like this before, so she was pretty helpless. Up until that point the staff at the hospital had been amazing, helpful, and compassionate toward us. At the moment that we needed it the most, we were surrounded by helplessness and incompetence.

For three and a half hours, I drifted between sleep and pain (under these circumstances I am grateful that it only took that long. The doctors had said that induction and labor could take as long as 48 hours).

For three and a half hours we were alone.

Nobody gave me any instructions. Nobody was there to cheer us on.

All Shmerson could do was hold my hand while I screamed and cried.

Yet somehow, through the drug-induced haze and through the emotional and unbearable physical pain of it, I managed to pull up the little that I did know about giving birth.

Like to push whenever I felt the urge to. And only during the contractions, not in-between, as tempting as it was.

So I slept, and I screamed, and finally, I pushed.

I had the sense to understand when he was about to come out and to not look down, and to tell Shmerson to run out of the room and yell for the nurse to take Nadav’s body away.

And just like that, 7 hours after I was induced, it was over.

They started a pitocin drip, and I fell fast asleep within minutes.

At 5:30am I was woken up by a doctor so he could examine me and see whether I needed a D&C. By 6am, they rolled me into an operating room. Up until that moment, I had always hated and feared general anesthesia. This time, anesthesia was nothing.

When I woke up from the procedure, the strangest thing happened. I felt empowered. I had lost my son less than 24 hours earlier, yet somehow I felt invincible.

I had gone through labor. Without an epidural. Without getting my baby at the end of it. With minimal medical support.

I had gone through labor and I had survived.

If I could do that, I can do anything.

About a week ago I shared with you my new insight about fear. How useless it is. How anxiety paralyzes you. Even though at the end of the day, if your worst fears come to light, you find they weren’t nearly as terrible as you had imagined. You find that you can survive.

Things may be hard. Even impossible. But you survive.

Today, I went back to teaching my regular 10th grade class. 7 girls, some from poor backgrounds. One of the other teachers had already told them about Nadav last week, but this was the first time they had seen me.

Not wanting an elephant in the room, I started out the class by letting the girls ask me anything they wanted to know about our loss.

With all of us crying, I recounted our story, as honestly as I could. Then one of the girls asked me: “How can you still be here after all of that pain? How did you survive this?”

The girl who asked me that question grew up with an alcoholic, abusive father and a drug addicted mother. Both of her parents died of AIDS when she was ten. She lives in near poverty, with an aunt and uncle who don’t treat her well. This girl is bright, funny, and has one of the most infectious smiles I’ve ever seen.

This girl saw my pain and found it unbearable, while I see hers and feel the same way. Yet somehow, we both got through it.

So I answered her: “In the worst moments, you can sometimes find strength that you never knew that you had.”

Then the girl gave me a hug. Later she took me aside and said: “I think you are so brave.”

The feeling is mutual, kiddo.

I found strength and bravery on the night I delivered Nadav.

Whatever else there is to come: bring it on.

Thank you, Nadav, for showing me that even in the greatest moments of pain and loss, I can overcome. I can be Superwoman.

Tags: grief, hope, stillbirth

Today – in fact two hours ago precisely – marks one week since we lost Nadav. Time is moving fast, and for that I am grateful. We are doing as ok as we can be. My family and friends have been on “Mo watch”, so I have someone with me literally 24 hours a day, keeping me busy, distracted, or just letting me talk and cry. This is because of one of the biggest lessons that Nadav taught me.

I’ve never been one of those people who expected others to read my mind and then somehow magically give me exactly what I need at any given moment.

On the other hand, I also never really ask for anything. I feel weird asking for help of any kind. I’ve always felt like I don’t deserve it. Or that I’m inconveniencing the people around me by asking.

Nadav taught me that sometimes it’s ok to ask for what you need.

In the three days we spent in the hospital, everyone with me there was in pain. Yes, this was happening to my body. But the loss was everyone’s. Shmerson, of course. But my parents, my in-laws, my brother, my friends. Everyone was shaken to the core.

My instinct when I see people around me in pain is to ignore my own needs and worry about their pain. Even if the people in pain are in that situation because of something that is happening to me.

So there I was stuck in the hospital, battling to make peace with the fact that I was losing my baby boy, and yet I kept on comforting others. Shmerson, my mother, my father… I kept on being “Ok” so they wouldn’t suffer more than they already had been.

But unlike other times, I drew a line. I didn’t do this at my own expense.

If there was one thing that I knew, it was that even if I wasn’t feeling it exactly at that moment, I was heading into a world of fear and unimaginable pain – both physical and emotional. I was still numb so I could still be strong for them. But I knew the numbness wouldn’t last long.

Usually when I’m in a crisis, I don’t answer the phone if a friend is calling. When I’m depressed and a friend offers to come over, I make up some excuse why they shouldn’t. Because I don’t want them to go out of their way to help or comfort me. Because I don’t deserve their help or attention. Or at least that’s how I feel.

Shmerson and I have been through losses before. Not of this scope, but three miscarriages showed me how I respond to offers of help and comfort in a crisis. I don’t. I close myself off and crawl into a deep dark hole, coming up for air only when I reach an unbearable breaking point.

This time I didn’t do that.

Mere hours after I was admitted into the hospital a string of revelations hit me like a 5 ton anvil. One of those was about asking for help.

I thought to myself: You are about to enter into a nightmare, and you won’t be able to face it alone. So just don’t. Ask for what you need.

So I texted friends to let them know what was going on. When someone offered to come see me in the hospital, I said “yes, please.”

I knew I needed some bloggy love and I couldn’t bring myself to post, so I asked Court and Rachel to post on their blogs to let you guys know what was going on, expecting that I would get a few comments that would bring some comfort.

Of course, I never expected or could even fathom the outpouring of love and support that would come from that small request. And when it came, it was more needed and at the same time more comforting than I ever imagined (and I’m sure I’m missing at least a few of you lovely ladies who took the time to send love my way. Wow, just getting those links together is overwhelming. You guys are amazing. Amazing is an understatement).

But most importantly, apart from letting my friends know that I was in a crisis – I spoke up. Often.

My parents have a serious issue with seeing me cry. It’s not that we’re not an emotional family. We are. But they get defensive and even angry sometimes when I cry. I realized a few years ago that this is because they absolutely cannot stand to see me in pain, so they react by wanting me to just magically stop being in pain. It’s not really healthy, but that’s who they are.

Knowing this, I thought to myself: Not now. Not this time. Our first morning in the hospital, without a tear in my eye, I sat my mother down for a talk:

In the coming days, and maybe months, I’m going to be crying. A lot. And it may come out of nowhere. And you may hate seeing it. But you have to let me cry. I need you to let me cry, and I need you to hug me when I cry. I need you to let me show my pain. 

And with few exceptions, she has been doing that ever since (as well as my father).

But it wasn’t only my mother. Before going in for all the medical procedures leading to the induction and with the clearest intent, I sat Shmerson and my mother down once again:

I don’t know how I’m going to act in the coming hours. They’re going to be medicating me. I may lose control and scream horrible things. I may be catatonic. I’m sorry if anything I say upsets you. But most importantly, I won’t be able to be my own advocate. I need you to keep an eye on me and make sure the staff is taking care of me. Make sure I’m not bleeding too heavily. Make sure they take my temperature every couple of hours. Make sure they give me medications X, Y, and Z. 

And they did.

But the biggest change?

The phone has rung. Friends have called and sent messages, wanting to come over or just to see how I’m doing.

This time – 9 times out of 10 I answer. If they want to come over, even if at that second my instinct tells me that I want to just be alone, I say “yes please”.

Sometimes I’m too far gone to answer the phone. Usually I don’t feel like calling back. But even then, I send this text message:

Thank you so much for calling and thinking of me. I’m sorry I didn’t answer but I’m not much up for talking right now. But please keep calling. Just knowing you care enough to call is a huge comfort to me. And I promise – I will answer eventually. 

Sunday night was a hard night. Shmerson was already asleep because he had to work the next morning. I couldn’t stop crying. It was too late to call anyone local, and honestly, I just wanted an escape. I didn’t want to talk or cry any more.

So I asked for one. I took to twitter and people came through, sending funny videos and links, distracting me enough so that I could go to bed without taking any pills for a change.

And right at this moment: I have received all of your emails, tweets and comments. I’m sorry if I haven’t replied. But please know that each one of them strengthens me and comforts me, and I appreciate and love every single one of you for the amazing support that you have given me. And I still need it. Thank you for answering my call for help.

And thank you Nadav for teaching me that calling for help is Ok.

Tags: grief, hope, stillbirth

I have made a decision. I will not be telling you all of our story. It’s not because I don’t think you need to know. It’s because I don’t want the difficult decisions we had to make and the unbearable and terrifying experience to overshadow the beauty that our son gave us in his short time on this earth.

I don’t think that going through the gritty details will help anyone. Not you, dear readers and friends, and certainly not me.

It has been 6 days since we lost him. I am in pain. I have days when all I can do is go from crying to hysterical screams. I am lucky to be constantly surrounded by friends and family that cry with me, embrace me, or just make sure to keep me as busy as possible. I count every single one of you amongst those friends.

But I need to write. And writing out the thoughts and memories that go through my head during those moments when I break will not help heal me. My healing and my comfort come from the moments of clarity. Those are the ones I return to when I need to be pulled back from the abyss. Those are what will be my son’s legacy. Those are what I will record here.

This blog was started with hope in my heart. It will not become a place of pain. My son’s legacy will not be a nightmare story. It will be the story of the triumphs and understanding that have come out of unimaginable grief. I am determined that his story will give peace of mind and not anxiety. Hope and not fear.

I will post here every few days, when I feel up to it, with the lessons he has given me in my moments of peace, and come back to them when I need them in the moments where I feel the darkness of grief overcome me. When the time comes, they will be a part of me and I will go on and live my life. For him and for me and my Shmerson.

This will be the legacy of my son.

Hopefully they will help you too. Thanks for being here and reading along.

Tags: grief, hope, stillbirth