A Pain Like No Other

We've all heard the pithy little saying about how we have words for all different kinds of grief, but none for when a parent looses a child, because it's "A Pain Like No Other" or "Goes against the natural order.  While I wouldn't disagree with any of those things,  I can't help but see it as an excuse made by society so they don't have to deal any further with our pain or it's implications.

My boss' father passed away today.  It's a terrible thing, that I couldn't imagine enduring.  My father and I have always been close.  As soon as they heard about her loss, the board of directors of our library started grouping together to see where they could send donations or flowers to.  They recognize the significance of the loss and they reached out to her.

These same people did nothing, sent nothing, and said nothing when we lost our daughter.  They chose not to acnowledge our loss, because for any number of reasons, it was easier for them.  That is the real reason there is no word for people like me and no acepted way to act towards us.

I am a grieving mother, but sometimes I feel more like a leper.

On the Sidelines

It's no secret that, as we grow and change, our group of friends change with us.  We often choose people in our stage of life, with our values and ideals.  When I went to college and moved to Ohio and then to a new part of Pennsylvania I had to learn to make new friends.  A simple task, but a difficult one to grasp for someone who had lived in the same place and among the same people their entire life, made all the worse by the fact that most of those places were temporary stops.  

But now, I've lived in the same county for almost 4 years (same town for 3) and plan to continue living here for some time (home ownership will do that).  We started TTC when we got here, so it's been a long 4 years and I've no doubt been a shitty friend at times.  The people we gravitated toward the most were either young parents or married couples who were ready to settle down.  In that time, they have all had children and we're still sitting on the sidelines.  They go out together on "play dates" and have "moms nights out" and I'm never invited.  Of course, I don't have anyone to take on the play date and my being a mother too, is either something they prefer not to think about or they don't think it counts.  Either way, it makes me odd man out.  

We've tried hanging out with singles and couples who don't want kids yet, but lifestyle-wise, we have nothing in common with them.  We live the life of people with kids, without the kids.  I guess it's kind of a sad existence.  Me home all day(baking and cleaning and canning and tending the chickens), our free evenings, our 4 BR house with a big yard and an empty nursery.  

And so we exist in no-man's land, and let me tell you: It's a lonely place to be.

Pulling Flowers

Mr. Fix-it and I went to the cemetery on Saturday.  Elizabeth is buried next to my great-grandpap (in the slot that was reserved for my great-grandma who is still alive and kicking, but wants to be buried with her second husband) in the cemetery where all of my family is, in my hometown.   We live about an hour from there, so we don't get to visit often enough (if you ask me) but I couldn't think of anywhere else I would rather have her, than surrounded by family.  It's probably best for me too: there's no way I could dwell to the point of practically living in the cemetery.  Unfortunately, Mr. Fix-It kinda freaks out when I declare that we should visit the cemetery while we're there...so I don't mention it 'til I have to.  We haven't ever not stopped when we've been in the area tho, so eventually he's gonna catch on.  It's not that he doesn't want to go, but rather that he doesn't know what to do with his emotions, having followed a long line of males down the glorious road of emotional constipation.

The cemetery game plan was to rip out the flowers we had planted in the summer and put in a fall wreath.  When we got there, someone had already ripped out the flowers.  It was probably best.  Over the summer, they grew to be rather bushy but we left them because they were still so pretty.  But I was really hurt by it.  Not because the flowers were gone, but because I felt like someone else had said to me with their actions that I wasn't taking good enough care of my daughter's grave.  It'd only been 2 1/2 weeks since we'd been out there,and while we were on a tight enough schedule that we didn't have time to garden last time, the were still in full bloom so I didn't feel the need to pull them yet.

The fact of the matter is, most of my family is buried in that area and my great-grandpap (who has 50+ descendants at this point) shares her "gardening space".  Any one of a dozen people could have been up there and saw they needed pulled and acted, meaning nothing but good by their actions.

But here's the thing:  keeping her gravesite orderly is the only means I have left to nurture my daughter.  And today I feel like it's yet another example of my extreme failure as a parent.

How We Remember

CD28, 14DPO

Well, here I sit waiting for the red lady...who I presume is coming.  This morning's FRER was assembled incorrectly and I had to take it apart and interpret the results but I THINK it was negative (and that folks is why I consider Clearblue Digial to be the rolls royce of HPTs, but the store was out of 'em).  Still not the slightest sign of spotting, tho the headaches I've had the last few days suggest she is coming as well.

Anyways, today is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Rememberance Day.  Everyone remembers their little angels in different ways.  I'm gonna share some of the things we and other folks have done to remember our little angels, but I'd really love to hear what you have done also.

• Currently, there are 2 weeping cherry trees in our yard, which we planted after our first two losses.  I do plan on either planting 2 more or one more and putting in a bench.  
• When our church got new hymnals last year, I donated 3 in memory of our 3 (at the time) angels.  
• My car has a pink & blue ribbon magnet.  I couldn't find anywhere that had discrete (aka: text-free) ones, so I made and ordered one at supportourribbons.com.  

And then, there's Elizabeth.  Part of me feels sort of terrible singling her out.  I hate that the rest of our angels didn't get names, but years later it feels wrong to just assign them names and I guess it didn't occur to me at the time.  But now I feel like I've done them a disservice, because I assure you they were no less real and certainly no less human to me just because I never go to hold them or know their gender and 2 of them I never even got to see on an ultrasound machine.  I wish I could turn back the clock and give them names when it was apropriate to do so, or that it didn't feel like too little too late now.  But at the same time, Elizabeth was different.  Not because she was more precious, but because she was more known.  

She was more known to me, who carried her for more than 19 weeks.  I like to think she liked bananas and plain spaghetti with marinara sauce, cuz those were the only things she would let me eat.  She fluttered at the silliest times, but especially when her daddy was around.  She's my little Lizzie who I learned was in danger the second I finally learned what to call her.  Who I spent 3 days comforting and begging forgiveness of because there was nothing I could do to save her, while her movements got fewer and fewer.  She was the only child I ever got to hold in my arms, even if it was just her still, limp body.  

She's also the only one who was really known to the public, especially at the end when I was finally starting to get that bump.  Because she was more substantial, and because she was more known to the public, we were given almost normal room to bury her and grieve for her.  That has also given us more space to memorialize her, and others who wished to do so.

• Elizabeth was cremated and buried with a small graveside service with some extended family.  In a box with her urn (which was about the size of a pill bottle), we put a blanket someone had knitted in anticipation of her arrival, the tiniest teddy bear we could find (so it wouldn't be too big for her) which, fittingly, said Jesus Loves Me, and a note I had written her.  Just a little over a week ago, her headstone finally made it into place. 
• The hospital gave us a memorial box with the tiniest footprints on one panel of the lid, and a little card declaring that she weighed 9.5oz on the other.  We put all of her ultrasound pics, the pics the hospital staff took for us (I wish there were more), and my hospital bracelets in a little album in it.  In the back we put the ultrasound pics and bracelets from our other angels.  The box also contains the teacup the held the water she was baptized with, the blanket she was wrapped in, the knitted dress donated by a group at the hospital that she was too small to wear and a couple other similar nick-nacks.  It lives on our dresser so we can look at it whenever we want. 
• The staff at my mom's office pitched in and bought a leaf for the National Tree of Hope Monument in her honor.  I've never been to see the tree, but I hope to some day.  In the mean time, we were sent a replica of her brass leaf, a Christmas ornament, and 2 keychains. 
• One of Mr. Fix-It's Aunts paid for the National Arbor Day foundation to plant 10 trees in her honor. 
• I haven't yet, but I'm seriously thinking about getting a memorial tattoo.  I do agree with my mom tho, when she says I should give it a little more time.  Tattoos are forever. 

Today, to honor Pregnancy & Infant loss Rememberance day, the organizers ask that we all light a candle at 7pm, your own time zone, thus creating a "wave of light".  They're forecasting pretty heavy winds tonight here, so I might have to use flashlights or oil lamps or something. 

What have you all done to remember your precious angels?

The Pee Stick Controversy

CD25, 12 DPO

I have not peed on a stick yet.  For an average person, not peeing on sticks probably seems like normal behavior, but for an infertile like me?  Its practically unheard of.  But, here's the thing:  I live probably 17 miles from the nearest hpt vendor and I work close enough to home to walk.  That leaves me with two options: Have Mr. Fix-It get some for me on his way home from work or wait until I have legitimate errands to run.

Unfortunately, I haven't left my home/work/post office radius of a couple hundred yards since Sunday and don't have any legitimate reason to drive that far until tomorrow night at the earliest.  Living in the country has many perks.  This is not one of them.

Why not ask my darling husband to get one for me, then?  Well, Mr. Fix-It refuses to buy hpts unless I'm already late.  There are two reasons for this:

1. He doesn't want me losing my head over every little chemical pregnancy, I'm crazy enough and he figures what I don't know can't hurt me.  Of course, reminding him that, while the first might have come close, I have never had a pregnancy so short that I wouldn't have noticed being late (it's a side-effect of being hopelessly regular) doesn't help. 
2. Having sent him for a few hots anyways has shown him how much they cost...and the price difference between the ones I like, and the dollar store ones.  His theory is, if they cost so much and your body already gives you a heads up why not just buy one and save it as a confirmation?

Of course, saving one is totally out of the question.  If you let me, I'd go through them like mad.  When you combine that with the fact that I've never seen a multi-pack with more than 4 you quickly see that stockpiling is out of the question.  

And so I sit, 12 DPO  with no hopes of peeing on something for more than 36 hours.  Who invented this cruel game, anyways?

Infertility & Sin Nature

CD 24, 11 DPO

I'm a horrible, horrible person.  Inside, where no one sees.  On the outside, I'm far from perfect but I certainly seem to have it together in a social and moral sense.  College grad, virgin bride, devoted wife, home owner, librarian, (less than)urban homesteader, upstanding citizen, regular church goer.  I even sing in the choir.

But today, I wished something on a friend (or maybe more accurately, frenemy) that the normal, rational part of me would never wish on a soul, not even Mr. Adolf Hitler himself.  I had better start from the beginning:

This morning, I woke up to an old friend's copious newborn pictures plastering facebook.  Her tagging and commenting showed that she had found a vigor for facebook that I've never known her to have in the past.  Her baby was due less than a month before Elizabeth and it would be an understatement to say that those pictures stung, particularly in comparison to the picture I posted last week of my daughter's headstone.

To say that this friend had been lest than chaste (despite putting up her perfect Christian front), would be quite the understatement.  By the time her little oops happened though, she had at least found a serious relationship with her man and they rushed up a wedding and off they marched merrily into the sunset.  She announced her pregnancy right away, never having to fear that things might not go according to plan (or un-plan, in her case).  When Elizabeth passed, she never so much as called or emailed despite the fact that just a few weeks before we had been swapping stories from the trenches.  My guess is she was just so glad it wasn't her and that she had just crossed that precious line of viability.  Then this morning, she (who updated her status barely once a month) was on facebook for over an hour, making sure that no one could possibly miss her pictures and her joy.

Something inside me snapped.  I wanted to know why such an incredible gift had been given to her, who had done positively everything out of order while I, who have worked my ass off to keep my life in line, have had so very much taken from me in the last few years.  Part of me was waiting for God to wake up and declare that He had made a terrible mistake and given her what He had intended for me, and visa versa.  Then my (self-) righteous anger kicked in and in the back of my head i began to fester and part of me honestly wished, not only for what she had, but for her to know the intense pain and suffering of what has been taken from me.

And that, ladies and gents is sin at work.  I felt better than someone else, and in doing so became worse than her.  Grace is not given out only to the worthy and we should be thanking our lucky stars it isn't, because none of us have earned it.  I sure as hell didn't today.

It is also infertility at work.  Rational, caring me would never have thought something like that.  But infertility often stifles that part of me and sometimes I swear it's taken part of my soul.  I know it's taken big chunks out of my heart.

Here I am, messed up, outside and in.