Why did this happen to me?

I have been trying to keep a positive outlook, to focus on the good things that are happening to me and around me. I think I have done a decent job at that. But though I try to be strong, though I try to be positive, I am human. I fall, I cry, and I fail at time; I fail many times. 

This weekend I started to wonder why this happened to me. Why did I have to go through the loss of a child? If God didn't mean for me to become a mother, why did he allow me to get pregnant and give birth, only to have my baby die in my arms? Why, why, WHY? What did I do to deserve this? Is there anything more painful that He could have put me through? I don't think so. 

Yes, everything happens for a reason...but what is the reason? When will I finally find out what the reason is for losing  my child? How long do I need to wait before I start to understand this? 

People look at me and tell me I'm strong. But I have no choice but to be, or should I say, to 'act' strong when I'm in public. No one wants to see a grown women crying, no one wants to talk about a dead baby. If I didn't act strong, I would make others very uncomfortable. So I reserve my moments of weakness, my moments of pain for when I'm alone. I am not strong - I'm just someone who learned how to be in public if you don't want others to start avoiding you. I do lead a double life - the one other see is of a strong and happy woman. The one I see if of a wounded and lost girl who is not too sure what to do or how to carry on.

Ephemeral as Cherry Blossoms

Dear Leo,

Cherry blossoms are blooming here now. They're so beautiful. There are two trees by our apartment and we always see people taking pictures of the flowers. Everyone wants to capture them while they are here. Cherry blossom flowers bloom for a few weeks and then, they disappear. The tree goes from a soothing pink to the typical green. Your dad said the other day that cherry blossoms reminds him of you: they're so beautiful, so precious, but are only here for a short while. And while they're here, everyone enjoys them, everyone marvels over them. And then, they're gone. Just like you.

I'm always surprised by the things that remind us of you and even more surprised by the things that make us burst into tears. One of my friends is having a baby shower soon. I'm genuinely excited for her and am taking a big part in organizing the event. Last week, I went onto her baby registry to purchase her little baby boy some gifts and was taken aback. I saw some of the same clothes that I had purchased for you and that are now sitting in your drawer. Cute little outfits that you never wore..he will be wearing them. For a second I thought of giving him your clothes, but I quickly rejected that thought; I can't bring myself to do that. They are YOUR clothes. I didn't even want to purchase him any clothes. It makes no sense, I know, but the thought of buying clothes for another baby boy is just so difficult for me. So I bought him wipes and diapers.

I was at the dentist earlier this week and as he was looking at my chart he said "I see you have a history of miscarriage." It took all that I had to not cry as I told him "it was not a miscarriage...it was premature birth." I was so upset. I HAD to correct him and let him know that you were born, that you came into this world and then left. And people talk about miscarriage as if it was such a light topic. That too is painful and hard to deal with. It's not 'just a miscarriage'. As soon as I got out of the dentist's office, I broke down in tears. I can't even explain why, because I don't really know. I didn't expect the dentist to mention you, I didn't like that he said that in passing, as if it was nothing. I didn't like that he got it wrong and referred to your death as a miscarriage.

Like a cherry blossom, your existence was real, but ephemeral. I'm grateful that I got to cherish  you while you were with us.

Let him under your skin, then you begin to make it better

I spent the last 4 days in Las Vegas with 2 of my childhood friends. It was an attempt to run away, to have fun, to reconnect.

My flight there was mostly uneventful. It was a small plane with no in-flight entertainment. It was just me, my book and my thoughts, which of course, is never a good thing. As expected, I started thinking of all that I gained and lost in the last few months and then just burst into tears. 

The trip itself was good. The sun, the heat, the friendship, were all things that made me feel a little better, a little lighter.

Last night, we went to see a Cirque du Soleil show called "Love". It was centered around The Beattles music. It was so beautiful, so breathtaking. I loved every bit of it. But then came the song "Hey Jude" and, though it's a love song, it spoke to me. So there I was, in tears in the most unlikely of places. But it reminded me that all I need to do, is let Leo under my skin so that I can start to feel better. 

Hey Jude

Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

Hey Jude, don't be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder
Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah

Hey Jude, don't let me down
You have found her, now go and get her
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

So let it out and let it in, hey Jude, begin
You're waiting for someone to perform with
And don't you know that it's just you, hey Jude, you'll do
The movement you need is on your shoulder
Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah yeah

Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her under your skin
Then you'll begin to make it
Better better better better better better, oh

Hard to Conceive

Dearest Leo,

I have said many times that saying "you can have another baby" to someone whose baby died is a major faux pas. I read somewhere a post that said "My baby is not like a cookie, I can't just have another one". I think people say that to me because they believe I'm sad about not being a mother, that I'm sad about not having a baby...and to some extent, that is true. But more importantly, I'm sad that I lost you. I'm not sad that I lost a baby...I'm sad that I lost you Leo.

And I understand that another child would bring me happiness. So much happiness in fact, that I would hardly have time to think of how sad I am about not having you with me. But not thinking about being sad doesn't take away the pain that I feel about losing you. Not thinking of being sad is just a way to ignore or dismiss a fact that only a few understand: I will always be sad about losing my first child, my son, my baby. This is part of me now, it's part of my life.

But I can't pretend that I do not want another child. I do! I want a baby so bad. The kind of baby that I can take home  with me from the hospital. I want a child that I can cuddle with, kiss, hug and play with for the rest of my life and not for just 1 hour.

The making of this new child has become my whole world now and has been far from easy. My weeks are consumed by looking at the calendar, tracking my cycle, calculating my most fertile days, getting all anxious about my ovulation, and putting a lot of pressure on my husband and I to make it count. And then, impatiently waiting for the time to pee on the stick. Crossing my fingers and toes, hoping for the double pink lines. And then, not seeing the lines. And testing again and again until my period comes in...as if the result would be different with a new pregnancy test.  Next comes disappointment, anger, frustration, despair. A few days later, I'm back to wishing that days would go by faster so that I can finally be at my most fertile days again. My husband and I text each other about ovulation kits and pregnancy tests. It's so different from the texts that we used to send each other just a few months ago.

I've had 2 months of this trying to conceive cycle. I know, it's not much. Some people try for months, some even for years, before getting pregnant. But I can't wait that long. How can I be patient? I was pregnant and I didn't get to keep my baby. It's unfair that I'm back at square 1, which really feels like square -100 because I lost so much.

Now I'm waiting for a few days to go by before spending $40 on a series of pregnancy tests. I don't like this game of trying and trying and not seeing anything come out of it. I don't like this waiting game. I don't like getting a negative result on the same week that someone else announces their pregnancy...or their healthy newborn baby.

I don't like any of this.

Grass must grow and children die

You remember learning a new word as a kid? For some reason, unknown to me, whenever I learned a new word, I kept hearing it everywhere.  Or perhaps you remember being excited about purchasing a new outfit and then seeing it being worn by dozens of people around you. What I feel with Leo's death is similar. Now that I am what they call an 'angel mommy', I see or hear of other angel parents all around me.  

In high school, I wrote a long paper about Victor Hugo, a French poet from the 1800s. I studied his works and his life. I analyzed his poems and read many of his novels. But how is it that I completely missed the fact that out of the 5 children he had, only 1 outlived him? He lost his first child, a son, in infancy. His second child, Leopoldine died at the age of 19. Many of his poems were dedicated to her. And who can say it better than Hugo? (Scroll down for English translation):

Les mois, les jours, les flots des mers, les yeux qui pleurent,

Passent sous le ciel bleu;

Il faut que l’herbe pousse et que les enfants meurent;

Je le sais, ô mon Dieu!

(…)

Hélas ! vers le passé tournant un oeil d'envie,

Sans que rien ici-bas puisse m'en consoler,

Je regarde toujours ce moment de ma vie

Où je l'ai vue ouvrir son aile et s'envoler!

Je verrai cet instant jusqu'à ce que je meure,

L'instant, pleurs superflus !

Où je criai : L'enfant que j'avais tout à l'heure,

Quoi donc ! je ne l'ai plus !

------------------------------------------------------------------

Months, days, billows of the sea, eyes that weep
pass under the blue sky;
grass must grow and children die;
I know it, O God!

(…)

Alas! turning an envious eye towards the past,

inconsolable by anything on earth,

I keep looking at that moment of my life

when I saw her open her wings and fly away!

I will see that instant until I die,

that instant—too much for tears!

when I cried out: "The child that I had just now--

what! I don't have her any more!"

-          À Villequier, 4 septembre 1847.

Last Love

Tonight, I watched a movie called "Last Love". The main character, Matthew Morgan, is a recent widower who is trying to find a way to live now that he's alone. Approximately halfway through the movie, he said something that struck me. It was so beautiful, so poetic, so touching - tears started streaming down my face. I rewound the movie and listened to it again and decided it needed to be written down.

It so beautifully portrays how I feel at times. Here's an excerpt:

Sometimes you meet someone who requires all the love you have to give.And if you lose that someone, you think everything else is going to stop too.But everything else just keeps on going. Giraudoux said, "You can miss a single being, even though you are surround by countless others."  
Those people are like....extras. They cloud your vision. They are meaningless crowd. They are unwelcomed distraction. So you seek oblivion in solitude. But solitude only makes you wither. 

Unexpected Acts of Kindness

I spent so much time being disappointed at friends and family who haven't been there for me. Disappointed at those who heard the news and never called me. Disappointed at those who called once and never called nor emailed again. Disappointed at those who are still in touch with me but pretend nothing has happened.

For every person I have been disappointed with, there has been someone who surprised me with a random and unexpected act of kindness.

People in my church have been so supportive, people I never even talked to before losing Leo. They have shared their own stories of lost, they have hugged me, they have squeezed my hand when they sensed I was going through a tough moment. 

The florist near my place, gave me a dozen roses on Valentine's day, the day after Leo's due date. He just grabbed them from this buckets of flowers and said "this is for you guys." It took me everything I had to not cry right there in front of him. A few days later I gave him a thank you card and he hugged me saying he really likes us.

People we don't even know, but who have heard our story email us saying "you don't know me, but I've been through this too and I'm thinking of you."

These are small but meaningful gestures. Random acts if kindness coming from random people all around us is what gives me faith in humanity. 

It's not such a bad world after all.

Four Months

Dear Leo,

It's strange to think that 4 months have already passed by since you were born. To me, it already seems like a lifetime. The past few months have, without a doubt, been the toughest months of my life. Maybe that is why it seems like so much time has gone by. When you're having a good time, time seems to fly by. When things are tough, everything slows down, every molehill seems like a mountain, every second without you seems like years.

When you died, I was only 23 weeks. I kept keeping track of my 'would be pregnancy'. Every week I would tell myself "I would have been 30 weeks", "I would have been 36 weeks", and so on. I missed having you in my belly. I felt sad for not being able to experience what most pregnant women do: feeling you doing somersaults, feeling your hiccups, knowing when you're sleeping and when you're awake. I did that until about 40 weeks. But now that your due date has passed, I feel sad for what would have been. For example, if you were here right now, I would probably be watching you sleep, I would probably be taking millions of pictures of you, but be too busy or too tired to post any of them.

Yesterday, someone told me that they loved the picture I posted of you on Facebook. That made me so happy. Most people look at your picture and just feel sad or sorry for me. When they see you, they see what I've lost. So it was nice to hear someone say that you looked so cute - it's nice to hear someone acknowledge your existence rather than your lost.

I wish you were here.

Seek beauty in everything you see

That is how I am trying to live my life these days. It is so easy to see the negatives and the ugly. It's so easy to say "this is an awful day", "I am fat, I am ugly", "my life sucks". It's also easy to be constantly disappointed with others and think "why is everyone pretending this never happened?", "why didn't anyone call?".

When life is unfair to us, it's easy to be angry. It feels good to hate the word, hate everyone around us, hate everyone who is realizing their dreams while yours came crushing down. Staying positive is hard and it takes a lot of energy, frankly, it's exhausting. 

After Leo died, I realized how precious life is. Not everyone gets to live as long as I have. Not everyone has the opportunity to enjoy it. So, why not focus on the beautiful things that surround us? Why not see the beauty in people instead of focusing on their faults or failures?

Of course, it's easier said than done and some days, it seems like there's nothing worth celebrating. But we should all give it a try. Enjoying little moments, thinking positively, seeking beauty in everything we see - that's my goal this week.

Today, it's grey outside. But it's a nice winter day. The kind of day where winter doesn't seem so bad. Today is a good day.

You'll have more babies...

How do I respond to people who tell me "don't worry, you'll have more babies"? I know they are trying to be encouraging, trying to be comforting, trying to be nice. I know they don't realize that, instead of helping, they're hurting me, they're angering me, they're devaluing your life. 

What do I say to this? I've tried to respond and I must admit that sometimes, my response is not exactly kind. I'm struggling. How do I tell them that you are not replaceable? How do I tell them that no one, not even another baby, will make things better? No one will ever be you, replace you or make me forget you.

It is so strange to me. When you lose a spouse, no one says "don't worry, you can re-marry" When you lose a 10 year old child, no one will dare say "you can have another kid". People don't even say that about pets...imagine: "sorry your dog died; you can buy another one right?" No one says that. 

What is it about babies that make people think that a new baby can replace the one that died? Is it because their lives were so short? Do they believe their existences are insignificant? 

Perhaps, if I had not gone through this loss, I would have said that too. But here's something I learned on October 22, 2013: the love you feel for your child is immense and unconditional. I didn't expect to fall so deeply in love with Leo right at the moment I held him and I didn't expect this love to grow even after he left us. My love for Leo is what makes him irreplaceable. I could never love anyone the way I love him.