Accountability

I made a career change last year, after realizing that the environment I was in was not suited for my personal growth.

I'm in Real Estate now. It's pretty awesome. I'm not functioning as an agent (although I am licensed!) - I am the Director of Operations for a company in Minneapolis.

I love it here. Not only for the fact that we get the opportunity to help people with their biggest transaction yet - that's an AMAZING feeling and I am so grateful for it! - but because I've never been a part of a community that is superbly hyper-focused on personal growth.

These people are stunning, ya'll. They're constantly working to be their best selves. We have an entire library dedicated to Ways To Be Awesome. There's John Maxwell, Brene Brown, Elon Musk, Tim Ferriss, Daniel Pink.. all of these amazing authors, each with insights that are taken to make ourselves the next-level person we want to be.

It's not a cult. It's just cool.

I'm currently reading Atomic Habits, and it's life-changing. I'm applying small changes in my everyday life to get me to who I want to be (namely, an organized working mother with a house in order -- not chaos).

Mute

A good friend of mine recently made a breakthrough with EMDR therapy. It’s left me thinking a lot about my own mental and emotional health – especially as we approach the six year mark.

I am not well. Not in a functional, well-adjusted way.

When I was in school, I played the cello. I loved it (albeit I hated practicing) – I loved being able to make music that moved my own soul. Saint-Saens, especially. There were numbers that we’d have to use mutes on – devices that handily clipped onto the bridge, between the G & D strings. Round disks that felt like rubber and helped control your volume. I wasn’t a fan – it made that luminous sound fall away into something ethereal and almost whiny. Mind you, it worked for that specific sound, but I loved plucking that disc off and really getting into a more primal melody.

I feel like my life is on mute. Some days I can feel the pinch of the mute on my skin – reminders that I am functioning, but not at my best. I read miracle stories and feel a pinch. A tear, singular, and a swollen throat are my only reaction for the moment. I re-frame my mindset, because my knee-jerk waterfall of jealousy feels so wrong. I tighten the mute, and move on.

However.

The mute keeps me muted from everything – not just the pain from seeing other happy six-year-olds and miracle situations. It keeps me from feeling that deep-set joy that I used to feel – I don’t get that exhilarated rush on the first beautiful day after a long winter. I recognize my life as it is and I am grateful – especially for my daughters. I acknowledge that they are my entire life and I would go full Game of Thrones to keep them safe.

But my laughter? It’s fake. My smiles don’t feel real.

I’ve lost my joy, trying to mute my pain.

Some Nights

Some nights, I sit and cry and press your urn to my heart to try to be whole again.

I relive your last moments instead of your first; I sob until your ship is dripping with tears.

Sail across the sweet salt sea, my love. My tears bring you home.

Three years?

Three years. Some (disjointed, emotional, crying-while-typing) thoughts.

Next week is Eleanor's birthday. One year with our 'rainbow' - my sweet little girl. I've been able to talk more about losing Henry. Not in volume, but more content.

 I remember more. Some days I remember nothing but the fear and anxiety looming behind the sedation.

 When they don't expect your child to survive, they give you really good drugs for the cesarean. I was pretty impressed after having a routine cesarean with Eleanor. They did NOT load me up with the relaxing anti-anxieties and whatnot. I didn't expect that when she was born - I had to actually be brave, rather than float away on that mind-numbing cloud.

 I remember the terror once he left us. His skin lost the blotching. His complexion became perfect. His toes alabaster, the dark shadows leaving. Once he was gone, I wanted him to be taken away. I wish I hadn't. I wish I held him all night. This year was the first time I realized this. I'm so ashamed that I let my fear get in the way. I'm so proud that Jason didn't have that fear. He embraced him when I couldn't. He held our son as he took his last breaths, and long after. He walked him down to the surgery unit. He gave him his final good-bye kiss. I don't say this enough -- my husband is my hero and my inspiration.

  My girls are with my mom, and I'm cleaning - and crying. It's therapy. Cleaning the house while cleaning out my emotions -- emptying my cup of grief until it fills again. And now, standing alone in my kitchen, I find myself in tears. Anything and everything brings me back to those hours before, during, and after. The days, months either way. Today's trigger was Hamilton -- I freaking LOVE this musical. But Eliza after losing Phillip.. and It's Quiet Uptown. It undoes me. (Listen here)

It's leaning into the knife. Sometimes you need to push it in to feel and acknowledge your emotions. Sometimes you need to grieve, and not just push everything away. I've been pushing it all away and find myself being short with my (amazing) kids. I get so angry at myself when I yell - it's a vicious cycle.

 My advice for the grieving? Know that you have this same 'cup' - and that it's okay. Some days it'll fill within minutes. Some days it'll slowly fill over days, months, years. Tend to it, tend to yourself. Take care of yourself, so that you can enjoy your life ahead of you.

I've also realized that I don't have enough time. So, I don't have time for anything but what I want and need for my family. I don't have time for pettiness and ugliness. I don't have time to bring darkness to the world. I don't have time for drama. I will always do what is best for my family and myself. For my girls. For my son, and his memory.

-----
There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable
The moments when you’re in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down

Three years?

Three years. Some thoughts.

Next week is Eleanor's birthday. One year with our 'rainbow' - my sweet little girl. I've been able to talk more about losing Henry. Not in volume, but more content.

 I remember more. Some days I remember nothing but the fear and anxiety looming behind the sedation.

 When they don't expect your child to survive, they give you really good drugs for the cesarean. I was pretty impressed after having a routine cesarean with Eleanor. They did NOT load me up with the relaxing anti-anxieties and whatnot. I didn't expect that when she was born - I had to actually be brave, rather than float away on that mind-numbing cloud.

 I remember the terror once he left us. His skin lost the blotching. His complexion became perfect. His toes alabaster, the dark shadows leaving. Once he was gone, I wanted him to be taken away. I wish I hadn't. I wish I held him all night. This year was the first time I realized this. I'm so ashamed that I let my fear get in the way. I'm so proud that Jason didn't have that fear. He embraced him when I couldn't. He held our son as he took his last breaths, and long after. He walked him down to the surgery unit. He gave him his final good-bye kiss. I don't say this enough -- my husband is my hero and my inspiration.

  My girls are with my mom, and I'm cleaning - and crying. It's therapy. Cleaning the house while cleaning out my emotions -- emptying my cup of grief until it fills again. And now, standing alone in my kitchen, I find myself in tears. Anything and everything brings me back to those hours before, during, and after. The days, months either way. Today's trigger was Hamilton -- I freaking LOVE this musical. But Eliza after losing Phillip.. and It's Quiet Uptown. It undoes me. (Listen here)

It's leaning into the knife. Sometimes you need to push it in to feel and acknowledge your emotions. Sometimes you need to grieve, and not just push everything away. I've been pushing it all away and find myself being short with my (amazing) kids. I get so angry at myself when I yell - it's a vicious cycle.

 My advice for the grieving? Know that you have this same 'cup' - and that it's okay. Some days it'll fill within minutes. Some days it'll slowly fill over days, months, years. Tend to it, tend to yourself. Take care of yourself, so that you can enjoy your life ahead of you.

I've also realized that I don't have enough time. So, I don't have time for anything but what I want and need for my family. I don't have time for pettiness and ugliness. I don't have time to bring darkness to the world. I don't have time for drama. I will always do what is best for my family and myself. For my girls. For my son, and his memory.

-----
There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable
The moments when you’re in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down

Another Mother's Day

I was really irritable towards the end of last week. Even more so on Saturday. I kept on breaking down. I'm so used to the random crying spells now.

I miss my son. I'm so thankful for my daughters, but I miss my son and everything he could have done.

It's hard to grieve, especially after a "rainbow baby" -- people think that when you have another child, that child will take the place of the one that you've lost. So you can 'get over it'. Your lost child become a distant memory to those close to you, and completely forgotten by some in your circles.

My throat is closing as I'm writing this. Because that's the pain in my soul. Henry's forgotten. My job as his mother, now, is to keep a part of him alive. I feel like I'm failing in that respect. The lack of participation in our fundraiser is compounding that failure.

'No one cares, get over it. You haven't lost as much as others.'

Yes. Yes, I know. But it still hurts. That gaping, sucking chest wound is a slow burn. All day, every day. I can trace the circle that aches.

Diagnosis #3.

There are just some days where you need to get everything out.

It's one of those days. Today is Diagnosis Day, the day that I first felt my world shatter into pieces. The first time I screamed and raged against God for doing this to my baby, to my family. The first time I felt so completely broken that I couldn't see beyond the death of my child.

It's also Eleanor's six month birthday. My rainbow baby.

I remember the anguish. The feeling of my heart being ripped out from my chest.

This balance, between extreme happiness and extreme pain, is so difficult to walk sometimes. I sobbed this morning, after my babies left for daycare. Because while I'm celebrating my daughter's half-birthday, I'm also mourning the day we found out our little boy would die.

I hate this club. I wish I had a silly little two year old to chase around, who pokes at both of his sisters and whips off his diaper at a moment's notice.

It feels like reality shifted that day, it feels like the day that everything in life really started to go wrong. Our blessed life took the wrong path, and it led to disease and loss and heartbreak.

I'm just heartbroken still, I guess. I don't think I'll recover. I don't think that I'm meant to recover from this at all. I think that the joy that I feel exists in the whole pieces that are left - the cracks are there to remind me to embrace the joy and the love.

I'm still angry with God. I don't even know if He exists anymore. Sometimes, I feel like I can see his presense in life.. but then I feel that ache. The hoarseness in my throat from screaming in agony and denial, the ache in my pregnant knees as I knelt in a chapel and begged God to spare her life and just let her PLEASE WAKE UP, the betrayal that I felt when another diagnosis came on my son's birth/death date.

I feel like it's all connected, in a macabre fashion. I don't know - I'll never know. I just need to get it out. I need to cry and look at my life in the reflection of my tears and remember that, no matter what, we've been blessed.

Day 9: Family

My family has been through hell.

It seems like it started with Henry. My son, my only boy. Carrying him was both the best and worst time of my life. We were so excited for our boy to join our family - and then ripped apart when we found out that he just wouldn't. I still can't think about those months. I remember screaming, sobbing. I have to block it out to function.

I remember his little breaths, his warmth in my arms. I remember the fear as his feet and hands started to lose color. I remember the terror as he passed. That's when I disconnected fully with life. I've been disconnected since, once finding sparks of connection with my girls, and sometimes my husband.

I can't connect with my family. Even after we've lost another child in our family - my sweet, amazing niece. P was the smartest kid her age - I was always so blown away by her intelligence. And her heart - she loved so fully.

God, I miss that kid.

But I digress. Even though I've had a taste of what my brother and sister in law are going through.. I can't connect with them. Really, with anyone. I feel like my eyes glaze over most days, and I just flutter along the top of issues. I used to be an extrovert - now I retreat to small places, small groups. I don't do well in large groups, or in deep discussions. I can exchange pleasant conversation, but that's it. Let's talk about the weather some more, because it's a mindless topic and my mind is too damaged to focus properly.

My attention is absorbed on my children, so that I don't have to function. If Eleanor cries from across the room, I'm able to escape anything to get to her.

I'm beginning to worry that I won't ever be able to connect to people again. I have so many friends; but I've lost that pull with most of them. I've lost the ability to concentrate. I've lost my sense of time.

I want to feel again -- all the time. Is it normal to only feel with my surviving children? I look into their eyes, and it's my salvation.

It's been 871 days since Henry breathed. Two years and nearly five months.

Capture Your Grief: Day One

Day One – Sunrise

I watched the darkness this morning, and as the trees were gently revealed by the first hints of light, my mind moved to my son. Henry. I was nursing my rainbow, Eleanor, and thinking of her big brother that caused her to become. We were so thrilled when we found out about Henry. We were completing our family. Amelia would have her sibling, and we’d have two wonderful children to raise and laugh with through our days.

But then, Henry’s brain didn’t form as perfectly as the rest of him. In fact, it stopped right around the five week mark. He had a condition called Holoprosencephaly, and it would cause his death. His brain never developed the mechanisms necessary to support his life. But, he had me.

I was his life support. My body kept him growing, kept him alive.

As the edges of each leaf became visible, I cried. Big, slow tears. Bittersweet tears. When he left us, after only fourteen hours, I didn’t know how to survive it. I didn’t think it was possible. I disconnected. 

My only connection to the world was Amelia, and strangely, my anxiety. I kept worrying about others. How was Jason doing? My family? How did they see me? 

I still feel the disconnect. Like I go through the motions, and glaze over everything. I'm just.. floating through life. I only feel the connection when with Amelia, and now, with Eleanor. I feel the connection with Jason, when we have time to actually talk. I've lost the moment. It doesn't feel like real life. 

It really doesn't feel like real life. I feel like I'll still wake up. I'll wake up, and Henry will be fine. Persephonee will be laughing with a gap in her mouth where her baby tooth fell out. Chris would be publishing his third book. I'd be chasing a toddler while wearing my newborn and joking about giving one of them away. 

Sometimes, it feels like if I try hard enough, I can get back to that alternate reality. One where we haven't lost so much. Henry in 2013. Persephonee this year. I don't want to lose any more, and I'd do anything to have these two back. 

Amelia started doing a preschool night at Bobbi's church, on Wednesday nights. She likes it. But last night, she asked about the concept of death. It's so hard, because there's so much I want to explain to her.. but I can't. I try to explain it in simple concepts, and I try to keep from saying that Heaven's a great place. I don't want her to ever want to go there. It's a restful ending, not a carnival filled with games and cotton candy. 

The sun rose, and the day seemed dull. Eleanor fell asleep, and was snuggled in her bassinet. I sat on the edge of the bed, watching the still morning. Without my kids, I don't know what I would do. I would feel this numb all the time, and I don't want to live like that.