oh.....hello

Well. It's been a while. Don't mind me, just puttering around here, doing a little tidying, picking up. When you leave unexpectedly, there's always a lot left undone.

I didn't intend to be gone so long. But when you go away, and stay away, it gets harder and harder to come back. I read everyone regularly for a long while, but then that slowed. Now I make the rounds every two weeks or so, leaving no comments. So I've missed a lot, and I'm sorry I haven't commented. I have grieved, and rejoiced, with you all. I have. The blogsphere has continued without me - marriages, pregnancies, babies, losses. New blogs, goodbyes. It all continues.

Me? Thanks for asking. I've had my ups and downs.

I was feeling a little sad and unsettled earlier this week and couldn't figure out why. My anniversary is Saturday, but upon reflection, that wasn't bothering me. I was surprised, though, that I had to remember that today, August 5, is a Date. A Milestone. Don't misunderstand me - I have the most perfect 20 month old son, and I a grateful for him every day. I love him with all my heart and he is a joy. And he would not be here if his older brother had been born three years ago today, or more likely a few days later. And I rarely think of him, or the pregnancy, and he's never talked about. And that is, for the most part, ok. But that doesn't mean that I don't miss him, or what might have been in another lifetime or parallel universe. That is not my universe, and that is mostly ok. Not entirely ok, but given all I have today, it.....well. It is what it is. It's my past, and even though it is not my present, or my future, it is there. So unsettled, this week, should not surprise me, but yet it managed to sneak up on me.

I don't know if I am back. But I needed, today, to open the windows and let some air in and get the musty smell out. I'll close it back up, slightly more carefully this time, and consider what happens to this space.

Take care.

a different sort of loss

So, shaken from my blahs by a bit of bad news. My daughter's best friend lives a few houses down. She is adopted, with two father (a gay couple).

I know that about 18 months ago, this couple tried to adopt another baby, but it fell through. No specifics. We haven't been too close with this family. We each have nannies, and the nannies are great friends, so our children play together. And we've been friendly with the other parents, but we each have our own lives and friends and it's only been in the past year or so - as weekend playdates and dance class and birthday parties and things have developed - that we've gotten to know them.

They have been excitedly preparing to adopt another baby for the past few months. It all seemed on track. The single mother had another child, became pregnant, and decided the adoption route because she wanted to go back to school and move on with her life. She is older, nearly 30, and seemed very set and mature in her decision, with a supportive family. There was lots of communication with my neighbors, the intended adoptive parents. It seemed good.

The neighbors had been kept in the loop as the due date drew near. The neighbors, including their 4 year old daughter, flew out for the birth on Sunday. They - including again the 4 year old - spent two days in the hospital with the baby and the birth mother and all was fine.

And today, they went to pick up the baby as everyone was discharged from the hospital. This is the separation point. The birth mother goes home, the adoptive parents take the baby to the hotel, a few more days of paperwork processing and they were heading home on the weekend.

The birth mother decided to keep the baby. She refused to meet with the intended adoptive parents. And that's it. That's all there is. A sucker punch to the gut.

Just got an e-mail from one of the dads, who asked that we explain this to our daughter before they get home tomorrow. He forwarded the explanatory e-mail the other dad wrote, which had a few details and asked everyone for understanding as they worked through this tough time.

I quickly wrote back how sorry I was, that I had no words, that we hoped they had safe and easy travels home.

And now what?

I don't think this will have much impact on our daughter. The family across the street just adopted a toddler from overseas, so we have been talking adoption - both the new friend and the new baby to be - but it's been a pretty abstract concept. My daughter, just this weekend, asked about another friend with two dads (this is urban living) and why there was no mommy.

One reason why we haven't made much connection with our neighbors is that they definitely socialize primarily with other gay couples, just as we mostly socialize with other hetero couples. (like with like kind of thing, we have no issues with them, and they have no issues with us).

I feel like I am navigating the shoals of infertility and baby loss from a completely different angle. This is baby loss - they knew this baby as their child for two days. I bet they named this baby. They have a car seat and a nursery set up at home. They expected to bring home a baby. They've lost another adoption. They are biologically infertile as a couple.

They are us, the collective us.

Any thoughts on what you would do for them, say to them, interact with them? I'd imagine they'd like to lay low for a bit. I don't want to gloss over, nor do I want to presume a closer relationship than we have. I don't want ot make it about me, but I keep thinking about writing them a note that says how hard it can be to make a family, that we get that. Do I bring them over a cake, banaa bread, a bottle of wine? Invite them to dinner? Offer to have their daughter over more to give them some time together? Send a card? Write a note? I don't want to say anything stupid - anyone done the gay equivalent of what not to say to someone who's just experienced baby loss? Nor do I want to pretend it never happened. I'd never, for example, hug either of them - we aren't that close. But I do see them so often. I think some sort of gift and a note that says we're so sorry for their loss and are thinking of them. Any thoughts?

grief and time

I've been on a bit of a bloggy break lately, which seems to be the norm for me, so not sure I can call it 'breaks' anymore. I actually have a ton of things bookmarked and ideas for various posts. So here's one catch up.

The day after Christmas, CLC posted a thoughtful musing about life and loss - and life long loss. And what defines you. I'm a categorizer. I used to keep lists of the worst things that happened to me, or the worst things one of my someday-to-be-blogged about exes said to me, and so on - on the positive side, too.

Here in blog-land, it's not the loss nor the infertility that defines me, it's the subsequent marriage collapse. In real life, neither define me to anyone, really. I used to think the most defining thing about me was my hometown, having been raised in a classic small town of less than 3000 people. And when my parents moved away when I was in college, away from lifelong friends and family, and I lost that permanence, that anchor, I thought that defined me. My mom's sister, who was extremely important to me, died from breast cancer in 1997, and that's marked me in many ways - including my daughter's name. Losing my life-defining job in 2004 was a shock, and it might sound odd but I still grieve. My marriage and its ups and downs makes the list. My pregnancy loss is my secret mark. Like CLC, I can't even type potential losses too terrible to contemplate.

Around the same time, I ran across this blog post about that lifetime accumulation of losses and summed it up:

One of the lies we always tell ourselves is that the pain will go away with time, that we'll get over it, that time heals all wounds, and it's not true. Every loss is forever raw, and we can feel it all again with just a thought or a reminder, like a Christmas phone call to the family. The older you get, the more of these moments of grief you accumulate, and they never leave you.

Does loss define you? In real life or in blog life? How many moments of grief have you accumulated?

few random things

My friend from yesterday, whose sister suffered pregnancy loss at 38 weeks, wrote me back and said she thought Glow In The The Woods was amazing, so I'm glad I sent it to her. She said the doctors were doing an autopsy, and that her sister was mostly angry right now - she was a high risk pregnancy for some other medical reasons and was monitored very carefully, but as we all know things can turn so quickly. I am so glad this resource exists. It truly is invaluable.

My first work event went off very well. The second is tomorrow morning, and immediately after we are hitting the road for Thanksgiving, headed to my parents for a long week away.

And I still am coughing! This all started right at Halloween, so I am on day 19 of a really bad cough. Am so hoping some time away, with no work, will clear things up.

new member

I got an e-mail a few hours ago from a dear friend. She has two sisters, both pregnant. Sister 1 was due in two weeks, sister 2 December 30. Sister 1 went to regular check up yesterday, and the baby was dead. She was induced, and delivered 12 hours later.

My friend sent this to a group of her friends, letting us know, saying that she wanted to share to have some support.

I wanted to reply immediately, but paused. I wanted to type the right thing, and I wanted to offer resources. But I didn't want to say I know this great! group! of babyloss mamas! and you should check out this blog and that blog and etc etc etc. Because I do not want her to stumble across WhichBox. Selfish! But I also do think you have to come to this organically, in many ways. Find what speaks to you. In the end I did suggest Glow in the Woods. I think my friend gets it. My heart goes out to them all.

What would you suggest?

10

Long time readers (hello-ooo-oooo? Anyone still there??) may recall that my wedding anniversary is this month. Tomorrow, in fact. Ten years.

Which means that yesterday was another anniversary of a date that never was. And I'm just realizing I didn't spend any time yesterday thinking about the baby who wasn't here, who might have turned two yesterday in another universe, though in yet another universe we might have celebrated a birth followed, at some point, by a death due to the myriad of problems this baby would have had, had he survived to be born.

Two years is some sort of a marker in grief time. Far enough out that it's become an event of the past. Life has changed and other events have overtaken.

Last year, during this week, I was a mess. A weepy mess, a pregnant woman who took to her bed not from any doctor's orders, but just from crushing pain. One year out and crying every day, multiple times a day, beaten down but not yet out. It's hard now to remember it all, to remember the intensity. Two years out is a different place.

I bought a card. We're going out to dinner tomorrow night. I wonder what he will want tomorrow to mean. How am I supposed to view this anniversary? I rejected so many cards. I swear this has to be a business model for simple cards that just say Happy Anniversary and not much else. That skip the poem and flowery crap. Even in the best of circumstances I'm a pretty straightforward gal. And these still aren't the best of circumstances.

We honeymooned in Nova Scotia. Given various family schedules, we sort of had to schedule the wedding for August, even though I dreaded the heat. So we wanted a honeymoon someplace new, different, that was a little cool. It was a great vacation, and we talked about how fun it would be to repeat it for our tenth year. Earlier this summer, actually, my husband brought that up, but it was just impossible given finances, obligations, kids. Maybe someday we'll go back.

Where was your honeymoon? If you've been married that long, did you do anything special for ten years?

Turn around

We have my daughter enrolled for the second year in a summer co-op pre-school, which means it's organized and staffed by parents, generally the moms. I've gotten to know a few of the moms over the past two years, though haven't made the leap to outside of school connections. There's one mom though I've always liked. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer this spring and had an operation just before summer started. She seems to be doing ok with recovery. I like her because she's open and honest and direct and common-sensical. She calls it like she sees it, and we generally see things the same way.

One day a couple of weeks ago we were the two parents moving the kids to the gym area and as the kids ran ahead and started to play we were chatting about stuff in general when suddenly talked turned to life. She said, it's just been a really rough time, lost a pregnancy last spring, husband quit his stable job to open his own startup, economy collapses and his business is failing, I've not worked in 4 years and have to find work now, cancer, always thought I'd have three kids and now once things are back on track we'll look into adopting, I'm just so angry all of the time - so angry - and I'm taking it out on him for everything. Jsut a rough time.

I did those general female support things, nodded, made appropriate mummurs of empathy, etc. While inside I was blown away - by her honestly, by her matter of factness in reciting this litany of crap. And then the moment passed, and the kids demanded our attention, and I just filed it away.

And the next week her kid developed pneumonia and was hospitalized (though it was not too serious, her son just required oxygen support for a few days). I sent her an e-mail, replying to the news, and said it really seemed like she was in the shitstorm, and I had been though my own period of crap - one that lasted almost two years. I ran through the list- lost baby, marital problems, lost a job, money worries, family illness, family issues, etc (though was very careful to word in such a way that I wasn't comparing and certainly nothing like fighting cncer in the middle of it all - I imagine a cancer survivor is sensitive to "I know just what you're going through, I stubbed my toe last week!"). She wrote a nice note back from the hospital room thanking me for sharing, and I wrote her back saying I think everyone goes throuh their own various hellish periods, and the more we're honest about life sometimes sucking, the easier it is to get support during those times.

So, who knows. Maybe a new friendship is emerging. But, I tell this overly long story for a few reasons. As always, you never know what others are going through. I do think honesty begets honesty (at some level). After all, my litany of crap was heavily edited. Left out the crazy inlaws, the infidelity, the divorce lawyer consulted, the huge sums of money spent on counseling, the firing, the lawyers, the stress. You can't look from the outside and presume to know what's happening in a family. From the outside, heck, other than my obvious weight problem, I look pretty darn good, too. Two kids, a good job, supportive husband, fun activities. You don't see the scars or damage below the surface.

But, it also made me think, as I was typing out this sanitized version of the great shitstorm of '07, what were the parameters of this shitstorm? And when did it end? 'Cause, much to my surprise, I realized it did end. It felt endless when in the middle of it, and without a doubt there are lingering effects, but if something bad were to happen now, it'll be a new bad thing - no longer a continuation of what started in early '07. It didn't end with the birth in November. Those first early baby days were hard. The little guy settling down and getting on a schedule and us all adjusting to his presence helped turn the corner. (oh lord, am I totally jinxing myself even typing this? Am I asking for trouble?). Getting the call of this new job, and starting the job, and having positive feedback I was a valuable member of the team - that's really what helped set my ship a little straighter in the water. Life isn't perfect. But it's a whole heck of a lot better than it was a year ago. Or two years ago. Oh, there are plently of things out there to knock me off course - the ever present inlaw issue. The Marriage and What To Do about our issues. Plenty of other shoes that could drop. New things to constantly worry about. PLENTY.

I feel like I'm emerging, blinking, from the darkness. And that, for now, is good. A fragile good, but good nonetheless. For now. I can't - and won't - stop caveating. More than anything, I think, surviving a shitstorm teaches you to be humble. There's not much that keeps me or anyone from the bad.

getting real

So last night we're watching TV and my husband looks at me and says, just think, in two weeks, we'll be sitting here with a whole new person in our midst!

If all goes as planned, and I have a c-section the 24th, the plan is to come home from the hospital on Thursday, Thanksgiving.

A whole new person. It's easy to forget, in waiting-for-baby-land, that it's just not a baby you're waiting for. It's a new person on the planet.

Sometimes when my husband (kiddingly) gives me a hard time about being tired or being slow, I'll say, hey, cut it out - it's hard work growing a brain, and I'd like to see you try.

Last year, in a counseling session in December, soon after he had made the decision that he wanted to work on our marriage, he said, you know, it's just hit me that there was supposed to be someone else here celebrating Christmas with us (meaning the baby lost in February of 2007, due August 2007). That our family isn't complete, and is missing someone.

I remember just turning to him open-mouthed in shock and anger. Well, hell, yeah. Wasn't that what the past 10 months had been all about? Somehow, during his "break" from our marriage, he had managed to forget all about the loss. Or just bury it so completely he never saw that my troubles had turned into our troubles had turned into his troubles had turned into him wanting to leave the marriage for something better (ie, not troubled). I remember that counseling session as the first one where I truly got angry.

And now here we are on the cusp of a new person entering our life. It doesn't negate the loss, of course not. But I......I don't know. I don't know how to write this so it makes sense. Everyone approaches loss differently. For me, there's an alternate history of what could have been - maybe some alternate universe where the baby was fine, we never separated, he never had an affair, I never left my old job, and never lost the new job, wasn't expecting a baby now. And here, now, there is what is. Expecting a new person any day now. Sitting in our living room, with a brand new person on the planet.

the list

I did make a list of things to talk about with the new counselor - I started making a timeline, but that grew too tedious. So I just clipped the second to last paragraph, added some more things (more?!) I had forgotten and tucked it into my purse. I never pulled it out, but I think I remembered almost everything. Like Clickmom said in her comment, I should have booked at least a double session - she had scheduled longer than one session, but I took every second of the 75 minutes alloted. And we scheduled for next week, too.

I haven't told my husband, but probably will after next time. I think he needs some counseling, and I think we need that space to talk freely. Because what came up time and time again as her saying, well, do you talk about it? Nope, not a word. We have perfectly functional conversations, but never dive any deeper than that. Do you think that's weird? It is weird, when I think about it. How can we be sitting on this mountain of stuff and pretend it's not there?

The biggest realization? I made it through so many elements of my life story with slight trembling of voice and tears in my ears sometimes. I relayed deeply personal things without batting an eye. I talked of hurts and betrayals that wound me to the core. And when it came to the point of telling the pregnancy loss part, I sobbed. That was the only time I lost it. She asked me how I dealt with that now and I said, mostly, I don't. Everything else has piled on top of it, burying it, I thought I was mostly done with that part, but clearly I am not. Clearly I am not. I told her about the coping story I had read, and how I thought I had coped - it happened, it sucked, other things have sucked more, before and since. (This still remains my favorite set of comments ever - so thoughtful, so much truth in them). In thinking about it more, I think I have mostly coped, but the hurt is deep. I can type about it, but can't talk about it. There is only one other thing in my life that's as deep - my mother's sister died of breast cancer 11 years ago. My daughter is named for her. I cannot speak of it at all, and have not and cannot join in all the breast cancer awareness raising that many people seem to embrace after a loss like this. My sister once gave me a pink ribbon, and I cannot, will not, wear it. It's too deep, too personal a loss. Maybe my way of coping, with the deep down stuff, is denial (hello Niobe - we have much in common).

Anyway, the other stuff. We spoke about the inlaw situation. Unlike other advice I have received, she got that this was an untenable situation that was causing me much anxiety (the advice from my friends - the blogging advice was spot on, thanks again, another great set of comments). The thought they may show up here, or at the hospital, unannounced, unplanned - yikes. Stress through the roof. She suggested I talk this through with my husband. He must take some level of control of this situation, for me and the baby if nothing else. Which means setting boundaries. She suggested a script of him calling them, telling them about the pregnancy, that it was a difficult pregnancy, and that our top concern was having a healthy baby and mother, which meant we'd talk to them after the baby was born and have a visit sometime after.

I was going to wait a few days to bring it up, but instead talked about it over dinner. He agreed something had to give. We talked about birthday plans and rest of pregnancy plans. My daughter's birthday is a Monday, two weeks from yesterday, and so instead of having a party on the weekend, we'll just have a family dinner (my parents, my brother and family) over for dinner Monday. That mitigates any pressure husband's brother might put on us or on himself to come to a party - and negates brother in law from unexpectedly bringing in-laws along. We might do something fun on Sunday, and brother in law can choose to join in.

After my daughter was in bed we sat on the couch and talked some more. I said what do you want to talk about? And he suggested plans for daughter's schooling. Ahhhhh. Another functional talk (with no way to reach a resolution and quite a bit of stress involved, btw). I said why that? He said because of the 50 things we could talk about, this one popped to mind. We ended up talking more about his parents. I had never really thought of this before, but husband said it hurt to think how little they cared for our daughter as evidenced by nearly 9 months of silence. Yes. It's similar to how I feel about them, too - how quickly my mother in law said well, it's for the best this marriage is over. How quickly she was ready to throw me and daughter over when it was so awful last fall. It hurts. I am sad for my husband that his father has walked away. I am sad for my daughter that her grandparents don't seem to care.

The counselor was right - what we can do is say, this is our life. You are welcome to be a part of it, if you respect us and our choices. And if you choose otherwise, it is your choice - and your loss.

new counselor, new counseling

Tomorrow is my first appointment with a new counselor. I know, having been through this drill before, that the first appointment is kind of getting to know you and figuring out where you are and how counseling can be approached. I'm a teeny bit stuck, though, on how this is going to go tomorrow. She's the experienced one, so I'll follow her lead, but I have a LOT of freaking ground to cover.

I've written a couple of times about the past few years. Hmm, here's one. There's another, I know, but I don't feel like weeding through to find it. Bottom line is a lot of shit has happened over the past few years.

I was a little sad Thursday night about the delay in the job (absolute end of my rope frustration just gave way to tired sadness, finally). My husband and I just sprawled out on our bed watching crap TV, him trying to just be there for me. At one point I said, I just don't know where my life went so off track. And, I meant all of it - him, the marriage, the in-laws, working, fertility, the whole damn thing. After a few quiet minutes, he said, maybe it's not off track, maybe this is the track it's supposed to be.

And yeah, in some ways he's right. There is no one point where it All Went Wrong. It just is. And it's now all bad, but lately it's been a lot of bad.

I think I want/need to go to counseling to focus on getting it - my life - in some sort of order that works more often than not. I can't hold onto everything. But I also can't just let go of somethings. And most importantly, some things aren't going to just disappear. I fret a lot - A LOT - about the in-laws. While believe me, I LOOOOVVEEE where we are now - not speaking, not interacting, no contact - that just doesn't seem to be a situation that can be maintained. Last week my brother in law texted my husband - can we talk about something? My husband ignored it for a few days, thinking it was about my daughter's 3rd birthday, coming up soon, and how his parents might want to be here for it. But he did call his brother, left a message, and hasn't heard back. With the start of college football season, my husband has mentioned calling his dad, another fanatic, more than once. I'm nearly 7 months pregnant and they don't have any idea (I don't think, but brother in law could have spilled the beans in his "helpful" way). I feel something building, and know there will be a break sometime.

So, while there are any number of ways to focus this appointment tomorrow, I think my ultimate goal is to get through all of the story enough to even get to the part where the in-laws become a factor. Because, all these months later, I still don't know what is a reasonable, sane response to insanity. And goal #2 is focusing on some level of rebuilding this marriage in a way that works for me and for him, too. Weird that's the secondary goal. I feel sometimes we could just keep going on the marriage, without "working" on it, but I know that's only patchwork for another couple of years, and we need to get beyond all this and get to something new.

My list is long - the marriage, the betrayal, healing after betrayal, still hurting after betrayal, in-law insanity, body issues, pregnancy, pregnancy loss, job loss, sense of self loss, guilt over job loss/finances, anxiety over jobs, working mom vs stay at home guilt.......where do you even start?

Anyway, my point is I think I'm going to write a little cheat sheet to make sure I get through everything - as complete a story as I can. What do you think? If you were starting counseling, and there were half dozen or so reasons why you wanted counseling, how would you approach the first meeting?

Today

Yesterday was a weepy day. At least 4 occasions of tears.

There's a post to come about my husband's terrible money management skills, taught to him by his awful, terrible, boy how I hate them parents, but that's for another day.

I realized yesterday that basically, this is a rough week. As much as I would dearly love to forget the date, today is the one year anniversary of the due date of my lost pregnancy. I can tell myself a million times due dates don't mean anything (my daughter? 7 days late), but it's still a milestone.

And my 9th wedding anniversary - you know, the day my husband stood up and promised to forsake all others - is the 7th.

Last year we drove home from our week-long beach vacation on this day. I thought it had been an absolutely glorious, nearly perfect vacation. A few months later my husband disabused me of that notion, explaining one of the nights he stayed up later than me he was planning his escape. He also told me he had intentionally wiped the due date from his mind, so that explains why on the ride home I was quiet and he was irritable - which we both chalked up to end of vacation blues, I guess.

I grew up in this teeny, tiny hometown of 3,000 people. My best friend is a guy I've known since kindergarten. He married a woman from New Zealand and lives there now, and last year vacationed at his parent's house, with his three girls, twins my daughter's age (then nearly 2) and a 3.5 year old. We spent 4 of the 7 days with them, and it was fabulous. I thought. One of my college friends and her husband, with whom we traveled to the New Zealand wedding in 2003, who currently lives 1000 miles away and has a daughter who was 4, and who had become friends with my hometown friend, came to visit for 2 days, too.

I found out my college friend was going to be able to visit about a week before the vacation. I called my husband at work and nearly cried from sheer joy - the thought of spending time with these two close friends and all our kids together, playing on the beaches and boardwalks of my youth. It was a moment of sheer, piercing joy. A joy I hadn't experienced in a long, long time, given the pregnancy loss 6 months before.

My husband and I rented a condo for the week and spent time plotting how we could buy an investment property at the beach. I came home with hundreds of pictures - mine and from my friends. Great pictures of 6 happy adults in the prime of their lives, with their happy, healthy 5 girls. I planned to actually print these out, put them in a memory book - a week well worth remembering and celebrating and reminiscing. I rode home from the beach in a bittersweet mood - realizing that had my lost baby been born, we never would have had this perfect vacation. I never did print out all the pictures, and a mere two months later discovered my husband's perfidy and duplicity.

I've written before that my husband stole my past, present, and future. This is how he stole the past. How do I view that vacation (our last for a long time) now? I can't view it as perfect and golden, because it wasn't. It is tainted. And my present? My anniversary on Thursday? Right now, it still makes me sick to my stomach to think of celebrating that day. Based on how easily he can discard his vows, it has no meaning to him, though he will suggest lunch out and a card. I'll get him a simple card and just sign it, and that's all I can manage for a long, long time. And my future? The jury's still out on that, isn't it? This summer has been hard, reliving last summer. The signs I missed, the lies he told. The fall will be tougher, amplified by all these lovely pregnancy hormones floating about. It's hard not to think I've made a Faustian bargain with the devil - relative security and help raising child(ren) now, for what? Further infidelity in two years? 5 years? 10 years? Divorce, or me putting up with a serial cheater to maintain a household for my child(ren)? Am I now one of those women who turns a blind eye to maintain what I have in life?

My college friend had her second child, a boy, in May. My New Zealand friend's wife is pregnant with their 4th, a boy, due in October. I'm pregnant with my second, a boy, due in November.

We're all casually kicking around travel to NZ in 2011, for the Rugby World cup. 6 happy adults, 5 girls, 3 boys. It could be a perfect, glorious, golden holiday. The kind you talk about in your old age. The pictures would be amazing. Will they tell the true story?

huh - coping

One of my friends IRL sent me the following link to a Washington Post story.

One Way to Handle Grief: Just Get Over It

I don't know how long that link will work, but go check it out. Very interesting story about an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Christopher Davis. I googled him, but couldn't find anything in primary literature, so it's the Post story for now.

He studies how people respond to tragedy - in this case, the death of a loved one. His team spent years studying a group of family members after a mine explosion in Nova Scotia took 26 lives. After extensive interviews with their families, he divided the grievers into three groups.

We're familiar with two of the groups - the first are the mullers. They process the experience, look for meaning in the loss, and ultimately come to find a positive lesson from their loss. This group is also referred to as "successful grievers" - the ones the psychologists seem to enjoy working with the most - analyze the experience until you come to accept it for the meaning it brings you. The second are the chronic grievers, the ones who still ask why this happened, and have no answer for it. The loss experience shattered their belief in justice.

And the third group was a surprise, one not previously identified by others who study grief - the copers. They didn't ask why, and they didn't find meaning from the loss. They sort of said shit happens, and that's just the way it is, and yeah, it sucks but you move on.

This has really spoken to me in a number of ways. First, my counselor and I spent a lot of time (and money!) talking about how it's not ok to express emotion in my family of origin. It never really felt right to me. My family has emotion. My family doesn't dwell on emotion. Life happens, and you go on. They are copers. I am a coper, under relatively normal circumstances. This past year - 18 months - was an extraordinarily abnormal circumstance. Reading this article, at this point, this far removed, resonated.

In the (deadbabyland) blog world, there's periodic discussion of how the loss has changed you. And discussion - from me, too - about being a pessimist or optimist, and how everything has killed that optimism. I think now, for me, that's the wrong framework. It's more about how I cope with the loss (and subsequent loss of faith in my husband and marriage) than if my essential nature has been changed.

In a lot of ways, I've experienced all three strategies. I think, 18 months later, I've coped with the pregnancy loss, for the most part. I'm definitely not a successful griever. There's still bitterness and regret and a whole heap of other things there I don't want to deal with, cause I don't see the point. There's no greater lesson, there just is. I'm not one of the butterfly people - you know, the ones who get the butterfly tattoo because the soul of their dead child visited them in the form of an unusual butterfly in the garden one day (or repeatedly showed up just when they needed said soul to do so). Not to denigrate those people, but I am Not One Of Them. That strategy doesn't work for me. I went through a chronic griever phase - it sucked, and there was no meaning and no butterfly and no happiness and soulfulness and light. But now I've mostly moved to coping.

The loss of trust and faith in my marriage has been harder. It's still ongoing. I'm still very much in chronic grieving phase. But I know, intellectually, if we are to successfully keep this marriage going, chronic grieving isn't helping. My public face is very much of having coped and moved on. Our joint counselor, and my husband, tried the line that we needed to go through this experience to emerge stronger on the other side - the muller strategy. Which I reject with every fiber of my being. No, you don't have to treat your grieving wife like a psychological punching bag to revitalize your marriage. You don't, and I refuse to believe you do.

I think a lot about grief as I click through my blogroll and the other blogs not yet on my blogroll. And the IRL blogroll, untouched by any grief at all. I think a lot about Niobe, actually, who says repeatedly her grief is not like others, that it comes up short against the tide of grief on her blogroll. Every time she types that, I want to write a comment that says, to me your grief seems no more or no less than anyone else's. Different around the edges, in the particulars, yes, but essentially the same early dark days, followed by your own way of coping. I never leave that comment, it's too personal/complicated/something, and yet here I am with a whole paragraph about another woman's grief. And yet another woman's grief, too - Antigone is going through an impossibly rough time right now, and she write eloquently of getting through, of doing what needs to be done.

I think a lot about people experiencing the worse life has to offer. Of horrendous childhood survival rates, and how our ancestors (and many people in the world today) survive unfathomable grief of losing half their children before their 1st birthday. Or losing their entire families to horrible, tragic, senseless murders or genocides, whether it be the Holocaust, or Rwanda, or the latest multiple murder that makes the news. Or disease - cancer, HIV, depression. Is our way of coping, continuing, different today than it was 50 years ago? Is there a larger lesson to be learned, or is it just the way life works?

What do you think? Do you find a deeper meaning, or no meaning at all, from loss?

drifting

I've been thinking a lot lately about purpose and drive versus drifting through life.

I think I drift.

That's weird thing to say, since to an outsider my life probably looks very purposeful. I'm moderately professionally successful, I've had interesting and intriguing jobs that have offered many intangible benefits (not a drone in a huge corporation working at a desk every day), I'm married to what appears to be a nice guy (to the vast majority of people who don't know our real story), I have a beautiful daughter (that took quite a lot to happen), we live in a historic house we're constantly renovating (which leads to many hilarious stories of home renovation), I have a long and varied list of friends, most of whom are far more interesting and successful than I am.

I suppose you could say my social mask is firmly in place, for the most part. I've always been able to be vulnerable, to admit in talking with friends and colleagues that maybe there's more? Or should be more?

I think what I lack is contentment. I've not fully found my place in life. And, frankly, some shitty things have happened in my life in the past few years. I had a hard time at a job I loved, and left for a job I hated and lost a few years toiling in a crappy job, my confidence shot. Reproduction has turned out to not be easy for me - an amazingly perfect daughter, plus a miscarriage, plus a traumatic pregnancy loss. And a husband that can't, or won't, be an equal, supportive partner emotionally, and who instead has an affair.

I posted a comment on Tash's blog yesterday about before and after. Before it all comes crashing down, and then life after. I remember so clearly going to the "routine" nuchal translucency test in January of last year. We brought our 15 month old daughter, for god's sake. I remember lying on the sonogram table, absurdly happy at all being there together, with a slight whiff of irritation that my daughter was in the midst of a mommy phase and struggling to get to me from my husband's arms. I thought, in those moments, that I had it all. While having our daughter had taken longer than I had wanted, it had all worked out. And now we were going to have a second, perfectly timed, exactly what I had always wanted. And I remember the technician going silent, and the doctor being called in, and her common-sense, slightly brusque manner as she pointed out what might indicate problems, though it was just barely outside the norm, just a hint of trouble, a shadow.

They suggested I go to the bathroom to clean off the gel, and sent my husband went to the genetic counselor's office as I numbly got off the table, whispering to myself it's probably nothing it's probably nothing. But once the bathroom door closed behind me, I burst into frantic tears before scrubbing my face and pasting on a smile for the genetic counselor who was too young, and too untouched by tragedy, so she could assure us, it's probably nothing.

So that's my before. And after? Loss of the much wanted baby - a boy, of course, I haven't typed that before, but of course it was a boy, a boy who would have perfectly filled out our family. Then struggles in our relationship, but counseling, and slow recovery. And then bam, my husband in love with his junior staffer, moving out, moving on with his life that he deserved, making him happy.

His affair sort of started (as far as I can tell) around the due date. I've been wondering, had it worked out, what might have happened. Would the pressures of a second child, the burden and the responsibility, have still led him in that direction? Or no? It's unanswerable, I think.

This wasn't supposed to be how this post went. Funny how you sort of outline a post in your head and then start typing and your fingers turn in a different direction. It was supposed to be how the next thing has always just seemed to come. About how I don't feel like I've chosen my life. About my questioning that - how do you choose a life? If you wake up and say, this isn't what I planned, can you consciously plan something else? But what if you don't know what that something else should be? How do you figure that out?

the persistence of memory

I was going to type about the latest in my marriage, but a friend e-mailed some interesting stuff today and we got into a whole little research project.

Imagine there's a giant snowstorm that hits Washington, DC, dumping almost 30 inches on the city over 3 days. It's heavy, wet snow, and shuts down almost everything. But, being snowbound for days can be a drag, so a few hundred people make their way to a giant movie theater to take in the latest. Midway through, around 9pm, the weight of all that snow collapses the entire roof of the theater, trapping people in the debris. A congressman dies - as do 97 other people, with over 130 injured, some very seriously.

How big a story would that be? What type of memorial would be erected to commemorate this horrible disaster?

Today is the 86th anniversary of the Great Knickerbocker snowstorm of 1922, so named because that collapse happened at Crandall's Knickerbocker Theater.

My friend lives in DC and is a major weather geek. I am a person who is interested in stories and kinda interested in weather, so he sent me the link to a blog posting about it.

And then because we were both working on fairly tedious things, we started using wikipedia and google and found all sorts of interesting things, though really not much at all.

There appears to be no memorial. None. 98 people dead, and no memorial at all. Currently there's a bank on the site, which is located in a bar area of DC. Here's the Wikipedia story. The collapse happened in 1922, and by 1923, a new theater was built in the shell of the Knickerbocker.

I just can't get over it - 98 people died. Here's a link to some local press coverage from the time. Vivid, dramatic stuff. 86 years ago - there might still be survivors alive, or rescuers, or children who watched and helped. And yet there's very little about this story on the web.

The Titanic sank in 1912, with over 1500 lives lost. Think of the movies, the memories, the news stories of the last known survivor from the titanic dying. Is it the scale that makes that tragedy still real, while 98 people isn't large enough?

Or did we grieve differently then? Move on, pack up our grief, construct a new theater in the shell of the old. Did family members of those who lost their lives come to the opening of the new theater? Or did they refuse to ever step foot inside the new place? Where's the plaque commemorating lives lost and forever altered?

86 years from now, what will be on the site of the World Trade Center? Will people still leave flowers in the tunnel where Princess Diana died? What will exist on the campus of Virginia Tech, or in Oklahoma City? When do you stop remembering a tragedy, and "normal life" takes over?

first trip

Sitting in a conference room, itching to be free. I traveled for a two day workshop that my new company sponsors, to try to learn more about what we do and how it's received. It's been interesting, but I've been in this conference room since 8:30 this morning. There's an evening session which will start soon. All in all a long day. Interesting, but long. I MUST go to the gym at my hotel.

I love shopping - and love end of season sales hat start before the season is really even up and running. So even though winter is just now kicking in, I just bought a cute scarf from the Gap that was marked down to $4. I wanted it before Christmas, but it was $35. Ridiculous.

So I've bought two nice outfits, very cheaply, but both are too tight. My goal is to wear one in two and a half weeks for a special dinner, and the other in three+ weeks for Valentine's Day. I'm hoping a tight deadline will keep me eating right and exercising every day. Usually when traveling I'm not great about exercising, but tonight when I finally get back to the hotel I am going to break my usual pattern and go to the gym.

This past weekend was another mostly good, a little bit bad. I don't know what happens - we were having a great time, were driving along to a fun activity, and suddenly my mind started to race with the usual how could he have done/said the things he did/said? How can I trust him? How can we get past this? Can we? And in no time I'm teary and miserable. And he's miserable too.

Saturday driving in the car, with our daughter sleeping in the back, he said it wasn't lost on him what these next three weeks are - one year since the diagnosis of problems in my pregnancy and the loss of that pregnancy. A terrible, horrible, frightening, painful three weeks. The thing is, I don't actually think about it that much. I think about him saying I had to drive to see my parents by myself (with our daughter) because he didn't want to spend that much time alone with me. I think about him lying to me about his affair, when I had seen actual evidence. I think about him saying at every point of our marriage, and even before our marriage, he thought he could do better. I thought about the many times he said he just felt nothing for me. Nothing at all.

There's no room to think about a lost pregnancy, when I have to think about the future. Protecting me, protecting our daughter, keeping things together.

It's almost like he's finally grieving and experiencing the loss, where I've had losses and hurts since then that have been worse. It's hard to type things have been worse than my poor dead baby, but yeah, betrayal from the one person who is supposed to be my safe place, my soft place to fall, is worse. Cause that's what I've lost - my security that if/when bad things happen there's someone who will face those with me, will help me and I will help him.

So, anyway, he finally said, look, I love you, I love our daughter, I'm not going anyplace....

And I interrupted. Did he realize that's the first time since August he said anything about how he felt about me? And he didn't really respond.

Later in the day, once we were home, I said, look, it's really been bugging me that you haven't said anything about your feelings. Had your feelings for me come back? Had they not? Was he saving up telling me they had, or was he just being a dork and thinking he didn't need to say anything? And he said he was saving it up.

WTF? Saving it up for what?

the other side

Dammit. I really, really like my last post. A lot. It ties everything together, it has a point, it's dare I say a little bit profound. And it's only been up 18 hours or so, and I'm feeling compelled to post again. Yesterday was the wise post, the good day box checked. Today is the pit of despair, bad day posting.

I am taking a break from work and just clicked around a few blogs and read Tash's post over at Awful But Functioning. And it's set me off on a round of sobbing that I haven't experienced in oh, at least a couple of weeks. Wailing, sit on the floor clutching the tissue, curl up on the floor sobbing.

I want another baby. I desperately want another baby. I've not said so explicitly, but surely that's clear. And with my goddamn fucking loser of a husband, plus my shriveled up 39 year old defective egg producing when they were producing which now they're not ovaries, my fertility journey appears to be over.

And because of my goddamn fucking loser of a husband, I don't get any say in the matter. None. No chance to figure out what was going on with my ovaries and reproduction, no tests, no nothing. Just over. And that makes me so angry with him. It's the biggest thing for which I do not think forgiveness will come.

We haven't talked about it, of course. What's there to say? OK, so our relationship is completely fragile and two months ago you were fucking your 25 year old employee, so what say we try to figure out what's going on and get pregnant?

But because I'm 39, it's not like I leave him, meet someone and pop out another kid in the year or two. Odds of that happening are very low. And it certainly isn't in the best interests of my daughter.

I'm also 11 months post loss. A loss I mourn every day. And because of my husband, I have no plan, no direction, no journey from here.

I am so angry with him about this. So angry.

The week before I discovered his affair, I bought the Fertility Cure. And I had an appointment with my regular OB GYN. I sat in the waiting room for an hour, and in the appointment room for 30 minutes. When she finally came in, I explained how it had only been two months of trying, but I was certain I wasn't ovulating. She said, well, there are tests we can do here, but just make an appointment with a specialist because they'd run all the same tests anyway and no sense to repeat them good luck bye. 90 minutes waiting for something that could have been conveyed in 30 seconds over the phone, great, thanks.

My fertility journey never got to the stage of testing me. Starting in 2003, it was try for 6 months, test husband, fix his problem, early just one of those things miscarriage, healthy pregnancy and baby, easy third conception but turned out to be defective egg that resulted in loss, cessation of ovulation. nearly 5 years in one run on sentence. But, it means I don't even know what all those steps and things are.

I have been toying with asking this question on the blog. I am science-minded person, and I like to know things. Even given how pathetic my marriage is, would it help me to go to the fertility specialist and see if there's an answer? What if it's something simple? What if it's definitely over? Will knowing make it better or worse? Is it better to know, or not? What would you do?

reproduction or not

OK, I am feeling like an idiot/Dr Phil wannabe having typed out that my husband and I had unprotected sex while discussing him finding an apartment. I'm not an idiot. Or a woman who would trick her husband into having a child to force him to stay with her. I swear, I am not. I'm level headed, and strong, full of common sense, and practical. In real life. I seem to have exited real life somewhere along the way, though.

My daughter's asleep, my husband's still out, and I'm not going to get anything done, so time for the reproduction recap.

I've said I've been spending most of my time lately on pregnancy loss sites (her blogroll is very comprehensive), and that still partially defines me. I wanted this blog to be an outlet to talk about something else entirely other than the mess that is my marriage.

So, in a nutshell, here's my story. It's far more complicated and painful. Bare bones is all I can manage for now.

We were married in 1999, when I was 30. We went through a rough time in 2003, which I thought was partially based on wanting to have a baby, and my husband being unsure. In late 2003*, we started trying. I was 36.

We tried for 6 months, I started charting and it seemed like I was regularly ovulating. At 6 months, my husband was tested, and he had varicoceles. Huh, interesting, I wasn't a big wikipedia user in 2004*, so first time reading that. In our case, those varicoceles were absolutely the cause of low sperm count, and an outpatient procedure resolved the problem. His doctor even said to my husband, your wife will be pregnant before your 6 week check-up.

And I was. For about 3 weeks - until an early miscarriage. I was really new to all this, and to me it just felt like my period starting 2 weeks late. And doctors assured us it was "just one of those things," not to worry. We told almost no one. The miscarriage had an impact on me, but it was hard to know what that impact was at the time. Now I think it's all cumulative.

We waited the proscribed 3 months before trying again, and it all worked fine. I was pregnant in December 04, and had my daughter in September 05. It was an uneventful pregnancy. We did a little bit of genetic testing (nuchal translucency) and all indications were fine. I had wanted natural childbirth, but my water broke, I never went into labor, only dilated 2 cm after 36 hours (24 hours on pitocin), so a c-section it was.

The doctors suggested that after a c-section, it was best to not get pregnant again for a year, to allow full healing. We wanted another, and knew the clock was ticking, but also knew we needed that year.

So, in October 2006 we started trying again. In November I was pregnant, with an early August due date. I would be 38 when baby #2 was born, and my daughter would be just shy of 2. I had a tiny bit of early bleeding, and we had some early ultrasounds. The tech told us I had released an egg from both ovaries, though there was only one baby. The baby was on the small side, but at 7 weeks everything looked reasonably fine. We decided to tell family at Christmas, to share. We thought it was all going to be smooth sailing.

In January, we went in again for the nuchal measurement. No big deal. We even brought our daughter. When the tech stops talking, it's a clear sign things aren't going well. Our measurements were a little off, but not significantly. We waited for the blood work. Measurements again a little off, but not significantly. The baby was small, but just a tad off. It was unclear what, if anything, was going on, though they thought something was wrong, they just weren't sure what. So we scheduled a CVS.

And those results were, of course, conclusive and definite. And the baby did not survive. By February it was over, except of course the loss did not go well and I needed a D&C. The months of January and February are just a fog to me now. We were seeing specialists, counselors, the whole realm of what could possibly be done. When nothing could be. The doctors assured us it was just bad luck. We could try again in about 6 months.

To say I was devastated is an understatement. To watch things go wrong step by step by step - with no possibility of averting or changing the course - is wrenching. I would not wish what we went through on anyone. My husband and I saw a counselor who specialized in pregnancy loss, and things seemed to be getting back on track.

I wanted desperately to get pregnant again. To put pregnancy 3 behind us. To be normal again. To give my daughter, who is a classic "little mother" to her army of baby dolls, a sibling. To be a whole family.

I've always had a regular cycle. 28/29 days, like clockwork. My period started up 4 months after my daughter was born. And the very next month after the loss and D&C. In July, at 5 months post loss, I noticed my cervical mucous indicated I was ovulating. I thought about trying that month, but we were going on vacation in August, I wanted to enjoy it and not be in the first trimester. So we tried in August. No pregnancy. I wasn't sure, but I thought I might not have ovulated. My cervical mucous signs are pretty clear, and there was almost none. Same in September.

What the hell. So I started charting, and decided to try traditional Chinese medicine. And bought little pee sticks to test for ovulation. There was maybe mucous in October, and the pee sticks seemed to indicate ovulation, and we had sex at the right time - just before I discovered his infidelity.

I actually thought I might be pregnant. I was nauseated, and tired, and felt terrible. However, all those symptoms can be explained by finding out your husband wants to leave you. My TCM guy thought my pulse as a pregnancy pulse. I hoped I was. My period started the day I found out my husband hadn't ended the affair.

So, endlessly long post later, that brings us to last night. I'd lost track. I barely know what day of the week it is, much less what day of my cycle it is. After three months, I seriously doubt I'm suddenly ovulating. No Jerry Springer/Dr. Phil moment for me. I've been through too much in the past year to even be capable of trickery and treachery. At 39, in addition to dealing with infidelity, divorce, remnants of pregnancy loss, and everything else, I'm coming to grips with knowing I'll only ever have one living child (I know I'm incredibly blessed to have one adorable, precious, unbelievably wonderful child. I will never, ever discount that.)

In the panoply of loss that my life has become, this loss - the loss of fertility and possibility of another child - is the hardest to bear.

* edited to correct dates