A woman named Elsa

Back in the early days, before I had kids of my own, I worked as a CNA in a nursing home.

Lately I've been thinking about one lady in particular. Elsa, we called her. She looked like she had been a beauty at one point. Her hair still long and wavy, white as snow. Elsa was dependant on her aides. Immobile, limbs frozen, hands clenched tight. She was also in the throws of dementia.

Elsa couldn't speak, but you couldn't mistake the absolute panic in her eyes. Terror, as if she could speak she would tell of all her grief. She would take to fits of rage, gutteral sounds, crying. This went on for weeks. No one could calm Elsa. Not her aides, nurses, or even the Haldol the doctors prescribed.

Elsa didn't have any family that visited her. A lonely, decidely crazy old lady living out her latter years in a place that was unfamiliar and scary. We tried to calm her, tried to engage her. Nothing doing. She became combatant and though she was old, she was STRONG.

One night, while I was charting, I looked through her history and there it was. Elsa had had a stillborn baby. The nurses and I decided, and we were really at our wits end here, to buy Elsa a baby doll.

When presented with the baby, Elsa lit up. Her limbs relaxed. Her eyes softened, and she rocked and crooned to this tiny plastic dolly. From then on, as long as Elsa had her baby, she was a different woman.

Such a nice happy ending, but the real point is, this woman in her dementia was reliving her grief for her dead child. In having this doll, she could mother the child she had mourned for so long.

I often wonder what became of her. I know she couldn't have lived much longer. I hope she was able to reconcile her grief. I hope she was happy for a moment. I hope that as a young and ignorant aide, I was able to help Elsa.

And now I feel her pain. I feel her grief. The difference is I'm able to speak out about it. To grieve out loud. I grieve for Leta, yes. I also grieve for all those women, past and present that aren't able to talk about it, aren't encouraged and supported to feel the grief. Because the feeling of it, as awful as it is, the feeling is paramount to our recovery. There will be beauty from this pain. There will be a rainbow. Elsa showed me that.

it's dark in this place called dead baby land

I've sat here trying to articulate what I need to say, but somehow cannot. This past week I have had a really tough time. And that is the understatement of the century. I do not yet know what my triggers are, but I know that something has set me off, and I am in the midst of a mental breakdown (so it seems to me) The nightmares are back. The waking in the middle of the night hearing a baby cry. The flashbacks. The guilt, the blame, the anger. It's all back. I'm sad. But that doesn't begin to describe it does it? I'm broken, and destroyed and, and. And I don't think there are actually words to describe it, are there?
Why does it feel as if I take two steps forward, then fall back into this pit of despair?
There are some that don't understand my pain. I've heard the term "she wasn't even human yet" tossed around. I swear to you this was said to us. And it broke us. It broke my Husband, it broke me. It turned us bitter and cold. There were those that refused to come to our child's funeral. Saying that we were ridiculous to hold a funeral for "products of conception" But they don't know. Didn't ask. Didn't realize. I LABORED for 15 hours. My body writhing in pain. My soul breaking in pieces. I labored, my water broke, I pushed my child out of my womb. Into silence. Instead of buying bottles and diapers, we bought an urn. Instead of sleepless nights due to a newborn, we had sleepless nights due to grief. Instead of a baby shower we had a damned funeral.
So I'm bitter, WE are bitter. I am angry. WE are angry. My husband, me, our family we are broken. But we are together. And together, with Jim, With Jakob, Stella and Claire, we will find a way to be okay. Sadness will always tinge our family. But it won't ruin us. No it will not.

Farewell to Normal

Today I shopped for Halloween costumes for the kids. I was doing something normal, something I've done for the last 10 Halloweens. Nothing unusual. Except. Except. I should have been buying a tiny little baby costume. Something disgustingly cute, like a hotdog, or a bumblebee. I can't buy a costume for a dead baby. Or I could, but you know, that's the kind of crazy I'm really trying to avoid here.
Last night I cleaned my room. Normal right? See the normal girl, doing the normal everyday things? I got all done, and made my bed. I put Leta's blanket on it, the one that Jim had embroidered with Leta's name the day before her funeral. I just threw it on the bed, but her name was face up. I felt like I'd been sucker punched in the heart, seeing her name and birth date. That's such an apt description too. Sucker punched in the heart. I had to stop and catch my breath. It's those sneaky little reminders that are going to do me in.

I don't mean I want to erase, or forget about her. No way. I just mean, when I least expect it, I'm going to be mauled by such pain that I cannot fully take a breath. That's my new normal. That's my new life.

A little tantrum for the soul

Everyone thinks I'm better. I'm not. I'm just really really talented at pretending, apparently. This morning has started out rough. Claire didn't want to wear pants to school. She wanted a dress, I guess. But it was cold, so pants were totally happeneing. She melted down, melted into this angry ball of pissed offedness, and ire. Red faced and screaming, I held her tiny foot in my hand and put her socks on for her. I dressed my 6 year old much like a baby. The whole time, she was keening. Socks, Pants, shirt, sweater. Each item making her more and more mad. Ponytail, barrettes, brush teeth. I quitely crooned to her the whole time. And that, that is not how I normally would have handeled it. I would have been enraged with it! I would have yelled, and fought and been so furious. I didn't get angry. Sure I wasn't turning cartwheels that my 6 almost 7 year old was acting like a baby. But I wasn't mad at HER. I understood. There are days where if you could see into my heart, my mind, my soul, you would see ME screaming and yelling and hysterically crying. You would see me throwing the mother of all tantrums. I'm angry! I don't want to do this thing anymore, be the mother of a dead baby. I want to go back to the time where I was happy. Life was good! I want to be ME, before. It's not at all fair that I lost Leta. It's not at all what is supposed to happen. I wasn't supposed to give birth to a dead child. One with broken bones. I wasn't, am not at all equipped to handle this.

And so, Today I dressed my 6 year old, and crooned to her. I hugged her, and held her and wiped away her tears. I walked her onto the bus.

Sometimes, we all need some patience and understanding. Maybe in doing for Claire, I was doing for me what no one seems able or willing to do.