Right Where I Am: One Year, One Month, Six Days Later

Okay, I've enjoyed reading all your posts about 'where you are' right now after your loss as kicked off by Angie at still life with circles, but I'm honestly having a hard time figuring out where I'm at with Aidan's death. His death is currently so emotionally tied up with all that I'm going through with Acorn, it's hard to even separate the two situations in my head....but I'll try, just for you guys.

So....

Where am I at?

I still miss him. I still think about him every day and wish that things could have been different for him and for us. I wish I had got to spend more time with him. I wish I had more pictures of him. I wish I could remember what his ears looked like. Wish I had moulds of his hands and not just his feet. Wish I knew what colour his eyes would have been and what his voice would have sounded like. Wish I could hold him one more time.

Still wish that I could have saved him. Some how, some way.

But I can't. And, over time, that has just became how it was. How it is. Aidan is dead, but I am alive. As I said in an earlier post, it will never be 'okay' that he died, but our lives have continued on and Brian and I are 'okay'. We have found the resilience within ourselves. Life without him is hard, and some situations and moments are harder than others. But over time, life has became more and more bearable, livable, even enjoyable. He is not here...but I am, and I would be doing him a disservice not to live the life I am given. He didn't get the chance...so I'll have to take it for him.

And then I got pregnant again. For awhile things were going well. We felt happier, more fulfilled, more hopeful about our future. I don't mean to imply that Acorn was 'making up' for Aidan. It was that it was so nice to feel like we somehow were being granted a second chance at having some control over our lives. That was a huge thing that Brian and I felt we lost with Aidan. Yes, we lost a child, and that was the worst thing ever...but it was also so hard to feel like we lost control of the direction of our lives. We wanted a baby, a family of our own, just like millions of other couples our age. And while we got pregnant with somewhat more trouble than others seemed to endure, that was only the beginning. After weeks of bed rest, bad news, bleeding, pain and fear, Aidan was gone...just like that. When I got pregnant with Acorn we had hope that things could be more 'normal'.

Ha.

We stepped out of one nightmare-ish roller coaster of a reality and into another.

And all my emotions and thoughts this pregnancy are coloured by what happened to Aidan. I felt I did pretty well through the first trimester. I felt like I could cope with the stress of being a pregnant babylost mama. Yes, it would be difficult and we would probably worry more, but we also felt like our prior situation was so far out of the norm that it was likely we wouldn't have the same complications. I felt I could be relaxed if everything was shown to be proceeding 'normally'. And for awhile, it was.

In those first 14 weeks I was doing well, feeling more positive about my life, myself, and my body. I was hopeful right up until I saw the spotting. And I knew. Right then, I knew. I tried to keep up the optimism. Tried to listen to the doctors when they said to remain 'cautiously optimistic'. Blow it off as babylost mother fear...but I knew. Things were crumbling, just like last time. My body wasn't in my control anymore, again. I was deviating from normal, from safe, again. Things were falling apart, again.

So, I wasn't surprised on that Thursday, 10 weeks and one day ago to feel that old familiar gush down below...

Rupturing again has made me relive my pregnancy experience with Aidan in a much more technicolour way than I ever wanted or expected. I feel more fragile this time around. More prone to sadness and despair. More dissatisfaction with my medical care. More anger and more grief over 'why?'

And how I will feel about Aidan, will be shaped in the end by what happens to Acorn. If Acorn survives and does well, I will be thrilled, over-joyed, feel blessed and grateful. But I will wonder "why couldn't Aidan have had the same outcome?" He was just as loved, just as wanted, just as special. My heart will sing for my living child, and will weep for my dead one.

If Acorn survives but has major life long difficulties, I may wonder if Aidan got the better deal. Aidan was born, he was held, loved, and then he was gone. No more pain or suffering. No tubes, wires, surgeries, wheelchairs, treatments, etc. No more uncertainty. This is actually the outcome that scares me the most. As much as I want Acorn to live, I want him or her to live well. Live with potential. Acorn deserves it. I have been strong enough to be a babylost mom...am I strong enough to be a special needs mom? This feels like a continuation of the uncertainty and fear that has been running our lives for the last two years. I don't know if I could live like that forever.

If Acorn dies, I am worried about what will happen to us in the wake of two losses. Two drawn out, but ultimately failed pregnancies is a lot to contend with mentally, emotionally. socially and physically. Will the grief and the sadness and the anger ever get better? Will our resilience hold up under the weight of all of it? How will we ever feel any hope for our future? Will we ever get that longed for sense of control, safety, security? Will everything we create always die?


Where I'm at is in limbo. I do not know what will come from our current circumstances and my thoughts on babylost-ness are now so hopelessly tied up with our current pregnancy that I just cannot tease them apart.

All I can say for sure is that one year, one month and six days later I still wish Aidan was here, but I have learned to live with the fact that he isn't.


And I still love him more than words can say.