The Plague

So the plague has hit our house this week. Okay, not really a plague, but Brian was sick with a cold and home from work for three days and I am currently starting to have a sore throat. I'm hoping it doesn't develop into anything, but that's how Brian's cold started so I'm less than hopeful.

I'm worried, of course, about Kaia becoming ill, but there is little I can do. Brian tried to stay away from both of us this week. He slept on the couch downstairs and didn't hold Kaia for almost 3 days. Of course now with us both feeling less than stellar, one of us is going to have to look after her, cold be damned! I'm just hoping Purelling the hell out of our hands, breast milk antibodies and avoiding baby kisses is going to keep her well.

But it's hard to avoid baby kisses.

Especially when your baby looks like this:

My Twi-life

I had a bit of a surreal experience last night.

I'm sitting in the theater watching Twilight: Breaking Dawn.

Bella finds out she's pregnant. All hell breaks loose.

I've read the books. I knew beforehand what was going to happen.

But as the movie starts in on the fantastical drama surrounding a human giving birth to a half vampire fetus...I'm literally nodding my head. The emotions, even some of the depicted scenes and events surrounding this crazy birth were so much like those surrounding both Aidan's and especially Kaia's pregnancies that it was weird.

Bella...camped out on the couch, fearing harm to half vampire baby.
Emily...camped out on the couch, fearing to harm to human baby.

Bella...unnaturally ill and sore from growing half vampire baby.
Emily...unnaturally tired and sore due to bed rest and heart defect while growing human baby.

Bella...lying on medical table while doctor tells her awful fate of both her and half-vampire baby.
Emily...lying on medical table while doctor tells her awful fate of human baby, and possible resulting maternal complications.

Bella...unable to find out sex (or anything useful) about vampire baby even with modern technology.
Emily...unable to find out sex (or anything useful regarding possible health) of human baby even with modern technology.

Bella...ghostly pale due to growing nutrient sucking vampire baby.
Emily...ghostly pale due to being stuck inside growing human baby and never getting any Vitamin D (or a tan) from sunshine.

Bella...daring to persevere with half vampire baby pregnancy despite medical risks.
Emily...daring to persevere with human baby pregnancy despite medical risks.

Bella...fearing she'll never get another chance to have husband's baby if this one is taken away.
Emily...fearing she'll never get another chance to have husband's baby if this one dies.

Bella...requiring help from vampire sister-in-law to shower.
Emily...requiring help from husband to shower.

Bella...gulping down liters of blood to sustain half vampire baby's nutritional needs.
Emily...gulping down liters of water to sustain human baby's amniotic fluid.

Bella...hiding from friends and family knowing they won't understand desire to carry half vampire baby.
Emily...hiding from friends and family knowing they won't understand medical complications of carrying human baby.

Bella...trying to be the brave little soldier while dealing with pregnancy complications.
Emily...(sometimes) trying to be the brave little solider while dealing with pregnancy complications.

The Cullens...freaked out while trying to cope and be brave for Bella.
My family...freaked out while trying to cope and be brave for me.

Bella and Edward...fearing what this little hybrid is going to look like, but knowing they'll love it anyway because it is theirs.
Emily and Brian...fearing what this squashed little baby is going to look like, but knowing they'll love it anyway because it is theirs.

Bella and Edward...trying to bond with half human/half vampire baby during pregnancy while fearing Bella's demise.
Emily and Brian...trying to bond with human baby during pregnancy while fearing its demise.

The delivery scene at the end literally gave me goose bumps just because it brought back the emotions I had in the delivery room with Kaia. The fear for myself, the fear for Kaia, the bodily disconnect....

...the not knowing what the hell was going to happen after it was all over.

And yet for some crazy reason, it was great to see. Because here it was, finally depicted on screen: A pregnancy experience I could relate to!

Anything pregnancy related I see these days in TV, movies or in the media always feel so far removed from what my experience was that I have a hard time even reading about it. Pregnancy is almost always shown as a healthy, empowering, stressful-but-exciting time in a woman's life. I felt none of that. I felt ill, hopeless, disheartened, and anything but excited for what was going to come. I was bone deep scared.

And while both Bella's pregnancy outcome and my (2nd) pregnancy outcome were as positive as one could have hoped for under the circumstances...it doesn't negate the absolute terror of the lived experience.

It's just kind of funny that my real life pregnancy experience more closely correlates with that of a melodramatic fantasy film than is does to any other movie I've ever seen.

Weird.

Conundrum

Something has been bothering me lately. And when that occurs, I have to write about it in order to sort it out in my head.

It has been bothering me that Aidan's absence hasn't been bothering me as much as it use to.

At first I put this down to having Kaia. I was and continue to be so grateful for her life, her survival, her health. At first I was convinced that my joy over Kaia was currently just over ridding my sadness over Aidan's death. Surely, eventually, the sadness over his loss will return in full force. Maybe even stronger, because now I get to feel his loss not just for Brian and I, but for Kaia too.

Then I figured that maybe it's just because I'm so busy with Kaia. When 80-90% of your waking day is filled with either holding, changing, feeding, or pumping for your child, other thoughts have a harder time crowding in. I feel like before Kaia, I lived in my head a lot. I had the time to do so. I thought a lot about my life, about Aidan, about my two disastrous pregnancies and about his loss. Since she's been home, and especially since Brian has gone back to work, I don't get much of a break. It leaves little time for thinking deep thoughts beyond "did I forget to put that load of laundry in the dryer? and "what am I going to make for dinner tonight?"

But maybe it's not either of those things.

Maybe it's just true. Maybe I really don't feel the same level of sadness or loss when I think about him. Or when things happen that remind me of 'what should have been'. I can pass little boys in the street without wondering "is that what Aidan would have looked like?" I can plan, attend and enjoy family gatherings without thinking of who is missing. Kaia's room, which would have been Aidan's, has become wholly hers. I don't sit in it and think about whose room it might have been. It only gives me a bit of a twinge that my sister in law will deliver a baby in February who I suspect is a boy. If it's a boy, he will not only share the same last name as Aidan, but he will grow up in our family and will have and be and do all the things that Aidan never will. Maybe the thing that bothers me the most is that I don't cry over his loss like I use to.

And that makes me sad.

Almost without noticing I feel I have somehow entered another phase of grief. I don't know whether it is Kaia, or my own personal growth or simply time which has caused this shift, but I feel it. The intensity of his loss has lessened.

Initially after his death I felt like I was no longer living. I was surviving, dragging myself through each day. It felt like I was just 'getting by' for a long time. Nothing held the meaning it use to. I was sad about a lot of things, apathetic about the rest. And here, just over a year and a half later, I feel...good. His absence is now almost entirely bearable.

But how can that be? He was my CHILD. How can my life feel so full, so rich, so normal without him here? Shouldn't I continue to hurt and grieve and rail at fate for the lack of him? Shouldn't it burn more? Sting more? His absence felt like a jagged open wound in the wake of his death. Surely that couldn't have healed over? A good mother wouldn't have let it. A good mother would never be happy without all her children surrounding her.

Sometimes I worry that I don't miss him more because he was little. Very prematurely little. As if somehow the 23 weeks and 3 day that he existed wasn't enough time to indelibly mark my soul in a way that wouldn't heal in his absence. That if he had 'lasted' longer, been a full term baby, or a one year old, or a 10 year old, I would miss him more. Could that be it? We only spent 54 minutes together with both of us alive. Maybe it wasn't enough time.

Maybe Kaia really has 'made up' for Aidan in ways that I never wanted her to. Maybe what I craved was only a living baby all along. Maybe it didn't matter who that living baby was. It makes me feel sick to my stomach to think that if that was all I really wanted...then maybe he wasn't as special, as needed, as loved, as I always thought he was.

But then I think, no, that's not right either. His picture, his urn, his little plaster foot moulds wouldn't mean so much to me if that were true. If he was just A BABY and not MY BABY, I wouldn't cherish those remnants of him as deeply as I do.

So if I really did, and still do, love him as much as I remember then it stands to reason that I could lose so much more...and still be okay. My house, my job, my friends, my family, my husband, my living child...what if they were all stripped away? Would it only take a year and a half to live in happiness with ANY loss? That doesn't seem right. I absolutely dread the thought of anything happening to upset my corner of the world...but when it happened last year, I lived. I survived. I even have begun to thrive.

It feels like a conundrum. I hold on so tightly to who and what I have right now...yet I seem to be living proof that you can lose what is most precious to you and still enjoy life.

It seems somehow like it shouldn't be that way.

But I'm glad it is.

Does this apply to you? Does it make you sad that it does (or doesn't)?

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from my little pumpkin!

Walk the Line

I've jumped on my blog probably a dozen times in the past week to write a post, but things always seem to get in the way. Either Kaia needs feeding or changing or just wants to be held, or I need to pump, or wash bottles, or do chores, or eat or sleep.

Those are all excuses however. What is really keeping me from writing is the sense of not being sure where I fit in. I no longer need this as an outlet to write about the disasters in my life, because really, comparatively, I don't have any. While Kaia's upcoming surgery and casting will (I'm sure) occupy a few (or more) blog posts, there isn't the sense of 'dire-ness' that has plagued me for the last two years. My complaints would be of a much more mundane nature, which I'm afraid come off sounding whiny and ungrateful.

I think this is the hardest thing about being both a dead baby/living baby mommy that I have experienced. I don't feel guilty about Kaia's pPROM issues and I don't feel badly about her prematurity. Those were things I could not control and we have and continue to deal with them as best we can. What I do feel badly about is sometimes, when Kaia wakes me up for the 3rd time in one night, or when she won't fall asleep until well after midnight, or I'm pumping for the 7th time in a day, or I'm washing my 2nd or 3rd round of bottles...I sometimes forget how lucky I am. Sometimes I am decidedly crabby. And that makes me feel guilty.

I suppose I naively thought, since I usually had not one but two sick needy newborns under my care in the NICU, I would have this baby stuff down cold. Change diapers? No problem. Bottle feed? Cake. Wipe up spit up? Sure, bring it on. But it's different when you don't get to clock out at the end of a twelve hour shift, and there are no days off. I also thought that my dead child, and my disastrous pregnancies would somehow make me more tolerant and appreciative. I would be like Glinda the good witch, calm and serene in my fluffy white dress and crown, able to float above it all in my happy soap bubble. I would laugh (or titter behind my white gloved hand) in the face of little sleep, a messy house, and a fussy baby. It's harder than it looks though. Sometimes I feel more like the Wicked Witch of the West. Green, and warty and crabby as hell. In the long term I guess I probably am more appreciative and will look back in fondness. But, sometimes in the moment, I am a little ashamed to admit that I lose sight of how good I've got it.

I suppose I have been afraid to admit on here how challenging I find it sometimes, because over the last year and a half I have read so many BLMs post about how they hate hearing mothers complain. And I want to be sensitive to that. I don't want to sound ungrateful or unappreciative. I recognize that my life IS better than after Aidan died, for sure, definitely, but I also can't pretend I don't also have a better understanding of what those other mothers were complaining about.

On the other hand, I also feel like anything I post about Kaia and how damn cute and adorable and wonderful she is, is a slap in the face to those who are still waiting and hoping that their 'rainbow' will make his or her grand entrance one day. That waiting game is HARD. I know, I've been there and it sucked to see everyone else hop on that 'isn't-my-kid-just-the-cutest-thing-in the-whole-word" train while I felt like I fell off (clutching my sad little dead baby urn) somewhere along the way.

So where do I fit in? Kaia is adorable and wonderful and has made our lives so much happier and fulfilling and easier...while also making us incredibly tired, sometimes frustrated, occasionally crabbier and has complicated and made our lives harder as well.

I feel as though I am walking along the top of a hill. On one side are the dead baby parents who are feeling intense grief, or who haven't had the chance to parent a live child which they desperately want. They may feel lost, angry, sad, left out. I can relate to them because I can remember so clearly being there too. On the other side of the hill are the parents who have never had a dead child and who can't really appreciate the feelings of grief and loss that come along with that experience. These parents may have their own challenges and struggles with their living children, while also experiencing the joy and love that children bring. Both sides have a hard time seeing each other. They haven't walked in each others shoes. I'm walking along the top of the hill. While I want to comfort and be sensitive to my fellow BLMs, I can't help but have all the same happiness and concerns that those of a live baby do too.

This was brought into clear focus the other day when I sent out an e-mail to my extended family members regarding our kid's Christmas gift exchange. I have a big family on my mother's side. For DECADES we have gotten together with my cousins and second cousins and even a few third cousins at Christmas time, and the parents of children under the age of 21 have done a gift exchange. Every child's name goes into a hat, and you draw out as many names as children you have. Every kid gets a present. No one gets left out. I looked forward to this tradition as a child because (duh) I got a present to open! And who doesn't love that?! This year I might be looking forward to BUYING a present just as much, because it means I HAVE A KID! Anyway, we drew names last weekend at a family gathering and I was put in charge of e-mailing those who weren't at the gathering the name(s) we had drawn for them.

Yesterday I got an e-mail back from one of my (funnier) cousins stating that he was going to give away his KIDS as the present. ie: "Suzy will get Joan, John will get Alan, Tim will get Tom and Sarah will get baby Mike, but we'll put him in a dress to make him more 'girly' for her. Haha! Can't wait until Christmas!" (names have been changed, obviously). I first reacted as a dead baby mom": How can you joke about giving your kids away? Don't you know there are people out there who would go to the ends of the EARTH to have just one living child??!! Jeez, try to be more sensitive!!!

Then I found myself joining in on the joke. I might have even smiled. Because the man has 4 kids...and good God that would be tiring. You would want to give them away sometimes. Plus Sarah clutching little Mikey in a dress would be cute as hell.

I guess to sum up, I feel like I'm walking a fine line on my blog these days.

Sorry if I step on any toes.

Are my posts harder for you to read these days? Do you ever feel like you censor yourself on your own blog, fearing to offend? Does anyone else feel like they are walking the line between the living and the dead? How does it make you feel?

15 weeks and 2 days

15 weeks and 2 days old.

Today Kaia is the same number of days old as the number of days I spent on bed rest during my pregnancy with her.

It is mind boggling.

During my time on bed rest I felt like I did nothing. I watched a lot of TV. Blogged a lot. Read a bit. Slept. Ate. All broken up by the occasional stressful doctor's appointment. It felt like it went on forever at the time, and yet now it seems like I couldn't have been doing that for the same amount of time that we've been doing this:

Visiting Kaia at 2 different hospitals, watching her come off multiple sources of breathing assistance, learning to eat by mouth, watching her gain close to triple her birth weight, have her in 4 different harnesses (the first 3 were the same brand and all crap, the last was good, but not good enough in order to fix her hip). I've recovered from a C-section and am almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight. We've had Kaia home for 8 weeks, Brian was off work for 4 of those. We've been to 13 (or was it 14, or 15?) different doctor/lactation consultant/ultrasound appointments with her since bringing her home. I've been pumping 6-8x per day every day since she arrived. We have done a few family visits and Kaia has been around for the August long weekend, Labour day, Thanksgiving, Brian's birthday and my birthday. It seems like she's been a part of our family a heck of a lot longer than I was on bed rest.

I don't really have any more to say about it...but it just feels like an important milestone that must be mentioned.

Thank you for hanging on my baby girl. You were entirely worth it.

Un-harnessed

Home 7 1/2 weeks.

A few weeks ago I found an old article on people.com about Brooke Shields. In it she was discussing her daughter Rowan's hip dysplasia. The article says this:

"Every time they tightened the harness, Rowan would scream. Chris always tightened the harness-Brooke didn’t want to, nor did she want to hold Rowan. She had to even be baptized in the harness. Brooke wrote about how beautiful Rowan looked in her dress, but then the harness sticking out underneath was just heartbreaking."

And this:

Brooke said, "when you’re a new parent and you have a child that has any kind of special need you rely so much not only on the ability of your surgeon or your doctor but the compassion." Brooke said that she had Dr. Skaggs cell phone number and that she would call him when she was "terrified" when she had trouble changing a screaming, crying Rowan’s diaper while she was wearing the harness.

First of all, you know you're a celebrity when you have your pediatric orthopedic surgeon's phone number on speed dial so he can talk you through diaper changes. Secondly, Brooke Shields needs to suck it up because she was one of the 90% of parents whose baby's with hip dysplasia are fixed by being in a harness.

We, unfortunately, are not.

We found out yesterday that Kaia is going to need a spica cast. She has been in the correct Pavlik harness for two weeks and her surgeon wasn't seeing the improvements that he wanted to. Namely he could still pop her hip in and out of joint. By this point, we were hoping that the hip would be in socket and staying in...but alas, things are always more complicated for us.

As he said "90% of the time, this works for babies that are as young as your daughter, but 10% of the time we have to move on to casting". HA! Sorry doc, I should have mentioned it, but it seems like for our family if things have a possibility of being more complicated than originally expected, then they will be.

As of now, Kaia is out of the harness until her surgery which will be sometime in the late winter when she is between 4 1/2 to 7 months corrected age. Likely February. She will be put under anesthesia, a small incision will be made in the groin area to release the tendon, and then her hip will be put back into the socket. A body cast will be applied (it will go from her nipples to her toes keeping her in 'frog' position) and then she will spend the night in hospital. She will wear it for 12 weeks and then we hope like hell it stays fixed and doesn't need any more 'work' (ie: further surgery and re-casting). I hope we can get it all behind us before the weather gets hot because it seems cruel to have a kid in a cast when they could be swimming instead.

I'm sad, but resigned.

I think I would be a lot more upset if Kaia had been my first baby, born without complications or anxiety. Because of all the things I knew could befall her after my water broke (death in utero, death out of utero, no lung development, poor lung development, heart defects, extreme prematurity, brain bleeds, NEC, ROP), hip dysplasia is WAY down on the list of 'awful'.

But it still sucks.

I was really hoping we were already 2 weeks into a 12 week stint in a Pavlik harness. We were getting good and fast at threading the tabs under the straps during diaper changes. I had finally found 0-3 month outfits that were both practical and cute that fit her harness (the footless one pieces that have the snaps up the inside of the leg seams). Kaia was getting more tolerant of sponge baths. Now it doesn't matter, at least for the time being.

Last night we 'celebrated' by plunking her in her tub for the first time in two weeks. She actually wasn't even that dirty. Just some dead skin build up on her feet. I plan to take full advantage of this time when I can dress her in whatever I want. I'm going to go buy 0-3 month pants this weekend. Maybe even some tights, with cute shoes to go along with it!

While I will enjoy having my cuddly baby back for now, I'm sad that she will be older and more 'aware' when she's put into the spica. Right now, she's been in a harness since she was 36 weeks gestational age, (albeit a crappy harness for the first 7 weeks), so she doesn't really know the difference. I feel like when it comes time to putting her in the spica, she'll be at the age when she will be used to sitting up, rolling over, grabbing her toes...and then all of a sudden she won't be able to do those things anymore. I know she'll get use to it, but it's just another thing we have to contend with.

But in some ways I'm grateful I know it could be so much worse. So like Brooke Shields should have done (seriously she didn't want to even HOLD her baby??), I'm going to suck it up and move on. And for the next 4 months we are going to rock out in some super cute outfits!

*P.S. Okay Brooke Shields you get an out for also having postpartum depression. I suppose that plus having a kid in a harness would be a bit much to deal with. But I stand by my comment about having your ortho on speed dial. Because if she hadn't shown off her boobs in Blue Lagoon I'm pretty sure he would have blocked her number.