little packages.

My table piles high with items in small packages. Little oatmeal packs. Small shampoo. Teeny maple syrup containers and Bisquick in a pourable container. I keep small packets of toilet paper and wipes.

We like to camp. We have a wee little pop-up with a propane stove and a sink that leaks. A king size foam cushion, a double, and a table that folds down into a bed. We have a propane stove, and a sink that leaks if you fill it too high. We have a drawer filled with card games and backgammon, teas and non-perishable items.

I fantasize about homesteading, living on a large swath of land without plumbing. No one knows us there. I'm tired of all this civilization. A burbling stream runs through our land and the children stop wearing shoes. They run silently through the trees and high grasses, and deer don't notice them because they are woodland creatures. Sprites or fairies or gnomes. No one can find us. We are a family, working together, raising a house and growing vegetables and homeschooling and wearing long skirts.

We meet TracyOC's family at the campsite. My lone homesteading family turns into a commune. Maybe we can make it work. Maybe no one will annoy each other. Their skill set can complement ours. We sit quietly together, and I wonder if I could ever leave our creature comforts. I checked Facebook in the camper, uploaded a picture. It is terrible. Tracy and her husband actually know a thing or two about communes and living outdoors. I have a camper with a space heater, and I complain if it gets too cold and my husband seems too contented in the freezing temperatures.

POLAR BEAR! I accuse him. YOU ARE A POLAR BEAR! I AM A HUMMINGBIRD!

My wings are frozen in place. I am too small to fly here.

Grrrrrrr...

We like to camp. We hike over rocky terrain and I listen to TracyOC tell the kids about fearsome creatures like Splintercats who tear the treetops into deep spikes and Hugags, the kneeless creature who knocks over whole barns or trees, just for a respite from the endless standing. Beezus giggles. She has never heard of these creatures. She looks at me wondering if it is true. I nod and smile and wonder if it is true. In these woods, it looks true.

The girls skip on the rocky terrain. They are tough cookies until they aren't tough anymore. Then we are tough cookies, carrying gangling arms and long, stretching legs. They become wiggly creatures brought back to life our concession to carry forty plus pounds of girl. I imagine never coming back to New Jersey. Our house would become part of the environment, covered in moss and ivy no one was around to pluck from the flowerbeds.

Even in the woods, there is civilization everywhere. Large RVs with televisions. Bi-planes, and orienteering ranges. There are paved paths and boat launches. Yet still I crave the stillness of the woods, the endless stars, the rustling of other things moving besides us. I crave quiet in my head, but when we are out here hiking, I keep talking--about this about that about here about there.

I am a FAKE! My meditations are amidst plane noise and the garbage truck and grass cutting. You found out! They are suburban meditations! They come with a soundtrack! This place is so profane that any quiet seems sacred!

It helps the quiet to grumble about the noise. I fill the quiet again and again. As I warm myself against the fire, I feel the cramping in my belly. It tightens and releases. I wonder what next year will look like. Will there be another baby? Or will this little package in my uterus become a woodland creature too?

I am eleven weeks pregnant. Eleven weeks of being almost okay. I'm not nauseated or sick. I'm not frightened. I am just waiting for my belly to grow and a baby to move and a doctor to tell me she is okay, or she is not.

I haven't seen a doctor yet. It is why I am not frightened. I cannot control anything. Even if she dies now, there is nothing they can do. There is a kind of liberation in that thought. Next week, I meet our new midwife. Until then, I live on this stretch of land with wildflowers and feral children able to hunt and build barns for the neighbors miles away. I walk through the woods barefoot and pregnant collecting wildberries for our breakfast. I manage to handle the cold without electricity. The children talk like yearlings to the animals, clucking and yelping and howling into the night. When the children come home to me, wrapping themselves in my skirts, I hold them and feed them wild honey, blackberries, and root vegetables. After harvesting all morning, I tell them the baby is coming, and the children fetch the water from the spring down the meadow. They boil it for me, and my husband runs into town to tell the womenfolk. I do the hard work of finding a place to birth. I imagine birthing alone in the cabin we built. No heartbeat checks. No monitors. No blood pressure. No weight checks. No ultrasounds. The women stand around and wait, watching for too much blood. But mostly it is just me, knowing there could be a chance she dies and another chance that she lives. Just like in history when the chance of your baby living seemed fifty/fifty, just like it still does to all of us who lost children.

It seems irresponsible, even to me, but that seems perfect and magical right now. A place to not worry, a land of freedom from fear.

I don't know if this baby is a she, but I keep calling her a she. And because she is in there, I will be prodded and poked and let them draw blood every time they ask. In nine weeks, if she is still alive, they will tell me if she is a he or she really is a she. I will watch her in the monitor and cry. I will drink some sweet liquid and pee into a cup. I will go into the city and birth her. Horns will honk. Machines will beep and whirl and they will make sure every single moment that she is not dead.

I adore small things. Packages that tuck into corners. The baby is balled up in a tiny little package right now tied up with yarn. She fits in my belly, as big as a lime. So small, no one notices her. I carry her in my pocket. A little package of hope and fear that smells exactly like love.

two

His name isn't Thor, but when I write about him, Thomas Harry just doesn't quite fit. It is too adult, too grounded. And yet in life, as he runs around the house, I can't quite call him Thor.

Thor means something in this space. Thor is my hope. Thor is the baby I imagined alive. Thor is my dream of a preternaturally strong and otherworldly son, one who can bear grief out of the womb. Thor wriggled in me while I read Madeline, and tickled in me when I drank orange juice. A totally sentient being in utero. Thor held a lightness that was the exact opposite of what I felt. If he were named how I truly felt when I was pregnant, he would have been named some old dead name with too many consonants, a name used only in manuscripts of historical accuracy that is so serious and uncomfortable that no one pronounces it. They just point to the paper. But Thor, Thor made me smile in spite of myself.

Thor grabs my face, hands cupping each cheek, kisses me square in the mouth. Then licks my cheek, giggles. He scrunches up his nose and shakes his head and laughs, like he is a big person, but he is just my big little Thor. My baby.

He is still Thor here.

I remind myself that if he doesn't die, he will be a man someday. A big man, like his father, but with olive skin and dark hair and deep greenish brown eyes, and wide shoulders and strong tree trunk legs that ground him. A man quick to laugh and blush. People will know women surrounded him and taught him something of nurturing and kindness. Perhaps someone will look at him, like I looked at Sam, and think with that back and that very good posture, he would be a wonderful man with which to dance to some old standard, like Cheek to Cheek. And I will embrace her, and whisper in her ear, "Love him to the moon and back. Just like I love him."

His feet give him away. They are still little baby brick feet, strong and thick, same width and length. He runs now, hard and fast. Sometimes he jumps every other step in a mock skip. He tries to keep up with Beezus. He tries to catch her, but her long legs carry her farther faster. He never surrenders. But she slows, eventually, lets him catch her. Chase. Tackle. Tickle. Bite. Kiss. Pinch. Smile.

I call her Little Mama, because she nurtures the boy. She picks him up, wipes off the grass on his knees, kisses his boo-boos, says, "It's okay, honey. Bibi is here."

The women at school smile at him, and he flirts. Subtly. They tell me he will be trouble with the girls. And they tell me about their middle school sons and the girls calling, riding by the house, sending home notes. So handsome, they say. So cute, they pinch his cheek. He gives me lots of hugs, and hides behinds my legs when there are people around. My children are shy. Did you know that about my children? They clam up, hide themselves behind me, kiss my neck and whisper about going home. Both of them still are shy, and use sign language so they don't have to speak in front of strangers.

Two is something.

Two is an Associate's degree. Two is half of high school. Two is a substantial entry on your resume. Two crammed in a lot of evolution--head lifting to rolling over to wiggling across the floor to sitting up to scooting across the floor to crawling to standing to cruising to walking to running to skipping.  Two is talking and eating with your mouth closed and carrying your dish to the sink. Two is stomping and knowing exactly what you want to wear. Two is liking broccoli but not potatoes. Two is sentences and thoughts and philosophies about what Santa is and where monsters live.

I have a degree in my boy now. I have studied his feet, in case...just in case. You know. I don't have to tell you why I study his feet. I inspect his little hands, which still have dimples for knuckles, and I kiss each fingertip, which have a mixture of marker and dirt and car goo under the nails. I analyze his two little boobies which I would draw with the smallest nib of a pen. Two wee little dots atop a Buddha belly. His back is muscled and strong, like his arms. People see him naked and screech, "He's cut." He is. He is strong.  He has a mass of thick dark hair that grows like a weed. I call him Shaggy and he smiles. "Should we cut your hair, Shaggy?"

"Nooooooooo," he howls, clutching onto his hair like a mini-Samson. But then we cut his hair tonight and it didn't hurt. Not one bit, and he noticed right away and stopped crying and said, "HEY!"

When he was born, someone sent him the book Oh the Places You'll Go! He pulled it off the shelf last night and asked me to read it for bedtime. I keep kicking it around in my head.  I just want to infuse him with the truths in that book, but I can only keep reading it and hope he gets that you just have to keep walking, trusting, suffering, learning, and knowing you are who you are with the kind of courageous honesty that isn't popular among high school boys.

Two years ago, I gave birth to a boy who I never quite believed would live. He came in spite of my doubts and fears. He lived though my brain believed him dead already. I hold him in the night now, his legs kicking off the covers as he radiates a kind of warmth that seems divinely given. My little polar bear. My little thunderbolt bearer. My little hammer-wielding pumpkin. For two years, I have watched him outside of me, amazed that he is here and happy, still not quite believing I have a son. I lie on my left side, like I did two years ago, waiting for him to kick, his reactions immediate and comforting. I still rest my hand on his chest in the middle of the night, make sure his chest is still rising and falling. It is a habit I cannot break.

I remember him in me.

I tried not to get too attached back then, and the disconnect with the attachment already there and the fear severed something important in me. I couldn't tell anyone what that was like, so I lost most of my friends during his pregnancy. It's not their fault. It's no one's fault. I am just wired for self-destruct when I am vulnerable. Most everyone who has gone through this knows what I mean. It feels like you are damaged, never going to recover from that space between believing there will be a death and hoping there won't be. Sometimes, in spite of myself, in the last few months of pregnancy, I would whisper to him "I love you, baby Thor. Don't die."

I love you, big boy Thor. Don't die.

questions thirteen through fifteen: gurus, relationships and remembering.

Nerissa: Do you ever feel like a babyloss/grief guru? Not like you are an expert or you are totally enlightened about it all. More like, people (like me) come to you and seek your advice, even though it's not necessarily advice that you give so you are like a guru... Do you know what I mean? Are you ever overwhelmed at how many people share their stories with you and come to you in such a desperate time in their lives?

Thank you for that question, even though it feels a little weird to answer. Okay, firstly, no, I never feel like a babyloss or grief guru. I am just a mother who lost a child. I like to write. I like to connect with other people. And I majored in religion at university. I did that because I have always been seeking the answers to really large questions about the universe, God and human nature. Losing my child made me question everything I believe in and everything anyone else believes in. It also strengthened some really fundamental understandings of the world. I work those things out in a public place like Glow in the Woods and my blog because I crave discussions about these aspects of our losses and grief, so I never ever feel like I am lecturing, I always feel like I am having a conversation.

But more to your point, no. I am never overwhelmed with people sharing their stories with me. I always feel privileged and honored to be trusted with someone’s story and baby. I never take it lightly, but I also don’t feel weighted down or saddened by it, necessarily. If that makes sense. People ask me, particularly people not in this community, if it depresses me to hear about losses and grief. No, it doesn’t depress me. Maybe it is because I see grief as another expression of love. I am always amazed by the strength, compassion and love of the men and women I meet along this journey. Most of the time grieving parents ask me about Lucy as much as tell me about their baby. It was a surprise of talking to people freshly in this community. That is compassion and generosity. At someone's worst moment, people seek to listen and comfort as much as to be heard and seek comforting. And you are right, I just share my experience. I am always amazed at the wisdom of newly bereaved women and men. Their insights usually help me process some aspect of my own grief and experience.

When I first came into this community, I wrote to people a few months out from me, or years.  And I sought refuge in blogs and other women's writings. I also tapped into the community at LFCA and connected with other women in other experiences around pregnancy loss, like infertility or secondary infertility or recurrent miscarriage, but I focused on clicking, (sending stories to LFCA) with Jen about stillbirth and neonatal loss. Truly, being compassionate to another human being in the same situation as me helped and helps me understand and forgive myself for my daughter’s death and make peace with the decisions I have made along the way. They have not all been good decisions or healthy ones, but seeing someone else in their vulnerability and early grief helps me process where I was. If that makes sense. And to understand that I did the best that I could.



Cullen's Blessings (Leslie): How do you keep Lucy's memory alive for Bea and Thor? What did you do on the first anniversary of Lucy's death?

Thank you for your question, Leslie. I sort of answered this question earlier, but I will touch on it again.

The short answer is that I just talk about her, like I would anyone in our family who died. I don't harp on her, or bring her up continually, but I just bring her in naturally. Sometimes I tell the kids, "You have the same nose as Lucy did." And Thomas does. Beezus is starting to grieve her, because she is starting to realize what death means and that she had a sister. She really talks a lot now about sisters. When she asks me a question about death or Lucy, I just am honest. We do have a place where we light a candle and some incense or sage, the warmth and light from that candle feels like a presence in our space. I do it when I miss her, or just want to remember her. Sometimes the children collect things for Lucy's altar. All in all, we try to make it as non-weird as possible.

Lately, Beezus has been singing this song around the house. She is at an age where she makes up songs, and it goes "Fly, Butterfly, fly." Over and over. Sometimes the fly is float ("Float, Butterfly, float.") I asked her about the song, where she heard it, and she told me that she made it up. She sings it whenever she misses Lucy. I never associated Lucy with butterflies or anything, but Beezus made that connection for herself. I told her that when I see ladybugs I think of Lucy. So sometimes, when she is singing the song, that gives me an opening to ask her if she is missing Lucy and talk about how we hold the ones we love after they die. I also read When Dinosaurs Die if she has questions that are hard for me to answer..

We had a very low-key day on Lucy's first death/birthday. We napped and went out for sushi on her first birthday, because that is what we did for everyone's birthday back then. I cried often. I took a bath. Lucia died on December 21st, was born December 22nd, so three days before Christmas. I wish I could say that I have something set to do every year, but I suspect it will change every year. The first birthday seemed so important, I couldn't figure out what to do. I thought about it a ton, actually. I bought candles to light, wrote poems to read, and I did none of it, because it didn't feel right.

Because she died on Winter Solstice, last year we did some solstice-y type things, like light a candle for each window through the house. And say a poem for Santka Lucia. Talk about the lightness and dark. We ate a feast. Last year was also an eclipse, so my sister and I went out in the middle of the night and watched the eclipse in sleeping bags. That feels right and good to stay up all night, light a bonfire, and honor the seasons of change.  So, I think those rituals are going to stay in place now. I try not to worry about setting up something forever. I just do what feels right in the year and place we are all at. Beezus really wanted me to make a cake for Lucia last year. I am not a baker. But I did make cupcakes for her.

I hope that helps. I'd love to hear what other people do or did.



Ines: What's it like to be on the other side of the fence - of babyloss and sub-pregnancy and parenting after loss or through loss dealing - one side and the other side - with women who suffered loss of motherhood alltogether with their loss who have wanted a child or children and can't or don't get to? Do you feel the divide? Have you lost "friends" who "unfriended" or un-followed you? How do you feel about that? Would there be anything you want these women to know or would there be something you would do differently in retrospect? How do you feel about the question? Have I forfeit my chance to win -the gnome book? :-P I loved that book when I was a child and miss it like crazy just seeing the front page on the link you posted.

Ines, it is never too late for a good question, though I did pick a book winner last week. Maybe the gnomes will find their way to Ireland. Thank you for asking it, though I actually think this may be the most difficult question for me to answer. I don't want to sound like an asshole, and yet I also want to be honest. I am walking the razor's edge on this question, so I will try to be as honest as possible with as much love as possible.

I don't think of myself as now on the other side of any fence, honestly. I had a living child when my second child died, so for many people, my experience of loss was already different than their experience losing their first child. So, if there is a fence, I was already on the other side of it. When I began writing, I wrote this blog to process how to parent one child while grieving another. To have an outlet to write about grief and suffering and my religious ramblings and parenting a toddler and everything else in between. Also, I began writing to become part of a community and to connect with other women who were also grieving. And so both Beatrice and Lucia were part of what I imagined I would talk about here. I have never sold a bill of goods that was different than simply my life--all my children and all my parenting and all my experience. The joy and the grief. Perhaps that in and of itself was enough of a reason to not read my blog, or have a reason to identify out of my experience of grief for some people. After Thomas Harry was born, perhaps that divide grew larger, the wall between me and people who lost their only children absolutely impervious.

And that is absolutely fine. Do I feel the divide? No, not particularly. I see us all as grieving parents. And yet, I acknowledge that my experience is different from someone grieving infertility, the loss of motherhood, or recurrent miscarriage. It is an entire added level of grief I don't experience. There are very few people in this community whose experience is exactly like mine. I ache for my friends who want children and, through no fault of their own, struggle with conceiving, the grief of losing children or not getting pregnant at all, the loss of motherhood and their kids and the complex emotions of relating to people who they genuinely like who have living children. I cry with them. I root for them. I try to remain present with them. But I don't know what that is like. Any distance they need physically or emotionally doesn't stop me from loving them fully. I guess what I am trying to say is: I don't take it personally if someone can't be my friend, or read my blog. I want them to be happy and find comfort wherever it is and in whatever form it comes.

Have I lost friends, lost readers with the birth of my third child? I would be surprised if I didn't. I don't catalogue readers or followers. I don't know how many followers I have. I don't know who unfriended me, or who didn't. If you hold a resentment against me, I don't really know about it. (You can email me about it, though.) I think that it is absolutely natural to grow out of blogs, or move on from a blog writer. People cycle through blogs according to what they are going through and what they need. It never offends me when and if someone doesn't read a post I write, or stops reading my blog all together. It doesn't hurt my feelings when a post gets no comments. I am a writer. I am used to rejection, edits, rewrites and insults.

In the beginning, I did care. I wanted to know who read what, if my friends or family were stopping by, and then who were the grieving women coming to visit. I worried about what I wrote and how people took it. I started different blogs for different parts of my life. I tried to control your experience of my writing and my life based on what I imagined would be hard for you if you were going through infertility as well as loss. Then I just felt kind of started feeling funny about that.

I got to a place, and maybe that place I got to coincided with me getting sober and being more honest about my suffering and where I am in my life, but I got to a place where I felt like the reader needs to be responsible for his or her own experiences in the world. I cannot protect the reader from my life. I cannot guess what is and isn't hard to read. I cannot underestimate my reader's emotional ability to handle my happiness or my grief or my daily life. That is fucking insulting of me. How presumptuous of me. How arrogant. Now I work under the premise that people will stop reading if they don't like what they read. I think self-preservation should be the foremost guiding principle of what anyone reads. If a blog hurts to read it, stop. I certainly stop reading blogs, then I pick them up again, then put them down again. I also read blogs of people who have a different experience than mine. I read a lot of blogs of women who suffer through infertility as well as loss. I read blogs written by drunks and addicts. I read blogs of writers and artists.  I read blogs of architects and I have never built a house in my life.

You know what? There is also a whole other set of readers, people who have never lost a child, who can't relate to this blog from top to bottom. But I relate to those people in every day life outside of my blog. I talk to them. I laugh with them. I share experiences. Listen, what I am trying to say is that I am not three people. I am one person who parents living children, who is an artist and writer, who birthed a stillborn child, who rides bike, who is a wife and sister and daughter, who is a Buddhist and a Catholic. I'd love to combine all those parts of me into this blog. I am doing that gradually. I don't know. This space is confusing to me too. I don't know how to be here all the time. I am still figuring it out. I hope that if I lose readers, I don't lose friends.

So, what do I think I would have done differently? I don't think I would have ever split my blog into my everyday art blog and still life with circles. I want them all to be the same blog. I would have just been more authentic about this experience of grief being part of my life, a simultaneous experience with joy. I wish I would have written about my spiritual wrestlings a tad more frequently, because I think people go through that too. So, I guess I would have stopped worrying about who is reading here a long time ago and just been myself.

You asked me, Ines, "Would there be anything you want these women to know or would there be something you would do differently in retrospect? How do you feel about the question?"

To be frank, this question makes me feel like I am missing something. Did I offend these women? Did I upset them with the birth of my child? Did I upset them with something I wrote? I don't know. I understand if it is hard to read about my children. I understand. No one needs my blessing to not read in this space, but if you want to know if I will still be friends with you even if you cannot be present with my parenting posts, absolutely. It is important, drastically important, to protect your heart. So I would say the same thing I always say.

I love you. Go if you need to go. Come back if you want to come back. I will always be here with open arms. Loving you. Email me privately and we can have a friendship separate from my blog. I will always be here for you in whatever way you need me to be.

Ironically, as I was writing this post, my arm was resting on some papers. I picked them up to move them, and a postcard from please be still fell out of the pile that said, "We Are All Connected." Suffering is suffering is suffering. Grieving is grieving is grieving. Love is love is love. We grieve for different things, but we grieve. I think it is a universal form of suffering that every person can relate to, even if they haven't lost a child, or they lost their only child.

If you want to clarify the question, I would be happy to be more specific if it relates directly to something I did at some point in time. Otherwise, thank you to everyone who asked me questions this month. I love answering questions because it helps me to clarify these things in me, and it helps direct my writing when I am feeling scattered and unsure of myself, and I have been feeling scattered and unsure of myself. I hope everyone writes on these topics and links to their blogs. Much love to all of you.

question three: pregnancy after loss

Angie: Pondering how to word my question just right so I'll get a mile long post with all life's answers on how to survive pregnancy-after-stillbirth without dissolving into the schizophrenic bag lady on The Simpson's who throws live cats at people.

So here it goes, how did you do it? At what point did you and Sam finally realize Thor was Thor and not Lucy? (Kevin and I are constantly calling Little Kevie Aiden). What additional testing/medical attention/medical intervention did you receive as a result of having a prior stillbirth?

Oh yeah, what books, websites, meditations, internet life coach can you recommend to help ease my anxiety and nerves??

Angie, how did I do it? I have no fucking idea. It was so incredibly hard. I am pretty sure I did turn into the cat-throwing lady on the Simpsons. I was not one of those approachable lovely mother earth goddess pregnant ladies with a touchable belly. People didn't ever say, "OH, how gorgeous you are." Basically, I stared at everyone with daggers--Touch me and I cut you, bitch. I may have even cut a bitch. I don't know.

I will start with the questions easiest to answer: What additional testing/medical advice/medical intervention did I receive? For some background, Lucia died at 38 weeks of pregnancy. I had no issues during my pregnancy. I was in a car accident at 29 weeks. It was a minor incident, but I went to the hospital for 24 hour testing and I seemed to be in labor. Lucia's heart rate dropped when I first got there, but then the labor stopped, and the baby was fine. I heard her heartbeat all night. The doctors all cleared me and basically told me that if anything was going to go wrong, it was in that time frame. I had nothing to worry about. It was during that time that we discovered that Lucy was transverse, meaning sideways in me, and that I might have to have a version. I read up on some yoga moves to help her turn, and did them, and well, she turned around 33 weeks.

At 38 weeks, during a normal weekly visit, my blood pressure was a little elevated. 130/90, so I went into the hospital for monitoring. Honestly, I thought I was in labor. My contractions were fairly close together. My blood pressure went down when I rested, and then sent me home. Lucia died either the next day or the day after that. When Lucy died, we opted for all the testing. The one thing they saw when she was born was that she had a marginal cord insertion, but the midwives assured me that it had no effect on her growth or death. Lucia was 6 lbs at 38 weeks. Beezus was born at 37 weeks and was 7lbs. 2oz. I will just say that with Beezus, I had natural childbirth in the birthing suites. I was induced with Lucia and had an epidural.

Anyway, beside the point, but I thought I would mention it since you asked me about medical intervention. To me, it seemed like Lucia's growth slowed down at some point. She was measuring ahead until 34 weeks, then behind after 35 weeks. Of course a ton of theories went through my mind in the six weeks until we got all the chromosonal and autopsy results--the car accident, the version, the marginal cord insertion. At six weeks out from her death, I met with a Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor who would become part of my care team in my pregnancy with Thomas. At the time, he said they found no reason for her death. She had an 8% placental infarction from the car accident. To have any effect on a pregnancy, it would have to be somewhere around 80%. The marginal cord insertion wasn't the issue. Because she was born vaginally, it could have been that she was cinching her cord when she turned, or as the midwife described, she could have been grabbing it. In her hand. Squeezing the life out of herself without even realizing it. It still makes me shudder to think of it. If it was a cord compression, or something like that, the vaginal birth happened and the cord became uncompressed, so they couldn't tell. There seemed to be a post-mortem clot coming from her body into the placenta. But from the 23 blood vials drawn on me, and her autopsy, they found no virus, no chromosonal issues, no genetic issues, no evidence of trauma. She just died. The best thing the MFM said was that I was a healthy person and there was nothing I could have done.

During that meeting, we discussed the care I would get in my next pregnancy. I would keep my midwife and also work with an MFM. It is the practice of my midwifery group and the MFM to induce pregnancy the week before death if the baby was full term and has an unexplained stillbirth. They do this for the mental wellbeing of the mother and the physical wellbeing of the child. My understanding is that inducing at 37 weeks is kind of unusual for practices, but it is really one of the ways I thought I could survive her pregnancy mentally. So, I was asked to wait six months before trying again. I did. When I became pregnant, they discovered my thyroid had become extremely underactive. At about six weeks, I began bleeding from a subchorionic hemorrhage. That continued for six weeks. I did opt for testing, which I didn't for either of my other children. I just wanted to know everything. I did the 12 week nuchal scan, then the 16 week quad screening. Thor came up with the markers for Down's Syndrome, and we opted to have a amniocentesis at 20 weeks.

My care plan, I should say here, was discussed and decided upon during my autopsy findings with the MFM. I would see my midwifery group once a month until 28 weeks, then I would see them once every two weeks, then at 32 weeks we would start non-stress tests (NST) every week. I would meet with a genetic counselor early in my pregnancy and do an entire genetic work-up for our family and talk about risks. And I would meet with my MFM at 12 weeks, 16 weeks, 20 weeks, 28 weeks, 32 weeks, then once a week at 32 weeks for NSTs. So at about 32-35 weeks, I began having three appointments a week, one with my midwife, one NST with the midwife and one NST/ultrasound appointment with the MFM.

During my pregnancy, I developed very pronounced "white coat syndrome"--when I went to the midwife, my blood pressure went up. Every heartbeat check was met with almost a full blown anxiety attack. You would have never known looking at me, but I was in shock and losing it inside. I cried often on my way out from just sheer release of emotion. At 28 weeks, because of continued elevated blood pressure, the midwives could not continue my care, so I had to switch providers to the obstetrians in the same practice. One thing I should say is that I go to a midwifery practice, and they usually do not let you only see one midwife, but one midwife did see me the whole time. I just scheduled with her only. She also gave me her personal cell phone to call her if I was freaking out. I never called her, until the hypertension diagnosis, but it was nice to have that option.
At 28 weeks, switching providers and being diagnosed with hypertension, I bought a home blood pressure cuff and was put on modified bedrest. It didn't work too well, because Sam had surgery at that time and I even had to help him to the bathroom.

To summarize, it was hell. I am still recovering from pregnancy after loss. I pulled away from most of the people in my life because there was simply nothing to say. I didn't want to hear assurances that everything would be okay, and I didn't want to talk about everything that could go wrong. And everything was seeming to go wrong. And everything went right, because Thomas was a big, healthy boy. The extra monitoring helped me a great deal, so ironically, the last weeks of my pregnancy were the most comforting. I heard his heartbeat three times a week, I could get him to move on demand, and I slept mostly downstairs away from everyone. I didn't buy a home doppler, because I would have made myself crazy, so I forced myself to trust my care team. Thor moved well for all the NSTs, and those really eased me. At some point, I had to concede that I was doing everything I could possibly do. When I went in at exactly 37 weeks, I was already three centimeters dilated and having contractions every two minutes. I gave birth ten hours later. Thomas was born at 8 lbs, 3 ozs. He was ready to come.

So how did I do it, emotionally? I stayed maniacally busy. That is part of what helped at the end, the three appointments kept my brain off of the thought, "Is he dead yet?" I started still life 365 at about 24 weeks, because I wanted something to do everyday. I wrote a lot. Many of the women I connected with early on had their rainbow babies around the same time I was pregnant, and my dear friend lost her rainbow baby during that time, so I was grieving for her, happy for the others. I didn't connect with the pregnancy and Thomas, to be honest. It felt otherworldly. Yes, I was pregnant, but I didn't really think there was a baby in there. I don't know how to explain it. I gave birth to him April 1st, and it wasn't until February that I called him my son. In that two month period, I began connecting the fact that I was having a son, a loved being, rather than just hosting a death, if that makes sense.

The worst casualty was my marriage, I guess. I took a lot of my anxiety and anger out on my husband, and didn't think I could ever forgive him for electing to have surgery two months before Thor was born, after I was told I was on bedrest, which I wasn't able to do. I just felt he robbed me of the ease to follow my doctor's orders. He was out of work for six weeks, completely on the couch for four of them, unable to help with Beezus and whacked out on pain pills. Honestly, he just got the brunt of my anger, all the time. I really thought that our marriage was over because I would never forgive him. Two months after Thor was born, we decided to go to therapy, because I really didn't think I could stay married with this much anger and resentment.

It was the best thing we have ever done. Almost immediately, I stopped feeling anger and resentment. It was incredibly important to take time for us again. And I think that was what was lacking during my pregnancy, time to just be together. His surgery meant that I was taking care of him and that was one more person/thing demanding my attention. Honestly, I have issues asking for help and vulnerability. And what I really needed was help. He promised me in the beginning of us trying to get pregnant that I wouldn't go through every ultrasound or appointment alone, but I did. I don't think he came to one NST, he certainly only came to one ultrasound to find out if it is a boy or girl, and when you find out your child is dead by ultrasound, that whole experience is like walking into a nightmare. I needed support in ways I never needed support before, and instead of asking, I simply started resentments for all the ways in which people couldn't be there for me. They aren't my proudest, most mature moments. As I have said often in this journey, I did the best I could with what I knew about the world and myself.

So, anyway, during the pregnancy, here is what I thought: 1. I wouldn't be capable of loving Thor because I was so anxiety-ridden and angry that I couldn't forgive the baby, 2. I would divorce my husband because I was so anxiety-ridden and angry that I wouldn't be able to forgive him, 3. I would never love the baby because he wasn't Lucy. After he was born happy and healthy and very Buddha-like, I found that none of those things were true. He was his own little being, different and separate. I found that happy and sad were not opposites like light and dark. Happy and Sad can exist together. When I was a kid, I always thought vanilla and chocolate were opposites. You could only like one or the other, but the truth is those flavors go perfectly together. And happy and sad were emotions that suit each other quite nicely. I was so happy, so full of gratitude. I had no expectations of who Thor was, because I hadn't connected to him, except I did, in spite of myself. He would poke me when I poked him. He did that every night from like 28 weeks on, and so, I would play with him and laugh even though I really didn't want to laugh. When he was born, he did the same thing, and I found that I didn't blame him. He was just a little ball of love, and I loved him.

I fell so deeply in love with him so immediately, I couldn't imagine life without him. But I also missed Lucy. I really felt Lucy's death in a different way. She is dead. Never coming back. Not in another baby. She is who she was and she died. I had to let go of expecting her to be Thor or Thor to be her. I think it is in the same way that you can separate out different three year olds--they share a quality, but they have different spirits or ways of being. In the belly, Aidan and Kevie might have similar ways of being, but they are different people. When you see Kevin, you will see the difference in a way you simply can't right now If that makes sense. And so, the two felt so distinctly different. I'm not sure I am describing it well, or articulately, but suffice to say, they have been their own people, loved in their own ways.

Angie: Oh yeah, what books, websites, meditations, internet life coach can you recommend to help ease my anxiety and nerves??

The books I read were all diversionary, none had to do with stillbirth. I read Sookie Stackhouse series, Harry Potter, fanastical and fun reads. I also read every book by Ann Patchett and Elizabeth McCracken. Basically, I did not read about pregnancy ever. I did buy the book Pregnancy After Loss, and I paged through it, but I couldn't read it. I read websites that made me laugh, like Hyperbole and a Half. I didn't even connect with the other women who were pregnant at the time, because I couldn't talk about it. I felt both incredibly fortunate, but more scared than I had ever been in my life. At the time I was pregnant, Carly was pregnant and started a website/journal of her pregnancy (http://thewaterchilddiary.blogspot.com/). I would recommend it, if you haven't seen it. She is very positive. I couldn't be there too often, not because it isn't amazing, I just wasn't in the head space where I could read about pregnancy. I really connected with the things Tash said during her pregnancy, so I loved all her posts about pregnancy after loss too--she gave birth to her son a month after Thor was born.

I did buy and use a number of meditation CDs during my pregnancy--Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness of Beginners, and also I used Good Medicine by Pema Chodron in 2009 and really started practicing tonglen meditation. I often practiced tonglen for women going through stillbirth and pregnancy loss, because I understood that pain and could easily take in their suffering. It also helped me let it go after meditation and maybe release a little of my own.

I also did prenatal yoga most days with a DVD by Shiva Rhea or I did a DVD called Prenatal Fitness Fix with Erin O'Brien, which is awesome. She is really amazing. I also bought this prenatal fitness DVD by a woman in Cirque Du Soleil.  I would say connecting with women through art and writing, though, was the most important thing for me.

Working on grief and being present with those feelings were important parts of my pregnancy, so I continued it. I always thought I would pass off still life 365 at some point and maybe to someone also going through pregnancy or trying to conceive so they could just get out of their head. It helped me a great deal. So did writing about this, so thank you.