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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Aubrey turned one year old yesterday. I just survived the hardest and most terrifying week of my life. Everyday I cry just a little less. Today though, my first day alone as David got called in for Jury Duty, I seem to find the tears easily. They’ve flowed pretty steadily all morning. Aubrey laughs when I really start to bawl. I guess she thinks the noises and the faces I make are funny. But her laugh, if even for a brief moment, makes my heart swell, and through my tears I actually laugh with her. I wonder if she feels my sorrow. I am relieved and happy that she will never have to experience the pain of Logan’s death. He will be an enigma for her, a strange curiosity about a little brother who was here for such a brief moment while she was still a baby herself. For the lack of her pain, I am grateful. Dr. Moses speculated that Logan died last Wednesday evening. So this evening marks a week since my precious little Logan left us. David and I are trying to cope, and if you ask either of us we’ll tell you we’re healing and dealing…but today, today I wonder if I just want to heal so bad, and to have it all be over that I say those things more so to convince myself than out of fact. I can not be sure. I’ve been reading a woman’s blog whose situation I have to think is worse than mine. Two miscarriages, a full term baby boy who was brain dead and died 20 hours after his birth, and then two years later she miscarried twins at three months. Pain, over and over and over. Her baby boy was alive when she met him. He had normal coloring, he moved. My baby boy did not. I had found out that morning that Logan had died in utero. I knew as I labored that Logan was dead, and I knew as I pushed him into this world that he had already left it. His body was warm, and I was able to move his limbs about. He was not malformed. He was just not there. I never got to meet my precious little boy. I never got to have him feel my breath, my warmth, my touch. I never heard his cry, or a coo. I never had deceptive hope to cling to. And though I ache in a way I could never have conceived of before, and I wanted to meet my little boy, and I wanted to know my little boy…I do not have to deal with memories of him in this world. I barely ever felt his kicks. He was there, but I was distracted with Aubrey. And for that, I am a little thankful. Perhaps it would have been harder had I known him, if even for a moment.
David and I decided to send Logan’s body to The University of Michigan for a complete Autopsy. The doctor thought this was the best way for us to find out exactly what happened. We feel that we need to know, for out own sanity, and also so that we can decide if we would like to conceive again. But I can’t help but have this “in limbo” feeling about Logan’s death. Like those two days were a nightmare, but didn’t really happen. There was no formal goodbye, they just covered his tiny little body and wheeled him out of the room. There is no place that his body is, and I can’t help but feel odd about the whole thing. I want a physical place where my baby is. I want to know exactly where he’ll be when U of M is finished. I may never go visit his resting place, but I need to know that there was some sort of finality to it all. Not that his body is being passed around, pawed at, mutilated and eventually burned into ashes.
The flowers are getting easier. Flowers were one thing I was not prepared for. When the first flower delivery arrived my first thought was one of appreciation. Then I opened the bag and broke down. They were funeral flowers. The ones people send for funerals. I had just had a birth, and a death at the same time. People don’t know what to say, how to react, what the right thing is. Neither do I. But it’s getting easier. With each new arrival of flowers I am better to cope with their appearance.
Aubrey turned one year old yesterday. I just survived the hardest and most terrifying week of my life. Everyday I cry just a little less. Today though, my first day alone as David got called in for Jury Duty, I seem to find the tears easily. They’ve flowed pretty steadily all morning. Aubrey laughs when I really start to bawl. I guess she thinks the noises and the faces I make are funny. But her laugh, if even for a brief moment, makes my heart swell, and through my tears I actually laugh with her. I wonder if she feels my sorrow. I am relieved and happy that she will never have to experience the pain of Logan’s death. He will be an enigma for her, a strange curiosity about a little brother who was here for such a brief moment while she was still a baby herself. For the lack of her pain, I am grateful. Dr. Moses speculated that Logan died last Wednesday evening. So this evening marks a week since my precious little Logan left us. David and I are trying to cope, and if you ask either of us we’ll tell you we’re healing and dealing…but today, today I wonder if I just want to heal so bad, and to have it all be over that I say those things more so to convince myself than out of fact. I can not be sure. I’ve been reading a woman’s blog whose situation I have to think is worse than mine. Two miscarriages, a full term baby boy who was brain dead and died 20 hours after his birth, and then two years later she miscarried twins at three months. Pain, over and over and over. Her baby boy was alive when she met him. He had normal coloring, he moved. My baby boy did not. I had found out that morning that Logan had died in utero. I knew as I labored that Logan was dead, and I knew as I pushed him into this world that he had already left it. His body was warm, and I was able to move his limbs about. He was not malformed. He was just not there. I never got to meet my precious little boy. I never got to have him feel my breath, my warmth, my touch. I never heard his cry, or a coo. I never had deceptive hope to cling to. And though I ache in a way I could never have conceived of before, and I wanted to meet my little boy, and I wanted to know my little boy…I do not have to deal with memories of him in this world. I barely ever felt his kicks. He was there, but I was distracted with Aubrey. And for that, I am a little thankful. Perhaps it would have been harder had I known him, if even for a moment.
David and I decided to send Logan’s body to The University of Michigan for a complete Autopsy. The doctor thought this was the best way for us to find out exactly what happened. We feel that we need to know, for out own sanity, and also so that we can decide if we would like to conceive again. But I can’t help but have this “in limbo” feeling about Logan’s death. Like those two days were a nightmare, but didn’t really happen. There was no formal goodbye, they just covered his tiny little body and wheeled him out of the room. There is no place that his body is, and I can’t help but feel odd about the whole thing. I want a physical place where my baby is. I want to know exactly where he’ll be when U of M is finished. I may never go visit his resting place, but I need to know that there was some sort of finality to it all. Not that his body is being passed around, pawed at, mutilated and eventually burned into ashes.
The flowers are getting easier. Flowers were one thing I was not prepared for. When the first flower delivery arrived my first thought was one of appreciation. Then I opened the bag and broke down. They were funeral flowers. The ones people send for funerals. I had just had a birth, and a death at the same time. People don’t know what to say, how to react, what the right thing is. Neither do I. But it’s getting easier. With each new arrival of flowers I am better to cope with their appearance.
Yesterday was the first morning I didn’t cry while lying awake in bed. But then, I didn’t lay awake in bed. I got up. Last night I fell asleep for the second night with out any tears, and I actually slept till almost 9am. Then I only cried a second before I got up. But today, today has been pretty hard being alone with my thoughts. When David is around I think it is easier for me to hide from them.
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