Quiet of My Mind Amidst the Storm Within My Heart

I want to begin by saying thank you again......so much......for the hugs and messages I have received over the past 4 weeks.  It helps so much during times like this to be thought of and understood in a way that most people in the "regular" world cannot begin to understand.
I've been wanting to share my story of spiritual intervention when you least expect it.  

My story of how one tiny little person can be the beautiful catalyst for so much fundamental change.  

And my story of grief and how there are no shortcuts.

I wish I could say I can accomplish that in only a few sentences.  But not so.  Hopefully you will have a chance to read what I have written.  I have so much I want to share.
 
After having 2 prior pregnancy losses and now having a third one, the grief feels no different.  
 
It's no easier to feel.
 
It's no easier to understand.
 
Rather, if anything I think it feels more profound.  
 
Even more overwhelming and paralyzing.
 
Something I never would have thought was possible.
 
There is disbelief at times too all the while knowing on a cellular level that this has happened.
 
We decided we wanted to have the baby cremated.
 
However, just minutes prior to the D&E (this dr. does D&Es vs. D&Cs) the dr. informed us that we had to choose between genetic testing and cremation. That they need to send everything to the lab if we want genetic testing done.
 
Stunned.
 
I had been under the impression that we could do both since the dr. told me only the placenta is sent to the genetics lab.
 
(My understanding now is that the dr. submits everything to the lab and the lab determines the placenta.  This is not something the dr. himself can distinguish with a 1st trimester loss.)
 
I was very caught off guard to have to choose between the two with such little notice.  
 
Dave knew what he wanted cremation.  For him, having genetic testing will not bring any peace.  Will not help him feel any better.  And he preferred for the baby to be cremated.
 
I felt torn.  And I felt selfish that I felt torn.  And I said that out loud to Dave. Because why would I prefer for my baby to be sent to a lab?  But selfishly(?), I felt I needed answers this time.  We had no answers the other two times.  I felt I need to know s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g.  
 
I was so angry at the reality that I had to choose one or the other.  
 
I told Dave I didn't want to go against his wishes.  This is his baby as much as it is mine.
 
But Dave...the usual giving, patient man that he is told me that I need to decide what I need.  And if it's going to bother me not having answers, then we should do the testing.
 
It was not a great feeling because of what we had planned and now seemingly lost on top of loss.....but we opted for genetic testing.
 
And the decision was done.
 
I had asked for them to check for the baby's heartbeat one last time before the procedure.  They had to do this in the OR.  So my husband could not be there for this.  
 
The nursing staff talked to me about snow and such as they wheeled me to the OR.
 
Two days earlier I had felt so forsaken by God...my deceased grandparents...guardian angels.  I had prayed and begged so hard for a week for our baby to be OK.  
 
My own personal belief is you can pray for strength but you can't pray for and get an outcome.  God doesn't pick and choose who he is going to grant good outcomes to.
 
But in desperation, I had prayed for an outcome nonetheless.
 
But not only had the baby not lived, there had been nothing.....no signs....no dreams....no indication that any of these spiritual beings were there for me.
 
And I had felt angry and neglected.
 
I felt I had been met with only silence and death.
 
I now realize that was an unfair assumption and untrue.
 
Two days later...feeling less angry and abandoned....as I'm wheeled to the OR I conjured up the image of my grandparents and my beloved cat Pumpkin walking alongside me.  
 
And in my heart, they were.  
 
And I found it very comforting.
 
It was unsettling being in the OR without any relaxation medication, etc.  And aware of everything they were doing beforehand.  
 
But I needed to be conscious for when they scanned to check for the heartbeat.
 
I wasn't prepared for how hard I would cry...again...when I saw the baby on the screen....and no heartbeat.  
 
I hadn't thought that far ahead.  
 
I mean I knew there would be no heartbeat.
 
I didn't arrive in the OR with any kind of hope at all that suddenly a heartbeat would appear.  
 
There was no eagerness.
 
No hanging onto any sort of false hope.
 
This request of mine was for my peace of mind.  So that my mind could never wander 3 weeks later to "what if the baby really still had a heartbeat?"
 
When the dr. now verified no heartbeat for the third time in 4 days, I cried.
 
The dr. told me he's so sorry.  He held my hand and asked about my daughter. And the other two nurses were rubbing my legs and arms and saying "oh sweetie it's OK".
 
I then felt sleepy and fell asleep.
 
What happened next is something I can only describe as a spiritual intervention.  
 
The Sign that there are spiritual beings looking out for me.  
 
And while they couldn't save my Baby....they could do this one special intervention for me.
 
When I woke up I was out of it having just had general anesthesia.
 
And couldn't open my eyes all the way...but the words that came from my mouth were "Why can't we have the baby cremated AFTER genetic testing?"
 
I don't know how this question came to my mind to my lips.  It was not my doing.  There had been no time to think or contemplate.  
 
Yet there it was.
 
There was not a whole lot of cognitive activity going on at this time.  
 
Only this question.
 
I don't know who was in the room with me at this point but the person was a male.  And I heard him say "hmmm yeah I don't know".
 
I was so out of it and couldn't open my eyes.
 
I later realized I was probably being humored....maybe he thought I was talking nonsense in my sleep.  And was just acknowledging my voice with an "uh huh" so that I felt I wasn't completely ignored.
 
So I just kept repeating the question over and over and over again until I got someone's attention.
 
That someone was Josh, the nurse.  I will never forget him and am in the process of writing him a beautiful thank you letter.  I am forever grateful to him.
 
Because he listened to my question.  And he heard my urgency.  And so they started making some phone calls for us.  
 
By now, Dave had come in and I told Dave what I had asked for.
 
They asked for our funeral home's contact information.  Dave signed a release form.  I heard them on the phone....heard the words "genetic testing"....
 
I made sure they knew I still wanted genetic testing done.
 
By the time we left the hospital there was no guarantee that this would happen (genetic testing AND cremation) for us...just that we had put in the request.
 
I had no idea what to expect.  Would someone down the chain of commands assume I changed my mind and eliminate the genetic testing step?  Was the funeral home not even an option if they did go forward with the genetic testing?
 
We came home.  Like the zombies we'd been functioning as for the past week. Dave picked up some food for us.  I ate the most giant chicken/guac wrap and french fries and we both fell asleep on the couch for the next few hours.
 
I was pretty out of it for the next 24 hours.  Very dizzy and nauseous.
 
But I started rethinking what I had done and was really regretting I had even wanted the genetic testing done.  
 
My decisions and emotions were all over the place.
 
I started to feel frantic not knowing where the baby's body was.  
 
Somewhere in a lab?  
 
On some truck on it's way to a lab?  
 
Sitting somewhere cold and dank and no one caring.  These are the thoughts that ran through my mind.
 
I know these are senseless thoughts in a way....the baby's spirit is in heaven. And here I am still worried about the body.
 
There is no common sense with grief.
 
I survived the other two pregnancy losses without having cremation as "closure".
 
But this time I felt so insistent on this.  I felt so strongly about this.
 
I logged onto my emails that night and saw that the funeral home had emailed us.  He's actually a very kindhearted man who is a former classmate.  He owns the funeral home.  
 
He told us that the hospital had contacted them in the morning and afternoon and that once testing was completed, the funeral home went to the hospital and the baby is now in their care.
 
Reading those words, I have never felt such utter relief.  It was profound.
 
I questioned my mind many times over the next couple days wondering how I had thought to ask the nurse for this after the surgery.
 
I credit this to guardian angels.  My deceased grandfather perhaps.  Some spirit.
 
For me I feel the message was----We're sorry we couldn't save your baby but we wanted to help make happen your last request for the baby.
 
Dave shares this feeling...he has no idea how I came up with this request as I woke up from surgery.
 
A couple days later my husband and I went to the funeral home.
 
It's puzzling how the mind can be split in a way when there is great emotional trauma going on.
 
I found myself driving to the funeral home but also still clinging to these very very fleeting thoughts at time......that maybe the hospital would call and tell me there was a mistake and the baby was fine.  
 
Even though I knew logically that was utterly impossible.
 
Yet these fleeting thoughts would still occur.
 
I broke down at the funeral home when he handed us a catalog of tiny urns.
 
And I stared in disbelief at the pages.  I felt numb.
 
We are supposed to be buying a crib.  Not an urn.
 
A few days earlier my husband had bought a baby blanket....with the intent that we would have it cremated with the baby.
 
I slept with it for several days and became very attached to it.  It was hard to part with the blanket but I knew the purpose was to give it to Baby.
 
I wrote the baby a card.  And so they cremated the baby together with the blanket and the card.  That brought me comfort.
 
We received the ashes a few days later.  We decided not to get an urn.
 
I wasn't able to get to the funeral home at the meeting time....so Dave went. He messaged me that Baby was home.
 
This brought us an immeasurable amount of comfort.  
 
Nothing makes this "better".  But this time having something tangible brought a high degree of comfort and a feeling of settledness....that the Baby's remains were home.
 
We cried and held each other when I came home and looked at the ashes together.
 
And I was so struck by how small the cremains are....even though I expected them to be limited in quantity...they actually turned out to be maybe even more than I had anticipated......
 
But still I was struck by the discrepancy between the magnitude of our grief---the magnitude of our love for this little baby versus the physical size of this baby.
 
It was a profound moment.
 
To recognize how someone who is just millimeters in size can touch our hearts and deeply affect and change us.
 
I also felt outrage....that "this" is not what I'm supposed to be left with.  This is not what I'm supposed to have.  I am supposed to have a growing belly that houses a growing baby with a beating heart.
 
The baby's ashes are in a velvet pouch that I keep in a small basket on our dresser with candles around it.
 
The genetic testing took 3 weeks.  We found out from the dr. just this past Friday that our baby's chromosomes were.........normal.
 
Shocked.
 
Just stunned.
 
And then panicked.  What could have been wrong?  Is there something I could have done differently?
 
This was my third pregnancy (and third loss) in the past year and as a result I have become pain-stakingly careful in ways that a pregnant woman does not need to be careful I'm sure.
 
Wearing latex gloves when using laundry spot cleaners.  Only using natural household products.  Only wearing natural makeup and using natural ingredient hair and skin care products.
 
Drinking tons of water every day.  Resting....a lot.  Usually laying on the couch on my left side.
 
Eating organic foods.  Avoiding processed foods. Avoiding anything that falls under the realm of questionable.  Not eating gluten.  
 
Taking my vitamins.
 
Listening to guided imagery tapes at night when my anxiety would get the best of me.  
 
Getting acupuncture treatments.
 
Talking with my therapist.
 
Doing everything I could think of to keep me healthy and the baby safe.
 
And here baby died.
 
And her chromosomes were normal.
 
And I say "her"......because we found out the baby was a girl.
 
I asked if there could be a mistake....if they could have mistakenly looked at my chromosomes (hence female) and maybe these test results are inaccurate.
 
My RE said that in this situation it is HIGHLY unlikely that the test results are inaccurate.
 
And he said he knows how hard this is and based on what has transpired, we can discuss possible interventions.  
 
We meet with him next week.
 
I had the miscarriage bloodwork panel done last summer and everything came back normal.  No clotting issue.  No autoimmune issue.  No thyroid issue.  And on and on.  My husband and I are negative for balanced translocation.  And I had a saline ultrasound to rule out structural abnormalities.
 
I'll have to wait until we see him next week to hear what he has to say.  Until then, my imagination will naturally run wild.
 
It was emotional finding out the test results and the gender.  
 
Honestly, it wouldn't have mattered what any of the information was.  
 
Whether the baby was a girl or boy.  
 
Whether there was even a third gender that was possible.
 
It doesn't matter.
 
Whether the baby had chromosome problems or not.
 
It doesn't matter.  
 
That data does not matter.
 
Any time you find out any information about your deceased baby......it is emotional and brings you even closer to a little special someone whose soul you already feel so intertwined with.
 
They could've told me anything under the sun and I would have cried.
 
If the sentence being uttered begins "Your baby........." then there will be tears shed.
 
It was my husband's birthday this past weekend.  He had already decided he didn't want a party with our families this year.
 
So we went out to dinner the three of us.  And I made a deep dish chocolate chip cookie pie and we enjoyed that at home.  No happy birthday singing.  He didn't want that.  But we gave him some gifts of course.
 
We may appear normal.
 
But we are sad.
 
We are depressed.
 
Though we are surprisingly?.....functional.  
 
For each loss, I have initially felt that I would never function again.  
 
Never smile again.  
 
Never eat again.  
 
Never anything again.
 
In fact, when we found out on 12/23 that the baby only had a 50/50 chance, I felt so distraught I was dry heaving and told my husband I feel like I'm going to need a mental hospital.
 
Not that that would be a pleasant place to be.
 
But that's how unhooked I felt.
 
But slowly but surely......resilience starts to kick in.  
 
You may not even "feel" resilient.  
 
You may not even "feel" strong.
 
But this innate resilience and ability to keep moving...keep the momentum of life going does kick in.  Like it has a mind of its own.  As if your body is saying I hear you Grief....but we're going to keep on going.  You're along for the ride and you'll go through what you need to go through, but we're going to keep this body going.
 
As much as you don't think it will.  
 
It happens.
 
I sort of marvel at it.  
 
Like when I completed a household task for the first time in weeks.  
 
Or I laughed for the first time since the loss.  
 
Or I took pleasure in cooking a meal for the first time since the loss.
 
I sort of marvel at that ability......to live when you think you can't live anymore.

My husband and I had our first date night one week after the loss. And it was a beautiful night together.  First glass of wine in months....which was bittersweet.  Sad I'm not "supposed" to be able to be drinking right now.
 
We indulged in gourmet pizza.  Feeling so connected and united.  And out to dinner for the first time in a romantic, quiet setting.  It was a special evening.
 
It was all very therapeutic and continues to be.
 
We have had 1 day in the past 4 weeks where we have argued over differing opinions.....because the situation is so emotional.
 
But other that that, this experience has strengthened us all the more.
 
Was there a baby in a carrier in the restaurant on that date night?  
 
Yes there was.  
 
Did my eyes well up with tears at inopportune times?  Yes.  
 
But as for the parents in the restaurant with the baby carrier, I reminded myself I don't know what that woman's journey has been.
 
And easy or hard it doesn't matter.
 
Do I really "need" her to have had a hard journey for me to be OK with her having a baby?
 
We conceived our daughter easily in 2005.  So we have experienced both ends of the spectrum now having a very very difficult time having a second child.
 
Do I really want to wish a hard journey, knowing what this is like, on someone?
 
Would I have wanted someone looking at me when I was pregnant 8 years ago with our daughter hoping that I had a difficult road to get to that point?
 
Does that make any sense?  It's a natural instinct when we are hurting to want 
the company of misery.  But I realize it's pointless.  And a waste of negative energy.
 
We are souls moving through this galaxy.  And what happens or doesn't happen for one soul really has nothing to do with my journey at all.
 
We erroneously connect ourselves in that way "she has....I don't have", etc....and the stories are actually unrelated.  
 
But we see a pregnant belly or we see a tiny baby and we instantaneously think why her and not me?
 
I do this all the time...just reflexively.  And then I have to talk to myself about it.
 
I'm not perfect about this.  I find it hard to be around moms at my daughter's school with several kids under their wings.  
 
I find it incredibly painful to be asked "So you -just- have the one child then?"
 
It's hard to keep the emotions in check.
 
But we create our own suffering when we covet what someone else has and think that we are entitled and feel the unfairness of it all.
 
It is so much easier to default to envy and negativity.  
 
I am not going to lie.  It takes a monumental amount of effort for me to stay sane about these things at times.....but if I don't it only compounds the suffering.
 
If I allow myself to be consumed with anger and envy then I am creating newly manufactured misery on top of the misery that the losses themselves naturally bring.
 
But I digress.
 
For whatever can be said about the ability to put makeup on again, take a shower again, smile an authentic smile again, venture out of the house again.......
 
The truth is that life is not the same after you see your baby's beautiful heart beating and now know it will never beat again.
 
The reality of that crushes me every time.  And sometimes I still can't wrap my mind around it.
 
That beautiful pulsing heartbeat is seared into my memory in the most loving way.  
 
I felt mesmerized by it.  
 
And I remember thinking I could watch that all day long.  
 
I had been waiting to see that heart beating for 3-1/2 years.  
 
How many anguished tears have been shed for the last 3-1/2 years....how many tears leading up to that moment.  How much anger.  How much frustration.  How much renewed resilience.  How much rebuilding.  How much digging deep for strength when I thought I couldn't dig deep any longer.
 
How much emotional energy between my husband and I that went into the loving creation of this child.
 
And so I could have watched that beautiful heart beat all day long.
 
All day long.
 
I don't sleep the same.  
 
My sleep is restless.  
 
I dream about the baby a lot.
 
I either dream that a dr. is telling me that something I did caused the miscarriage (my homeopathic eye drops, the level of magnesium in my vitamin, my asthma inhaler).
 
Yes, I have dreamt of these seemingly ridiculous things.  Except in the dreams it doesn't feel ridiculous.  It feels real.
 
And then of course I find myself thinking about it the next morning and having to fend off these ridiculous ideas.
 
All these things that were fine in my pregnancy with our nearly 8 year old daughter........now make their way into my dreams as culprits.
 
Just because my brain at night seems to be frantic and trying to understand what can't be understood.
 
The most powerful dream was 2 weeks ago.  I dreamt that the baby was fine. That I gave birth to her.  And it was a miracle.  She was fine.
 
And I say "she" because the baby was a girl in my dream.
 
(This was a a week before I found out that our baby was in fact a girl.)
 
I came up with the baby's name in that dream...and we have since named our baby.
 
That was a beautiful dream and an incredibly painful dream to wake up from.
 
I had to reacquaint myself with reality.
 
Some days I have good energy.  
 
I make it a habit to exercise first thing every morning.  And that makes a difference.
 
Even though every fiber in me will say "no not today, I'm tired...it's too hard" I do it because I know I feel so much better afterwards.
 
And so some days I have energy and can do errands and work and make dinner.
 
And other days I feel like I'm in the world's thickest quicksand and the simplest transactions of life feel like I am climbing mountains.
 
I journal.  I lean on my mighty support system.  It has gotten much smaller since a year ago.  
 
Miscarriage or any significant event in one's life can do that....sort of reveals who the true friends are.
 
But despite it's size, now the support system has so much more depth. And I am wiser, especially outside of DS, about who comprises my support system.  
 
 
Outside of DS, I've now learned....three losses later....who I can talk to about my loss and who not to share that sacredness with.  It's been an education.

I've also learned I don't need to justify my grief.

And I've learned I don't need to plaster on a happy face just to make others feel better.  I no longer need to rescue others in that way.
 
In addition to the two special women in my life who I lean on -- on a daily basis and sometimes mutliple times daily or nightly---you know who you are.....

I am thankful to the stars for Dave.  

It will be 20 years in April since the day we met.  He became my best friend within months and my husband 4 years later.  He fully embodies the concept of unconditional love.  That no matter what I need to go through, he is there.  So thankful that I have him to share my life with.  To cry with.  To laugh with.  To be silent with.  To be with.  To lovingly make babies with, even if it is not in the Universe's plans for them to make their way to this earth.  To survive loss with. And to feel resilience with.
 
In a good way....life is not the same.  
 
Life looks different.
 
I don't process things the same.
 
I have never particularly enjoyed loud noises and crowds.
 
But now I am completely averse to them.  They feel like assaults.
 
I am averse to small talk....meaningless chit chat.....complaints about first world problems (the weather, how busy people are, gossip, etc. etc.), ...obnoxiousness on the radio.
 
Anything superficial--I'm completely out.
 
I was never fully in---but even I would get occasionally swept away by superficial conversations on the radio, etc.
 
All the meaningless "distractions" of life that people engage in in order to not have to deal with the real stuff.

 
And so now I crave something different.
 
Instead I am more than ever tuned into quality conversation.  Meaningful topics.  And persons of true depth.

 
Despite the emotional storm within my heart and the nocturnal contemplation that my mind does about why the baby is no longer living........
 
In other ways, my mind is quieter.  Like a still lake.
 

You know how snow dampens the sounds of the outdoors?
 
Grief has been the snow that has dampened the noise of my mind.  And I now prefer more quiet.  More contemplation.  More depth and meaning in interaction.
 
It feels like this "snow" has dampened the sounds of the unimportant and left behind what really matters.

 
It's like a powerful sorting system has been activated and my brain now knows what to toss out as "not worth thinking about" and what is important.
 
I can just be me now.  And live.  Authentically.  And make no apologies for who I am or how I feel on a given day.
 
This is what happens when there is significant tragedy.  Significant emotional trauma.
 
It would be all too easy to get bogged down in the sadness and anger and outrage.  
 
Oh those things are there.  And some days more prominently than others.
 
But if you allow yourself to be still enough......new awareness and knowledge can come forward too.
 
It has happened with my other two losses....particularly the first one.
 
But now most significantly with the third.
 
I didn't see this coming.
 
I feel this baby has given me the gift of me.  To be me.
 
I wish I could say that the gifts that can come from the worst of experiences can outshine anything.  Some moments they do.
 
But I also have moments where I cry so hard.
 
Moments where I'll take the tiny basket that holds the little velvet pouch of the baby's ashes.....and I'll rock the basket.  Because I need to feel closer to my baby.
 
And sometimes I feel disbelief.  And sometimes still feel stuck on how well the pregnancy was going and can't fathom that this is over.
 
But for all the anguish.....I wouldn't have traded those 8 weeks for the world.  I am forever grateful for the time I had to carry that sweet little girl with me.  To grow her for as long as she could grow.  To experience the immense joy that she brought to Dave and me in such a short period of time.  
 
And to love her for an eternity.
 
For that I am grateful.