What If?

What if 5,479 teenagers died suddenly every day, for no apparent reason?

That number is half of the approximately 10,958 infants who are stillborn every day in the world. Approximately 50% of stillborn babies die without any known cause.

Do you think the world would sit up and take notice? Do you think doctors, medical researchers, governments would take action? Do you think there would be an outcry?

I do.

I also think the world would demand answers.

We are losing 10,958 infants to stillbirth every day. When, I ask you, will someone take notice and do something?

Another Mother's Day

This post isn't going to be so much about me - this is my 6th Mother's Day without Ben, but I always had Charlotte, so I never had to experience a Mother's Day having given birth, but without a child. Oh, I still miss him, of course, and think of him every day, and especially on Mother's Day, but I have learned to be grateful for the two beautiful babies I have, and I treasure every Mother's Day with them.

I have reason to believe some of my lurkers are new here because of a recent loss - and I'm so sorry. And I know you are facing this day, wondering what you are going to do, how will you survive it?

I hope, for your sake, your friends and family rally around you with hugs and flowers, meals and support. Yes, you ARE a mother, even without your baby here. So, how will you get through this coming Sunday?

If you need to hole up in bed, or in your home, and not come out, that's ok. If that's what you really want to do, then do it. If you want some kind of ritual that will honor your child, there are all sorts you can do. Some people plant a tree, or a rose bush, or some other special flower, they can tend to, year after year, and watch grow. Regular readers of my blog will know that my husband and I make a donation in our son's honor every year on his birthday, to the hospital where he was born (we had exceptional care from a compassionate staff) and to the charity Save the Children, which supplies food and medicine for children in need. I know of one family who had a special place at the local zoo that meant something to them in relation to their son, and they dedicated a bench in his honor there.

You may wish to purchase a special piece of jewelry to wear, from someplace like Shannon Schoon's site. Alternatively, go online to an organization like Share, or First Candle, to make a donation or for more suggestions on how to honor your baby.

Regular readers, please offer your suggestions in the comments for newly bereaved parents.

If you're reading this because you're a friend or family member of someone who's lost a baby, and you're wondering how to help, it's pretty easy. Call them or send them a note before Mother's Day (and Father's Day), just to say, "I know this is a hard day for you, and I wanted you to know I'm thinking of you. And that I'm sorry." Believe me, it will mean the world to them. Ask if they want to talk about their baby, or show pictures or share memories. What most parents who've lost children want more than anything is for people to acknowledge the child they lost. If you want to do more, perhaps you could help them with one of the rituals I mentioned above. At the very least, please, please, acknowledge what they've lost.

For all the parents out there who've lost a child, I wish you peace.

What, Posting Again So Soon?

Hmm. I just posted yesterday, whatever am I doing posting again today? Well, I have some unexpected free time, thanks to my 8-year-old dramatically lying on the sofa, clutching her stomach and moaning. Don't worry, she's fine, just feeling a bit off today. Heaven help us if she's ever really ill, with something serious; she's such a (lovely) drama queen that the slightest poke can have her howling.

So, I keep thinking about this story. Thoughts anyone? Or are you sick of it? Because, honestly, I'm both sick of it and morbidly fascinated. Who allowed this to happen? Did anyone ever suggest mental health help? What about all of those babies - who will take care of them? Will they feel like freaks growing up, everyone pointing and whispering on their first day of school, or as they walk down the street?

And I'm angry with their mother for allowing this to happen: while she has the right to have children, 8 at once? Did she think about the health risks to those babies, far more likely when born so soon, with eight little beings fighting inside her womb for what they need to grow strong and healthy. What problems will they face? I'm not saying she should have done a selective reduction, which apparently some of her doctors recommended; I don't think I could have either. But she didn't need to have all those embryos transfered.

And infertility treatments for an unemployed woman with 6 kids already? Oh boy.

I can't say I've added anything new to this debate, I'm just having a little vent, really. It just boggles my mind.

Pregnancy after Baby Loss

If you've been reading Glow in the Woods, you'll know that bon just put up a post on being pregnant after a loss. (Glow in the Woods is a new blogging community of several babyloss mamas; it's terrific, {as if anything about babyloss could be terrific, but these women are so articulate and write so beautifully}, so head on over and say hello.)

Her post has given me so much food for thought; she is 20 weeks pregnant and fearful, hopeful, terrified. She is on bedrest and....managing? Yes, managing as well as any babyloss mama can. Bon asks the question how we feel about pregnancy now, and oh, I have so many mixed feelings. So much to say.

I want to be pregnant again. Sort of. But not really. I want a baby. I am also mourning the loss of that possibility in my life, although it is, still, physically possible, but emotionally, I am not so sure. I am rapidly approaching the end of my "safe" reproductive life - I am well into "advanced maternal age" and while there's no reason I couldn't have a baby again, it is very unlikely I will. I am both jealous of those who are pregnant and holding new babies, and frightened for those whose bellies I see protruding. I know I am a harbinger of death for those among my group of acquaintances who get pregnant; I see the spark of fear in their eyes, the slight distance they put between us, for I have shattered their innocence by losing my son.

Bon talks about "owning the elephant" in the room...I love that phrase. I'm not sure I own the elephant; perhaps it is easier now to pretend I'm not the elephant in the room of a group of mothers and hopeful mothers. But I still feel it, that distance, that experience that sets me apart from all the rest. It holds me back from becoming friends with the lovely women I meet at storytime with my 2.5-year-old; those women who are showing up pregnant at the library, at James's gym time, in the neighborhood. It keeps me from becoming friends with the moms at Charlotte's school, whether they are done having children or still expanding their families. It keeps me from feeling like I am truly being myself with nearly everyone, and I hate feeling that way. Part of me has closed off permanently to others, even to myself. I don't know what to do with the dead baby part of my life, so it just sits there, quietly waiting.

It is so hard to see other women pregnant, and I suspect it always will be. I met a woman shortly after Ben died - I knew her only slightly before then - she lost a baby some 30 years ago. He seemed fine when he was born, but died unexpectedly sometime in the first 24 hours of his life. She told me a little about her experience, and mentioned that the daughter of a friend of hers was pregnant, and how terrifying that was for her. That is where I am now, and permanently.

I see younger mothers at my son's preschool, who are expecting, and I feel...I hate to say this, it seems so awful...disdain. Perhaps it is because they are driving in their SUVs, with enormous diamonds on their fingers, designer clothes, manicured nails...which is not my thing...but their personas shriek entitlement, and perfection. And they barely see me, a late-30s, average mom, with perhaps 10 pounds to lose, fairly attractive, wearing reasonably-priced clothes, who doesn't believe in ostentation, who doesn't play tennis or go to a gym to work out with a trainer, who doesn't run with cliques and never has.

I alternately hate those mothers and feel sorry for them. Mostly I hate them. Because they are pregnant, and they are blissfully unaware as they drive off in their Audis and Suburbans that anything can go wrong. And if they knew my story, if I told them, I know they would look at me in horror and never speak to me again. And of course I wouldn't tell them, could never tell a pregnant woman who did not know me "before," what it is that makes me who I am "after." I'm sorry for them because I feel they don't live in the real world, which makes me a snob of a different sort from them.

Ultimately, here's how I feel about pregnant women: after Ben died, I thought no one should get pregnant ever again. It hurt too much to hear about, hurt too much to see, made me feel so frightened. I can't shake that. I fear for any pregnant woman I see and only wish I could be happy for them. That I will carry for the rest of my life.

Strangely, last night I dreamt I went to my OB for my annual check-up, and we talked about me having another baby. I don't remember what we said, only that I hoped it wasn't too late for me, even though I didn't think it would happen again for me. I am conflicted; I both want to be pregnant again, one last time, and I know that, emotionally, I can't do it again. If it were to happen, of course I would, but deliberately? I don't see how I could.

I know how much there is to lose.

A Tiny Part of Me

Yep, I'm still here. I haven't known what to say this month; I've been tired, cranky, sick of the very cold semi-Midwestern weather. And oh, the snow. I'm really not a cold-weather person. January is just not my month, for a number of reasons, the most obvious being Ben. The weather does, however, mirror a lot of what I felt (and feel) about that loss. I remember in the months after he died, when spring began to push its way through the snow and cold, and I wanted so desperately to stay in January because that bleakness, the gray skies, the cold - the deadness, really - were what I felt inside. So in some ways January suits me, gives me a chance to mope and mourn. A tiny part of me is forever stuck in January; I envision a little corner of my heart figuratively chipped off and left behind in that January, or perhaps left in the hospital and taken off to be cremated with Ben.

I find myself walking around, telling myself, "We're going to have a baby." (I have never told anyone that, not even my husband.) I told myself that through all of my pregnancies, I suppose to try to make myself believe it, and I can't seem to stop saying it. I am most definitely NOT pregnant; though it could certainly happen unexpectedly, it isn't anything we're planning. We're done. But I'm having a really hard time coming to terms (no pun intended) with that. My dreams for a family with three children came true, but not in the way I planned. And I am rapidly approaching the age where the statistics get really bad for safe and healthy pregnancies. In short, I'm getting old, and no more babies means I really have to face that. Perhaps that sounds shallow, I don't know. I can't believe it's over for me; I can't believe those babymaking years went so fast; I can't believe one of my children died.

Maybe I would be more comfortable with the end of my babymaking years if Ben had lived and we'd gone on to have child number three. I'm incomplete this way. Subconsciously, still being able to have babies ties me to Ben; the passage of time for me takes me further away from the time I had with him, and reminds me that I get the time he did not have. But I can't keep myself in those moments I had with him (and believe me, I've tried to not move on). I guess I'm still working on acceptance, of a lot of different things.

*Thanks, Monica, for checking in.*

Could Someone Please Explain to Me...

...why there are so freaking many of us?

When Ben died, my OB told me that, in 20 years of delivering babies, what happened to us had happened about 3 times when he was the doctor. Initially I thought he meant stillbirth in general, but I later realized he meant stillbirth as a result of a cord accident. I've since learned that about 15 percent of all stillbirths are due to cord accidents - so not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but a high number when it happens to you.

I've been stumbling around the blogosphere the last two days, reading various baby loss blogs. (And may I say, if you're not reading Niobe, you should - she writes so beautifully it makes me drool with envy.) And I am continually staggered by how many of us there are, who have had stillbirths or some other kind of baby loss. These are two of the blogs I've read in the past two days, and they made me feel so sad: Still Passing Open Windows and Baby Theo.

But what I feel more than sadness is just completely pissed off. December is not a good month for me, but I was doing ok until yesterday. I'm feeling pissed off mostly because it's a damn site easier than feeling sad. What I need right now is a good cry for all of these beautiful babies, but I don't want to. We're approaching Christmas, the season of joy and light, and you know what? It's not such a season of joy and light for so many of us. And that pisses me off too. I want my life to be the way it was before. I used to just love Christmas, especially all the carols - I've been a singer all my life and I couldn't imagine my life without music. But have you ever noticed how sad many of the Christmas carols are? All those beautiful old melodies set in a minor key - In the Bleak Midwinter, O Come O Come Emmanuel - singing of a celebration but full of sadness, foreshadowing the future of the one being sung about. I wonder why they were always my favorites, those mournful melodies. It makes sense now, after Ben, but I suppose I was always filled with a touch of melancholy anyway.

Right now, I just don't get it. I don't get why babies die. And I wonder sometimes how we all can live in a world where they do, and keep going, and pretend that everything will be all right.

Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day

It's October, which means that it's Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and today, the 15th, is loss awareness day. And wow, I sure wish I didn't know that.

My boy would be nearly four today, attending preschool, running around like a wild child, loving Bob the Builder, trucks, cars, macaroni and cheese. I don't expect he would be napping any longer, he would have declared his favorite flavor of ice cream, and would probably be in love with the Cars movie. I expect he would be at that really wonderful stage of adoring and needing his parents, still a bit cuddly, but on the cusp of pushing us away as he started to grow up and become a "big boy." And I know he would be driving his sister crazy.

I also know, that, had he lived, I wouldn't have a James. I have thought, over and over, that I could have had them both: Ben would have been 19 months old when James was born, so it's all physically possible. It would have been hard, but I could have done it. But that's not how the cards were played, and now, I can't imagine my life without James, and I can only dream about my life with Ben.

I'm not doing anything today to remember Ben - except what I wrote above. I do more on his anniversary, and I don't really know what else to do today. I think of him, like I do every other day, and I think of all the other babies who never came home, like mine. And I know how unbelievably lucky I am, that I had him at all, and that I have what I do, with my two children now. I recently met a woman who had a baby in 1963, her second, a boy. He was born severely deformed - and of course, this was before all of the testing they have now, so they didn't know anything was wrong with him until birth - and they took him away from her, and he died three days later. She never saw him, never had a footprint, a lock of hair, a shirt he wore. Nothing. The hospital had him cremated and buried, and she was encouraged to forget, to move on. Those were the dark ages of infant loss, and I am so grateful that I lost Ben in 2003, and that I got to hold him, and kiss him, and see the whole of him before I had to let him go.

And I am thinking today, of all the mothers and fathers who are aching for their babies; the ones who will lose their child today, the ones who lost their child decades ago. The ones who are waiting, hoping, for another chance, another child. If I had a magic wand I would be waving it like mad right now, to make it all better for all of us who've lost the most precious thing in the world.

I Do, I Don't

This picture is of Charlotte and James, Christmas 2005. He was 4 months old, she was almost 5.

Ah yes. Babies. Been thinking a lot about babies this past year, because mine are growing up. In a fairly fruitless effort to tidy up my house (why is it I always end up with piles of stuff everywhere?), I've been looking through some old photos recently - pictures of Charlotte as a wee babe, and James. Pictures from just a year or two ago when my little girl looked like a little girl, not like the big first grader she is now.

My husband and I have been talking about another baby, and honestly, we both want one, but it's not going to happen. I'm getting older - definitely of an advanced maternal age - and everything that could go wrong scares the bejebus out of me. And then, well, I had three babies in 4.5 years, and part of me feels like I just want some of me back. James will start preschool in February, one day a week, and I am working on writing a book, and I don't want to be an incubator anymore.

Don't get me wrong - I love my children more than anything else in the world. I didn't love being pregnant; it was hard. I never particularly wanted to be pregnant, I wanted the baby. And that's where I am now - I want a baby, I don't want to be pregnant again. I can see the end of diapers, I can see my son becoming more independent (which I love and which makes me terribly sad), I can see my daughter as a teenager (heaven help us! she's already quite the handful). I just wish it wouldn't all go so fast. I wish I had a time capsule or some kind of child compression chamber where I could return them back to babyhood again.

I am so going to miss the baby noises, the funny way my son crawled (one leg bent at the knee, foot in the air, one arm propelling him forward, other arm clutching a toy), the way my daughter first said "big girl pants" (she called them "bagel pants"), the way my son now asks for help with something ("Mmm How"). I wish I could mix up the first cereal again, one more time, and feed it to them spoonful by messy spoonful. Or watch my son be completely fascinated by the discovery of his hands. All of that newness - it's such a miracle.