In the Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen,

Snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter,

Long ago.

- Christina Rossetti

Do you know the Christmas carol, In the Bleak Midwinter? Preferably, not the choral version as sung by the King's College Choir at Cambridge University, which sounds far too lofty for my taste. I prefer the Shawn Colvin version (hear a snippet of it here), or James Taylor's version. It's long been a favorite of mine, but took on a whole new meaning when Ben died.

On December 30th, four years ago, I sat in a private room of the OB wing of the hospital where I was to deliver, having just found out that Ben was dead. I was waiting for my husband and a friend of ours to arrive, and life as I knew it was over. This song, sung by Shawn Colvin, accompanied by guitar and piano, is what went through my head.

Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone.

Despite the unrelenting grief I felt, I also felt those last two lines with my whole heart: Earth as hard as iron, water like a stone. This was my world, forevermore, this frozen, vast wasteland of pain and sorrow. Time stopped and there would be no spring without Ben - certainly not a spring I wanted. This moment was where I wanted to remain, forever. And this song will always remind me of that day, will always make me ache with longing for my baby.

Tonight, I will go to a Christmas Eve service with my husband, children, and parents. We will sing "Silent Night" at the end of the service, just like churches all around the world, and, as I have for the last three years, I will cry. I will cry for myself, I will cry for my husband and my children who will never know their brother, I will cry because four years ago on this night I was ripe with expectations and love for my own son, come to fill my world with joy. I will cry because I miss him, I will cry for the innocence I lost the day he died. And when I am done crying, I will wipe my tears and walk away, and no one will say a word to me. My husband will hug me, and maybe my daughter, but the rest of my family will ignore the tears. Not because they don't care, but because they don't know what to say. I'd rather they said almost anything than pretend I'm not crying; they may even be surprised that I'm still crying four years later. And that hurts. Families are mysterious things, capable of so much hurt and so much love. I just wish this chasm of need inside of me were not so great; I wish some part of me were not still expecting them to fill it up.

Is it Spring Yet?

I'm tired. All this holiday stuff is getting out of hand. It's nearly 1p.m. and I have only now having a full, entire cup of coffee - just sips here and there so far today - which is not good for caffeine-dependent me. So how are your holiday preparations coming along?

So far today I've done 3 loads of laundry (not all dry or folded yet), made 24 delicious (mini) British mince pies to take to my family, wrapped 98% of my presents - well, maybe 95% - helped my 1st grader finish "holiday" cards for everyone in her class (everyone so there will be no hurt feelings and yes, she drew them all herself), played with my son, made lunch for my daughter and ran her to school. Yesterday I had a long meeting about my book (thanks, Katey!), spent 50 minutes doing Christmas cards (because I'm crazy), shoveled the ice off of my driveway, took my son to the library to play and read, got my hair cut, tried to help my daughter make a snowman, quizzed her on spelling words and helped her with math homework, helped her start her "holiday" cards, and made 2 batches of blueberry muffins. I nearly had the first batch done when I reached for the nutmeg, sprinkled it in the batter and realized it didn't look right. It was turmeric. I tried to scrape it out but dumped the whole batch. Made a new batch, which we gave out to the 4 crossing guards on the way to school and to Charlotte's teacher. Oh yeah, I did laundry yesterday too.

And in an hour I am due at my daughter's school for their "Winter Break Festivities" to help them decorate cookies with sprinkles and icing (yay! messy!). I also need to cut up a bunch of apples to take along as their healthy snack option. Then we have a "mini" recital at ballet class for 45 minutes. Then I am coming home and having a martini.

Oh, did I mention the ironing? I ironed 3 of my husband's shirts, because we are trying to have all the ironing done before his parents arrive next Friday. My mother-in-law judges my domestic talents on how much ironing there is to do. And my husband does the ironing. Mind you, I do everything else around the house, but it all counts for naught if the ironing isn't finished. And no, she doesn't understand that it's the one thing her boy does. (Not that he wouldn't do other things around the house - he does - but it's mainly me.) Gee, do I detect a little tension here? Hmmm.

Yeah, I'm feeling a little crotchety. I'm feeling a bit prickly about this. I mean, um, she's 16. He's 19. Hello, a minor and an "adult." So the babydaddy could get arrested for this. Did she not learn anything from her big sister? Talk about a train wreck. Although I have to laugh - their mom wrote a parenting book that was going to be published by a Christian publisher. Which has now been cancelled. If Lynn Spears can get a book deal, surely so can those of us who actually have talent. And it was about parenting? Raise your hands, all those of you who would take advice from this person's mother.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I need to go cut apples.

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.

Imaginary Friends

Sitting with my daughter this morning, watching the Macy's Parade, on comes a float called something like "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends."

Charlotte turns to me and says, quite softly, "I have an imaginary friend."

"You do?" I said. "I didn't know that."

"Ben is my imaginary friend. Our baby that died."

"Is he your imaginary friend, too, Mommy?"

"Well, yes, honey, I suppose he is."

What Do You Wish?

After your babies died, what do you wish people had done - or not done - for you? What was the best thing anyone said to you, and what was the worst?

For me, the best thing anyone said to me was this: "I'm so sorry; I just don't know what to say." It was a huge relief for me and my husband to hear those simple words, and not have to listen to someone struggle to come up with something they felt was appropriate. And, honestly, if they hadn't been through the loss of a baby, they didn't know what to say, and I wanted them to acknowledge that rather than say something stupid.

It also really helped to have people bring us meals; we had no idea how much we would need that, and it was such a relief to be able to sit down to whatever had been given to us, and occasionally get to talk to someone outside of our immediate little world about mundane things, like the price of housing. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes we just needed to talk about anything but Ben.

The other thing I really appreciated was people checking in on the anniversaries - one month, six months, one year, Mother's Day - the hard days. Few did. And those who actually said his name and talked about him. They will all have my love and friendship for the rest of my life.

What about the worst things? Ah, relatives were responsible for most of those. "Use it as a learning and growing experience." Gack. If I hadn't just had a baby I would've hurled the coffee table at that particular person. "It's ok to be angry but try to move on." Yeah. 'Nuff said.

Or those who told me immediately after Ben died, "You'll have another baby." Well, I don't want another baby, I want this one. And then there were the people who said nothing at all, but looked at me with this look in their eyes - a look I can't really describe - of sorrow, sympathy, confusion, fear? I don't know.

All I really wanted was for people to say his name, to remember him. What about you?

That Time of Year...Again

So, yeah, it's that time of year again. No, not the holidays, though there is that; winter is approaching, and we're approaching the time of year when we lost Ben. Specifically, it was New Year's Eve when I delivered him, so four years ago right now I was 7.5 months pregnant and uncomfortable and starting to feel really ready to be done. Looking back, I can't believe I felt so anxious to be finished with pregnancy, but honestly, I didn't enjoy it. It was just hard and uncomfortable, and though I loved feeling my baby move inside me, I wanted to be able to walk up the stairs without huffing and puffing and sleep without heartburn or aching hips. I regret that I didn't appreciate that time more, but it wouldn't have made a difference to the outcome. That's the thing about parenting: there's always something to feel guilty about.

We've never really established a ritual around Ben's death; we have a lovely candle that friends gave us to commemorate him at his memorial service, and we light that on New Year's Eve for him, but we never do anything else. The first year we dropped our daughter off with friends for a sleepover and went to a hotel where we looked at his pictures, lit his candle and talked about him. Since then, it's all been hit or miss. Twice we've been with family, and his name hasn't been mentioned - though I don't really blame anyone for that, as we didn't mention him either. (Ok, maybe I blame them a little.) It's on his anniversary that I especially wish we had interred his ashes somewhere so that there was a place to go, to say a prayer, to say a few words, rather than attend to the cleaning, the cooking, the ordinariness of our daily lives.

This year my in-laws will be with us on New Year's Eve, as they were last year. I need to figure out something to do that will fill that hole in my heart that day, that will make me feel I commemorated him on his birthday. I realize that Ben doesn't care, but I do. I've just never figured out what would feel right. One thing we do like to do is make an annual donation to a charity: Save the Children is the one we've usually picked, and we also give money to the hospital where he was born. I like knowing that something good came out of his life, that somewhere in the world another set of parents doesn't go through the grief of losing a child because of our donation. Somewhere in the world a child lives because Ben died - and that means the world to me.

How Long Does it Take?

Right after Ben died, I remember asking a friend of mine how long I would feel this way. How long would this unbearable pain last, when would it stop hurting so damn much? The intensity of that pain was overwhelming, unlike any I'd experienced before and it didn't feel survivable.

Well, here I am, nearly four years later, and I did survive. Not that I necessarily wanted to some days, but I knew I had to, and I knew I would, ultimately, survive losing Ben. I've been reading lots of blogs recently, those that are listed in the Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Loss Directory, written by mothers who lost children some time ago, and by mothers who lost babies only recently. The recurring theme in all of them, and here, is the pain.

Nobody tells you what to expect after a stillbirth. Oh, they can generalize about the stages of grief and the physical manifestations of your pregnancy - the leaking breasts full of milk, the fatigue and sleeplessness, the depression. But what about speaking to the pain in our hearts? Only fellow parents of stillborns can speak to that.

In my first post on this blog, I quoted a Carly Simon song and wondered if the lyrics she sang were true: "there's more room in a broken heart. " This is what I can tell you I believe: there is always pain after you lose your child. The first year is the worst, but as you get through all of the seasons, all of the holidays and anniversaries, as you grieve that missing child, you are getting stronger. As the years pass, the pain remains, but it becomes manageable, it becomes part of who you are, much as my blue eyes and blonde hair are part of who I am. I think of Ben every day, so much so that it surprises me sometimes until I remember that there is no "right" or "wrong" amount of time for me to think of him. He's my son, and I think about him as much as I think about my other two children. It doesn't take forever to get over the pain, though while you're in the thick of it it feels that way. It takes however long it takes, and though you are still left with that broken heart, I believe that brokenness opens you up, if you let it, and shows you what there is to appreciate in this world. I believe my broken heart makes me love even harder, hug my children longer, do more for others in need because I know how precious this life is.

I appreciate so much more since Ben died. I try harder to do good things. I try to take each day and find the joy in it, because I chose, after many months of grieving, to take that brokenness and make something better with it. I don't always succeed - and no one could. While I had him, he brought me great love and I am so glad I got to be his mom. I would change the outcome of his time with us if I could; instead, I am taking what I got - a broken heart - and trying to live better because of him.