I believe that everything you do is motivated by either love or fear.  I’m fear driven and I’m trying to get over an irrational fear – I guess in a way it’s rational as I’ve had the worst news broken to me when I lost Riley.  I’m finding it very scary to get myself to the endocrinologist, optomitrist, dentist, gynocologist and any other person whose title ends with -ist.  I’m terrified of getting bad news.  I’m afraid that I’m dying, I’m going blind, I won’t be able to conceive again.  I just don’t want to hear any bad news of any kind.  Pretty depressing considering I have no reason to believe any of these things. 

But then I have to relate this to my pregnancy loss.  I never thought I’d lose a pregnancy either.  After 12 weeks, I thought I was home free because that’s all I’ve known.  Women get pregnant, they don’t tell anyone until after the first trimester and if you can get yourself there, then you will bring home a healthy baby.  Sadly, I found out the hard way that such is not the case.  So, now I just assume that everything is going to go wrong..

What a way to live!  I’m imposing fear on myself.  This is going against the “balance” I’m seeking in my life and I have to cut it out.  So, my goal tomorrow is to schedule an appointment with my eye doctor (I’m 6 months overdue) so that I can up the dosage of my glasses/contact lenses so I can see clearly – literally and metaphorically.  I’m trying to set little goals for myself so I’m successful. 

I’m going to try not to let my irrational fear prevent me from getting this done.  Because if I can get this done, I can tackle the next thing which is to see my endocrinologist (scary!).  I will be yelled at for not coming in sooner I’m sure but I have to get my diabetes checked out.  I don’t want my life to feel so out of control anymore.  I’m on the right track and that’s the best I can do right now.

Babylost mamas and papas – anyone else experiencing this kind of irrational fear?

I guess not having things to blog about is a good thing.  I usually write about my pain and sorrow here as a source of therapy of sorts.  My friends – especially those I’ve made who live across the country in  some cases have kindly emailed me asking if I’m okay because I haven’t blogged in awhile.  That’s so amazing that such friendships can arise from the darkest experience of my life which was losing my daug hter.  As I’ve said over and over.. this has been Riley’s gift to me.

It has now been a year and 2 months since we said goodbye to our precious daughter.  As I write this, I still tear up.  Goodbyes are hard even if you didn’t get to officially meet your child.  Actually, it’s sadder because I didn’t get to feel the softness of her hair, the smell of her skin, being able to touch her, hold her, hug her.  But the human nature of resiliency and ability to survive never ceases to amaze me.  I am a survivor.  I survived an experience that I didn’t think I’d ever live through.  The months and months of unbearable heartache,  weeping for hours at a time, the feeling of utter loneliness and feeling so lost and confused.  To lose a child is to lose your will to live.. to be engulfed by all that is somber and dark.  Yet, we dole up enough strength to live day by day and on good days, you actually feel dare I say it, happy.

Since my last post, I did something huge.. I started to forgive myself.  Not that I did anything wrong.  I am confidant that I made the right choice and that I spared my daughter pain.  Let’s make this clear.. I am pro-choice but I am also pro-life.  I’m forgiving myself of all the guilt I’ve put upon myself.  I’m letting myself off the hook for the what-ifs. What if I ate a bit healthier.. what if I went for more walks.. what if I thought more positively during my pregnancy.. what if I did something to cause this.. what if.. what if.. what if.. Darn those what ifs.  If I didn’t let this go, there was no way that I was going to move forward.  I was going to stay stagnant in that still place of grief and I was never going to get out.

To all the babylost mamas and papas out there – there is hope and there is a dim light at the end of the tunnel.  This light grows brighter and brighter with each passing day.  There are days when I still feel really sad but then the light engulfs me again.  Healing doesn’t come quickly and it doesn’t rescue you.  You have to do the hard work of piecing yourself back together again.  It is a long and arduous process and sometimes it feels like you haven’t made any progress.  But no doubt, you have. 

The next time I feel like I have nothing to blog about, I am going to write about the healing that is taking place in my life.  It took me over a year to get here and each anniversary, angel day, expected due date, and the many pregnancies and babies who have been born since still sting but I’m here and I’m living.  That’s all you can do is to just live.  Just survive one more day.  Life will never be the same but I now see things more deeply and I have more love in my heart than ever.  That too is a gift from my daughter. 

Sometimes, I forget to talk to Riley.  So here is what I want to say to her tonight: 

I love you my precious girl.. you’re always in my heart and everytime I hug one of my students or one of them holds my hand, I always pretend that it’s you.  I know mommy’s crying right now but it’s not because I’m sad, it just that I miss you so..

Journal entry #2 post Reiki session.

Today, I felt judged by someone who believes in pro-life.  He made a blanketed statement and he didn’t know my personal story.  He didn’t know that I terminated a pregnancy.  Not because I wanted to but because my baby was ill even in the womb.  I felt that I needed to let her go because I didn’t want to doom her to a life of physical, mental, and emotional pain of living with severe hydrocephalus.  He shattered me with his words.  I went to that place of not feeling like a loving mom.  I put myself in that place time and time again.

I had to ask myself why I let someone who I didn’t even know make me feel this way..  It wasn’t difficult to figure out that I come from a place of guilt and shame.  I was raised in a church that taught that God kept track of your every sin and that you would be punished for it.  I thought I shed this layer of my life a long time ago but apparently it’s still seared into my psyche. 

I know without a doubt that I did the most loving thing I could when I let my daughter go.  But I feel like I have to keep the fact that I terminated a secret because society as a whole won’t see that I terminated for my child and not for me.  Isn’t that what a loving parent does?  Try to spare your child from the pain?  I realized today (thanks D and D for our talks) that I don’t need to explain my choice.  No one does. Nor should I feel guilt or shame over my decision. 

I also wanted to thank my friend S for texting me a very loving message. I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing her words of wisdom:

” Decisions made out of love can’t ever be a bad thing.  To spare your child pain is the essence of parenthood.”

I’m going to keep those words close to my heart and piece myself back together again.  And to move forward, I have to rid myself of the guilt and shame I hold in my heart.  I know Riley doesn’t blame me and that she would want me to let it all go.

The Reiki master told me that after a session like mine where lots of emotions were released, that I would probably have feelings come up.   She said to write down my feelings in a journal.  I’m not so great at keeping a journal – I have about a dozen of them in my bookcase with only a few pages written in.  So, I’m going to blog because this  I know I can be successful at.

I felt lighter today in all aspects.  But as I was driving home, I felt what can only be described as profound grief.  It wasn’t  loud of screaming.. just quiet, solemn, profound grief.  It started at the very core of my heart and started slowly spreading out. 

Why?  This is the question I’m supposed to ask myself and I can choose to hold on to the answer or let it go.  The Reiki master said that it was part of releasing negative energy.  She said that there was no right or wrong thing to do – that I would do what needs to take place at this very moment.

Why..  1)  I was asked twice today if my hubby and I had children.  I could not give my usual answer of “no.”  I told both people that I had lost my baby when I was 5 months pregnant.  Both gave dumb ass answers like:  “You’re still young” and “It happened for a reason.”  I hate those responses but I have to let the anger go.

2)  Two colleagues that are expecting babies were told that there may be something wrong with their babies.  And now, both were told that their babies were healthy.  Both are going to continue with their pregnancy.  I’m elated for them.  No one deserves this pain of losing a baby and I mean no one.  But, I was so profoundly sad for me.  Why not me?  Why not my baby?  Why did she have to die?  It’s just so unfair.  Why did I have to experience this kind of pain?

Am I going to hold on to this or let it go?  I have to let this go.  I have to.  I cannot live in the dark place anymore.   I voiced my sadness and I acknowledge that I love my daughter Riley but I have to focus on positivity.  So hard to do.

In my life, whatever I truly desired and worked hard for, I’ve gotten.  So, that’s what I’m trying to do.  I want to get pregnant this year and I’m going to work my ass off for it.  I cannot remain defeated because if I do, I’ll die if not physically then definitely emotionally.  Universe, I’m throwing it out there..

Reiki is believed to enhance life force energy.  By clearing out the negative energy you are holding in your being, you can become more harmonious with the Universe and have balance in your life.  I don’t know if all this is true but what I do know is that I needed to something to make myself feel better and unstuck.

So.. I had my first Reiki session today.  It was unlike anything I’ve experienced before.  The Reiki master put a pendulum above different points of my body.  The pendulum just hung.  She tells me that my chakras are all closed.  She starts placing her hands above 12 points of my body.  I feel warm heat and a tingling sensation.  As she movees her hands, she comments.

Her first comment:  you are not connected to your intuition.  So true.  I don’t even know who I am anymore and certainly unable to listen to my intutition. 

She moves above my throat and I feel it closing up on me.  Inside my head, I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, “My baby, my baby!”  This is definitely something I would not do.  I’ve kept my grief silent for the most part, guarding it within the innermost parts of my heart.  As all this is going on, she says, “You don’t say what you need to say, do you?”  Wow.  How could she have possibly known that?   Tears fall freely down my face.

Her hands move to my heart, I feel heat in my belly.  The same belly that once held my daughter Riley.  That was the last time my heart was full.

Her hands move to my feet.  I feel tingling and behind closed eyes, I see big blobs of black like it is going to engulf me.  She comments that my feet are not rooted.  She’s right.. I’ve been floundering through life since I lost Riley.

I awaken feeling refreshed and surprisingly balanced. 

She says one last thing to me: Don’t blame yourself or hold any guilt over the loss of your baby.  There is nothing you could have done differently or better to keep her.  She changed her mind about being born into this world.  She would have left a beautiful place to be stuck in a dense world.  Why anyone chooses to be born is hard to understand except that there are experiences to be had.

Whoa..

She holds the pendulum over the same points of my body as she did before.  This time, the pendulum spins in tight circles.  She says that my chakras have opened up and that I should feel more balanced.  And I do.

I don’t know exactly what to think of my experience.  But I did feel a release of so much tension that I’ve been carrying around.

The Five Spiritual Principles of Reiki

Just for today,

I will not worry.

Just for today,

I will not be angry.

Today,

I will give thanks for my blessings.

Today,

I will do my work honestly.

Just for today,

I will be kind to my neighbor and every living thing.

Sounds so simple yet it’s so hard to accomplish.  I feel good about checking #1 off of my list of New Year’s Resolutions.  I’m going to start with that and feel good about it.

 

Wow.. it’s been so long since my last post.  I’ve been struggling to find my voice.  It’s been drowning in a mixture of self-pity and grief.  I’ve felt so out of control – in all aspects of my life.  They say time heals all and with time, things get easier.  I’m finding year 2 of grief to be a different kind of struggle.  I think that I was in shock for the first year of my grief.  But year 2 has been more about reflection.. I know that I’ve lost my daugther and that she’s in heaven.  But I think that I’ve been holding onto her so much that I’ve paralyzed myself from moving forward.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as the new year is quickly approaching.  Then I heard this quote:

“You and I made this journey that led to a place where there was nowhere left to go.”

My daughter and I did travel together and it led to a place where we weren’t meant to be together – at least in this place, right now.  And if I don’t come to terms with that, I won’t be able to live the fufilled life that I know Riley wants me to live.

2010 is almost here and I have to make my life better.  I..and I alone can make that happen for me.  So, I have to do this and make no more excuses or drag my feet in the sand.

Here are my New Year’s Resolutions (none of it is weight related.. I have bigger things to focus on):

1) I’m  going to get my energy cleared through Reiki.  I don’t know too much about it but something has been prodding me to do this for months now.  So, I’m going to listen to myself and just do it.

2) Start and end my day with meditiation or an affirmation.

3) Close my eyes and remember all the times in my life that brought me the most amount of genuine happiness and let it guide  me.

4) Be with nature everyday – someway, somehow.

5) Create something each week whether it be making music, drawing, or taking a photograph.

Hopefully, by doing these things, I will dictate my own future instead of letting it drag me by the throat as I have allowed it to in the last year and a half.  If Riley has taught me anything, it’s to live each moment of each day to the fullest because you just never know when it’ll be taken from you.

So, to all of the babylost mamas and papas out there.. I’m wishing you a healthy and  joyful 2010 where dreams come true.

Dammit.  I hate that question.  No.  I didn’t get my tree yet and I’m not going to.  Yes, it’s bah-humbug for me.  I don’t care if I have a tree up or not.  I don’t want lights up or ornaments.  No wreathes or Christmas nick knacks.  I don’t want to go to family functions or eat Christmas dinners.

What I want is my daughter back.  If she were here, it would be our first Christmas together.  If she were here, we would have a fully decorated tree.  I would have been baking, buying baby’s first Christmas gifts.  Making memories..  Unfortunately, I don’t have any of the above.

I did get a small table top Christmas tree and put two ornaments on it.  Both are from my support group. 

Tonight, a friend is remembering her son Luke who passed away way too soon.  I lit a candle for Luke and Riley and put them under the tree.  Riley is the best gift that I have received – I just had to give her back to heaven.  So, for Riley, I’m trying to get myself together and have some gratitude though I’m doing it kicking and screaming.

 This song is for you Riley.  You’re the only one I want for Christmas baby..  Mommy loves you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxO1iGGw8t4

” A scar reminds us of where we’ve been but it does not have to dictate where we go..”  If I could put words to what I’ve been feeling lately, this is it.  I have now been through a whole year of grief – depression, anger, sadness, confusion, empathy.. and I’m feeling anxious about what the future holds. The mere thought of a future pregnancy has been so terrifying that it’s brought on my panic attacks again.  Yet, I want nothing more than to be pregnant again.  However, my fears have been getting in the way in the form of self-sabotage and doubt.  I need to stop allowing my past to dictate where I’m going.  I cannot change losing my daugther but I can’t let my fear dictate my happiness.  I think I need to go back to the therapist and work on me again for a bit before even entertaining the thought of a subsequent pregnancy.  Overall, I’m feeling happy even with the holidays coming up.  I feel fulfilled for the most part and that’s because my daughter taught me how to live a full life.. to not sweat the small stuff and love, love, love because you may not get another day.

So, the song I have been listening to is “Live Like We’re Dying” by Kris Allen:

Sometimes we fall down, Can’t get back up
We’re hidin’ behind skin that’s too tough
How come we dont say I love you enough
Til its too late…. its not too late

Our hearts are hungry for a food that won’t come
But we could make a feast from these crumbs
And we’re all starin’ down the barrel of a gun
So if your life flashed before you what would you wish you would have done

Gotta start

Looking at the hands of the time we been given
If this is all we got then we gotta start thinkin’
If every second counts on the clock thats tickin’
Gotta live like we’re dyin’
We only got 864 hundred seconds in a day
To turn it all around or to throw it all away
Gotta tell em that we love em while we got the chance to say
Gotta
Live like we’re dyin’

And if your plane fell out of the skies
Who would you call with your last goodbye
Should be so careful who we let fall out of our lives
Or when we long for absolution there’ll be no one on the line

You never know a good thing til its gone
You never see a crash til its head on
Wny do we think we’re right when we’re dead wrong
You never know a good thing til its gone

Listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWWc8lGiHEc&feature=fvw

A wise friend from my pregnancy loss support group left me a touching comment.  D and his wife lost their beautiful daughter Audrey a year and 3 months ago.  They are all too familiar with grief and I use their progress as a gage for how my own grief is going to progress.  This is the beauty of having other babylost mamas and papas in your life.  He says that the way he sees grief now is related to the love for his daughter.  When he feels grief, it reminds him of his deep love for his daughter.

What a great way to look at grief.  It’ll be a change in thought process but I think that with time, I can see grief in that way too.  It’s true, I feel the saddest when I’m really missing my daughter.  So, maybe if I don’t think of grief as my eternal foe, but a reminder of my love for Riley, I can live with a little peace in my life.  It has been an exhausting year-long  battle with this invisible monster called grief.  Maybe I need to make friends with it because unfortunately, it’s not going anywhere.

You live, you learn, and you survive.  I am going to do my best to change my frame of thought because I can get pretty self-destructive in the midst of grief.  And I can’t do that anymore.  It’s eating away at me and my health.  I don’t think Riley would be happy to see me in this state.  So, thanks D for your comment and your friendship.  I’m glad that we got to meet you at the club that no one wants to join. 

Had Riley lived, I know that she would have 1) loved the ocean, 2) been an animal lover, and 3) would have been civic minded.  As you all know, the beach is somewhere my husband and I go to be close to Riley.  So it was fitting to join “Heal the Bay,” an organization that cleans up beaches the day after Riley’s Angel Day.  It was something I thought would make her proud.

So a group of my friends set out to clean up a local beach.  Once we got there.. we found out that Heal the Bay had cancelled the event.  My husband went to look for plastic bags in the truck.  Luckily, a friend thought ahead to bring along some disposable gloves.  We had stiff competition for trash.  In all of my years of volunteering, I had never seen so many people gather to clean up the beach.  It turns out that a group from a local college came out that day to clean up the beach.

a huge group from a local college came to clean.

I love to see kids volunteering..

 

With each piece of trash I picked up off of the beach, I thought of my Riley.  It felt great to be something with a purpose.

cleaning up the beach one bag at a time

my hubby and I wore the shirts we wore to the March of Dimes Walk.

Afterwards, my husband wrote our daughter’s name in the sand.  Riley has travelled to many beaches now. 

We love you Riley!

We also wrote the name of friend’s grandson who died earlier this year.  Sometimes we forget that grandparents are deeply affected by grief too.

I wonder what James and Riley are doing right now?

One of our support group friends wrote his daughter’s name in the sand.  We laughed as we watched him battle the elements of earth and sea to write Audrey’s name in the sand.

Look what daddy's doing for you, Audrey!

 

 

 

Another friend from our support group had a great idea.. she wanted to write the initials for our 3 babies in heaven in a heart.  What a sweet idea.  I’m sure the three of them are running around together in heaven.  My friend D tells us that her son would be watching out for the two girls because he is the oldest.  I’m sure that’s true.

Riley, Audrey, and Julian..

After writing Riley’s name in the sand, we worked up an appetite.  On our way to the restaurant, a man was handing out something.. He placed the card in my hand.  I looked down at it and you won’t belive what was on that card…

mommy hears you..

 

What are the odds of getting a card with Riley’s name on it AND the fact that it’s from a dog boutique.  I loooove dogs.  I can only explain this as a message from Riley.  This is not the first time something like this has happened.  I think we made Riley proud.  We love you Riley!  Happy one year Angel Day.  I hope you’re running, jumping, laughing, and loving in heaven.  Until we meet.. I survive another day without you.