Differently

Two years ago today was the last day our hearts were whole.

Two years ago today we still possessed a naivety many people aren’t even aware they have the blessing of possessing.  The naivety that the universe is fair, and that there is “purpose and balance” in everything.

Two years ago today our family was truly, undeniably happy.  We had our three amazing boys, and were expecting our sweet baby girl any day.

Two years ago today was the day before our lives stood still.

Tomorrow will be Brynna’s 2^nd birthday. 

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of what should have been one the happiest days of our life, and instead, in the blink of an eye, became the scariest, most traumatic day in my time on this earth.

Two years ago today, Steven and I were advised to go to the hospital for a scheduled induction as a result of Brynna being 10 days overdue, and my amniotic fluid being low.

Many hours into the induction, and very early on the morning on the 26^th, Brynna was delivered into this world via emergency c-section after my uterus ruptured. 

Before she was delivered, I experienced indescribable pain, and I felt my daughter struggling for life inside of me.  I felt her moving, flailing, fighting for her life as my body betrayed her, and she was denied her safety. 

There were no chimes playing in the hospital the minute she was delivered.  I was not able to look down and see her, nor reach out and be the first to hold her.  Instead, I remained in a deep, induced sleep while the surgeon worked to save my life.

Steven watched from the hallway as his one and only daughter, perfect in every way, was delivered limp and blue and seizing.  He watched as his world fell apart before his very eyes, and his soul struggled to make sense of it all.

There were no smiles.  There was no laughter.  There were no soft words spoken to a healthy, sleeping baby while family and friends gathered in the room to celebrate.

Two years ago today was the last day I had my daughter safe, inside me. 

Never in my life have I wished more for the opportunity to go back and do things differently.  What I would give to have her here…

Two years old tomorrow.  Our sweet baby girl would be two years old tomorrow, if only things had gone differently.  She would be the most loved little girl, with three older, adoring brothers, and a mom and dad that never dreamed they’d be blessed with a daughter.

If only things had gone differently.

 

Back to School to Spend Time in the Present

Dear Brynna,

We are getting closer and closer to your birthday, and it is still unbelievable to me that nearly two years have passed since you were born!  Next weekend…wow…

This weekend Grandma Betty Ann and I are going to Pullman to visit WSU (the college we went to) and our sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta.  Our sorority house has been at WSU for 100 years and this October they’re celebrating by having a Centennial Weekend get together for any and all Thetas that want to come.  They are expecting 400 or so women from pledge classes as far back as the 1940’s.  Grandma was in the 1971 pledge class, and I was in 1997.  Several gals from our classes (and the classes directly before and after our own) will be there, and it will be wonderful to catch up with them, and find out where life has taken them.

I lived in the sorority house beginning my freshman year of college (1997) until before my junior year when I moved out to go to WSU’s nursing school in Spokane. 

I think if I had it to do over again, I would have really invested more of my time and energy into being a member of the house.  I didn’t really know at the time how brief my time was going to be there, and I was not much of a partier so I didn’t really attend many of the “exchange” functions.  Also, Daddy and I had been dating for 5 years or so by then, so I was not in the market to meet any boys, which was another reason I didn’t socialize as much with the gals in the house.

Don’t get me wrong.  I had several close friends, including my Big Sis, Tina, in the house, but now that I look back, I remember much of the time being there spent wishing I was with Daddy at his house on the “Hilltop” in Pullman.

If you had lived, and I got to see you off to school, this is something I think I would have tried to teach you.  To live in the moment you’re in and soak up all the areas of your life, because really, when you look back, they all go by in just the blink of an eye.

Now that I write that I think maybe I should continue to strive to do the same thing.  I spend so much of my time wishing I was with you (or that you were with me), but perhaps in doing so, I miss where I am right now?  No matter how much I yearn to have things be different, they aren’t going to be.  You are gone from this physical world, and Daddy, the boys and I are still here for now.  I feel myself continuing to move toward a place of acceptance (what else is there really to do?  I can’t fight what is, right?), but there are many times still where I am sure I am missing what’s right here in front of me because I am so focused on what isn’t.  I guess I just need to get better at balancing the two…

I look so forward to telling my sorority sisters about my life.  About Daddy, and the boys, and you.  I can’t wait to share pictures of our wonderful family and let them know that although life has been heartbreakingly hard in so many ways, we are still so very blessed.

I love you little girl.  My heart aches that I won’t ever be able to take you to college and watch you spread your wings and fly through this life.  I know though, that you will be with me when I go back this weekend, and you will help me to spread my broken wings and heal just a little bit more.

Love,

Momma

 

Our Story to Promote Awareness this October

In honor of October being "Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month", The TEARS Foundation has launched, "The Movement" to break the silence and change the way our society views & responds to pregnancy & infant loss. Watch our family's story below, and sign up to become a part of changing your community at www.thetearsfoundation.org

Split

How do you parent children here on Earth, as well as children in heaven?  How do you divide your time, attention, and heart in such a way that everyone gets what they need and deserve?

To parent a child in heaven means you have to tend to your broken heart daily.  In tending to your broken heart, you run the risk of living, at least temporarily, in the darkness.  When living in the darkness, the lightness and life of your living children sometimes seem blindingly impossible to bear.

How does a person function as a whole being when they have been reduced to pieces of their former self?  It’s so hard to try to put into words, the existence of a parent walking this road of life without their child. 

It’s “unnatural”.  It’s “unbearable”.  It’s “the worst pain”.  It’s “unimaginable”.

But then, when you have the blessing of remaining living children, you have to, to a certain degree, bottle up that pain, that unbearable existence, in order to continue to be able to give them, the ones that lived, the love and attention and positive nurturing life they deserve. 

Also, selfishly, for my own sake, I want to be able to give in completely to those happy “my kids are alive and life is good moments,” and not be ripped from them at some point each time, with the remembrance that one of them is gone.

I am broken and I am sad.  But at the same time I am experiencing hope and happiness.

It is painful. It is complicated.

I want so badly to be a mom to all four of my children here on this planet.  I don’t want to have to divide my time and attention and heart. 

I don’t want to be broken.  I don’t want to be split. 

I want to be whole.

If I were whole, I would be a better mother to my sons and my daughter.  I wouldn’t have to, so often, drum up the energy to just stand up.  I wouldn’t necessarily have to concentrate so hard on the day to day requirements this life places on me.

It would be a nice break.  Because this life, the one I’m living right now, nearly two years out from the day our world stood still, this life….it’s a lot of work.

I want nothing more in this life than to be remembered as a good person.  Most importantly a good mother, and a good wife.  I know I am doing the best I can under seemingly impossible circumstances, but man it wears a gal out…

Candles and Light

Dear Brynna,

In ten more days you will be two years old.  Already two years will have passed since that heartbreaking day when our lives went from expectant, to heartbroken.

I recognize that Daddy and I have made a lot of “progress” in our walk of grief, but we still have so very many moments that are just as raw and painful as that first day.

Last night I lit a candle for you, did you see it?  It was National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.  It was also your original due date.  How ironic is that?  Across the nation, grieving parents started a “wave of light” by lighting candles in memory of their angel baby beginning at 7 pm in their own time zone.  I lit your pink Glassybaby candle, and watched it burn until I fell asleep in hopes of dreaming of you.

Sometimes when I am lying in bed and trying to fall asleep, I try to focus my mind and open my awareness to feeling what you feel wherever it is that you are.  On more than one occasion, a light has come over me.  It only lasts for a split second (I think because the moment I feel it, my brain acknowledges it and snaps me right back into my own human reality), but it is the most peaceful, loving, calm, light.  My heart calms greatly in knowing this is what you feel all the time. 

I love you, Brynn.

So very, very much more than the distance between us right now.

Love,

Momma

 

October 15th

October 15th was Brynna's original due date.  While she wasn't born until October 26th, ironically the 15th is also National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.  Please take a moment today and remember all of the sweet angel babies gone too soon.  Please also say a prayer for all of us moms and dads that are all too aware that a day like this exists.

22 days and counting....

October 4, 2013                                                                                           1:30 p.m.

I don’t know how to explain my current state of mind…

I am trying.  I am failing.  I am confused.  I have moments of clarity.  I am sinking.  I am swimming.  I am broken.  I continue to heal.  I am sad.  I have moments of happiness.  The loneliness is scary.  I recognize the love and support of so many who continue to bear witness. I am a mother to living children.  I am a mother to an angel.  

Time passes.  Time stands still.

In 22 days, on October 26^th, Brynn will be 2 years old.

I am walking.  I am paralyzed with disbelief.

We are going to surprise the boys with an overnight trip to Great Wolf Lodge from the 25^th to the 26^th.  We are going to spend her birthday, as a family, playing in the water, and cruising down waterslides.  We will smile, we will laugh, and I am sure we will cry.  

Birthdays are supposed to be fun.  Sometimes birthdays are heartbreaking.

I find myself going along, continuing to rise each morning, greeting each day with some sense of willingness and participation.  But then, I have also become acutely aware, and more or less resigned to the fact, that the sadness and longing is always there, just a whisper away.

It’s something that I really think you have to be personally afflicted by, to truly understand.  To try to explain the dichotomy that exists in my heart to a person who is blessed to have all living children, often results in making me sound like a “depressed version of my former self.”

But that’s not it.

I am not depressed.

I am sad.

I am a mother walking through this life without her child, waiting for the day when I will see her again.

That is not to say I will live my life in a state of perpetual sadness and despair.  I will just have a piece of my heart and soul living in a perpetual state of longing.

And I am not afraid of this version of me.  I have no unrealistic expectation of someday returning to the “Laura that once was”.

I am Colton’s mom.

I am Aidan’s mom.

I am Jackson’s mom.

I am Brynna’s mom.

Each of our children are different, and they each require specific and individual love and attention.

I am overwhelmed.  I am learning.

I am seeing more and more each day that I am doing the best I can to be the best mom possible to all four of my children.  

To each of my three sons, and also to my daughter.