Dinner tonight was made and delivered by someone who had never met us. People are amazing and there is so much good in the world.

*****

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. – C.S. Lewis

*****

When your parent dies, you’ve lost your past, but when your child dies, you’ve lost your future.

– from When Hello Means Goodbye: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Dies Before Birth, At Birth Or Shortly After Birth (given to us by the hospital)

*****

Ada cried so hard tonight, for so long I started to get scared. I have a huge capacity to hold space for her tears but these tears were so new, so raw, so like the tears I need to shed. I started to worry that she was in physical pain. When she could finally breathe enough to get out a word, she said no. All I could do was hold  her, stroke her hair, kiss her forehead, ask her to breathe deeply when she started to gag or hyperventilate. She finally asked to lie down and with her face buried in my arm, her hand on my chest, her breathing slowed and she fell asleep.

Then it was my turn, only I had to keep my tears quiet so as not to wake her.

I am so glad her daddy is on  his way home. We both need his presence, even if it’s only for a day.

I woke up this morning around 5am and rested my hand on what I thought was Ada’s stomach. It felt cold (she runs warm) and I couldn’t feel the gentle rise and fall of her breath. In an instant, ice cold panic ran through me. I had fallen asleep with fear in my heart – the fear of losing her too – and for a few seconds I thought I’d called that fear into reality.

Within moments I realized it was her back I was touching and she was fine. I, however, am not. My rational mind understands that I am afraid of an even bigger loss, that after having one child taken from me, the other has become infinitely more precious. I know that my three year old is not a newborn and we are long past those sleepless nights where I watched her chest rise and fall, only half-sleeping to make sure she made it through ’til morning. I also understand that after three weeks of going to bed not knowing what the night would bring, the fear I was living with has been transferred to something – someone – else. Yes I understand all these things but they don’t make my heart hurt any less.

In some ways it feels easier to worry about possibilities than to fully exist in my current reality. My brain gets all muddled. What if by being afraid of losing Ada I call that into my life (Law of Attraction gone horrifyingly wrong)? What if I don’t learn the lessons I’m supposed to learn from this grief and so more people I love are taken from me until I finally get it? What if I’m not grieving properly? Will life simply hand me more pain? The loop of fear is endless and I know I need help with it.

Luckily I have help and I started reaching out for it today. I know I need safe places to begin the process of cracking open and letting pain out and light in. Our current house is too small for privacy and Ada is unwilling to leave without me, or her daddy, so I have only brief moments of letting tears flow quietly. It’s not enough. I know it and it’s part of what’s keeping the fear alive.

Ada got scared tonight. We were watching a movie about animals and over the course of 45 minutes saw a wolf take down a baby caribou, then a cheetah chase a gazelle, then lions attack an elephant. We talked through it and she seemed okay, then finally said she didn’t want to watch anymore. I got up from the couch to go into the kitchen and even though I was still within sight, she sobbed, terrified. I held her, told her I understood that life has been sad and a little scary lately and reassured her that we are all going to be okay. She asked me if I was bleeding. We talked about what happened with my body, with her brother, with what’s happening now. She cried for her daddy, who has been out of town every week for the last nine and has two more weeks to go before he can spend more than a couple of days with us. She cried about the fact that on three different mornings, she woke up and neither of us were there.

She is so perceptive, so sensitive, so strong. I know we’ve given her a solid base – she knows she’s loved and the world is mostly safe. I also know the last few months have shaken her, as they have me. I ache for what we’ve all lost in this – a child, hopes, dreams, innocence.

I am finally, for the first time in my life, beginning to recognize how incredibly strong I am. I just wish it could have been different, somehow. It isn’t. Life goes on.

Today I went from 800 mg of ibuprofen to 600 mg and survived.

Today I took the protective strips off my incision in the shower, pulling slowly, hoping I wouldn’t pass out, throw up or burst open at the seams.

Today I showed my mother Benjamin’s pictures, footprints, hat.

Today I cried. I retold the story of Wednesday two weeks ago. How I woke up, realized I was bleeding again. Lay down and waited. Went back to check and thought “oh that’s not too bad”. Lay back down and within moments, got back up again, knowing something was very wrong. I remember the shock of the amount of blood, the size of the clot. I remember thinking “Oh God, I have to leave Ada again” and “Thank God I’m not alone”. I remember running down the stairs to get Tom, then back up again, my body shaking and super charged with fear and survival instinct. I think I looked at Ada sleeping and told her I’d be back, needing it to be true.

I almost called 911. Tom drove quickly through the early morning darkness. I phoned Labor and Delivery to let them know I was on my way. If it had been tonight, instead of two weeks ago, they might have gotten me up there faster. They might not have tried so long to find the heartbeat. They might have moved me into surgery immediately. If it had been tonight instead of two weeks ago, Benjamin might have lived.

But it’s not tonight. And I can’t change what is.

I just didn’t expect this. I’m still wrapping my head around the reality of it. As I crawl into bed next to my sweet sleeping daughter, I am incredibly grateful to be alive.