Monthly Archives: May 2012

My First Mother’s Day

31 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in Grief

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A little less than 2 months had past when I faced the first holiday that would challenge me to my core.

Mother’s Day!

It seemed to be nothing more than a cruel reminder of how much my life had changed.  It was also the first time I noticed that around Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day for that matter) advertising shifts to be heartfelt and family focused.  Shopping becomes a bit harder because as you enter the store, any store, you are faced with Mother’s Day displays of balloons, flowers, cards, and gifts.  And, while Hallmark claims to have a card for every occasion, they don’t; there are not cards for this one. It seems there is no way to escape it.  So, I needed to figure out how to embrace it.  It is the fight or flight response, I can either run away from life or try to fight my way through it.  Of course, that is easier said than done.  It comes with a great deal of emotions ranging from anxiety, to sadness, to anger, and even guilt.

By this time, I had joined a support group of other bereaved parents.  Many of whom, like me, only had children in Heaven.  It is a group that you hope and pray you will never be a part of, but it is a blessing to know that you are not alone. Rock Good bye Angle gave me an outlet to embrace my first Mother’s Day without Ansley.  We all met at the lake where we were given balloons to write a message to send to our babies.  It was a way to acknowledge them and at the same time reinforce our “status” as parents.  On several occasions leading up to the big day at the lake, I thought about backing out.  I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough to get through it, but I knew I needed to go.  I needed to set a precedent for survival; not just for this holiday and all the others I was yet to face.

Foreshadowing

15 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Grief, Stillbirth

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In the days following my first trip out of the house, I decided to try to catch up on some emails.  I was reading emails in small doses as sympathy can be hard to deal with.  I saw a message titled “So sorry”.  I opened the message and read the first line.  My name is Christy and we have some mutual friends.  Although I had never met Christy, I knew exactly who she was.

October 29, 2010… Chris and I went to our friends Matt and Robyn’s new house for a Halloween party.  It was there that I first heard Christy’s story.

She was only a few days away from her due date, when she woke in the middle of the night with a fever.  As she sat in bed, it dawned on her that she had only felt contractions not the baby moving. She woke her parents, whom she had move in with mid-pregnancy, and told them they needed to go to the hospital.  It was there that she received the news that her daughter had passed away.  The doctors induced Christy and her daughter, Evelyn Marie was born the next day.  They later learned she most likely died from a cord injury; the umbilical cord had wrapped around her neck. (www.babyevie.com)

I stood in the kitchen blinking back tears.  I had known several people who had miscarried, but Christy was well past the 12 week danger zone, she was full term.  My heart broke for her.  Little did I know, at that very moment I was pregnant with Ansley.  We would find out I was expecting 5 days later!