Just dropped River off at The Dog Knowledge for obedience training. She was very well received and my hopes are high that she will qualify to be a service dog based on how the employees first observed her! The sadness of her being gone has not hit me yet but I am very excited to know she has a good chance. We will know in about a week if she will make it.
I kinda want to keep this a happy post but I had a bad night last night. It seems that another suppressed unlived memory has surfaced. I will likely need to write about this in the coming days.
I want to see Addison. I want to see how much she should have grown. I want to see her thick black hair. I want to know how much she would have weighed right now. Would she be in a sleep schedule?
These memories I have with her aren't enough. I need more. I had 37 weeks and 3 days to dream about the memories we would have and I only got 4 days that no parent ever imagined possible. It's not enough. There aren't enough happy places to go to in my head. I want to remember her first smile. Her first giggle. The first time she responded to her name. Where are my memories? The ones I dreamed of having.
She is so frozen. She's not growing. Not moving. Not smiling. Not crying. She's just laying there, helpless. She's just laying there, dying. She just laying there, dead. How am I supposed to get through life with just those memories of her? How do I keep breathing when it hurts too much to breathe? Why does my heart keep beating when the pain feels unbearable?I don't know. It just does. And so I just do, survive that is, on just those memories. Even though they aren't enough.
I'm ready to have her back. But that's not possible. Not in this life.
I'm bored. Bored and sad. Sadly bored. Daddy has something to do today. That's good for him. He likes having projects. What do I have to do... Aside from lay in bed all day. I could clean my house... But I have no motivation. I could go in her room. But that might be debilitating. So for now, i am just lying in bed with River. She is leaving on Wednesday for obedience school. She won't return for about a month... Unless she does get approved to be a service dog... Then it will be longer.
School is starting soon. I'm not going back. They called the other day to ask why. The stupid woman asked if I would be ready to return in the spring? How do I know? And honestly, if you were a real person, you would no longer care about your stupid pole and would tell me to take all the time I need.
I will be off work for the next two weeks. Soon Daddy will be starting school after that and I will be alone more. I tried to commit to something which for now hasn't worked out. I tried scheduling hangouts with friends but summer can be so busy with kids. I would be having a busy summer if my kid was here. But she's not. And I'm still in bed, indefinitely.
I wish there was more stuff on fb to read. Or I could find more games to play on my phone. That's what I do most of the time now. I exist. I know Addison wouldn't have wanted this for me. And I know it pains Daddy to see me this way... I don't plan to be this way forever.
My purpose in life was ripped from my hands. So now what is my purpose? Is there anything that could ever be greater than being a mother? I guess that's what I lay here thinking about.
I think I'm going to make a birth announcement. I deserve to, don't i? My baby was born. She was here. She was 7lbs 9oz, 19 inches long and had a head full of hair. She was real. Born at 9:51 am on March 11th, 2014.
You want to know why I want to do this? It doesn't really come from a good place. And I might hurt some feelings by saying this... But none of my extended family came to her funeral. Nathan's did, and my parents and sisters were there. And I get that my grandparents don't travel easily anymore but COME ON! If I had died, everyone would have come! And in a lot of ways, I have died with Addison. Strangers came to see her. Strangers still even read my blog more than some of my family (thank you btw). It's almost insulting. I'm sick of the excuses. And now I doubt they will ever mention her again to my face. They have no memories to share with me because they didn't come! They could have though.... They could have said how beautiful she was or how perfect the songs were. They could have cried with us. But they didn't come. So here, let me prove that she was worth saying goodbye to. Let me just show you how perfect and real she was.
Don't pretend she wasn't here. I have a daughter. I expected you to acknowledge her.
There have been 7 new commenters on the blog and I have fallen behind in my picture posting. A lot of the pictures I have shared are just pretty but some have meaning and depth and history. This picture below is one I have debated sharing. It is the only picture we have of us looking at the camera while holding our little girl. To me, we look awful. Absolutely terrible. We were running on minimal sleep. Our hopes and dreams had just been shattered. Our dead baby is in our arms. This is not the family portrait we should have had.
I had no idea what to do when she said to look at the camera. What kind of face are you supposed to make in this sort of situation? How can you adequately express that kind of emotion that is so raw? I don't think I have ever seen a picture or a painting in my life that shows what this picture shows.
This picture shows how I feel almost every day. Everyday I have to hold my beautiful, perfect, dead baby and face the world.
I have a favorite part of my day every day. It comes right at the beginning. It's calm and sweet. I don't even have to get out of bed in the morning, because every day, around 7:30 am, River wakes up.
I always am way too tired to want to get up at 7:30am but once she is up, I can't go back to sleep. She whimpers a little from her kennel in the family room and Daddy goes to let her out side. As soon as she is finished, she runs full speed and pounces on my head (which I have now learned to keep under a pillow for protection). She snuggles her little face in whatever crevice she can find so that she can lick me. She calms down and is just so, so sweet. She gives kisses and snuggles between me and Daddy. It is such a sweet picture. But I always wonder, what if it wasn't a puppy we had in bed with us... What if it was Addison who woke up crying and needing attention. What if it was just a diaper needing changing and I brought her back to bed to nurse her. What if we gave her raspberries on her belly instead of rubbing River's. What if we kissed her all over instead of River licking us.
What is it like to have a baby? (this is totally rhetorical and I completely don't want anyone telling me more about the life I should be living) What is it like to sleep train or swaddle or snuggle a baby? I don't know. Of course, I thought I had prepared myself for Addison... But really, when another baby comes, I'm not going to know for sure. I won't have gained any knowledge of how to care for a healthy baby with my first child. That is really not fair. I want to know what it would have been like to take care of Addison... To mother her. And I don't.
I want to feel like a mother so badly. This is part of the pain that comes with losing your only child. I will never be able to speak for the pain that a family feels when they lose one of their children (plural). I will never know what it feels like to have to wake up every morning and take care of the other kids. I can't say that my pain is worse than that. But I will say it sucks. Below is an article that was shared with me. I think it can explain it better than I can.
Samuel’s pregnancy was our first experience with parenthood. When he died shortly after birth, we became childless parents. It’s been over two years since he died. We are still childless parents. We are people with no place to fit in. Those who have never lost a child don’t understand our pain. Those who have lost a child, but have gone on to have others, or had living children prior to their loss, will never understand our unending emptiness.
There is a unique pain when your only child dies. I will never in this lifetime know what it means to get pregnant, go through a pregnancy, give birth and raise a child without fear, anxiety, and sadness. My innocence is lost forever, because death is the only outcome I know of pregnancy. Our family is ruined just as it’s begun. We are living joyless lives; we are empty and without purpose. What should have been the happiest time in our lives is now the hardest. Where there should be fun and learning and teaching, there is nothing. Our home is quiet. Too quiet. All the time. We are full of the love, but have no one to bestow that love upon. It’s love with no place to land. We have parenting energy, but no one to use it up. We’re restless. We have returned, against our will, to the lives we had chosen to give up. The lives of a couple without children. This time though, we are not carefree. We live with heavy hearts and broken dreams, and the absence of any hope.
We don’t attend events. We don’t go to family gatherings. We stay home a lot.
Because children are everywhere.
Families are everywhere.
And we are a family that’s broken.
We are parents, but you can’t see the living proof. When I go out in the world, no one thinks I’m a mother. Because my child is gone, but my heart beats like any other mother’s.
You just can’t see it.
I can’t talk with other mothers about mothering, although I am a mother. No one wants advice from a mother who is separated from her child. My motherhood is deniable.
Sometimes, I feel like I’m living a lie when I say I’m a mother, even though I know in my heart I still am.
I can’t say what it’s like to be a loss parent with living children. And they can’t say what it’s like to be a parent with no living children. You’re either one, or the other. So there is no point in saying who has it worse. (We all have it worse; our children died). But I can tell you that living as a childless parent is extremely hard. Every single day feels pointless. Every singe day I feel empty. Every single day, I feel like an outcast, a misfit, an oddity. And every single day, I have to make up something to give my life purpose, even though I’m acutely aware of how shallow it is. I have known the joy and fulfillment of being a parent, but it was stolen away from me. And the hole in our lives is massive.
I know we all hurt the same hurt. We all want our lives to be different. We all would do anything to have our children back. But when I’m desperately hurting, when my heart hurts so deeply is could just as soon explode, I have no one to hold. I have no child to snuggle close and breathe in. I have no one to distract me. I have no one to kiss, no boo-boos to mend, no outfits to buy, no toys to clean up. No one is depending on me. I have no one to tell about his or her big brother in heaven. My arms are empty and completely aware of what is missing.
Samuel’s life, my heart, and soul make me a parent, but my arms are always empty.
