Layers
I don't remember what I was wearing that day. I remember my long black winter coat because before I left I asked Monkey for a hug. But I don't remember what I was wearing under it, what I must've seen all day as I caught sight of myself-- my sleeves as I typed, my pants as I sat down, my belly as I balanced the laptop on my lap while I waited for Monkey at gymnastics that afternoon or as I waited for the kicks that never came that night. I remember the dinner I ate as I tried to coax those kicks, but I don't remember what the shirt was that covered the belly on which I balanced the plate. I remember that the radio was on as I drove to the hospital, and I remember that I thought the program was interesting, but I can no longer remember what it was about. Now that I know that the full moon was in fact supposed to be there, I can verify that the memory that started knocking on my brain's door recently, of the full disc as I drove, wasn't a figment of my imaginataion fabricated later on-- I really did see it. But I don't remember what I was wearing. Not as far as anyone else could see, at least.
I remember what I was wearing under my shirt. A bellybra, that wonderful contraption that distributes the weight of the belly over the whole back, making it much easier to function. Even if I didn't rememeber, this detail I could reconstruct, as I never went a day without it the last couple of months of A's pregnancy. But I do actually rememeber. I remember because the nurse asked me about it as she was preparing the probe to look for the heart beat. I gave her a glowing review, and she said she needs to remember it for next time because her back was killing her the last couple of months with her first-- what with being on her feet all day. I wonder, given what happened in the next 5 minutes, does she remember it now?
When I first discovered that I couldn't remember what I was wearing I thought of it as a good thing-- next time around, I reasoned, I wouldn't have bad associations with any of my maternity clothes, I could wear all of them again. Except for that bellybra, of course.
I am 28 weeks 4 days along today. If you come to my house, I doubt you can miss the belly. And yet, when I am out and about, I still wear a shawl. Unless it's over 90 degrees outside, and then I put on this net-like thing that goes over my head, is long, and a bit shiny, but is far less of a disguise, though it still makes me feel a little covered, a little protected. I waddle, by the way. Thanks to the pelvic pain that makes it hard to walk straight. So I waddle, and the belly sticks out farther then the boobs, and has for a couple of weeks now. And still I insist on having something that gives me some illusion of maybe fooling someone out there.
At first I thought that the shawls were my protection against the stupid that is out there, against the untouched who think a pregnant belly equals a live healthy baby 40-X weeks from now. I didn't want to talk to them. I didn't want to deal with their "congratulations" and their "is this your first?"s. I didn't want to give them an opportunity to tell me all about their utterly normal life where assumptions of invincibility hold. A bit later I understood that I was also avoiding having to tell people that I am not jumpy and comfy because the baby before this one died. I didn't want to have to tell the story, anew.
It's a weird thing, really. I want people to know about A. How few people know that he existed used to be one of the biggest crazy-makers in my head. It's better now, the crazy is, but this particular thought is still sad to me. It seems, though, that I need to control the context in which I want people to learn. I don't know that it is even possible, but I seem to want to introduce him in some way that isn't all about pain. I want people to see that the pain is there because of how much we love him, how much we wanted him, how much we miss him now.
I remember, so very vividly, being pregnant with A, out and about with Monkey, and conscious of how lucky we were and of how much our luck can hurt to look at. I was thinking of infertiles at the time, but boy can a sight like this hurt a dead baby mama's heart. I remember, too, last spring seeing pregnant bellies and babies wherever I turned my head. A veritable sea of happy that had no room for me. I started coping by making up sad stories for these happy people I saw on the street-- this one had five miscarriages before this baby, that one needed an IVF or three. I knew, even as I was making up these stories that they can't all be true. But that was what I needed to do to be able to navigate the world around me.
Recently some of the dead baby bloggers have been confessing to having a hard time with other people's pregnancies. Is it any wonder? And what I realized, reading these bloggers, is that my shawls are a little about all of you too. If I can help it, if I can help it at all, I don't want to add to your hurt. I don't want to, as Bon so aptly put it, stab you with my roundness.
My sister is getting married this weekend. My parents arrived a few days ago and other family is about to descend on us in mere hours. To some degree, I have been measuring this pregnancy in intervals of and between significant events. For the last few weeks I have been terrified that this baby would die before the wedding, adding new layers of terrible to what would be horrific any day all on its own. Before that I was similarly scared he would not make it through the week Monkey and JD spent in the Old City.
That Monday, Memorial Day in fact, I wan't feeling as much movement as I had been used to. I tried the water, and the couch, I tried this, that, and the other. And finally I couldn't handle it anymore, and I went in to triage. A friend of mine is a high risk OB in my practice, although he didn't start there until last summer. When I first heard that he was joining the practice, I thought I didn't want him to ever have anything to do with my care-- I didn't want him to have to feel bad if shit hit the fan again. But as I pressed the intercom button outside of triage that Monday, I saw my friend walking down the corridor. And suddenly I very much wanted him to be there. I was alone and scared, and not until that moment did I know how much I wanted to at least not be alone.
It is good to be a friend of the attending, let me tell you. He brought the shiny new ultrasound machine, not the old clunker that told the doctor all those months ago that A was dead. He was gentle, and kind, and attentive, and exactly what I needed. He didn't just do the one peak to make sure the heart was beating-- he sat there for ten or fifteen minutes carefully studying everything, watching my son wiggle behind my anterior placenta that with its movement-cushioning ways was the likely culprit behind that day's freakout. Twenty more minutes on the monitor and one fine-looking strip later I walked out of the triage room next door to the one in which they told me A was dead. I was light-headed, shaken a little. But I managed to only be ten minutes late for dinner with a friend. And the next morning I took a deep breath and pulled that bellybra out of the drawer.
When A died, six months seemed like a ridiculously long way off, like it should be enough time to close the gaping wound, to let my heart scar over. And now, nearly a year and five months out, what I am wondering is whether there is ever an end to the layers left to uncover. I suspect not so much.
julia
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There is so much here I want to thank you for, comment on. But all I'm left with is just an overwhelming sense of gratitude that there's someone else who knows how this feels, to stare at that pair of giant pants stuffed in the rafters of my closet. That one linen leg that's drooped down, reminding me of the last time they were removed, moments before I was sprinted down the hallway on a gurney.
Thank you, Julia. I read your words and I'm hopeful, and just so thankful for you and your heart and hope, to read what's so familiar to me.
Hang in there.
xoxoxo
And dammit, where were those bellybands when I was carrying that bloody medicine ball between my legs? hmph. Maybe next time, that next time when I manage to find a sperm-donor for hire. :)
I remember exactly what I was wearing. I looked so hip and fabulous in it, but only until I learned he had died. Then, I didn't give a crap what I looked like. I pulled it out several months later, having just stuffed it in my closet after the days' events, and there, in the middle, were 2 Halloween stickers that my daughter had placed on my shirt when I picked her up from pre-school. I had forgotten they were there. The outfit, THE outfit, held a lot of good memories, until it didn't anymore.
The layers are endless, I'm sure, but I don't think I have a firm grasp of this at all at this point. Time and distance will surely give me an education in this, like it or not.
Lovely post, Julia.
For Christmas my husband asked if I could please get him another nice cashmere sweater, preferably a rust color. I stared at him: um, didn't I just get you that, a cashmere rust color sweater a year or two ago? Yes, I did. But he was wearing it when Maddy died. To be honest, I can't for the life of me remember WTF I was wearing that day, but I look at pictures and think ah yes, probably that shirt and those pants, but really, who knows. Just a month or so ago I was rummaging in my underwear drawer for a swimsuit I thought I possessed and stumbled across a pair of maternity underwear. I threw them in the trash.
I also make up those stories when I see pregnant people, because I can't imagine that anyone can be going through that process with unquestioning joy. I just can't.
As for the shawl: if there's a next time for me, I'll be in the closet.
I remember the brown pants and the long sleeved cream colored shirt with deep blue roses printed on it...a little bit of lace around the collar. I remember looking down at it as my husband drove me to the doctor that morning. I remember the feel as I rubbed my belly with my already dead baby inside. The clothes had to go. So I threw the brown pants in the trash...destined for a landfill not far from my home. Sometimes I wonder where they landed. The shirt...I sold it on eBay. Sometimes I wonder where it landed...how the pregnant buyer fared. Better than me, I hope.
I threw out all of my maternity clothes, that I wore so proudly when I was pregnant with WIlliam. Every single thing went.
When I found myself pregnant again, I wore normal clothes for as long as I could. I denied the pregnancy through my clothing.
I don't think I cared what I wore on the day he died.
In C's office is a box of maternity clothes. I had not been wearing them for very long and they were all from friends. In our community of academics, there was also sort of a maternity clothes bank of which I had become the beneficiary just 5 days before my water broke. That container was removed from my sight within days, removed from the house before I returned from delivering the boys.
At this moment I'm wearing the pajama pants I was wearing that morning when my water broke. They were still in a pile in the bathroom when we came home 2 days later, but they washed clean, easily. I hardly ever think of those life altering moments, the ones that occurred when I was wearing them. Or rather, it doesn't take the pajamas to trigger the memory.
There are a couple of sweaters and pants that I wore a lot when I was pregnant, that are still sitting in a pile somewhere behind the laundry hampers. I come across them every so often. As we still work away at the mounds of laundry in our bedroom, somehow those items have never made it downstairs to the laundry room. We don't really talk about it, but somehow neither of us can seem to bring ourselves to take care of them. There's always a more important load to wash.
Julia, that's a beautiful post, I'm glad things went okay over Memorial Day, and I hope you are able to thoroughly enjoy this weekend.
Your post reminded me that I purposefully wore clothes to the termination that I knew I could throw out afterwards. I hadn't thought of that detail until just this second. That's kind of nice, it's like I never had to be reminded that way. On the other hand, I still have some of my maternity clothes and I actually hate them. When I think back to me wearing them, I almost think of myself as some other person. Me before the layers started bleeding open. I actually think I hate that me b/c I'm the one who convinced myself to believe that everything would be okay when that was never really the case. But things have really calmed down since the pain started and though I agree with you Julia that the layers never stop, I think I'm grateful for that. I'm so glad I've gotten past the fleshy part of the wound--past the bleeding. And with each layer that comes undone, I truly think we all become more beautiful people.
Wow. Funny how a post can zip you right back to that day, to that room, to that doctor, to that news, to that scream of NO. But I can't remember what I wore.
Sometimes while getting dressed I think "this was the skirt I was wearing when I heard the words 'incompatible with life'". Before pregnancy the skirt would threaten to fall down past my hips but on that day it was so tight I thought it would be the last time I would wear that skirt until after I brought my baby home. I never brought a baby home and I never had to take a break from wearing the skirt. I don't remember what blouse I wore but I did have on the large, old fashioned panties I wore when I won a Bettie Page look alike contest. Had I known I would spend so much time getting ultrasounds that day I would have worn "normal" underpants.
I liked my outfit that day though, I remember looking cute and was looking forward to the ultrasound when the sex of my baby was confirmed.
I was wearing my favourite maternity outfit: a pair of navy drawstring cotton palazzo pants with tiny yellow & white flowers on them (actually not maternity wear, just XL), a white cotton ribbed maternity Tshirt -- sleeveless & V-necked but with a collar, & a pair of white Bally loafers that I had gotten on sale. I did wear the pants afterwards (until I wore holes in them), because they weren't "maternity" pants per se & they were among the few things in the closet that fit me afterwards.
I still have all of my maternity clothes (except for a few things that were loaned to me, which I returned). They're hanging in the spare bedroom closet. Ten years later, I can't bear to give them away.
I remember everything about my day. I was wearing khaki pants, a black sweater and knee high boots. I thought I looked so great, I took time to get dressed because we had a holiday party to go to after work. I even took the time to blow my usually curly hair straight. All the while, my baby was already gone. I even thought to myself as I left my bedroom, my stomach feels like dead weight. Yet, I still went to work. Ugh. I hate that I can remember everything. It just replays over and over. I still have the clothes. I don't blame them. She was already gone before I put them on, even though I didn't know it.
Great post. I am thinking such positive thoughts for you. I am so inspired by you and other women going through subsequent pregnancies. I can't imagine the anxiety you must feel, but you are certainly handling it with grace. I hope you enjoy your sister's wedding. Congrats to her and her one.
Thank you for your post today. As my husband and I have just started talking about trying again (7 months after losing our girls) I find mysef truly apprehensive.
As much as I want to try, as I want the baby at the end, the thought of pregnancy terrifies me. I can't imagine putting on anything I wore with the twins, I can't imagine the belly that begins to give me a way, the congratulations from people when I just want to scream "pregnancy doesn't mean babies"
Here is the one place that I feel normal.
Beautiful, as always. And so, so true. Every word.
The casual conversation with the nurse that you described, "just before", really hit home. I had a similar friendly, breezy conversation with the first ultrasound tech. Those last few minutes when I still thought everything would be okay. It's hard to go back there.
I remember throwing out the shirt I wore on that fateful day. But I will never be able to throw out that memory.
I was wearing my favorite maternity outfit as well. It was a long flowing blue skirt with a bright flower pattern, a fitted white tank top, and a denim jacket over everything. When I left the hospital three days later, I was wearing my husband's ratty old pjs, a baggy t-shirt, and my fantastic trendy sandals, since no one had thought to bring me a pair of flip flops or sneakers. And truthfully, I didn't care. I didn't care what I looked like. I didn't care what people thought of me. Deep down inside I hoped they thought I was a junkie who overdosed, or someone with a heart condition, or a diabetic in for her dialysis. Any number of scenarios other than the truth - that I was a mother who couldn't keep her baby safe.
I am pregnant again, and on the day I dared to wear "the outfit" again, I had some spotting in the bathroom in the church basement - the exact same place I was when my husband and I decided that we needed to go to the ER. I am not superstitious, but I haven't been able to wear that skirt to any of my doctor visits or any time I will be so far from home I wouldn't be able to change were there an emergency that sent us to the hospital.
In this pregnancy, I am past the point when my daughter was born, and I am hoping to wear the skirt again. Not because I love the outfit so much, or I feel so cute in it, but because I don't want to spend my life with the knife twisting in my gut every time I look at an article of clothing that means so much less to me than the truth that my daughter did live, albeit briefly. I want to remember her. Not what I was wearing when I lost her.
this post has struck so many chords, Julia.
funny, for me, i don't remember what i was wearing when we drove to the hospital with the spotting that then turned into my water breaking and an airlift...the beginning of the end. total blank, except it must have been the black shoes. but i remember the purple johnny shirt they put me in. and i remember what i was wearing when i went irrevocably into labour a few weeks later, and what i was wearing that night when i held him, dying, in my arms. the last, the velvet hoodie that he touched, i wore around the house when i was all alone for months after. but the rest? all gaps.
i was lucky in that most of my mat clothes were borrowed...so with O and this time, i just borrowed from different people. but oh, i hate the visibility of them, oh the fear they create in me.
Oh my heart clenches..I too threw out most of my mat clothes....including the stuff I had been wearing that day..couldn't look at them for weeks...ugh.
I want to move before I am pregnant again...I don't want to talk to my neighbours about it all....
I want to keep it as quiet as possible...
I, too, had an anterior placenta with my subsequent baby. It drove me to new depths of insanity. I do remember exactly what I was wearing the day I found out my firstborn was dead. I threw the clothes away in a trash bin at the hospital. I could never, ever look at them again, much less wear them. Even the flip-flops, bra and underpants had to go.
I have never commented here before but this post brought me to tears. I miscarried early in pregnancy when I was 22 and I feared I would never be able to have kids. I became pregnant again when I was 25 with twins. I didn't tell anyone I was pregnant until I passed the "3 month mark" and even then it was only a few people. I was so scared I wouldn't make it. I ended up having them 10 weeks early but both made it. I have never been so scared in my life. I will tell you though that I still remember what I was wearing the day that I miscarried. I had been to the hospital 2 days in a row before that and was on strict bed rest to try to save the pregnancy. I was in bed with gray jogging pants and a black t-shirt on. I got up to go to the bathroom and I knew. I just knew...I was angry for days and wouldn't talk to anyone. Then I just broke down and cried for days. It was miserable and I still won't wear those pants but I keep them as a reminder that there was one before my boys and that baby will never be forgotten...
I was wearing stretchy black maternity pants with a matching top. It was by far the most comfortable (and probably the least flattering) thing I owned. Seeing as I had been in the hospital for nearly a week already, it was amazing I was even out of pajamas, but that day I decided to put on street clothes because I had to navigate the lobby to get to ultrasound.
When the nurses put on my hospital gown, they didn't take my bra off until it was too late- I already had my IV and art line in. We cut it off. It was brand new, as my breasts had decided to swell and no longer work in my regular bra size. I remember, in the haze of mag sulfate and whatever else, the nurse saying "That's a nice bra" as she tossed it in the garbage.
I also remember looking down at my feet, in tight trouser socks that cut off circulation midway up my calves. I said to my sister, "These are not the socks I wanted to wear when I had my baby." What a strange thing for me to think about waiting for my baby to die. I had a very fuzzy pair of socks that I thought would be great for delivery; someone had told me that your feet could get cold.
Upon my return home, I immediately put those socks on. I guess they reminded me of when my pregnancy was "normal". But I was no longer pregnant, of course.
I hadn't thought of it like this before, but, for me, there's no day with any particular meaning. There was just a long run of bad news, gradually getting worse and worse, spread out over two months. And for a long time afterward, I was in the hospital, doped up with drugs and, as the preeclampsia grew more and more serious, wondering if I was going to die too.