Winceables
I'm not talking about the obvious:
"I'm pregnant!"
"How many children do you have?"
No.
I'm not referring to the time when the contractor said all business-like while planning our kitchen island and mudroom, "Are you thinking of having any more kids?"
Those are predictable. They are horrible, they stop me cold every time, and leave me breathless and gasping, but they follow a certain pattern. Sure, they might drop like a meteor from the sky on a clear day, but let's face it: we knew going in they'd hurt, right?
"Is she your only child?"
"Isn't this [=fill in with any season or holiday that strikes you cold] a wonderful time of year?"
"They grow up so fast!"
No.
I'm talking about the stuff out of left field that you had no idea would hurt until it was lobbed and sat there lingering in the air over your head like a toxic cloud. The words that cut to the core, and knock the wind out of you when you absolutely least expect it. The innocuous sentences that take on an entirely different meaning now that you're on this side of the divide. The lines that make you wince.
:::
We were at a school meeting where a person was explaining why children learn languages so well at an early age, and why it's harder to do so later on. It was somewhat interesting, the stuff about hearing development and how aurally accepting children are, and then from her lips as a rhetorical example that was never answered: "What do you hear when I say the word 'chop?'"
I'll tell you what I hear, and it's not a cookbook instruction. It's the acronym for Children's Hospital. It's where Maddy died. It's a shrine, it's a ring of Dante's Inferno. God, how fucked up is it that their motto is "This is Where Hope Lives" when my hope died there? Right there? I can point to the place on a map. Why did she pick that word for an example? Of all the words in the English language, why that one? I wonder if anyone else in this room heard that. I'm screaming, aren't I. No, wait, I'm quiet. But now I'm lost and I have no idea what on earth she's talking about . . . .
:::
The adorable boy who lives across the street came by one afternoon to deliver a birthday party invitation to Bella. He came with his babysitter, a lovely looking teenager. Bella is positively smitten to receive this, and I'm making small talk now because usually this boy is so shy, and here he is personally bringing this by! And his sitter is standing there, kinda proudly I think, and once he's involved in some conversation with Bella, she turns to me, sticks out her hand and says, "I'm Maddy by the way."
Maddy?! Did she say Maddy? Maybe it's Maddie? Or with some t's, Matty? In a normal universe I could just come out and tell her I have a daughter named that, and ask about the spelling and have an everyday conversation, but . . . well, it would probably fry her gourd to know she shares a name with my dead daughter. Wonder what it's short for. I'm flushed, I hope she doesn't notice. Did Bella hear that? I guess not, she's still talking. Crap, have I said "Pleased to meet you," or did I just shake her hand?
:::
Flipping through a catalog and seeing the name "Maddy" on stationary, a wall, on a towel. Closing it, chucking it in the recycle bin.
:::
Then there's the line that cuts me off at the knees.
When Bella was born, it was quickly noted that she resembled, quite eerily, her father. Pictures of both, a few days old in each case, were compared and there was no doubt that we had taken the correct child home from the hospital. As she grows, the likeness becomes even more apparent. I used to take a great amount of pride in this fact.
When Maddy was born and they handed her to me, I immediately searched her face for recognizable signs -- the telltale dimples and curve in the nose and ruddy complexion -- and oddly, she looked a bit like me. And then they took her away, and the rest is horrible, and she is frozen forever in pictures between two and six days old (I have yet to look at the pictures from the delivery room when we thought she was ok. Those were the last moments of my old life, and the fact that that limbo is caught on film is kinda disturbing to me yet.)
A few months later, the tape-reel of her life still too fresh in my head, and after turning the pictures this way and that, I came to the conclusion that she probably would've resembled me. But this fact, and it's significance, really didn't hit home until one day we were at a neighbor's house and Bella said something coy and turned and ran away, and my neighbor said, very sweetly,
"She looks more and more like her father every day."
And my other daughter? Looked just like me. Would she have looked more like me every day? This is what it was supposed to be like, having someone tell me this. And no one will ever know. I'll never have the pride of her looking like me, or hell -- her looking like ANYONE for that matter. That was my silly material proof that I was involved somehow in this childmaking business. My validation that a few of my genes went someplace beautiful. And instead, they got blown to shit. I should take out her picture and show her. I can't believe I feel like crying over this incredibly superficial point. Maybe that's not my nose after all, I should probably look at the picture again when I get home . . . Look, she's gone and changed the subject, my eyes must be welling up.
And yet, every time from that point forward when someone tells me that about Bella, it's as if someone put the knife in my sternum and turned it, slowly.
What makes you wince?
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Nicholas looked like his dad... Through and through... And Sophia, like me. Alexander was a perfect mix, like me, like his dad. When I look at their pictures sometimes I see me in them and it hits so hard. What else would they have had? My life? His sense of humor? God, why???
At the Library, kids are here around the clock and I often here "Sophia, stop that." "Nicholas, bring your books to the counter." "Alexander, do you have your library card or do I?" It's so hard. But, in spite of that, I smile at the little one and I always say "I have a son named Nicholas." "My daughter is a Sophia, too; what a beautiful name!" "Alexander is the name of my youngest." Often times, the parents just smile and nod or the child takes the conversation over. But, on ocassion, the parent has said "Oh, really? How are is he/she?" And I take a deep breath and tell them how my sons or my daughter died in infancy. Most times, they look horrified and dont speak to me again. Hell, they wont even come to me for help on a return viist and sometimes, which really hurts, they whisper and point with other mothers. But there's a precious few who ask more questions. Who try to learn about them. Who, for just a moment, share the beauty of my babies. And so, each time, even though those times are rare, I share. And am usually hurt. But rather the hurt than no one ever knowing them.
God, I wish things were different for us. This is not how the world is supposed to work.
Aside from the obvious statements you have already mentioned, I wince when everyone, and I mean everyone, tells me that "everything will be fine, I just know it" as if I am silly for having any worry at all. I guess that makes everyone, except me, a psychic. I get why it's easy for people to believe that, but it makes me feel really small and doesn't exactly validate my feelings.
One of dh's cousins' sons is six months older than my Katie would have been.We have an annual family barbecue on Labour Day weekend, & the year he was six, everyone was fussing over him & asking him questions about starting Grade 1 on Tuesday. My daughter would also have been starting Grade 1 that day, and while I had already thought about it, hearing everyone's words & seeing the obvious pride of his mother hurt me deeply.
A couple of years ago, dh & I went to the wedding of another cousin's daughter -- the oldest cousin of her & Katie's generation. Watching her dance with her father -- who is actually younger than dh & me!! -- dh & I held hands under the table. We both knew we were thinking the same thing -- that we would never dance at our daughter's wedding. To make it worse, BIL & SIL were teasing each other -- BIL saying sarcastically, "I guess I'll never get to do that" (because they have two boys) & SIL smugly saying, as the groom danced with his mother, "I'll get to do that TWICE." I know they had no clue how much that hurt us to listen to -- and that's the point -- people just toss off these comments without thinking of the impact they might have on others.
Good question, Tash!
If it had been one of "those" days, I might have blurted out, "THE LITTLE ONE IS FUCKING DEAD."
Ah, well.
they said Finn Crisp.
and suddenly all i could see was his little body and it was the first time the reality of his having been cremated - the ACT of it - really hit me and i froze there in the macabre horror half wanting to laugh hysterically and explain the awful joke but just pinned like a butterfly by the sight of his name, because i was so hungry to see it, to say it.
i didn't have a blog then, or know you all were out here.
When someone tells me they are having a text book pregnancy.
I was too.
That one gnaws at me like nobody's business. One, because it is nobody's business and two, because I would gladly have them all, have more, if it meant I could have them back - I would've moved heaven and earth and would even consider a uterine transplant. But I know, I know that no matter what, I can't have them "back", they won't come back and that is probably why not having any more hurts the most. Losing them meant there was no more.
All of those commercials that show cartoon-like images of lungs - healthy, working lungs. They're everywhere, and I wish I could ignore them like everyone else. I hate knowing how important lungs are.
And, right now the words "annual review" make me queasy. Mine is due at work in a little over a week. I have to write a 2-page document explaining my work accomplishments in 2008, and I keep putting it off because every time I try to start all I can think to write is DEAD BABY DEAD BABY DEAD BABY.
The spelling was different, but it didn't matter. It stopped me dead in my tracks and I sat there staring at the computer screen, eyes wide and breath held, for some time.
It proved to just be a random piece of spam mail from some high school reunion-type website, but I still think about it from time to time and it always makes me wonder...
::
About 3pm, I hear a familiar voice. And a baby crying. It's one of the women in my department who had a baby in February, visiting, showing off her 6-week old little girl. This is the same woman who came in to the office at about 39 weeks pregnant and told me my miracle would come, and that "there's a reason for everything." This from a 40-year old woman with her oops, 2nd child do I really want this pregnancy, sticking her huge belly in my face.
I was essentially hiding in the corner, staying quiet, hoping she would not come over to say hello. Please please... I was actually peering over the cubicle wall to see if her office door was open, if it was safe to walk by and pick up my copies off the printer. Her door opened, I heard her come down towards the computers, ostensibly to talk to one of my other colleagues.
"Hey, S, how are you doing?" I smiled and muttered something like I always do (hanging in there, doing okay). "Getting back into the swing of things...?" Yeah. Whatever, just take your beautiful child and GO. So my colleague oohs and aahs over the baby and as she's getting ready to leave...
(Yes, you know she's going to say it... You know she is. Say it with me... come on...)
"If you ever need a fix, you know..." Oh, yeah... hah... huh...
"Yeah, you can come over when she's crying and screaming and cranky. You won't miss it so much then..."
Hah, yeah. And I literally turned my entire body back to the computer. I honestly don't know how I didn't scream and/or cry. My heart was pounding. And all I could think was, you don't actually think that a screaming, cranky baby would make me feel better about my sons being dead???
::
My husband has a really bad word for this woman, but I'm a lady. Ahem.
"Oh your daughter is just gorgeous! You have two kids now, right?"
"I have three kids - three girls."
"Oh? I didn't realize you had another one. When did that happen?"
(me smililng cordially - but dropping the bomb anyway)
"Emma. You remember Emma, right? Our first born who was born still?"
Insert the facial expression and non-descript, I'm-really-uncomforatble-and-why-did-she-acutally-have-to-say-it noise)
"I have three kids - three girls." I say as I smile and walk away, but it really, really makes me wince!
Last night on Fac.ebook, on my news feed, I saw that there is a new meme going around for "mommies" to talk about their "first born"s. This pisses me off because for 5 months I was in the club. Also, I actually could answer most of the questions, because I *did* birth babies. But that would be weird and freak everyone out. And my babies don't count in the real world.
Sorry, feeling a bit angry and bitter. We got so close. I really need to get off fa.cebook.
Another thing that makes me wince is the silence from family and friends during holidays, family gatherings, etc. I realize I am quite the bummer of the group, but he existed. The lack of aknowledgement kills me everytime.
I agree with Tash though, sometimes it is very random things that cut to the core. They are often innocent comments that are not even related to Noah, but they take me back to the reality of his short life.
Thanks for the post.
Lots of things make me wince when it comes to babies. But the worst is when I answer the phone on an "anniversary" day and it's my mom. She casually says, "How are you, what's new??" like she doesn't remember. And that's because she doesn't. At all. My family and friends don't acknowledge my girls at all. I guess because they think I am "over it" since I don't bring it up.
I also wince when people ask me if I am "ever going to try for a girl" (I have two living boys). I want to say, "well I have two girls. And they are both dead."
And also, pregnant women make me wince. My SIL is pregnant. Newly so. About 3 weeks along. She's already called everone. That makes me feel a little ill.
When I asked her "When will you tell your 2 year old, do you think, or will you wait till near the end?" she said "oh, we already told him". SERIOUSLY! 3 weeks pregnant and you're even telling a 2 year old?! Don't you KNOW WHAT CAN HAPPEN????
And she lived William's loss with me. She knows. No one ever believes it can happen to them.
And now, it is the "so are you pregnant again yet" stuff that is really killing me. NO, but thanks for asking. And YES, we have been trying since the month after we lost her. Then of course there is the "you just need to relax and it will happen". Relax? HAH!
I know it's silly, but it irritates me. People only remember Jordan as being a dead baby. They forget about the condition that made her that way. I can never forget.
I, too, wince when people disregard I as if she had never existed. Well-meaning people comment on my son, and laugh and ask me how I like being a new mom. I want to remind them that I've been a mom for some time now, and though my experience of it now is different, I had a daughter first, and she made me a mother, even though she died fifteen minutes after her birth.
The other thing that makes tears come to my eyes are little girls with their daddies. I so wanted that experience for my husband and my daughter. My dad and I are cordial to one another, but we have no real relationship. My husband is a very different person than my father, and our daughter would have been Daddy's Little Girl for sure. At the local coffee shop they have had an ad up for a "Father/Daughter Dance" for months now, and despite the number of times I see it, for a split second I think, "oh, that's something they can do," before I remember that she is dead.
the gift of childhood that you couldn't give to my daughter?
i actually called the man whose name is on the letter one day...i spoke with his secretary. she sounded like she was going to vomit. she felt really bad and said our name would be taken off the list.
but i wasn't. i freaked out and called my husband at work -- cursing, crying....he told me to just throw the envelopes away when they show up. don't even open them.
they keep coming. he called the guy himself, who assured him we would be removed from the list. i guess we'll see.
as for the catalogs, i used to cry every time i saw emma's name embroidered on a backpack or towel in the pottery barn kids catalog. instead i turned it around. now i think of it like she's saying "hi" and letting me know she's okay.
stupid, i know.
I also see the name Joseph in many magazines.... but i wince more when hearing that name called out in stores, etc....
Has anyone seen that new commercial by Gerber baby food titled "the vow"? The one with pregnant women looking at an ultrasound, going through birth class, experiencing labor, all the while reciting this vow to help keep them healthy? Google it. I can't watch it, it hurts too much. Because isn't that what every mother wants, to keep her baby healthy? And that's what my body failed to do, to keep my son safe and healthy.
Someone recently told me "you'll have a better one". A better what, a better pregnancy, or a better baby? My baby wasn't bad, he didn't need to be improved. It's me, who needs to be better, my body needs to be better.
My son was the perfect combination of me and dh. He had my husband's feet and cheeks, his niece's button nose, and my lips and eyes. Whenever I hear a baby cry, it gets to me, because I never heard my son cry. I always wonder if my son would have cried for me, or just have been a wailer in general- or if he would have been a happy calm baby.
And this is the same hospital that let me wait for an hour in the antenatal clinic after I had lost my daughter. One of the few places where I saw her alive. Surrounded by pregnant women and women with new born babies. I just felt so desolate and then they wonder why they have this crazy women was sobbing in the waiting room. The receptionist whispering to one of the midwives and then having to go through it all again explaining why I was so upset. Gee, I wish I could just have a leaflet printed out so that when I lose it in a public place I could hand it out. This is what happened, this is why I'm behaving like this, you might too if you have been through this experience.
Still, same hospital that resuscitated my girls and gave them a shot at life in the first place so I mustn't grumble. . . .
The woman in the children's clothing shop who noticed I was buying micro preemie nappies and then started relating my own story to me. I just didn't know what to say, eventually I interrupted her and said 'that's me, I had twins so early and one of them died' I didn't even know this woman but she knew all the details of my daughters births and the hospitals they had been to.
The e-mail written by a friend announcing the birth of his daughter, congratulating his wife on keeping so healthy throughout her pregnancy and this being the reason that their daughter was such a good weight and so strong. Well, I tried my best you know?
And all the comments of 'you still have your other daughter', well-meaning but so horribly, horribly, wrong. I don't need to explain to you here why having one baby doesn't take away the pain you feel at losing another. Thank you for articulating that so perfectly in your post Margaret. And hearing or seeing her name in any context, that hurts so much. I miss her.
Like she was a puppy? I'm not sure. I hate him.
Babies in general. I can't help myself, I make faces and get them smiling. I can't stop looking. Until the feeling in my gut returns and I selfishly despise their lucky mothers.
Friends I love telling me they're pregnant. I'm still truly happy for them. I just can't understand why they deserve it and I apparently don't.
Also, the people who know what we went through and still insist on complaining about their children.
Seriously?
This is such a big question. I have to stop before I get ahead of myself.
1 - People asking me about how "different" my second (live) birth story was from B.W.'s silent birth. Duh, yes, it was different - joyous, amazing, love oozing out of us when we saw C.T. But, guess what... B.W.'s birth was still joyous and amazing and love oozed out of us just as much. Just because he died doesn't mean the whole experience and his life was for naught, as these casual questions seem to relate.
2 - When someone asks now "so, how is motherhood?" Of course, they are asking about how it's going since C.T.'s (live) birth...
3 - When someone sends an announcement (snail or email) about how "blessed" they are to welcome their new child. I guess I am "cursed" b/c one of mine died? Or when someone talks about how they "worked so hard to get daughter/son here safely"... as if I didn't work hard!
The unexpected? One day I was at the supermarket and 'our song' came on over the radio. It was the first time I had heard it unintentionally since she died.
I heard her name once, and the child was a boy. How would give a boy my daughter's name? I don't hear her name often.
Something every single day.
My youngest son, Zachary, lived only one hour and looked just like me.
The new baby (a little girl, due in June) appears to look like her father, and I absently wonder if any baby will ever look like me.
What makes me wince:
Going to Motherhood Maternity, buying a pair of maternity jeans, being asked to "update my information" (because naturally, they have a due date from July of last year!) and then being told:
"Oh! Your children will be a year a part then!"
Yeah. They will be. Two dead little boys and their (hopefully undead) sister. They will be a year a part. Can I have my receipt please?
Doing a twist in yoga class the instructor mentioned that we were massaging out kidneys. Suddenly the serenity and relaxation has left my being and I'm thinking about how if he had developed kidneys (and a few other organs) things could be so different now. In that different world I may not have time to go to yoga class but that would be fine because I'd much prefer having that little boy healthy, active, and living, over leisure activities. A whole internal dialog occurred before I realize I am frozen in a twist while the class has moved on.
Exactly right. Thank you for reminding me.
my boss adopts a baby and invites me to a meeting where he's on the video conference with his 3-day old son the whole time. everyone in the meeting is coo-ing over his beautiful baby even though they could never get up the nerve to say a word to me. this was my third day back at work. i made it through the 45 minutes and all the way back to my desk before sobbing. a few days later i'm on the phone with him and he has the nerve to jokingly complain about his son arriving and ruining his sleep (even though he has a night nurse). so i said, "you know i would kill to have my baby, right?" and he glibly says, "oh you'll have one eventually. if we did, you certainly will too." if i could have reached through the phone, i would have strangled him.
the random thing that socks me hard is seeing dads with their kids. i so wanted to see my husband that way.
People saying anything about how they don't like being pregnant. Of course they are able to get pregnant - and stay pregnant - easily. They just don't much enjoy it at all, they just want the baby here. (I went through hell just to get pregnant,I loved it, treasured it, and lost it.)
Parents who say things offhand, like it means nothing to them... how their baby cries, how they spit up, how they coo. It flashes thorugh my head, what I could have had, should have had... what other people take for granted.
i actually ended up writing a poem about it, because i felt like i wanted to scream this across the universe.
But these are by far the worst.
During the height of Hurrican Ike, we were the only ones in our neighborhood with a working generator. A neighbor asked my husband if he could use our freezer to keep his water bottles frozen. Sure. I knew nothing of it until I opened the freezer to see 10 bottles of some kind of nursery water with a precious baby on the label. Stopped me in my tracks and I felt completely invaded & violated. It hurt and made me quite mad.
My sister calling several days ago to tell me they really want another baby and she knows how badly it will hurt for me. She was living her "baby dreams" through me, but..... (I know, she died) Then her justifications just made it worse. I am forever going to be "poor dead baby girl" and it sucks to say the least.
Seeing my husband hold and coddle others babies. Cuts to the bone like nothing else.
Octo-mom! wince,wince,wince,wince,wince!!!!!!!! IT"S NOT FAIR!!!
BBQ sauce! Yeah, stupid, but true. We were grilling one Sunday and my husband asked if we had any BBQ sauce. I found it and looked at the expiration date...May 7...the day it all went to hell last year and we knew Emma was very ill. "Nope, the BBQ sauce has gone bad".
Emma had my husbands nose. I hope to one day have the courage to tell him that.
Marian
Me: "Er, no. In fact, if the oldest had made it she wouldn't exist. Let me just pause while I try yet again to reconcile my conflicted feelings about that bizarre concept." Instead, let's just not go there. It won't be comfortable for either of us.
Wishing my best friend a happy birthday on our baby's due date, when I had hoped the baby would arrive on schedule so they could share the day.
Oh, and (sorry to all those who are in this position, because it's my own personal issue, and has nothing to do with them), but something inside me goes through a wringer when I hear someone talk about a surviving twin. Of course, it's a tragedy for them to lose a child and I'm sure their grief is as deep, if not deeper, than mine.
But, just for a couple of weeks, we accepted that one twin -- our boy -- was not going to make it, but hoped that maybe, just maybe, the other one -- the girl -- would survive. It was the very last hope we held onto and the very last one we let go of.
I wince when people mistake my polite behaviour for some sort of mystical perspective. It's lazy of them and they do it to justify turning conversation back to themselves. I am not brave and serene and wise. I am in desperate need of a hug and I'd happily talk about my son for hours if I thought anyone cared.