We were truly ridiculous this month, with literally dozens of back-and-forth lobbying sessions, new discoveries and cart-upending nominations. Part of the happy problem is that we're meeting many of you for the first time, digging back through your archives and finding not only gems in this month but in past months that we can't resist acknowledging here.

So we always say it's tough to choose one 'best post', but this month, your hearts and words made the task especially difficult.

This month we honour Carol at Happy Sad Mama for her post, Happy-sad. Five years past the stillbirth of her daughter Charlotte, Carol reflects on holding her own identity, blessings and ordinariness in one hand, and the vivid, almost-like-unrequited-love of babyloss in the other. I liked how Carol's writing holds a bright light further down the path, showing flashes of acceptance that give me hope.

Remember to nominate your favourites by the 14th of every month--we so deeply appreciate hearing new voices. And as always, thanks to all of you for participating!

July's glowing nominees were, in random order:

STE at So Dear and Yet So Far for High wire act 

Hisaak at Rebuilding Myself for What I wish I could tell you

Angie at Bring the Rain for A beautiful song

Carol at Happy Sad Mama for Writing

M at My Sanctuary for #135

Mrs. Spit at Mrs. Spit Spouts Off for Last kick and Fathers

Steph at Mi Isla Sola for Dear Isla

K@lakly at This Is Not What I Had Planned for The fear

Jenny at There's A New Monarchy In Town for What I know

Stephanie at Hopefully Trying for This is what it is

Becky at Life with Love and Loss for Pregnancy after loss, part one 

Ladies in Hades (Dell Books) back cover map for crime thriller, USA 1950, courtesy Steven Guarnaccia

We have tea parties on Beelzebub’s Roof and get skincare tips from Helen of Troy and whenever we’re feeling sorry for ourselves we get drunk with Cleopatra and play chicken, taking turns peering over the edge of the Bottomless Pit.

Then at 3 AM we stumble together through streets of fire to Anne Boelyn’s Waffle House for belgians with cinnamon sugar. It’s not what you would call fun but we are arm-in-arm anyway, shuffling in step.

I’m sorry you’re here too, but I’m glad for the company.

++++

The pamphlet was a piece of paper folded twice, a photocopy of a photocopy, crooked and smudged. On the front was a line drawing of a forlorn-looking woman with her head in her hands. She was wearing bellbottoms and a turtleneck sweater. The title read

BOOKLET OF NORMAL FEELINGS.

It was a fruit-punch-and-cheese NICU gathering for parents and I must have looked a mess, eyes glassy and red, bird's nest hair, on the brink. A social worker appraised me and as she reached for the melonballs with one hand she pushed the pamphlet across the table with the other, saying maybe you should read this, looking prim and satisfied, duty done.

Instead of taking the pamphlet I reached under her waistline for her pantyhose, pulled them up over her head and walked out.

Scratch that.

I obediently took the thing and looked it over with a frozen face as the parents around me yammered cheerfully about jaundice and reflux. Then I burst into tears, the snotty, gulping-for-air kind, bawling about cerebral palsy and retardation and brain damage and lifelong diapers as everyone else buried themselves in platefuls of two-bite muffins and styrofoam cups.

As I stumbled out into the hall she followed me and I thought cynically here we go, she’s going to try and help me but instead she called my name and said here, you forgot your bag, pressing it into my shaking arms. Then she turned and walked away.

Later that day the social worker in charge found me at the isolettes and said Kate, I think we should talk about what you might need, you know, to get through this and I said okay and she said I’ll be in touch but she never was, even after Liam died, other than giving me a $10 gas coupon once every two weeks. Which reduced the cost of twizzlers for my NICU commute by about half.

I understand they’re budget-strained. I understand that babies are the priority, not me. They provide beepers and tubes, the diagnostics, the chemical goo, the doctors highly trained in the art of saying we just have no way of knowing.

But I often wonder: if I were in charge, how would I initiate new and aching parents to this alien world? How would I help them feel like they had a place in it? How would I stand beside them as they made decisions about do-not-resuscitate orders and palliative care? What would I do to consider a babylost family ‘discharged’? We wouldn’t set them loose again into the rampant ordinariness, squinting and disheveled, without some sort of floatation device… right?

In a week or so I’ve got a phone interview with a researcher from the hospital who wants to know what they could be doing differently for bereaved parents. What would you tell her?

In the past few weeks and months, it's been wonderful to hear from so many new voices--my surefire way to ward off teh crazies, to be honest with you. As always, let's acknowledge the collective uncraziness generated by shared experience: nominate a blog post that moved you for a Glow in the Woods Award--one of your own, or someone else's.

Go here to nominate by no later than the 14th of the month, and here to review the winners so far. On the 15th, we'll announce the winner along with a complete list of the nominees for a virtual medusa meet 'n greet.

Who's rocked your heart this month?

And lo, finally the second edition is done: visit the new 6 by 6 for July and then share with us, won't you?

Post the questions and your answers on your own blog, link to us here at Glow in the Woods meme-style, and share the link to your post in the comments. Or, simply post your answers directly in the comments.

(clarification: this is just a reminder post, hence the comments here are turned off--to participate, please go to the actual 6 by 6 page.)

As always, we gratefully absorb all your stories and companionship. We read every single comment, discussion topic and link, and do the best we can to respond thoughtfully (not compatible with spells of senility and distraction, so be patient). We're here for your voices, to feel some reasonable facsimile of sane and whole and understood--and we hope you feel that way, too.

Love and peace,
the medusas 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1 |   How would you describe your relationship to fear before and after the loss of your baby?
2 |   Is your lost baby/are your babies present in your life? In what way?
3 |   Tell us about something said or done after your loss that left you feeling nurtured or supported.
4 |   Tell us about something said or done after your loss that left you feeling marginalized or misunderstood.
5 |   What's taken you a long time to do again? How did it feel, if you have?
6 |   How would you describe yourself as a partner before, and after?

The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

—james baldwin

What is it about the loss of a baby that either a) brings all the assholes out of the woodwork, or b) inspires ordinarily sensible people say asshole-like things?

I have a vested interest and will therefore be the source of your enlightenment a voice intones without speaking.

Then, paraphrased:

Look at Family A, the ones with the daughter who lives in the bubble. Or Family B with all that divorce and the alcoholic and the foreclosure. Or Family C with the boy who is disabled.

You’re not the only one in the world who hurts. Stop dwelling, stop spilling your guts on the internet. Think of all the people around you who need you to be uplifting. Be like so-and-so. She’s always so positive.

All of the above implies that I am a falling-down mess, a naval-gazing embarrassment despite being a mother and a moneymaker and some reasonable facsimile of a wife, at least when I’m not wearing those revolting yellow sweatpants.

I sit ball-gagged with graciousness, almost too confused to be wounded. From where I sit, you see, I am doing well. I’m fiercely proud of myself and my family, a year ago and today. Made to live through it again I would choose to be, do, say and feel the very same without hesitation.

I’ve never been so expansive of a woman as I had to be last year. It was messy, but I swam in it. I wore every aspect of it like a bloody sandwich board around my neck because that’s just what I had to do.

For two months I pumped and cuddled, loving both of those boys regardless of speculative outcomes. I forced myself to stare unblinking at the horror until I could see the beauty underneath all the wires and tubes and bleeping because dammit, if one or both of them were to die, I wanted to remember their hearts, their eyes, their soft skin and wee grunts. Not just machines and misfortune.

Then I went home and rolled around on the floor with my two-year-old, tickled, grilled cheese, daisy-chained, story-read. Then to bed and up again in the morning for my NICU commute, indoctrinating myself to the live version of Bob Marley’s War because it was the only music I could tolerate—a message of hope and hopelessness on such a vast scale that mine might seem manageably provincial in comparison.

Then those double doors would swing open and I’d step across the threshold, the lone good guy at the wild west saloon, guns at my hip, death-defiant. Don’t mess with me. Don’t you fucking dare.

Despite all that, the occasional message persists, a year later: You’re making everyone uncomfortable. Who do you think you are, anyway? Do you think you’re special because of all of this?

What’s almost worse, aside from the logistical nightmare of faking one’s own alien abduction? The flip side: the silence.

What a crummy spring we’re having... too much rain, eh? he mumbles as he fidgets and stares at his shoes. I know he knows. He knows I know he knows. He stands in front of a wrinkled, grey, twenty-foot trunk that spits peanuts against his forehead with a shwuck! schwuck! schwuck! as he shrugs elephant? what elephant?

I’m being considerate, the silent majority congratulates itself. Best not mention it. Easier for everyone.

Chickenshit, I say to the latter. Chickenshit with whip cream and a cherry on top.

And in the face of the former—the forcible enlightenment barbershop chorus—I fantasize sticking up for myself without regard for friction.

I’ll do it in my dreams, if nowhere else. In my magical fairyland where the sea rises, the light fails and we hold each other, keep faith with one another, lest the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

+++++

Through the weekend as it sat on the backburner, this post overheated until it stuck to the bottom, blackened and tough, tainting the rest of my brain with a faintly ruined flavour.

We are a prickly bunch, are we not?

I fish for evidence, cling to outrage. I walk through the world with my arms folded across my chest, daring people to prove me right. And when they act human—when I trigger their own demons and nightmares and they prickle at me for it—I hold it against them. Or when they naturally recoil from deadbaby cooties, as I would have done myself, I scorn them for it.

It's exhausting.

I need Zen and the Art of Spirit-Baby Motherhood to figure out how to be patient with the universe. To redirect misspent energy. To help those who make tentative steps feel welcome standing beside me, even though their attempts may not always be graceful. To be sure of my own truths. To forgive.

A year out, if you've reached it yet, where did you stand?

jen, swirly, andrea, canon digital rebel xti

There are many morsels of my friendships that I hold dear to my heart. One of them that is so very special to me is something I have learned from the amazing women in my life.

On the days when the sadness feels overwhelming and I struggle to hold onto those positive, manifesting thoughts, I hear them say..."release that pressure to be positive all the time. give it to us. let us hold onto the hope you need so that you can rest your head and feel whatever it is you feel in this moment."

I am grateful for this gift. Grateful that it teaches me how to be a better friend to them when they lose hope. It teaches me to be more gentle with myself. I have so much faith in the power of loved ones in my life holding onto a dream for me during those moments when it feels too heavy or out of reach.

I have this vision of them circling me, cupping my hope in their hands, leaping, dancing and lifting it to the sky and when I am ready, they gently hand it back to me.

...and it somehow feels lighter and closer and real again.

Today's bonus post is contributed by another sort of sister--the gorgeous Boho Girl, who glows for those who live through infertility, who face a test of endurance in the journey towards motherhood. She is a breathtaking photographer and a warm spirit, and we borrow her image, words and hope with thanks.