Friday, November 25, 2011

Thanksgiving Day...What am I thankful for?

I have a lot that I am thankful for in my life.  I have a wonderful caring loving husband, a family that always sticks together and some of the best people on this planet I'm lucky to count as friends.  I am thankful for my home, my job and all the other things that come along with it. 
Obviously this year was hard, it was hard playing with my niece who is 10 months old and not thinking about how different yesterday would of been if Noel was with us.  Its hard to remember all the things I do have in my life when such a huge piece is missing.  I have a feeling that this time next year I will have a baby of my own.  But I can never replace my precious Noel, all I can do is continue to honor her memory and create a new life without her.
I can't wait for the day when I get to tell John that I'm pregnant, I think I'm going to keep the secret this time just between us for the first trimester and not even tell my family or friends.  Just keep the secret for a little while and cherish it with just my husband.  Not sure I will be able to keep my mouth shut for that long, but I'm going to try.
I'm really not looking forward to Christmas this year, I'm trying to remember all the good of the season and not dwell in the what if's but its hard, I mean Santa would of actually come to my house this year, LOL.  I just keep seeing different things that I would of bought if Noel was with us.  The toys, out fits etc...Its really hard NOT to buy them and have them for the next time around.  But then I'm looking at mostly girlie stuff and Lord knows I would have a boy next. 
Well that is pretty much all I have to say for now, not a lot today because I am trying not to over think everything.  Thanks for reading.

Monday, November 21, 2011

The Beginning of Another Week...

I know that we are getting into the holiday season, but I can't seem to shake the funk that I'm in to even try and get excited for it.  Christmas time has been for my whole life my favorite time of year.  This year things seem different, totally off and I can't seem to drum up the enthusiasm I felt just last year for the holiday.  I guess I keep thinking that this would of been Noel's first Thanksgiving and Christmas and we don't have her here to share it with us.  She was conceived during the holidays last year, we know that and I think that is what is effecting me so dramatically this year.  I wish my little bundle of joy could be here to share the season with us.  People say she is never far from us, and I know she isn't I just wish that she was here to share in the joy of Christmas for the first time.  I guess that I will have to get over these feelings, put on the happy face and try and enjoy my family and friends this time of year but its going to be so hard.  I am at work thinking about starting to decorate for the season, but again something is stopping me, I just can't get the energy of will to make it all come together. 

There are days that I think about what I am doing, like today I am at work, its slow today so I have a few extra minutes to get some of my thoughts out before they make my brain explode.  I think about how my day would of started, would Noel have been fussy this morning when Grandma got to the house to watch her?  Would she miss me all day while I was at work?  How weird it is for me to think these things as there is no precedent, Noel was our first child, we have no idea what it is to be parent's, but we weren't even given a chance to try it out.  I just wonder how different our lives would be today had she made it, had everything not gone so ridiculously wrong.  I guess I will have to wait another year before I get to even think about these feelings.  I believe that our next baby will be born sometime next year right about now, if all goes well.  97% of parent's that have had a cord accident like ours end up having healthy and happy babies the next time around.  They don't tell you about the other 3% do they?  What happens if I'm in that 3% next time around, I have got to be honest, it scares the hell out of me.  Granted I completely intend on doing a few things differently this time around.  Through my last pregnancy I drank 2 cups of coffee everyday, of course this didn't cause my daughters death but it did make her a more active baby.  I want the worlds calmest baby, one that doesn't do cartwheels in my belly for months like Noel did.  God knows that I want to do everything right, to insure my childs safety.  Do I blame myself for Noel's death, yes there is a part of me that wonders if I stayed away from the coffee, didn't have those couple of soda's (I think I only drank 1 a week) or did I use to much sugar.  Did I make her to active.  Was it my actions that led to her cord being tied in that knot?  All these things fly through my head daily, I do essentially blame myself I can't help it and most mothers can't. 

I just wish I could get through this time period of mourning and move on to a better place.  One where I'm okay with my world again.  Something tells me things are never going to feel right again, there is always going to be one piece of my puzzle always missing.  She will not be able to ever fill in her space again.  I just pray that next time around things will be different.  That we will have a living, breathing, healthy baby in a year.  That we will be able to make it through the pregnancy with no hang ups and nothing wrong.  I don't know, I just pray that we can do it.  I think I'm more worried about the "getting pregnant" then the actual pregnancy.  Some women after c-section have a difficult time, I really hope this doesn't happen to us.  But I guess whatever hand we are dealt again we will just have to play it out and see what happens next.  No one can tell the future and if they say they can they are lying to you.  I guess you just have to take each card dealt and deal with it the best way you can.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Attempting to conceive again...

I can't get pregnant again until the end of January.  In a way this depresses me more then I want to think about or really even talk about.  My best friend I love her dearly she has always been there for me through thick and thin just found out that she is pregnant.  I DO NOT begrudge her a child of her own, I want to make that perfectly clear.  Honestly they have been trying to get pregnant longer then my husband and I.  My friend had to go through fertility treatments and IUI's to get pregnant, they have been trying for well over a year.  I feel a little bit jealous that she is pregnant now and I have to wait until she is almost half way through before I can even START trying.  We think that its neat that our kids will be close in age, my Noel would of been almost a year older had she lived. 
I am sad that I have this feeling of jealousy, I don't like feeling that way but I also cannot help it, I can't stop it so I have to roll with it and not let her even for a second think that I'm not blissfully happy for her.  I KNOW she has wanted a baby for years and she finally has her shot, just because my first baby died doesn't mean I don't understand her.  I just wish I had an all clear to start trying NOW.  I realize that I have to wait, that its healthy for me to wait both mentally and physically, but it makes me mad that I even have to go through all of this.  Its completely upsetting. 
I am working on my anger management issues that I apparently have developed, I never used to bite peoples heads off but its becoming more and more common for me to go off and then feel horrible later.  That isn't me and I think most people know that its not me talking but I'm sick of apologizing so I try and hold things back.  Sometimes I wish I could just tell people EXACTLY what I think of them and where they can go and how they can get there.  But then I wouldn't have my job, my family or my friends...
I know that once February/March comes around and I can start trying to conceive again that I'll feel better.  I know that once its confirmed that I'm pregnant all the negative feelings I have will leave me.  I just pray that we are able to get pregnant as quickly the second time around.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

8 Weeks ago today...

Thursday's are NEVER a good day for me.  8 weeks ago today Noel was born. 

The problem with Thursday is that I remember all the pain I went through that day, I remember pushing and trying so hard to give birth to my baby girl that no longer was alive.  I remember the moment the doctors called for the c-section because I was in such excruitating pain and was begging them to take the baby out.  Even at that time they didn't know how stuck little Noel's head was in my pelvis.  There is a part of me that knows absolutley had things gone differently that my little girl would of most likely had cerebral palsey because of the circumstances resulting from her birth.  To look at me you would NEVER for a minute think that my pelvis was to small for an 8lb 10oz little girl, but it is. The last 4 weeks of my pregnancy I was in constant pain, my whole pelvis constantly hurt because the baby was to big for me.  But back to what I said before, I know that had Noel been born something would have been wrong, she was so stuck the doctor had to go back through the birth canal and push her out of the incision for the c-section.  There is absolutely no comfort for me even knowing this small piece of information.  It doesn't matter if something would of been wrong with her I would of loved her anyway.  But I also know her quality of life wouldn't have been what her Daddy and I wanted for her.  Knowing all of this doesn't fix the hurt of not having her, sometimes it actually hurts more because we have wondered if that is why God did take her.  Regardless, my husband and I can't continue with the what if's, it makes us crazy.  You have to be strong to move forward, to let go of the what if's and move on. Writing this blog is my way of getting all that I am thinking and feeling out, even if no body in the whole world reads it, it helps me to express myself in a way that isn't easy for me at all.  I am one of those people who doesn't open up to strangers, I keep my business to myself and try and stay out of other peoples affairs.  But there is a time when you do have to open up.  You have to release the deamons inside you so you can allow yourself to heal.  This blog allows me to do that. 
I had a co-worker and I am going to most likely screw up what she said but it was something like this:
Whatever the worst that has happened to you, is the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to you as a person.   We all have one friend that tries to "one up" us.  That whatever happened to them was WAY worse then what happened to you.  Its all perspective and how you view your world.  What happened to my husband and myself to me is the worst possible thing that could ever happen or will ever happen in our lives.  I pray that this is in fact the worst because I don't know how much more I could possibly take.  But who knows, and that my friends is the key, you can think and preceive that the worst has happened but don't get to comfortable because its very possible that something more is on the horizon and you have to stay ready for it and remain strong.  I guess that is the end of my advice and my random thoughts for today. 

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Waiting For the Storm to Pass

Have you ever been stuck in one of those horrific thunder storms, the wind is blowing at 50mph the rain is falling so hard that if you were to walk out into it the force of it would actually hurt you?  The air itself feels alive with the charge that the lightening is giving it.  Then you lose your electricity and regardless of if you have flashlights and candles you are stuck in a house with little light, no heat and it just plain blows.  You wait for the storm to blow itself out, call the electric company and pray that the heat comes on soon because otherwise you feel like your going to freeze. 
When you lose an infant child that you have nurtured for 10 months, I have no idea why everyone still calls it 9 months, but anyway, this baby you are caring for in your belly becomes your world.  Everything you eat, do, say, go everything, the baby goes with you.  You connect to the precious cargo you are carrying.  I still find myself talking to my daughter when I'm in my office by myself, in the car driving alone or when I'm trying to fall asleep at night.  She was with me for so long, and I feel like I KNEW what she was feeling.  I knew that when she moved a certain way she was listening to me, or cuddling up or sleeping.  You KNOW these things because you are so connected to the child.  When it was confirmed that my daughter had died my world erupted, everything I had been doing for months was for naught, my daughter didn't make it.  When a mother does EVERYTHING right and the end result is what happened to me the biggest question your going to continually ask is WHY?
I can tell you all right now, you will never get the answer to WHY?  In our case, as in MANY others our baby girl was perfectly healthy, she had absolutely NOTHING wrong with her.  There are parent's whose child has an abnormality of some sort, and the doctors tell you that that is the reason the baby died.  In most cases like ours, there is no answer to the question of why.  We had all the tests run on Noel, in all accounts she was a healthy baby, she had a cord knot and that is what led to her death.  I will never understand why my babies cord was in a knot or why she died just a few days before her due date.  I will never get the answer to my WHY? All they can tell me is that it was an accident, a cord accident.  I have to be honest, it makes me want to hate everything and everybody because of the circumstances I find myself now.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

I Give, What's NEXT?!

You can try all you can and you can't forget the horrible things that have happened in your life.  Over time wounds heal, memories fade but when does this happen?  When does the sharp hurt dull into an ache?  I can tell you that I have suffered heartache in the past, a year ago last May I lost my grandmother, they say when you suffer a new loss it dredges up the old hurt the old pain.  Losing my grandmother after watching her for years suffer with Alzheimers was a sharp pain, it was the first time I lost someone close to me and I did not handle it well.  In fact I still cry when I pass by the cemetary where she is buried, its like my heart knows that someone in that manicured place with its beautiful setting belongs to me.  I try very hard not to go that way anymore, because I can't handle the tears, I can't handle the ache in my heart.
Now flash forward to the here and now.  My daughter is also in a cemetary, she has a spot in what is called "BabyLand".  Her grave is under a small tree and she is surrounded by other infants and toddlers that may not have died how she did but none the less their lives were cut short.  There are so many tiny graves in BabyLand, I know I'm not alone in the loss of my infant daughter, there are so many other parent's out there who have had to bury babies that for one reason or another were to good to stay here on earth.  I know their pain and how they suffer daily, just as I do, aching to hold the baby that no longer is here with us.
I can't speak for all people who have lost a child, I can only really speak for myself.  I ache everyday to hold Noel, to coo at her, to watch her grow, on Thursday this week she would of been 2 months old.  Thursday's are never a good day for me, I remember back every week to the day when she was born, I can't forget that day.  I can't forget the sharpness of the pain in my heart of not having her with me, with us.  I can't forget her little body in my arms and looking at her, seeing so much of myself in her features, seeing her Daddy's beautiful dark hair on her head, her little hand in mine.  Most new Mom's will tell you they don't remember the pain of Labor, I cannot forget.  I don't have that precious baby to look at to make all that pain go away.  I have to live everyday with my broken and beat up heart.  I want to know when does it stop hurting like this, when can I think about her and not want to cry for hours, rock her blanket, when will the sharp pain turn into the dull ache? When will my heart that was shattered be kind of put back together?  I don't ever expect my heart to be completely healed, I know that with time it will be put back together into something that you would recognize as a heart, but for now I need to keep my head up, to keep living and never give up, I owe that to my daughter, we both do John and I.  We owe it to her to keep her alive in our hearts, to live our lives just as if she was here with us. 
In a very short amount of time I intend on getting pregnant again, the "Experts" say that parent's who have suffered this kind of loss often push to get pregnant again to try for another baby.  Obviously, John and I are just waiting until we get the all clear from our OB/GYN.  The issue with us is that I am in that "Mature Maternal" category, we have limited time to have a baby or two.  If Noel had lived our plan was to give her a brother or a sister within a year anyway.  The doctor has told us we can start trying to conceive in February as long as the ultrasound she is going to do in January shows my incision and fibroids to be all good.  She has a plan in place for the next pregnancy, we can only pray that it results in a healthy happy baby. 
I believe with my whole being that once we are confirmed pregnant and get through that first 12 weeks my heart will start to heal.  I'll start to have hope that we can be parent's to a living breathing little human being.  The next baby as I have said before can NEVER replace Noel, she will always be our first child.  I just know that once it starts all over again I can move forward in my healing process, that I will be able to be even stronger then what I have been.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Coming Up for Air

I'm creating this blog, to purge my soul of the heartache of losing my precious daughter Noel.  I have been on and looked at many other blogs out there and none seem to fit me, but then how can you expect something you didn't create to fit you exactly.  I need to talk about the loss of my child but I want to do it under my own terms.  I want to express my feelings in a way that is to my liking NOT what the world at large thinks.  I don't know if anybody will ever read this, and if you do and you take something away with you then I hope its something good.  What happened to Noel was tragic and her daddy and I have been dealing with the loss as best we can.  This is our story, if your story is similar and you want to add something PLEASE do.  I don't ask for advice, I ask that you read, you understand and maybe what I have to say will help, maybe it won't but then again if you don't read and you pass it by you could miss something that might help you in your struggle to cope with the death of your child.  I will never judge you and you can yell here and scream because I will tell you, I have my days when all I want to do is yell and scream and cry and hit something, anything to take out my frustration at being a mom without my baby.  But I promised you a story so let's start at the beginning....
I am 36 years old, my husband of 2 years is 34.  We have been together for a long time and he decided 3 years ago to make an honest woman out of me.  John is my best friend, he has been for almost 12 years now.  We share everything and can hide nothing from each other.  We are very much in love still and when we found out on January 14, 2011 that we were going to be parent's after only trying for a couple of months to conceive we were elated.  My pregnancy was okay as far as they go, until the last 4 weeks or so.  I had a very active baby girl in there and she was always on the move.  She loved to listen to me talk and when I did start talking she would move up in my belly just to be closer to my voice.  She would literally dance when a good song came on the radio, she had a knack for kicking or punching the beat out, my doctor thought this was me being CRAZY until she actually felt it for herself on a regular OB visit in the summer. 
Basically I went through the hottest part of the year here in Michigan with a huge baby inside of me, was I miserable, yes but only when I wasn't in air conditioning which thank god I have at home, at work and in the car.  Noel was a big baby, I'm not a small girl so it seemed to balance out that I would naturally have a larger baby, THEN we found out I had gestational diabetes, as you can imagine I was petrified.  However, I was able to manage my blood sugar to near perfection about 3 weeks after I found out that I had a sugar problem, and this didn't overly effect my daughters size or health.  About 4 weeks before my due date my doctor decided that I needed to be at home and on marginal bedrest due to a slight increase in my blood pressure. 
My doctor decided on Sept 16, 2011 to induce me, she set me up for the following Wednesday at the hospital for the induction to begin at 9pm, WE didn't make it to that appointment.  I woke up that Wednesday morning and felt a gush of fluid, my mucus plug had disentegrated sometime during the night, I THOUGHT it was my water breaking.  As you can imagine, my husband and I were in a serious state of excitement as we threw the bags and the new car seat into the car and drove up to the hospital. 
When we arrived at the hospital and went through the registration process we still had no idea that anything could possibly be wrong, we were just to happy and full of hope to even THINK something was wrong.  As I stated before I had an active big baby in there just waiting to be born.  The nurse showed me to the triage room and advised me to get undressed and put on the hospital gown.  I did, then she came back and started to hook me up to the monitors.  Now we were really getting somewhere.  If you do not want to read what happened next please stop reading now, this is where the story gets very sad. 
The nurse attempted to hook the monitor up to find the fetal heartbeat.  She couldn't seem to locate it.  She went for another nurse and then finally a resident.  NO one could find my sweet babies heartbeat.  They brought in an ultrasound and the picture and the information turned out to be the worst news my husband and I will ever receive.  Noel had died.  John realized the awlful truth about a minute before it registered in my brain.  HOW could a baby that the previous night had been kicking and ALIVE all of a sudden be dead?  HOW could this happen?  The one and ONLY outcome we were not prepared for, had NEVER even discussed had happened.  Our daughter died only about 24 hours before she was to be born.  John and I never thought for a second that the active, moving, thumping, baby in my belly could die before she even had a chance to live.  This is now our living nightmare, our reality, and our heart break and pain. 
The hand we were dealt by the powers that be was not one we would of gambled on.  While some say God has a plan, that she is with God, that she is happy and not in pain, that she doesn't have to deal with the bullshift life throws at you daily.  You know what I say to that?  She was MINE, I don't care what plan there is or that she is with the almighty, or that she will never experience pain and heart ache.  I want her here with me, she was my life, we gave her life because we wanted her, we wanted to share all we have with her and raise her to be a wonderful, vibrant child.  I don't care that some PLAN took her from me...Then I sit back and realize that maybe I'm a selfish person, that she is better off, but then I get made and angry again and I want to scream. 
Our daughter was taken from us by a cord accident, her umbilical cord was tied into a knot, a TRUE KNOT is a rare occurance in a normal and healthy pregnancy.  The doctors and nurses told us that once a knot is tightened and blood and oxygen are cut off from the baby, they have 6 minutes that they live.  Even if we had been at the hospital the result would of been the same, they wouldn't have been able to save our daughter. 
Well we now knew what we were up against, I wanted to do a vaginal delivery, because I wouldn't have to wait forever to get pregnant again, that after a couple of months we could do it all over again.  Of course that is NOT how it went, after almost 24 hours of waiting for my cervix to fully dialate, nearly 2 hours of hard labor and pushing, I ended up having to have a c-section.  What is worse is even after I was opened up, Noel's head was so wedged in my pelvis that she would NEVER have been able to be born vaginally.  My doctor had to her head back through the birth canal to get her out of the incision.  NO one would ever guess (because of my size) that I would of had this kind of experience giving birth but I did, and worst of all I don't have my baby to show for all the pain I had to go through to have her. 
My husband and I are very optimistic people by nature, neither of us dwell in the past much, we don't necessarily over plan our future, we live in the here and now.  I am never going to tell you that John and I are healed.  I don't think we will ever truly heal from this.  However, I can tell you that we have moved into a better place with each other, we talk about our feelings we talk about the emptiness we both feel.  But we also talk about the future, that we are going to try again for a baby in a couple short months.  That we have every intention of trying it again and hoping for a different outcome.  No other baby will take Noel's place, she is/was our first child, our other children will know about her.  I will make sure of it.  I have to try again, I have a deep need to be a Mom, to have a child of my own.  I know that life doesn't always turn out how you envision it, believe me I do know.  But when I do find myself going to a place that is dark inside my head I can somehow someway pull myself back and re-evaluate the thoughts and NOT go there, never, you can't you have to pick up your head, you have to go on.