Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Now They Are Both Curious

I don't know how it came up but now they are both curious. Alison must have said something to Adam. The other night she asked me again the name of the baby who died, and Adam asked what baby? Without going through the gory details I told them as calmly as I could the baby's heart didn't work and he died in my tummy. I feel I am usually good with words and I have been preparing and planning for this for years and now that it's here, I am just at a loss. Again.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

A Passing Nightmare

I am home now almost 24 hours after a passing nightmare. Adam has been sick since October 13 and while the initial ailment resolved fairly quickly, a secondary one set in. We went from "check in in the morning if he is still running a fever" to "I have to send you to the ER at the hospital."

Losing Solomon was the hardest thing I ever had to go through. But lying in the hospital chair-bed, next to Adam's silently dripping IV, I realized it could not have been. Solomon's loss was losing a dream, but the reality that I was here with a sick kid was a living nightmare. The panic took root in my bones, and while we are out of the woods now, my body has not relaxed.

Luckily, whatever was ailing Adam has seemed to pass. He has been fever-free for 72 hours. He is so drugged up for a broad range of possible illness that I know all the bad germs are almost gone. He is eating his restricted diet and will return to school Monday [god willing] on restricted activities.

But he is fine, and he is home.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Questions

I woke up last Saturday morning with an inkling that this might be the day, the day when Alison or Adam has questions. I mentioned this to Eric who replied, "You say that every year." And that is true. But this year I was right.

Alison accompanied me on this years Walk To Remember - chosing this activity over watching her brother play soccer, or should I say run around the soccer field with a group of 5 year old boys with a soccer ball in the midst.

The walk was proceding and it was a good half hour before Ali said anything. She asked if we could see our page. I knew she meant the scrapbook page I had done for Solomon, so we walked over to it and I showed her. Then she asked if we could see our quilt square. So I walked her over to where the quilt was displayed and showed her. Her first reaction was to ask, "Who was born on March 8?" I told her, "the baby." She asked, naturally, "What baby?" and I told her, "the baby who died in my tummy before you were born." She seemed to take my remarks in and felt satisfied. Until...

Until my friend's daughter asked her, "Was the baby who died a girl or a boy?" And Alison in her sweet voice replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about." So I told her the baby was a boy and his name was Solomon, Solomon was the baby who died in my tummy before you were born. Again she took in my remarks and seemed satisfied.

I have no idea what she thinks. She knows a photo of our family adorns a book cover but I don't think she understands why or what the book is about.

I wonder if I handled her questions ok, and appreciate that she didn't ask more than I was willing to answer. For my children, life's questions will forever go beyond "where do babies come from?"

Friday, September 05, 2008

School Year

I just got off the telephone with Patty, Patty who understands.

I am missing my children something awful.

When pregnant with Alison, I didn't believe I was having a baby. I felt if I ever got to give birth, it would be to nothingness. When I was pregnant with Adam, I swore until the moment of delivery I would have another daughter, a sister for Alison, named Julia Elizabeth. When my doctor pronounced, "It's A Boy," all I could think was "how could my daughter have a penis?" Perhaps it was the drugs from the c-section, but the thought rolled around in my head for weeks afterwards.

I find myself calm at this moment, after being in tears just a short while ago. I felt weepy for Solomon on the first day of school - he would have been a third-grader like so many of my friends' kids. But now, with both Alison and Adam in school, I feel a different kind of loss, one that is much harder to describe to someone who isn't like me. So I called who I knew would help.

And she did.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The Day Before

I remember this day, August 13, 2001, quite clearly. Actually, the evening.

I had a routine OB appointment. I was humongous, strapped to the monitor. I looked like a whale. Eric took a photo for posterity. We had just received our first digital camera and this was the test shot.

Dr. E. proceeded to tell me everything was fine. Yes, everything pregnancy-wise was. But I was a nervous wreck. I had spent the prior 37 weeks and 6 days alternating between fear of never having a living child and denial that I was even pregnant.

I asked Dr. E. about an early delivery. The thought of two more weeks felt like two more years. He uttered magic words, "if you wake up tomorrow and you feel the baby is moving less, call the office and we will get you delivered."

That's all it took. And my journey of grief was ending.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/ny-stillbirth-bill




Please sign the petition - we are working frantically to get the Certificate of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth Law passed in NYS.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Today

Solomon, I miss you today. Not that I don't miss you everyday, I do. Just today is your big brother Alex's bar mitzvah and I wish you were here with us to celebrate. He wanted to meet you so much and was so brave.

Monday, March 10, 2008

8

I did not think last week would ever end. Tuesday started with what would have been my grandmother's 90th birthday. I had been mentally planning her party since her 89th birthday.

Saturday was 8 years. 8 years. I cannot believe it. And I had to get through the day without my grandmother. Eric sent Adam over to me to tell me Solomon loves me. Hearing his name come out of Adam's mouth was shocking, but brought me to a moments reality during a very cloudy morning.

I was cold all day and tried to avoid writing the date. Stupid me had to write 3 checks and in the moment I wrote it 3/8/08 but wouldn't record it in the checkbook.

I feel guilty that I did not look at Solomon's photos, something I always do on his anniversary. Instead, I Eric and I shopped, had lunch and promptly fell asleep from our big meal. By nighttime, I'd curled up with a book, Bed Rest, which was pleasant enough. But I stayed up only until it was a respectable hour to go to sleep.

When I woke on Sunday, I felt lighter because I had survived Solomon's day, again, without him.