A Not-So-Triumphant Return

First of all, thank you to those of you who have still been religiously checking the blog, and who have reached out to make sure we're ok.  We are ok, I promise.  But life with a baby has made for some really busy days, and long, sleepless nights.  And anything that isn't absolutely necessary (i.e. showering, vacuuming my carpet, walking the dog) has gone by the wayside, and unfortunately, that includes the blog.  We started a photo stream on my iPhone for family and friends to share photos of Cami as she grows, so that's temporarily taken the place of any other form of social media (which reminds me, if you know me in real life and haven't been invited to view the photo stream, shoot me an email and I'll make sure to include you).  Anyway, all this to say, I apologize for my absence on here.

Being busy isn't the only culprit for my lack of blog posts.  Having no free time is a huge hurdle, as anyone who has ever had a newborn knows.  But I'm also stuck in this weird place of trying to reconcile what it's like to parent this beautiful, healthy, and happy baby, while also trying to keep the memory of Virginia alive.  And some days, I feel like my attempts at reminding everyone that I have another daughter are futile.  The holidays were particularly difficult.  We told all our family and friends that we wanted to have a quiet holiday here in California, just the 3 of us.  And the truth is, my hope in doing that was to seclude myself from anyone else's expectations of me this holiday season.  It's so wonderful that we were able to celebrate Cami's first Christmas, and we had a fun time participating in all the holiday traditions (going to get a tree, cooking a nice Christmas Eve dinner, etc).  I don't want anything to take away from how grateful we were to have a live child to celebrate Christmas with this year.  But the holidays were, and will always be, a sad reminder of the fact that our family will forever be incomplete.  Anytime occasion that allows the family to spend time together will always have a sad undertone for us.  I anticipate that will become easier to deal with as the years pass.  But this year was hard.  I bounced between overwhelming feelings of happiness for this wonderful blessing we have in our lives, and complete and utter sadness because I know now how amazing it is to parent a living child; I know now what I was missing before.  My heart still aches to experience all of that with Virginia.  I don't know how to accept that I never will.

So much of the focus lately is on Cami.  She is such a wanted, prayed for, and amazing little person.  She has so much personality and is a perfect mix of her father and I.  But she is not her sister, and she can't replace her sister.  And every month when the 13th passes with fewer and fewer acknowledgements of Virginia's short life, I go through brief periods of depression.  I don't know what to do with that.  It's not anyone's fault, I realize it's both easier, simpler, and less awkward to focus on the baby that's here.  But it's not that simple for me.  So I've stayed away from the blog because my emotions have been so up and down lately, and I have wanted to avoid dealing with anyone else's expectations or judgement.  Truth be told, I am still sad.  Every single day I miss her.  The empty hole in my heart is still very much present.  One of my loss mom girlfriends said it best when she said that Cami's presence makes Virginia's absence that much more difficult.  

What I've realized lately is that I'm not doing a great job at keeping all this bottled up.  My avoidance of blogging for the purpose of not dealing with other's expectations is not serving me.  So I hope you all don't mind if I continue using this blog as an outlet for my grief.  I need an outlet, possibly now more than ever.  I need a means for expressing the complexities of parenting after a loss.  I need a medium for keeping Virginia's memory alive.  I need my little quiet, peaceful corner of the internet where I can continue to remember my first child without any judgement.  

Thank you all for allowing me that.  And in return, here are a few pictures of Cami with Virginia's sock monkey that I've taken every month on the 13th.  :)

 11/13 Cami 1 month old, 15 months since Virginia's birthday

12/13 Cami 2 months old, 16 months since Virginia's birthday

 1/13 Cami 3 months old, 17 months since Virginia's birthday

October 15th: Wave of Light

Tonight at 7:00pm, in honor of National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day, we lit a candle in honor of Virginia and all the other babies that were lost too soon.

What a year it's been since last October 15th.  We've come so far in our healing.  When we look into Cambria's eyes, I can't help but feel that all our loss, our heartache, our struggles have brought us exactly where we need to be.  Watching our sweet little one sleep and smile and breathe and move (and even cry), it's hard to think about anything except that this precious little soul was meant for us.  So while today is very much about honoring Virginia, there's also an element of celebration that our family wouldn't be where it is if not for Virginia's presence, and absence.  And where we are is a pretty great place.  

Tomorrow

As I sit here this morning, quietly sipping on my Pumpkin Spice coffee, basking in the silence and chill of an early fall morning, I can't help but feel like today represents the last page in a chapter we've been waiting to close for what feels like eons.  I've devoted 18 of the last 24 months of my life to the waiting game that is pregnancy.  And the sacrifice has not been mine and mine alone.  Pat has been through just as much as I have, but with way less control.  He hasn't been able to feel this baby move, or get that constant comfort and reassurance that everything is ok.  If anything, this process has been even harder for him because he hasn't been able to develop the bond that I have.
Tomorrow, that all changes.

Tomorrow, that wait is finally over.  

Tomorrow, all the hope and optimism we've tried to desperately to cling to finally comes to fruition.  

Tomorrow, Virginia will be smiling down on us, and we will know that if it wasn't for her, we would never be where we are right now. 

Tomorrow, we will meet our rainbow.  

We are ready.  

October

As I rolled over in bed to check the clock at 5:00am before getting up to for potty break #3 of the night, I realized that today marks the beginning of October, a month that is doubly meaningful for me this year.  Of course you all know by now that Baby Dos, our Rainbow Baby, will be arriving this month (only 6 days from now, in fact).  But what you may not know is that October is also National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Month.  For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile, you might remember my posts for Carly Marie's Project Heal: Capture Your Grief 2012.  This photo blogging project, Capture Your Grief 2013, starts up again today.  I am going to try to participate and post a few pictures, but I won't be as actively involved as I was last year, for obvious reasons.

As we close in on the final days of this pregnancy, I have noticed a major slide back into many of the PTSD-related symptoms I had in the early days after losing Virginia.  The insomnia is back with a vengeance.  I've been waking up in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep, lying awake and starting to ruminate over the past, or worry about what the future may hold for our little family.  The hours of 3:00-5:00 are the darkest of the night for me.  The day we found out we lost Virginia, I had woken up at 3:00am to pee.  Once I climbed back into bed, I realized that I hadn't felt her kick or nudge since at least the day before.  I got up and laid on the couch, drank some juice and had a blueberry muffin.  Nothing.  Then I downed a couple glasses of ice water.  Still nothing.  I tried to fall asleep again, reassuring myself that everything was fine, and I'd be able to hear her heartbeat at our monitoring appointment that morning.  But of course, we all know how that ended.  So when I wake up in those early hours of the morning now, I immediately put my hands on my stomach and wait for movement.  Baby Dos is really good about sleeping when I sleep, and she typically doesn't get really active for the day until mid-morning.  So oftentimes, getting those nudges and rolls at 4:00am is not an easy task.  I'll poke and prod at my stomach, even drink water I keep on my nightstand.  But I refuse to get up.  I refuse to eat, to drink juice or ice water, to lay on the couch.  Because all of those things are triggers, and it's set in my mind that if I do those things, she's not going to move, and we're going to have the same devastating outcome.  So instead I lie awake in bed, changing positions every couple minutes until I finally feel a slight roll or punch.  And then I keep poking at her, just to make sure what I was feeling wasn't just a fluke.  Eventually she gets aggravated by being tormented, and will start moving consistently.  But even then, the insomnia doesn't just go away, because by that point, I've gotten myself so worked up and anxious that it would be next to impossible to fall back asleep again.  I talk to the baby silently in my head and thank her for giving Mommy some reassurance.   I beg her to just hang on for a few more days.  Please, sweetie, just stay alive until we can get you out.

I hate that the end of pregnancy has to be like this for me.  These last few days are getting harder and harder.  I just want to to be able to breathe again, to hold a live baby in my arms and know that she's ok.  I'm ready to stop living in fear.  I'm ready to meet my baby girl.

Six.more.days.

A Gift

Today has been a sad day.  I can't put my finger on exactly what the trigger was, but I knew as soon as I woke up this morning that I was going to struggle today.  As I was driving to my monitoring appointment this morning, I heard a song on the radio that threw me right into a slump.  A deep slump.  One that I've been fighting all day.  I cried through my entire appointment, despite Baby Dos kicking and moving all over the place.  I composed myself on my way to work, talked to a girlfriend on the phone, and thought I had it together, but as soon as I walked into my office and a coworker asked me how I was doing, I immediately bursted into tears.  Then, for the remainder of the day, anytime anyone asked me how I was or commented on my belly, I fought the tears (sometimes successfully, but mostly not so much).  Today was the kind of day where I shouldn't even have bothered putting makeup on.  It was all smudged by 9AM, and completely worn off by noon. 

I have trouble articulating exactly how I'm feeling lately.  I knew the last few weeks of pregnancy would be the most difficult for me, and I've spent several weeks trying to mentally brace for the anxiety of worrying about things going wrong at the very end again.  My therapist and I have been really focused on preventing and coping with the anxiety, and shifting my thinking toward planning for bringing this baby home.  In that arena, I feel like I'm doing pretty well. 

Grief, however, is a monster all its own.  For no reason I could put my finger on, the grief came to the forefront again today, for the first time in weeks.  I miss Virginia, so badly that my arms and chest physically hurt.  I feel that old familiar ache of heavy emptiness in my arms, and the pain of the giant empty void in my heart that no one else can fill.  As grateful as I am to have Baby Dos healthy and squirming in my belly, nothing quells the aching emptiness that her sister has left behind.  Then the guilt set in.  Guilt about not being more appreciative of the fact that I've been given this opportunity to have another baby.  Guilt about betraying Virginia or attempting to "replace" her.  Guilt about still being stuck in this grief, less than 2 weeks before what should be one of the happiest days of my life.  And of course, feeling guilty for still grieving so deeply sent me further into my downward spiral. 

So I decided to text a couple of my loss girlfriends, desperate for a kind of support and understanding that only they can offer.  They both had very encouraging words to pass along.  But one thing that stuck with me is what my friend Lisa said, that it helps her to think of the son she just had as a gift from the baby boy she lost.  I love that sentiment, because it doesn't take away from the grief I still feel so strongly, 13 months later.  And it doesn't mean that Baby Dos will in any way replace Virginia.  It means that Virginia still plays an important role in our lives.  She is still watching out for us every day, knowing that we miss her deeply, but also giving us the greatest gift she possibly could--the hope of a sibling to raise and love.  Suddenly, the emotions of today don't seem quite as heavy.  The grief is still there (it always will be), but now I can see a little more clearly through the grief to the gift on the other side.  Sweet Virginia is still very much here with us. 

Comparisons

I've had several people ask me over the last few months how this pregnancy compares to my last one.  To be honest, the pregnancies have been quite similar in terms of my body's response.  I felt a little worse symptoms-wise at the beginning of this pregnancy, and some of the more obnoxious pregnancy symptoms have come on a little bit earlier this time around.  But physically, I'm gaining approximately the same amount of weight, and started showing right around the same time.  If I had to guess, I'd probably say I'm carrying the same as well.  So I decided to open up my file of belly shots from my last pregnancy, and pull out a few to compare.

Here's 33ish weeks with Virginia:

 And 33 weeks with Baby Dos:

I don't see much of a difference, aside from looking a little rounder in my current pregnancy, but that could be because of the different angles.

In other news, we had a growth scan of our sweet little Baby Dos a couple weeks ago, to check on her size and look at the blood flow in the umbilical cord.  Everything came back perfectly, and we even got a shot of her sweet little face.  I immediately pulled out a picture of Virginia, to compare the two side-by-side.  They definitely have the same chubby little cheeks and button nose.

I sent the picture to my mom that night, and she commented that I have such beautiful little girls.  And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.
I have girls.
I have two daughters.
I am a mother of two children.
We are a family of four.

I hadn't thought about it in that way before.  I guess because it still doesn't feel real to me.  Even as I approach the end of this long journey of becoming a mom to a take-home baby, I can't fathom what it will be like to bring this baby home and care for her and watch her grow.  I still see myself only as a mom to a baby that didn't make it.  And try as I may, I don't know how imagine what my role will look like when I can bring a baby home to nurture and take care of.  Of course I'm already a mom, but that title will take on a whole new meaning in only about a month (33 days, in case anyone's interested, but who's counting??).

I bring this all up because I find myself making lots of comparisons these days.
Comparisons between pregnancies.
Comparisons between babies.
Comparisons between my role as a mommy to an angel and mommy to a living child.
Comparisons between the life I live now, and the life I imagine I'd be living if Virginia was here.
All of these comparisons are a blessing and a curse.  I feel like my experience with losing Virginia has prepared me to become the best mother I can be, and for that, I'm very grateful.  But I miss my life before, the life that didn't have a dividing line drawn in the sand between the person I was before and the person I am now.  Randi before the devastation and Randi after.  I often drift off and daydream, wondering how different life would be if Virginia was here.  Or how much happier and more excited I might be about this pregnancy if this was my first go-'round, and I never had to experience the nightmare that was my life one year ago.  I can't seem to find any middle ground lately.  I'm either stuck in still grieving over Virginia while forgetting (or maybe even being in denial) that I'm pregnant with her little sister, or completely engulfed in all of the "new mommy" stuff.  I struggle to figure out where I "belong" in my role as a mom.  I'm certainly not new to the pregnancy experience, so in that sense, I'm not a first-time mom.  But I also have no idea what it takes to care for a newborn, so in that way, I feel very inexperienced.

I don't know how to fuse these two different parts of myself.  How do the grief and excitement coexist?  How can they both be integrated into a situation that's fraught with contradictions?  I guess this is all part of the journey.  Life seems to be adamant about teaching me many lessons I didn't ever know I wanted to learn, one of them being that there are sometimes no easy answers to these kinds of questions.

So even though this journey through pregnancy is quickly coming to an end, I'm still constantly reminding myself to stay in the moment and continue to take things day by day.  And to breathe.  To relax.  To have hope.  To continue to allow myself to feel whatever I'm feeling.  And to remember that it's ok to not always have all the answers.