How I'll Think About Christmas This Year

(Topic: Grief, Religion, Christmas, Pregnancy)

Hi Friends,

Christmas, and particularly the figure of Mary, can be a bit complicated to come to terms with after experiencing infant loss. I've written about this before, exploring how the themes of pregnancy and happy arrival can be very difficult for a loss parent. I've felt sad, during the Christmas season, and I've felt bitter, and I've felt jealous. I struggle with this, since the overwhelming cultural push is to be Merry TM. So it's difficult when you don't fit that mold, and feel doubly bad - first, just the feelings you're feeling, and second, guilt that you aren't happy like you "should be".

This year, though, while talking to a pastor yet again to see if I could figure out a way through the season with less emphasis on jealousy and bitterness, I had an idea, a thought, about Mary and her relationship to Jesus, that just might help.

You see, although Judaism as a religion does not seem to really mark birthdays, and ancient Judaism probably not either, it occurred to me that, as a Christian, we are marking  Jesus' birthday in the holiday of Christmas. And it occurred to me that Jesus is not actually born every year - we are remembering the birthday of one who, long ago, lived then died (then lived again, then went away to heaven). He is gone from Mary's presence and ultimately ours, and we hope, someday, after death to be reunited.
How is that different from me marking Charlie's birthday every year??
It occurred to me that in some ways, it's not. Obviously, Jesus is more widely admired and remembered than Charlie, but when it comes to the feelings I go through, it's viscerally the same: We miss them, we remember them, and we hope (in Christian Hope) to be reunited someday, after our earthly days, at the heavenly river.

I don't actually know if this mindset will help me not feel jealous and bitter this year, but it felt like such a lightning bolt of inspiration and hope, and felt so right, that I have the feeling it might be just the perspective shift I needed.

May this holiday season fall peacefully upon you, regardless of which religion you follow and which traditions feel heavy. May peace rest in your soul.

With love,

Yours,

Sarah

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Father's Day Is Hard For Us

(Topic: Grief, dealing with grief, triggers, pictures, loss, stillbirth, pregnancy and infant loss)

Hi Friends,

Charlie was born on Father's Day.

This weekend is so, so hard for us, every year.

It's odd, how my mind works. It doesn't know what date Thursday was that year, or Friday, or Saturday - I only remember the date of Sunday because it was his birthday. But I remember what happened by the day of the week.

That makes Father's Day weekend hard, harder than his birthday date, actually. Because I remember (can't help remembering, which is akin to a PTSD type reaction) based on the time of day and day of the week.

This year, I'm distracting myself to get through it. We're still honoring Charlie with a birthday party, but overall, I'm focusing on other things (and you know, I have plenty of logistical stuff to focus on...).

But I'm triggered by so many things. Even last week, basically anytime in June, I'm much more sensitive. The year Charlie was buried, there were little blue dragonflies in the cemetery constantly. Last weekend I saw teal ones with black wings. Nothing alike, except the vibrancy of the color, and that they were dragonflies. But I cried. I'm on edge constantly, never knowing what thing might remind me.

This weekend is the worst, though.

Thursday was the night Charlie was still fine. The baby was still moving on Thursday, I'm fairly sure. We played a boardgame that night, and I felt him wiggling and shifting. I'd been having braxton hicks all week, so I knew baby was getting ready.

He must have turned to get into position that night, and turned the wrong way and gotten tighter tangled.

Friday something was off. He was sideways for a bit, and I wasn't believed about that, except by my hubby. Baby had been so consistently head down, so I couldn't possibly be right, right?

Saturday was the horrible day. The silent ultrasound. The hospital. All the medical side of it.

Sunday he was born, Sunday we held him.



It's so hard, being thrust into those memories by anything and everything. By noting the day of the week, noting the time of day, just being - just knowing, at this time, this happened.

I don't want to viscerally remember. I want the bad memories to be more distant.



I love Charlie so much. And there was such mixed emotion on his birthday. Seeing his little nose, laughing at his giant hands and feet, after I'd given my best friend such a hard time about her baby's big feet. So many things I remember and never want to forget, but there are so many things I wish I at least had more distance from. So much emotional pain, wracking sorrow.

So, this weekend is hard. This year, I'm leaning toward distractions, and have asked friends to help me find funny or silly or interesting videos to watch (but avoiding trigger issues), so I can laugh, and focus on something besides the deep ache inside me.


This is my baby. I love him, and I miss him so much.

Our family, complete.

My favorite picture from that day. Daddy, holding Charlie.

Yours,

Sarah

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Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

How many months?

(Topic: Age of deceased child, thoughts)

Hi Friends,

Charlie recently "turned" 2-1/2. He "wouldbe/is" a toddler to me, but what struck me that day was that I didn't notice the day until it was nearly over (December 19th, the "half-birthday").

Early on, I noticed when the 19th came along, every month. I even noticed the number 19, anytime it came up.

Lately I've been noticing them less and less, and I hadn't noticed that I wasn't noticing.
I felt so guilty, like I'd been forgetting Charlie himself (not true).

My therapist says it's normal to find normal life taking up more time, and it's normal to feel guilty (even when we didn't do anything wrong, and certainly haven't forgotten them).

But what helped most was what my husband said: Other parents, with living children, stop counting their child's age in months by about age 2. We're past that, and we're also not counting in months anymore - we're just being normal parents.

I love my husband so much.


Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Fun themed birthday party

(Topic: Birthday party themes, reclaiming self)

Hi Friends!

Recently it was my birthday. This being a Saturday post, I don't want to delve too deeply into the life-after-loss side of things, but I will briefly mention that choosing themes for my party, based on MY interests, is something I've decided to do post-loss, as a way to help me recognize my own interests, beyond the thought of "I should be mothering a two-year-old right now". So I have fun parties, just to explore other sides of myself!!! My birthday happens during Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (October) too, so I make an effort to separate my celebration from that theme.

I'm sharing these pictures mostly because I had so much fun putting together the theme!

I bought myself flowers to lighten up the place! My subconscious intervened, though, because I ended up with the infant loss colors...

Pookie wearing a birthday shirt to help celebrate!!!

I took myself out for my favorite treat for lunch (virgin strawberry daiquiri) because my birthday was on a weekday.

For my party, I chose an interest of mine - last year it was construction themed, this year I chose trains!

One of my ideas was to play a train game, too, but only if there was a chunk of time without toddlers..... there never ended up being that chunk of time!!!

Favors

New picture I bought when we visited Altoona (post on that will be coming in January...)

One of my sisters even themed her present!!! I also ended up getting another game that has trains as the theme :)

Each origami thing or other item represented an option for a day together doing something. We ended up biking a towpath trail and taking a train! Very fitting :)

Yours,

Sarah

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Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Charlie's Birthday

(Topic: Grief, Birthday, Anniversaries. Picture-heavy post)

Dear Friends,


Tuesday was my son Charlie's birthday, and if he hadn't died, he would now be 2. Sometimes I tell people that it's the "anniversary of his birthday", or that it "would be his birthday", so they don't expect him to be alive, but for me, it IS his birthday.

We decided to celebrate fairly quietly, but I DID want to celebrate... acknowledging Charlie is extremely important to us.

The day before, I went to buy the last of the decorations, and then on Tuesday our plan was to visit the cemetery in the afternoon, and have a dessert picnic with family and friends in the evening.

Pookie helping bring home the birthday balloons.

Peek-a-Pook!

Pookie was pretty much my constant companion this week. The comfort of holding him really helped, but I was still very tense the whole Father's Day weekend and leading into Charlie's birthday itself. While this year it fell on Tuesday, 2 days after Father's Day, the year Charlie was born they were the same day. So in my mind, the days leading into Father's Day are when I remember Charlie's birth more than the days leading into the actual birthday. I think that's because Father's Day stays on Sunday, so my brain remembers Friday, Saturday, Sunday, rather than 17th, 18th, 19th. On the Friday, I remember how things felt "off". On Saturday, I remember the moment I was told that there was no heartbeat, and how it felt like all the air was ripped away from me and my world was tearing in two. On Sunday it's better: I remember holding Charlie after he was born, and the tender moments we had with him, though I also remember the nurse's turquoise eyes, matching her scrubs, as she cried too while taking Charlie away from us for the funeral home to pick up. For me, Father's Day weekend and the days after leading into Charlie's birthday is probably the hardest week of the year.

To help remember Charlie himself and not just the terror and pain and heartbreak, it is important to me to memorialize Charlie. For me, this includes having family around us, and remembering it as a birthday and not just a death-day, including having birthday decorations and birthday cake.

Hubby took the day off work, and we had a leisurely morning, spending time with each other and not rushing. We decided to eat lunch out, and then drove to the cemetery, which is unfortunately about a 45 minute drive from home.  It's a lovely historic cemetery with many former mayors and other big families from the town I grew up in, and the front half of the cemetery has many graves from the 1800s. Charlie is further back in the cemetery, actually in a section with many people I grew up with in my church, scouts, and community. I feel like Charlie is with friends and family. He is also close to the river that flows along the back of the cemetery, which is lovely.

Me decorating. There is a sash that says "It's My Birthday", and pinwheels, and I'm hanging up some ribbon that says "Happy Birthday". You can see Pookie sitting on the blanket with the presents, and the cooler has flowers.

The decorations from our perspective on the blanket. When I bought the sash, the sales lady asked, "there's a birthday coming up?" I just said, "yes."

After I finished all the decorating, including some roses. The rest of the flowers were for later.

The flowers for later.

This was Pookie's outfit :) He's sort of Charlie's avatar, so despite the fact that we didn't get Pookie till months later, we consider this to be Pookie's birthday too.

The next thing we did once we got the decorations up, was to settle down on our picnic blanket and start opening some presents. We get Charlie one (though it ended up being two...), and we also had a package from my aunt and a package from my best friend. While the presents usually in effect are for us, or for Pookie, they represent Charlie and that is the point.

No name yet, this is Charlie's brand new tiger! From Etsy, and I was super lucky that when I contacted the owner of that store, she only had 2 tigers left, so I snatched it up. She then personalized it for us. There's a message embroidered underneath, too, that says, "In our hearts forever. Love, Mommy and Daddy".

A beautiful art print from my best friend. She understands how Charlie will always be a part of our life. I cried....

A lovely tiger's eye necklace made by my aunt! She remembered that tigers are our symbol for Charlie.

A new pendant for Charlie's beaded name banner, from my sister.

Here's a picture from after I put the new "feather" on.

Here's a picture Hubby took of me, as we hung out with Charlie.

A visitor. The year we buried Charlie we saw many little blue dragonflies, so the dragonfly is a secondary symbol of Charlie, for us. This guy was a little bigger, but it still reminded us of Charlie and made us smile.

Pookie hanging out with us, after unpacking gifts.

Pookie and the new tiger getting to know each other.

The flowers were for an idea I had. Many people like to do a "release" in memory of a deceased loved one. While I like the idea, a balloon release is terrible for the environment, and butterfly releases are not cheap. But, with the river so close by, I thought of getting some relatively cheap bouquets of flowers, and we broke off the blooms and tossed them in the water, and watched them drift downstream. It was lovely, and I'm happy with how it went.

See the little blooms drifting?

The flowers drifting downstream. We weren't sure if they would get caught along the bank, but most of them did manage to get to the current.

Packing up. We had to be careful with timing, to fit in dinner and be on time to the park where we were planning a birthday picnic.

Pookie helping pack up! He's guarding all the presents in the basket.

Having the lunch and then the dinner on our own, which was not specifically planned, actually was really helpful, and allowed some of the tension to ease. Tension that only I was feeling: I desperately want everything to go smoothly for Charlie's birthday. To have a moment with hubby to just eat and talk and relax was very nice.

We then went to the local park, and expected a few family members and a friend or two.

Pookie claiming a table.

He decided to hold the balloon for us.

Our cake. Almost forgot to get a picture!

This cake is extremely important to me. I bought one just like it (without the writing) when I was full term, and put it in the freezer with the plan to get it out when I went into labor, so that when we had a baby, the birthday cake would be ready. Since that never happened, we served the cake at the funeral reception. Last year, though, I got this cake again, with the message on it, and this year my mom helped me get it again.

Birthday table!

Everyone seemed to have a good time talking. I think every family finds their own way to honor their babies, and for us, a birthday picnic worked well both last year and this year.

Pookie after we got home. I was super tired by this point - emotion, mostly.

I also want to share 2 pictures of a memorial garden from where I once worked. A person from there shared these pictures with me, and remembered that tigers were our thing: the little tiger hung out at the memorial garden for Charlie's whole birthday:

The other new tiger we got :)

Thank you for everyone who emailed us, messaged us on Facebook or texted us, replied to one of our Facebook or Instagram posts about Charlie's birthday, or liked one of those posts. With a few repeats, I think about 70 people let us know that they were thinking of Charlie. And as a mommy, I feel my job is to make sure Charlie isn't lost to time... so just letting us know you remember him means so much to us. THANK YOU.

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss