The Baby

I haven't posted about my pregnancy for many reasons, the first being that I have really horrible luck with pregnancy in general and lot of things going on in my life- I hate prayer request time because I don't want to keep blowing everyone out of the water. The second is that pregnancy doesn't mean everything is ok now, and I wanted to share with you here about my son.

But I do have to tell you that there are so many aspects of pregnancy that are harder after losing a child. The first is a horrible fear, how can I ignore a stillbirth or any other type of loss when I have had m/cs and lost a healthy baby? After one contraversial post, the bad dreams intensified. I dreamt there was a bull that had been banished from the area, but had returned. He was tracking me, and as I ran a little voice said he will kill your child and CPR will not help. I had a kind person give me a ride- the scenary was very much like West Texas and Eastern New Mexico with cattleguards, desolate landscapes, and skinny cattle nestled in the russian thistle and mesquite. The person let me hide for shelter in a trailer, but none of the windows had coverings and I was forced to hide in a tiny closet with a green plastic handle. I could hear the bull and eventually I tried to flee, but he gored me. He was killed, but the damage was done. A Dr was there. I was placed on the table to operate and get the baby out. CPR was performed (tiny BVM mask and all the procedures followed to a T) and the boy child was small and still, cold in my arms.

In many of my pregnancies I get a feeling that it just wouldn't make it. With Emily and Perry there was residual fear, but not so clear of a feeling. So for a while this dream has sort of held me captive. I look at the dream and I can see it two ways- a clearinghouse where my brain associated a comment made by a relative as killing my son emotionally again (perhaps the bull being masculine represented the writter who set me far back). Or the other that this was the not all is well feeling again. So I have not had a good peace about this pregnancy and sadly won't now.

Anyway, I'll try to write a bit more about this experience as we go, but no guarantees. I am trying very badly to pretend normal with this pregnacy.

Battle Scars

You read it on baby center: how almost every woman on earth hates her stretch marks and is trying to eradicate them. I tend to think of the scars similar to marks on the lifeline of my palm.

And in a way this textured roadmap of my childbearing years is more interesting than an airbrushed picture anyway. I'm over that vanity. Vanity will always fail you anyway because nothing can always remain unblemished. I have only to look at the small wrinkles and increasingly grey hair in my mirror to realize that. It's not fair that I have aged 10 years in one, but this is reality.

I don't hate my scars, and in part, as I have written before, it is one of those reminders of Perry that will not be erased. The proof of his genesis and Emily's- two things I can never hate.

At the same time, I think it is also because it is sort of how I feel inside. Battled, perhaps ugly looking, but made primarily from love. Even if the scars are jagged, they would not be there if I did not care. The root of pain from loss is complicated, tethered to deep true emotions.

This body has done much better than I ever hoped, even with other losses mingled in. It continues to bless me everyday- and even without the aspect of pregnancy, my body lets me hold those I love. It lets me smile and cry. Dance and bend over with pain. Both, I now realize, very much a part of human life fully lived. The only people in life that will not have large losses at some point are those that held people far from them. Safe, but full of voids.

Pictures without Perry

We face a dilema many people do not.

What to do with an incomplete family picture. For formal ones you can set a picture in the back, those who know understand, those who do not understand will not see it. A smiling baby boy- perhaps the one where he is jay bird naked and just photoshop the front part for a nice photo.

But the ones that kill me are the going to Walt Disney, family event type ones. I can stand the pictures of just Emily (wouldn't she have had some of just her anyway?), but the ones with Chris and I a swell feel false. This is not my family as many who see it assume. There is more to it than this. I hate any photo of us in it without Perry. With a blind shredding sort of hatred at times, with a knock you down crushing loss in other moments. Neither makes me want to buy it or put it up.

Not sure what to do really. I almost bought a large locket with a clear front for Emily, now I wish I had... some way to keep him in our photos. He is always there anyway, just in our thoughts now. I want something so we can post these pictures without regret. A way to show today without feeling like we are somehow removing him as time goes on.

We have this timeframe where there is almost a blank book, a lack of photos. We need it to come to an end, as this time flies too quickly (I realized this as I came to recognize that we may be picking Emily up from daycare for the last time in a few weeks). But we need to do it in a way we can remain true and with a complete lack of guilt. Joy in the present shouldn't have to be tinged with sadness, but yet I recognize it is unrealistic to pretend and not address it.