On October 5th, 2013, my family and I were working on the Herculean task of packing up and removing Ryan's things from our house. After a physically and emotionally exhausting day, we went to dinner and then returned to the house to pick up a few last things. Then, 10 days ahead of schedule, my water broke. For the second time in a year, I found myself in the midst of a life changing event while at that house. This time though, the result was much happier.
Sophie Elizabeth was born the next morning, at 5:23, and she is the new love of my life. I could go into a lot of detail about the labor and the emotions I went through, but a lot of that seems unnecessary to tell. There was pain, there was excitement and anticipation, and there was a person missing from the room. Like most mothers, I think I'll always remember every little detail. At the end, the doctor and nurses put Sophie up on my chest, and these beautiful blue eyes looked up at me, and I don't even have words for that feeling. It's not what people said it would be, partly because I'd wager they didn't have the proper words for it either. It also, thankfully, wasn't what I feared it would be in my last post. It was something all its own, something I will probably never feel again.
It was tough in the labor and delivery room without Ryan, but most of the time I was able to focus on getting Sophie here. My sister and Mom held my hands, they calmed me through contractions and coached me through pushes. I felt waves of sadness, but they came and went. I was mostly excited, full of anticipation. In the first couple of days after she was born, I was the most purely happy I'd been since the day before Ryan died. Not completely happy - there was, and is, still such a hole in my heart and in my life. And I knew, right away, that despite how happy I felt looking at her and holding her, that I should be even happier. If Ryan were alive, and we'd just gone through all of those weeks of pregnancy and the hours of labor together, and then held each others' hands while holding our new baby together, the joy I would have felt would have been pure and unadulterated. Thinking of what that might have felt like infuriates me. I feel like I had a right to that perfect day, and it was taken from me, just like everything else. But, at least for a while, I could hold off those thoughts and focus on the happiness that I was able to feel. Joy was an emotion I didn't remember anymore. All of these months of waiting for her, living for the abstract notion of her, she's arrived- a perfect, fully formed human, created from a tiny little cell from me and a tiny little cell from Ryan.
It's completely incomprehensible for me to think of that - Ryan and I made her, and Ryan isn't here to know her. In a way they feel like two completely distinct and separate parts of my life, with very little in common. There is nothing about my current lifestyle that has any semblance to my old lifestyle, the life I live with Ryan. There's no overlap or shared experiences. Of course though, without him, there would be no her. Since she's been here, I've felt a little like Ryan is even farther away from me. Everybody says how your life changes when you have a baby. Some people have even told me that I wouldn't remember what my life was like before a baby. I can say that the day she was born, my world did change. I hope the second part isn't true though- I don't want to ever forget what my life was like before her, because those were some of the happiest times of my life. I'm desperately sad that they can't overlap. Why do I only get to have one? I want Ryan and Sophie at the same time. I had eight happy years with Ryan. Then, 8 months of misery. Now, I'll have many years with Sophie, hopefully happy years. It is cruel that fate made it so that I can't have them both at the same time. Most people say that the birth of their children is the happiest day of their lives. As joyful as I was that morning, I can't really say that. I have two happiest days - the day of her birth, which was happy, but marked with such sadness since Ryan wasn't there, and my wedding day, which was a perfect day but I have a hard time thinking about now without crying.
For the time being, I am able to mainly think about my life with her. I didn't want a new life, but she makes it worth living. She is the most beautiful little thing on the planet, born a petite 7 pounds, 0 ounces, and 19 inches long, and with a head full of dark hair. She has perfect little facial features and is full of adorable little expressions and gestures. I love her more than anything in this world. In a movie, this would be the ending, a happy resolution to a sad story. In reality, things don't tie up so neatly. My story, for better and worse, goes on, and it will often be very difficult. With Sophie here though, I can see a little more of what that future might look like.
Dear Kate, I read as much of your blog posts as I could without getting emotionally overwhelmed. I was the GM at the Borders in Cary, NC and in 2011, I lost my partner, Jeff, after 21 years together. Your grief, my grief, the grief of others who have lost a spouse, is always the same. I cannot imagine the experience of your grief, a grief you're still going through, while celebrating the birth of your daughter. My sister was widowed after just ten years of marriage (and her husband died the same way as Ryan). She told me in the days after Jeff died, that 'it doesn't get better, it just gets different'. Two and a half years later, I am starting to understand that. I will follow your journey through your blog and wish you continued healing.
ReplyDelete"When the grief comes, you monster through it." ~ Rachel McKibbens