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.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Monday, September 30, 2013
Baby Stuff - Fears of Postpartum
When I tell people my story, or tell people who know my story about how I'm feeling, or just in general when I express myself these days, I very often get some variation of the following comment:
"Once that baby comes, everything will be okay, and you'll have some peace".
This sentiment comes at a lot of different levels- some people are wishing it for me, and praying for it. Some people just fervently believe that having the baby will make me happier. And others still believe it so much that it seems as though they can't imagine that I would have trouble believing it myself.
The truth though is that the baby, beautiful little miracle that she is, won't solve anything. I know that she'll help, but having her is not the finish line - it's not some turning point after which everything will be better. In the very best case scenario, she'll bring me a kind of happiness I never knew before. This, I think, is what most people are expecting. But what she won't do is bring back the kind of happiness I had before, or heal the wounds of losing the love of my life. Those things are permanent, and there's no changing them. I learn every day to live with the knowledge that my old life is gone and there's no getting it back. What I stand to gain when the baby comes will be a different kind of happiness - one marked by loss, but full of the hope of a new future. And just about every mother I speak to feels that this, at least, will be an instantaneous transformation in my life; the doctor will hand me the baby, and I will be aglow.
Reality has taught me though that not everything is always what we think it will be. Statistics vary depending on where you look, but somewhere in the neighborhood of one in seven new mothers experience postpartum depression. These women range from those who are susceptible to depression to perfectly normal, healthy women who simply feel no connection to their children. Or, after the baby is born, they simply don't have the euphoric feeling of the love of new motherhood that so many other women promised they would feel. I've been going through extreme emotional duress for the past seven months, brought on by the shock and trauma of not only losing my husband, but actually being in the room when it happened. As one of my doctors bluntly put it, "many women get postpartum depression for no reason. You have a reason."
Luckily, my doctors and family know my situation and are aware that they need to monitor my closely, so I know that I'll be taken care of. But it still terrifies me. What if I don't feel the euphoric new motherhood thing that everyone promises? What if I feel no connection to the baby? I doubt that either of these things will happen, but they weigh on my mind and heart as I try to prepare for every eventuality. And every time someone promises me that I'll feel a certain way once she arrives, I try to put those comments in a little file in my brain that I don't open. I can't take any more broken promises.
For nearly eight months now, I have been living for this baby, terrified of losing her, of something being wrong, and yes, I've been terrified of what happens when she comes too. I've always had a picture in my head of having a child, of how my husband and I would tell our families about the baby, how we would go through the pregnancy together, and how he'd be there during the birth and after. When Ryan died, I had to change the picture in my head- but it's hard to know what to replace it with. I don't know that what I'll feel will be unadulterated joy. More likely, it will be extreme happiness mixed with extreme emotional pain. I've gotten somewhat used to feeling opposing emotions at the same time over the past eight months, but this will be a more extreme level of it.
I'm scared about something else too, something difficult to explain. Ever since Ryan died, there have been different milestones that I've set in my head. Sometimes they're simple dates (a month after he died, our anniversary, six months after he died, his birthday), and sometimes they're difficult events that I've had to struggle through (the first time I slept at our house, the first time I took a trip without him). Often I set my sights on a milestone like this, and I think, this is going to be hard, but it will be better once I get through it. Then, I make it through, and I wake up the next morning, and nothing's better. In the most extreme circumstances, I sometimes get my brain locked on the idea that I just need to make it through this particular test, and then everything will go back to normal, and Ryan will be here again. And of course, he never is.
Having our baby all along has sort of felt like the finish line. I just need to make it through this, I need to take care of myself so that she can be born healthy. Once she's here, everything will be fine. When everything isn't really fine at the end of my labor, and I'm still living in a world without Ryan in it (still), I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to take it. Even as much as I can prepare myself for it, I just can't explain the depth of pain repeatedly waking up to this life I've been left with. I can absolutely know and accept that Ryan is gone, but sometimes this little kernel of hope starts to grow inside of me, and when reality proves it wrong, I feel like I sink back into a deeper level of hurt. The thought of going through that again when the baby comes is too often on my mind.
"Once that baby comes, everything will be okay, and you'll have some peace".
This sentiment comes at a lot of different levels- some people are wishing it for me, and praying for it. Some people just fervently believe that having the baby will make me happier. And others still believe it so much that it seems as though they can't imagine that I would have trouble believing it myself.
The truth though is that the baby, beautiful little miracle that she is, won't solve anything. I know that she'll help, but having her is not the finish line - it's not some turning point after which everything will be better. In the very best case scenario, she'll bring me a kind of happiness I never knew before. This, I think, is what most people are expecting. But what she won't do is bring back the kind of happiness I had before, or heal the wounds of losing the love of my life. Those things are permanent, and there's no changing them. I learn every day to live with the knowledge that my old life is gone and there's no getting it back. What I stand to gain when the baby comes will be a different kind of happiness - one marked by loss, but full of the hope of a new future. And just about every mother I speak to feels that this, at least, will be an instantaneous transformation in my life; the doctor will hand me the baby, and I will be aglow.
Reality has taught me though that not everything is always what we think it will be. Statistics vary depending on where you look, but somewhere in the neighborhood of one in seven new mothers experience postpartum depression. These women range from those who are susceptible to depression to perfectly normal, healthy women who simply feel no connection to their children. Or, after the baby is born, they simply don't have the euphoric feeling of the love of new motherhood that so many other women promised they would feel. I've been going through extreme emotional duress for the past seven months, brought on by the shock and trauma of not only losing my husband, but actually being in the room when it happened. As one of my doctors bluntly put it, "many women get postpartum depression for no reason. You have a reason."
Luckily, my doctors and family know my situation and are aware that they need to monitor my closely, so I know that I'll be taken care of. But it still terrifies me. What if I don't feel the euphoric new motherhood thing that everyone promises? What if I feel no connection to the baby? I doubt that either of these things will happen, but they weigh on my mind and heart as I try to prepare for every eventuality. And every time someone promises me that I'll feel a certain way once she arrives, I try to put those comments in a little file in my brain that I don't open. I can't take any more broken promises.
For nearly eight months now, I have been living for this baby, terrified of losing her, of something being wrong, and yes, I've been terrified of what happens when she comes too. I've always had a picture in my head of having a child, of how my husband and I would tell our families about the baby, how we would go through the pregnancy together, and how he'd be there during the birth and after. When Ryan died, I had to change the picture in my head- but it's hard to know what to replace it with. I don't know that what I'll feel will be unadulterated joy. More likely, it will be extreme happiness mixed with extreme emotional pain. I've gotten somewhat used to feeling opposing emotions at the same time over the past eight months, but this will be a more extreme level of it.
I'm scared about something else too, something difficult to explain. Ever since Ryan died, there have been different milestones that I've set in my head. Sometimes they're simple dates (a month after he died, our anniversary, six months after he died, his birthday), and sometimes they're difficult events that I've had to struggle through (the first time I slept at our house, the first time I took a trip without him). Often I set my sights on a milestone like this, and I think, this is going to be hard, but it will be better once I get through it. Then, I make it through, and I wake up the next morning, and nothing's better. In the most extreme circumstances, I sometimes get my brain locked on the idea that I just need to make it through this particular test, and then everything will go back to normal, and Ryan will be here again. And of course, he never is.
Having our baby all along has sort of felt like the finish line. I just need to make it through this, I need to take care of myself so that she can be born healthy. Once she's here, everything will be fine. When everything isn't really fine at the end of my labor, and I'm still living in a world without Ryan in it (still), I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to take it. Even as much as I can prepare myself for it, I just can't explain the depth of pain repeatedly waking up to this life I've been left with. I can absolutely know and accept that Ryan is gone, but sometimes this little kernel of hope starts to grow inside of me, and when reality proves it wrong, I feel like I sink back into a deeper level of hurt. The thought of going through that again when the baby comes is too often on my mind.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
The Fall
Fall started this week. Another new season without Ryan. Like the beginning of any new season, it's brought with it another round of memories, visceral ones, of a life that's not mine anymore.
I think fall used to be my favorite season in our house, but of course, I thought that about both spring and summer when they rolled around this year too. The truth is that every season had something about it that made life special and different, and there was always something to look forward to. As I've mentioned before, Ryan was a teacher, and the first signs of fall for me were when he would start going in to work to prepare for his upcoming classes. Once classes began, there would often be a lot of reasons for Ryan to be out later than usual, so it was more likely that I would come home to an empty house for a little while. I used to love that- a night to myself, to make whatever I wanted for dinner and have some quiet time. But then, Ryan would still always come home and we'd still be able to have our nights together.
The start of the NFL season was one of the first things that made me notice the change of seasons this year. Ryan loved all sports. He always said that his favorite time of year was that brief period in the fall when football and hockey had both started and baseball was in the playoffs. I could go many nights without seeing much of him in these times; he'd spend his nights in the basement flipping between the games, and I'd be upstairs watching the new fall seasons of my TV shows. Now I wish that we'd spent more of that time together instead of separately in the same house. However, I actually think it's one of the things that really made our relationship work; we loved being together, but knew how to be apart.
Nearly every Sunday revolved around football, whether we were going to one of our parents' houses for the games, or watching together at home. When it was chilly we'd curl up under a cover together and watch the games, or I'd multi-task and do housework between plays. Since Sunday was often a long day home, I'd often cook a more complicated meal on that day, and we'd eat together in front of the football game. I'll never forget the expression on Ryan's face when I'd make my minestrone soup, which I think was his favorite.
Then on Sunday and Monday nights, we'd habitually watch the night time games together, especially when one of our teams was playing. We'd start watching in the basement, and after halftime go up to bed and finish watching in the bedroom. Inevitably, I'd fall asleep sometime around the beginning of the fourth quarter, and wake up either to Ryan turning the game off, or to some super strong reaction he would have to the game. Then I'd turn over, snuggle up against him (especially once it got cold), and fall back asleep. I think now of how comforting that routine was. For the first few weeks of the NFL season this year, I've pretended on Sundays that football wasn't on. But I do keep accidentally catching glimpses of the nighttime games, and it's amazing how visceral the feeling of memory and loss is.
Beyond sports, there are quite a lot of other triggers that come with the new season. When I got my first pumpkin spice latte this season, I thought of how I never could get Ryan to appreciate the pumpkin phenomenon. He didn't want to even try it. I considered it a great triumph last year when I made pumpkin muffins and actually got Ryan to taste them. He didn't like them, but there you go. Oddly, he did like Sweetzels Spiced Wafers, which I also had to force feed him, and I consider that to be a similar flavor palette. For those of you who don't know, these cookies are a Philadelphia area fall staple, and they are very, very crispy. Ryan used to take one and gnaw on it, imitating a squirrel cracking open a nut with it's teeth. One of his goofy animal impressions. When I noticed Sweetzels back on the grocery shelves, I again felt a sharp pain of loss.
We'd very often take at least one weekend trip. I have a job where I can't take off in November or December, and I'd be quick trying to use up a couple of vacation days before then. Since Ryan would be back to teaching, we'd usually be limited to the long weekend thing. A few years ago we did a Boston/Fenway park trip in early September. Last year we went to Washington D.C. All of our many vacations were wonderful, but I particularly liked the quality time we'd get to spend together this time of year. I always knew that we would get very busy closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it felt like early fall was the last chance we'd have to get away together. I can thankfully say that we didn't take those times for granted.
As the calendar turned to September this year, one of the biggest apprehensions I've had was knowing that I'd soon have to make it through Ryan's birthday, which is September 27th- tomorrow. In any other year, I would have spent most of the month trying to find the perfect gift for him, something that would make him light up. It wasn't hard to do, but I'd stress out over it every year. I set the bar too high when I'd bought him an X-Box the first year we lived together. Ryan loved giving and receiving gifts. He'd want to do it first thing in the morning on Christmas and birthdays. I loved how excited he'd be when I really hit the mark. I've felt empty all month not having the fun of shopping for a gift for him. Every time I walk through Macy's (which is a lot), I see things I want to buy him, and then remember that I can't. This year, his birthday is on a Friday too, and I imagine that if he were still alive, I'd be trying to figure out a way we could have celebrated with one more weekend trip away before the baby came. Maybe just a few nights in Philadelphia with a nice dinner at the German restaurant we never made it to, or a weekend in Atlantic City. Either one of those places would be close enough to home that I wouldn't have to worry about the travel. Even though he's gone, it's impossible to stop myself from planning what we would have done if he were here, and I find that with just about everything, especially at the change of seasons.
Autumn comes before winter, and Ryan passed away in the winter. It's hard knowing that the next time I have to go through a change of seasons, it will be the last new season I have to go through.
I think fall used to be my favorite season in our house, but of course, I thought that about both spring and summer when they rolled around this year too. The truth is that every season had something about it that made life special and different, and there was always something to look forward to. As I've mentioned before, Ryan was a teacher, and the first signs of fall for me were when he would start going in to work to prepare for his upcoming classes. Once classes began, there would often be a lot of reasons for Ryan to be out later than usual, so it was more likely that I would come home to an empty house for a little while. I used to love that- a night to myself, to make whatever I wanted for dinner and have some quiet time. But then, Ryan would still always come home and we'd still be able to have our nights together.
The start of the NFL season was one of the first things that made me notice the change of seasons this year. Ryan loved all sports. He always said that his favorite time of year was that brief period in the fall when football and hockey had both started and baseball was in the playoffs. I could go many nights without seeing much of him in these times; he'd spend his nights in the basement flipping between the games, and I'd be upstairs watching the new fall seasons of my TV shows. Now I wish that we'd spent more of that time together instead of separately in the same house. However, I actually think it's one of the things that really made our relationship work; we loved being together, but knew how to be apart.
Nearly every Sunday revolved around football, whether we were going to one of our parents' houses for the games, or watching together at home. When it was chilly we'd curl up under a cover together and watch the games, or I'd multi-task and do housework between plays. Since Sunday was often a long day home, I'd often cook a more complicated meal on that day, and we'd eat together in front of the football game. I'll never forget the expression on Ryan's face when I'd make my minestrone soup, which I think was his favorite.
Then on Sunday and Monday nights, we'd habitually watch the night time games together, especially when one of our teams was playing. We'd start watching in the basement, and after halftime go up to bed and finish watching in the bedroom. Inevitably, I'd fall asleep sometime around the beginning of the fourth quarter, and wake up either to Ryan turning the game off, or to some super strong reaction he would have to the game. Then I'd turn over, snuggle up against him (especially once it got cold), and fall back asleep. I think now of how comforting that routine was. For the first few weeks of the NFL season this year, I've pretended on Sundays that football wasn't on. But I do keep accidentally catching glimpses of the nighttime games, and it's amazing how visceral the feeling of memory and loss is.
Beyond sports, there are quite a lot of other triggers that come with the new season. When I got my first pumpkin spice latte this season, I thought of how I never could get Ryan to appreciate the pumpkin phenomenon. He didn't want to even try it. I considered it a great triumph last year when I made pumpkin muffins and actually got Ryan to taste them. He didn't like them, but there you go. Oddly, he did like Sweetzels Spiced Wafers, which I also had to force feed him, and I consider that to be a similar flavor palette. For those of you who don't know, these cookies are a Philadelphia area fall staple, and they are very, very crispy. Ryan used to take one and gnaw on it, imitating a squirrel cracking open a nut with it's teeth. One of his goofy animal impressions. When I noticed Sweetzels back on the grocery shelves, I again felt a sharp pain of loss.
We'd very often take at least one weekend trip. I have a job where I can't take off in November or December, and I'd be quick trying to use up a couple of vacation days before then. Since Ryan would be back to teaching, we'd usually be limited to the long weekend thing. A few years ago we did a Boston/Fenway park trip in early September. Last year we went to Washington D.C. All of our many vacations were wonderful, but I particularly liked the quality time we'd get to spend together this time of year. I always knew that we would get very busy closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it felt like early fall was the last chance we'd have to get away together. I can thankfully say that we didn't take those times for granted.
As the calendar turned to September this year, one of the biggest apprehensions I've had was knowing that I'd soon have to make it through Ryan's birthday, which is September 27th- tomorrow. In any other year, I would have spent most of the month trying to find the perfect gift for him, something that would make him light up. It wasn't hard to do, but I'd stress out over it every year. I set the bar too high when I'd bought him an X-Box the first year we lived together. Ryan loved giving and receiving gifts. He'd want to do it first thing in the morning on Christmas and birthdays. I loved how excited he'd be when I really hit the mark. I've felt empty all month not having the fun of shopping for a gift for him. Every time I walk through Macy's (which is a lot), I see things I want to buy him, and then remember that I can't. This year, his birthday is on a Friday too, and I imagine that if he were still alive, I'd be trying to figure out a way we could have celebrated with one more weekend trip away before the baby came. Maybe just a few nights in Philadelphia with a nice dinner at the German restaurant we never made it to, or a weekend in Atlantic City. Either one of those places would be close enough to home that I wouldn't have to worry about the travel. Even though he's gone, it's impossible to stop myself from planning what we would have done if he were here, and I find that with just about everything, especially at the change of seasons.
Autumn comes before winter, and Ryan passed away in the winter. It's hard knowing that the next time I have to go through a change of seasons, it will be the last new season I have to go through.
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