Hindsight: Macro

Another post written yesterday. I am publishing it on the eve of my very first grief conference for bereaved parents:

Well, most difficult post, you have arrived. My stomach is in knots just thinking about this topic.

A while back, I wrote a post about hindsight: despite all of the hope we held onto while Weston was alive, all the signs, statistics, and events pointed to his death. That post was entitled "Micro" because I limited the hindsight to my pregnancy and the three weeks Weston was alive. This post, which also will address hindsight, is entitled "Macro" because, looking back, -deep breath- I think I have always known on some level that I would lose a child. There, I said it. Here are some reasons why:

When I was a fairly young child, my family visited a cemetery. I don't remember where we were or who we were visiting, but there were some really old headstones there (actually, I'm pretty sure we were in Georgia, where my dad is from). I remember that I was obsessed with finding the oldest one. But I also remember finding a newer headstone with just one date on it: obviously, a newborn had died. To this day, I remember that baby's headstone and talking to my mom about it. I think I even remember that this baby girl was born and died in March 1985. Why do I remember such a seemingly random event?

Fast forward to 2009, when I was anticipating becoming a mother myself. One week before the big 20-week ultrasound, this blog came into my life. I found it on Facebook; the blogger was a friend of a friend of a friend, I think. This amazing woman's baby girl had received a fatal diagnosis in utero. She and her husband chose to carry the baby to term. They scheduled a delivery date and waited to meet their baby girl, hoping and praying that she would live even a few minutes. The night I found the blog, the family was preparing to induce labor the next day.

Tragically, sweet Carleigh was stillborn. Her mother documented everything on her blog. I couldn't sleep, I talked about it all the time, I was obsessed. And I had the big ultrasound looming. Carleigh's diagnosis had been discovered at her 20-week ultrasound. I wondered why God had put this blog in my path ONE WEEK before my 20-week ultrasound. I was terrified at what we might learn at our appointment.

Obviously, everything went fine, because I have my wonderful, healthy sweet Caroline. Hey, that sentence rhymed! But I couldn't get Carleigh or her family out of my head. I checked her blog a few times a week for months and months. And I was a lurker; I never commented. As the years went by, I still checked it from time to time. Now...I check it all the time.

Since then, but before I was even pregnant with Weston, I have learned of so many baby or child loss stories: stillbirths, fatal diagnoses carried to term, SIDS, cancer or other diseases, you name it. I have been OBSESSED with all of them. They would make me so sad, and I didn't know most of these people. I couldn't even entertain the thought of this happening to me; no parent can. But I devoured these stories, over and over, and thought about them all the time. That is just weird.

(I do realize that interest becomes heightened when a baby dies. My post about Weston's death has four times more views than the others.)

(Also, I talked to a couple of people about this preoccupation of mine before posting and was assured that, indeed, my obsession with dead or dying children was NOT normal.)

A few weeks before Christmas (2011), while still working practically full-time, I suddenly decided I wanted to be a stay at home mom. I still remember the exact moment: I was driving home from work one evening, and the desire just hit me literally out of nowhere. It had been a normal day at work. I waited a while to see if the feeling would go away, and it didn't. Finally, I worked up the nerve to tell Shannon.

My decision made no sense. I loved my job. Even more, I viewed my firm like my second family. The stress of balancing a career as a litigator with my family was difficult, yes, but I had made it work for 2.5 years. I cried and cried and cried after making my decision and informing my firm. Now...well, there is just no way I could even think about working right now.

I found out I was pregnant with Weston on February 18, 2012. Trouble with the pregnancy started April 18, 2012. In January 2012, a little boy died (I knew his mother a long time ago but never met her son). The weekend before my pregnancy troubles started, I spent an evening with a couple who had lost their teenage son many years ago for the first time in many years. Child death was lurking on the edges of my mind.

I don't know much about psychology, but I wonder what Jung and Freud would think about all this?

Until Weston died, I never thought he/we were fulfilling some prophecy that I was going to lose a child. With all my heart, I thought he was going to make it.

Experiencing Weston's death was very strange. Of course, the dominant emotions were and still are complete despair. There are no words in any language that begin to describe what darkness surrounds parents when they lose a child. But that is not the point of this post.

We see movies and TV shows depicting death scenes. Usually there is a lot of screaming, loss of control, loss of consciousness, etc. by the survivors. Bereaved parents I have now encountered have also mentioned these reactions when their children die.

That morning at the hospital, Shannon and I walked into every parent's worst nightmare: the entire NICU staff surrounding our son's lifeless body while a nurse administered chest compressions and a doctor called out "Epi" every few minutes (directing the administration of epinephrine, a stimulant, in an attempt to restart Weston's little heart), all to no avail. I will never get over the horror of that moment.

But I didn't scream. I didn't pass out. Actually, I remained very calm. I had those little hats in my bag for Weston. I just knew he would need them that morning. At this point, I'm relieved that I was strong for my son during his last moments. And when they handed Weston to me, I thought something like, "Yes, I knew it would be like this." It was almost like a sense of deja vu, or a prophecy fulfilled. It was so much more profound than that, but words simply fail me.

Does all of this mean that I gave up on Weston? I don't think so. The thought of losing him hardly crossed my mind until it actually happened. I remained one of those people who knew that babies die, but I just knew it would never happen to us.

These thoughts are hard to see in writing. What kind of mother goes through life with such a weird obsession in the back of her mind? I have to say, though, I immediately knew where to look for resources after we lost Weston. I knew where to find all of the blogs, and I knew from the beginning that I am not crazy or alone in my thoughts and feelings. But I can also say with certainty that "knowing" this would happen beforehand has not made losing my son any easier whatsoever.

About a year ago, I heard a story on NPR that has stuck with me. This happened around the time that I began to long for a second child. The woman being interviewed described her anticipation in adopting a child internationally. It was a long, harrowing process with a lot of red tape and stress. This woman waited a very long time to bring her child home. In the meantime, of course, she wondered about her child: whether she was safe, whether she was ever scared or sick, whether she remembered her parents, etc. I can't imagine. Here is the link to the story. Then the woman played the song that carried her through her time in limbo as she waited for her daughter. I was familiar with the artist but didn't know this particular song. I just sobbed. That song has remained special to me ever since. And I heard it today, during a long drive through...the desert, my special place. I didn't know then why the song struck such a chord with me, but now it is painfully obvious. I'll close with the lyrics:

I left home, a long long time ago
In a tin can for the road with a suitcase and some songs
Chasing miles through the nighttime making tracks
With no time for looking back to the place where I belong

How these days grow long
But I'm on my way back home
It's been hard to be away

How I miss you and I just wanna kiss you
And I'm gonna love you till my dying day
How these days grow long

When you're sad, you know I wish I could be here
To make your sorrows disappear and set your troubles free
It's not fair for me to be this far from you
But I promise to stay true wherever I might be

Time keeps burning
The wheels keep on turning sometimes
I feel I'm wasting my day

How I miss you and I just wanna kiss you
And I'm gonna love you till my dying day

How these days grow long
Time keeps burning on
How these days grow long

Now I'm lost in a sea of sunken dreams
While the sound of drunken screams echoes in the night
But I know all of this will come to pass
And I'll be with you at last, forever by your side

How these days grow long
But I'm on my way back home
It's been hard to be away

How I miss you and I just wanna kiss you
And I'm gonna love you till my dying day

And time keeps burning
The wheels keep on turning sometimes
I feel I'm wasting my day

How I miss you and I just wanna kiss you
And I'm gonna love you till my dying day

How these days grow long
Time keeps burning on
How these days grow long.

"Dying Day"
~Brandi Carlile

Indeed, Weston.