My dad sent me an email to let me know that my mom was upset that I hadn't done anything to acknowledge Mother's Day this year. He just wanted to remind me what day it is since we live abroad. Of course I know what day it is, but am I a selfish cow if I want a free pass to explicitly not acknowledge Mother's Day this year?
I am not usually so petty (or actually, petty at all), but I responded with something really vile. The good thing is that I know he won't share it with her and writing something so horrible and petty was actually quite therapeutic. I responded that if she was really upset about it, he could let her know that my children didn't send cards, either.
*While that felt therapeutic of course in the end I had to wish my mom a Happy Mother's Day.
May 13, 2012
May 10, 2012
grief comes in zig-zags
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
They say this is the order of the 5 stages of grief. My grief is non-linear. There is not really chronology or order to it. I skate around in my grief in crazy zig-zags and dizzying loops. Mostly, I have done a lot of denying. More hours than not my pregnancy with Aminadav and Naava and everything that immediately followed it feels like a strange dream. In fact, most of the time they feel like a strange dream; maybe some souls I knew in a past life. So familiar but so ephemeral. Most of the time on some deeper fundamental level I do not believe that any of it really happened; it feels like a very sad story someone else told me about myself.
These hours are inevitably followed by the harder moments when I cannot fathom how they are not still here with me, either inside of me or inside an incubator that is much safer than inside of me. But mostly, I have done a lot of denying, and then I can manage with reality in little bits and in a measured dose.
They say bargaining is Stage 3, but I did a lot of bargaining very early on. I am an expert bargainer. I bargained all throughout my fertility treatments and through my first and second pregnancies. Sometimes I bargained with G-d, sometimes with myself, and even more often, with no one or nothing in particular. When Aminadav and Naava died, I was already a pro. The bargaining came immediately and naturally.
I have done a lot of what Joan Didion would refer to as magical thinking in her The Year of Magical Thinking. The magical thinking has all been part of my bargaining hobby and oftentimes has been quite elaborate to the point that one might think it takes a great deal of imagination. I find the magical thinking exhausting but not so much a creative pursuit. As I said, I am very good at it. I am trying to cut myself off from it.
My first few weeks back at work, I spent more of my day surreptitiously conducting PubMed searches on every possible word and phrase variation of "pPROM" "placental abruption" "twins" and "subchorionic hemorrhage" than I actually spent performing lab work. I remained steadfastly convinced (and honestly, still often do) that if I could find some way to retrospectively fix or solve what happened, especially to Naava, whose amniotic sac was still intact and who was born alive, that I could actually change the outcome.
Oftentimes, I have even been convinced that just finding clinical studies with better overall outcomes than the gloomy statistics reported by my doctors would change the outcome. "See! But they live!" I would exclaim triumphantly, well after the fact of their deaths. I recognize that this is spectacularly delusional, but I still can't help it.
Stage 2, anger, reared her head later on than denial, bargaining, or depression. I was really angry with myself and I still am. It is easy for other people to tell me to be gentle with myself, to be kind, but much more difficult to internalize it in a way that is genuine, because I really do honestly hate myself for what happened. The self-loathing is a narcissistic pursuit; I was unable to indulge in it until I could go longer than a minute without thinking of my poor babies and their horrible fate & bring the focus back to myself.
Even more recently, my anger has developed a new prong, and it is a sharp one. Now I am angry at other people. At the beginning of the week, we saw a doctor who specializes in miscarriage and pregnancy loss. I still haven't done any loss-related tests; specifically, I was hoping to do some sort of clotting and autoimmune panel, especially to rule out thrombophilias since they are often associated with placental issues. This doctor became the new subject of my wrath when he sent me on my way with no new ideas or additional information beyond a lab slip to test for various infections. I will never get back the 120 seconds of my life I spent peeing in a cup for chlamydia and I am very angry.
I guess the only flavor of the 5 stages I have yet to experience is acceptance. Maybe I have even experienced a little of that too, in small doses during those rare moments when I can imagine my life having a happier focus one day. Not that there won't always be an empty space where Aminadav and Naava were but that I will learn how to be happy and appreciative without ever being whole; that I will learn how to live with this empty space, not in spite of it or around it but simply with it. For now that seems like a pretty tall order. One day.
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
They say this is the order of the 5 stages of grief. My grief is non-linear. There is not really chronology or order to it. I skate around in my grief in crazy zig-zags and dizzying loops. Mostly, I have done a lot of denying. More hours than not my pregnancy with Aminadav and Naava and everything that immediately followed it feels like a strange dream. In fact, most of the time they feel like a strange dream; maybe some souls I knew in a past life. So familiar but so ephemeral. Most of the time on some deeper fundamental level I do not believe that any of it really happened; it feels like a very sad story someone else told me about myself.
These hours are inevitably followed by the harder moments when I cannot fathom how they are not still here with me, either inside of me or inside an incubator that is much safer than inside of me. But mostly, I have done a lot of denying, and then I can manage with reality in little bits and in a measured dose.
They say bargaining is Stage 3, but I did a lot of bargaining very early on. I am an expert bargainer. I bargained all throughout my fertility treatments and through my first and second pregnancies. Sometimes I bargained with G-d, sometimes with myself, and even more often, with no one or nothing in particular. When Aminadav and Naava died, I was already a pro. The bargaining came immediately and naturally.
I have done a lot of what Joan Didion would refer to as magical thinking in her The Year of Magical Thinking. The magical thinking has all been part of my bargaining hobby and oftentimes has been quite elaborate to the point that one might think it takes a great deal of imagination. I find the magical thinking exhausting but not so much a creative pursuit. As I said, I am very good at it. I am trying to cut myself off from it.
My first few weeks back at work, I spent more of my day surreptitiously conducting PubMed searches on every possible word and phrase variation of "pPROM" "placental abruption" "twins" and "subchorionic hemorrhage" than I actually spent performing lab work. I remained steadfastly convinced (and honestly, still often do) that if I could find some way to retrospectively fix or solve what happened, especially to Naava, whose amniotic sac was still intact and who was born alive, that I could actually change the outcome.
Oftentimes, I have even been convinced that just finding clinical studies with better overall outcomes than the gloomy statistics reported by my doctors would change the outcome. "See! But they live!" I would exclaim triumphantly, well after the fact of their deaths. I recognize that this is spectacularly delusional, but I still can't help it.
Stage 2, anger, reared her head later on than denial, bargaining, or depression. I was really angry with myself and I still am. It is easy for other people to tell me to be gentle with myself, to be kind, but much more difficult to internalize it in a way that is genuine, because I really do honestly hate myself for what happened. The self-loathing is a narcissistic pursuit; I was unable to indulge in it until I could go longer than a minute without thinking of my poor babies and their horrible fate & bring the focus back to myself.
Even more recently, my anger has developed a new prong, and it is a sharp one. Now I am angry at other people. At the beginning of the week, we saw a doctor who specializes in miscarriage and pregnancy loss. I still haven't done any loss-related tests; specifically, I was hoping to do some sort of clotting and autoimmune panel, especially to rule out thrombophilias since they are often associated with placental issues. This doctor became the new subject of my wrath when he sent me on my way with no new ideas or additional information beyond a lab slip to test for various infections. I will never get back the 120 seconds of my life I spent peeing in a cup for chlamydia and I am very angry.
I guess the only flavor of the 5 stages I have yet to experience is acceptance. Maybe I have even experienced a little of that too, in small doses during those rare moments when I can imagine my life having a happier focus one day. Not that there won't always be an empty space where Aminadav and Naava were but that I will learn how to be happy and appreciative without ever being whole; that I will learn how to live with this empty space, not in spite of it or around it but simply with it. For now that seems like a pretty tall order. One day.
May 2, 2012
Hazy funnel cloud
That was the description of today's forecast in Jerusalem when I checked it a few minutes ago. I am not sure if "hazy funnel cloud" is a proper meteorological term, but I do think it is a pretty accurate description of where I am at right now, so I like it.
May 1, 2012
our trip
Apr 9, 2012
on helplessness
The past week has been hard and sad. For the past month I have felt like I was in a very fragile place but doing a pretty good job keeping it together. But needing this surgery, the invasiveness of having no control over my body (again) and everything surrounding it really brought me to a low place. I think it is also the holidays and being surrounded by babies and children and families, too.
When I lost N&A, I was really worried about the bitter and jealousy returning. There was a stretch of time during our infertility struggles when I felt very jealous and bitter of others' good fortune. The jealousy and bitterness was something that came from a very dark place and honestly made me feel pretty crappy about myself. It was something that felt destructive and I made a very conscious effort to work through it. I like to believe I mostly succeeded on this front.
In the aftermath of their birth & death, I was relieved that the bitterness and jealousy didn't return, or at least not in the way that I feared. I didn't want any baby in some abstract sense; I wanted them - my specific babies. Other babies felt irrelevant.
Passover was the first time I was subjected to babies and young children in large doses since our loss. It was much harder than I expected, not because I was jealous, but because it was such a visceral reminder of everything I can't do for my babies. A screaming baby in need of soothing is enough to get me wailing. Because the baby can be soothed. Because there is something her mother can do for her.
I never got to do anything, really, for my babies. It is the most helpless feeling I can imagine, I think, to give birth to a living baby to whom neither you nor medical science can help. To give birth to a living baby who by virtue of leaving your body is destined to die. Perhaps giving birth to Aminadav was in fact doing him a kind of favor because of his suffering - but again, I always come back to it - when I gave birth to Naava I killed her.
I never even held Naava. Sometimes I wonder if I lack basic maternal instincts. One day a couple of weeks after their death, our cleaning lady pulled me close and said "Maybe your soul wasn't ready yet to accept them."
During more rational hours, this seems like a hideous proposition - after all those failed fertility treatments, our first miscarriage, all that longing - my soul wasn't ready yet to be their mother? But why didn't I know instinctively to hold my babies, especially my living one? No one encouraged me or told me to. I was in shock. It all happened to so quickly. I will know better for next time. These are my alibis. But why didn't I just intuitively understand to do it?
I wasn't able to do anything physical for my babies in this world. I love(d) them and think of them constantly. Winter is over and the days are becoming long and hot. I do not think it will rain again. G-d willing we will somehow bring a living child into this world (though that seems to become increasingly daunting to think about with every new complication). But nothing is going to bring these babies back; no amount of magical thinking or new medical knowledge or regrets realized & examined.
Apr 3, 2012
surgery tomorrow
Wish me luck - this thing is supposed to come out tomorrow. We did a doppler ultrasound yesterday that showed this thing is taking up most of my uterus and has a fantastic blood supply. I think it is the blood supply that suggests my uterus is a ticking hemorrhage time bomb and is encouraging them to move before Passover. They actually won't be 100% sure it is placenta until they biopsy it - it could also be degenerating fibroid or something else. I learned something interesting and freaky today - you can have a molar pregnancy that coexists with normal fetus(es). One doctor proposed the possibility that this could be my case, but thankfully we've ruled that out. I hope I will have a good report tomorrow. It is very disappointing that tomorrow is when we were supposed to fly to the states.
Apr 1, 2012
My Uterus - an artist's rendition
Apropos to my last post-
As we've consulted with others for a second opinion* re: the retained placenta and issues pertaining to when to operate and whether it's ok to travel, they've seemed a bit befuddled by the lack of images from the hysteroscopy to depict exactly how much placenta is still in my uterus (like are we talking about a small fragment or a full placenta, for example). Naturally the gynecologists are wary of a second-hand description coming from an eye surgeon and his "scientist"** wife . I respect that. Anyhow, thank goodness on the official form for my hospital re-re-admission (aka return to The Slammer), Prof. S. drew this awesome picture of my uterus with his official stamp and John Hancock on it, lest any colleague require a visual depicting exactly what is going on (notice the accuracy of the three fibroids including the third one which is larger, more misshapen, and very accurately obliterated by angry scribbles of retained placental tissue).
* We have nothing against Prof. S, but the situation is not so clear-cut given our grandiose travel plans... "between a rock and a hard place" he said, except he didn't really say exactly that, he used some Hebrew expression which I now forget which means the same thing.
** During the three weeks of the year when she is not having a gynecological or obstetrical emergency.
As we've consulted with others for a second opinion* re: the retained placenta and issues pertaining to when to operate and whether it's ok to travel, they've seemed a bit befuddled by the lack of images from the hysteroscopy to depict exactly how much placenta is still in my uterus (like are we talking about a small fragment or a full placenta, for example). Naturally the gynecologists are wary of a second-hand description coming from an eye surgeon and his "scientist"** wife . I respect that. Anyhow, thank goodness on the official form for my hospital re-re-admission (aka return to The Slammer), Prof. S. drew this awesome picture of my uterus with his official stamp and John Hancock on it, lest any colleague require a visual depicting exactly what is going on (notice the accuracy of the three fibroids including the third one which is larger, more misshapen, and very accurately obliterated by angry scribbles of retained placental tissue).
* We have nothing against Prof. S, but the situation is not so clear-cut given our grandiose travel plans... "between a rock and a hard place" he said, except he didn't really say exactly that, he used some Hebrew expression which I now forget which means the same thing.
** During the three weeks of the year when she is not having a gynecological or obstetrical emergency.
***
In really sad news, a member of our community is being induced today during her 22nd week, after a recent ultrasound showed the baby had no heartbeat. Today I visited her in the same ward, in the same room, where I gave birth to Aminadav and Naava. I feel so sad for her. I still don't know why such terrible things happen to good people.
It's one month today since I pPROMed and my body abandoned my babies (or at least abandoned Aminadav; oftentimes I believe I was the one to abandon Naava, though logically I know there was no way in hell my doctors were about to agree to attempt to perform a delayed interval delivery). Not one month since I gave birth and death to my two little ones, but one month since that awful ambulance ride in my bedroom slippers through a hazy, gray, cold Jerusalem morning when my world as I knew it came crashing down.
It's one month today since I pPROMed and my body abandoned my babies (or at least abandoned Aminadav; oftentimes I believe I was the one to abandon Naava, though logically I know there was no way in hell my doctors were about to agree to attempt to perform a delayed interval delivery). Not one month since I gave birth and death to my two little ones, but one month since that awful ambulance ride in my bedroom slippers through a hazy, gray, cold Jerusalem morning when my world as I knew it came crashing down.
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