Grief is weird.
It’s been two months since heaven took our son.
The day we drove home from the hospital, I cried just thinking about coming home to an empty house without him there. I didn’t want to do it. The first few weeks following his death were the most difficult. I felt lost and defeated, constantly wondering why he was taken from us, but also thankful that he didn’t suffer. Home, which was supposed to be a place of comfort, turned into a place full of sadness. I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, far away. Being home made me think of him and thinking of him was torture. It provoked an ache in my heart that nobody other than people who have lost a child would truly understand.
After my second miscarriage last year, I fell into a depression for a brief period of time and I vowed to not let myself get to that point again. The second we found out Charlie had passed away, I knew I needed to prepare myself for an emotional war. I knew that I needed to keep my head above water and be stronger than ever. In the weeks following his death, for every 2 steps forward, I took one step back. I took that as progress, crying a little less each day. It was like was my eyes were a faucet and I was helping myself turn off the tears. Slowly.
The only way for me not to fall backwards was to help myself. Nobody else could do it for me. So, I made a plan to continue doing the things I love to do. There I was, hiking in the mountains of Virginia one week after giving birth to our beautiful boy. The mountains are my happy place and being there with my husband, hiking desolate trails in a national park in Virginia was probably the best thing I could’ve done for myself. It was calming. It was the best medicine. Then after we got home, I continued exploring. I went on day trips, continued hiking, and even signed myself up for a meditation class. It couldn’t hurt, right? Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for mental clarity, to help heal the wounds. And let me tell you, it has helped immensely. The most important thing I’ve learned through this grief process is to not lose yourself, because once you’ve lost yourself, you’ve lost everything.
My heart still hurts, every single day, but as time has gone on, the raw pain and sadness has started to subside. His urn and pictures are on a shelf in our living room so that we are constantly reminded of the beautiful soul we had in our lives for 24 wonderful weeks. Sometimes just looking at his urn brings me to tears, but other times, I smile. Every time I hear the name Charlie now, I smile. It’s been quite a bit lately. I feel like his name is everywhere. There have been several time when I’ve been outside, thinking of him, and a feather has flown in front of me and landed at my feet. There have also been little things that happened in our house, making us question if all of this has happened because he wants us to know he’s still there. I hope he is.
My post–partum checkup has come and gone. The nurse and the doctor gave me a hug and expressed their deepest condolences. The nurse told me a story about a patient of theirs that had 10 miscarriages in a row. The 11th pregnancy was THE one for that couple, the one that finally gave them the child they’d be hoping for. She said to me plain and simple “You’re going to try again, right? Don’t EVER give up!” I stared at her and smiled. Of course we are. She went on to say that nobody, not even the best doctors in the world, can know what’s going on in your body every single moment of every single day. What is happening in your body now may not be what’s happening tomorrow or next month or next year. It may be something undetectable to doctors, or something that may resolve itself in time. She’s damn right. Nobody has any friggin idea what going on with me, other than my MTHFR gene mutation. (I have this gut feeling that my mutation is the cause of our miscarriages. The more research I do, the more it adds up. The more people I talk to who have this, the more I realize how similar our stories are.) The nurses statement resonated with me. Think about it. Your body is such a complex system. How do they know? If you’re healthy, you see your doctor once a year, if that. If you’re not healthy or you have fertility issues, you see your doctor more often. But still, is a 30 minute doctor’s appointment a reflection of what’s going on inside your body for the whole year? No. Not even close. So, like she said, something in my body might change from one pregnancy to the next, and that change might be the change we need for the next pregnancy to be successful. We get a little closer each time. I made it to 24 weeks with Charlie, who’s to say I can’t make it to 40? Doctor’s are convinced that Charlie’s CDH was not genetic, which means it will not repeat itself again. Had he been healthy, they are confident I would’ve carried to term. So with that said, Dan and I are adamant about not giving up. The next time might be THE time for us. I just hope it comes sooner rather than later.
Our Road To Parenthood 