Tag: infant loss

Learning life lessons

JenLeave a comment

It has been an interesting few days.  I’ve had 4 days off from work, and I won’t lie, they were most welcome.  Stress has been building up for me lately, and the few days off to sleep in, play games, eat good food, and hibernate were much appreciated.

Thursday, the plan was to do nothing.  Boring, I know.  But I have been boycotting Thanksgiving for 6 years now.  Ben died 2 days after thanksgiving and it just left a bad taste in my mouth. So I plan nothing.  Sometimes, I’ll get a hotel room, other times I’ll just binge watch movies.  The kids go to enjoy thanksgiving with the ex in-laws.  So it’s usually just me.  Around 10 am, my phone rang.  It was my brother and my father asking if maybe I’d like to come join them for turkey.

And this year – oddly enough – I said thank you and that yes – I’d love to.  You see, I’ve never had a thanksgiving with my real father.  They were always spent with my mom and step dad.  And they were lovely growing up.  But I always had wondered what it would be like to spend that day with my dad.  I got ready, grabbed a bottle of wine from my collection as an offering for the table and drove up to his house.  I was nervous.  I don’t know my father very well, he is still someone I am getting to know.

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It was lovely.  Relaxed and casual, lots of chatter and play, dad would sing whatever song was in his head… I have always loved my dad’s voice.  Smooth, deep, country… I swear – he could have made a career with that voice.  He laughs when I say that.  To him, he’s just playing around with it.

It dawned on me while I was heading over there.  I’m not angry any more.  The past 6 years.  I’ve been so angry and didn’t even know it.  I was angry with thanksgiving.  Angry at my family.  Angry at my ex.  Angry with the doctors.  Angry with fate.  Angry with God.  I was just… Angry.  And yet – no one knew.  Not even myself.   This year was different.  I didn’t want to boycott.  Suddenly, more than ever before, I just wanted my family.  I wanted to surround myself with the people I feel comfortable with.  The people who I know have my back – always.  Dad wanted me to spend the night… oh how I wanted to.  He and I chatted about all sorts of things.  Life, love, politics, human nature, psychology … some of our topics were light, while others were deep and full of emotions.

Friday, I decided I wanted to cook.  So I cooked a full feast, from scratch.  No canned goods, no canned soups, no pre-packaged stuff.  It was incredible.  T, R and I cooked and feasted and made merry.

Yesterday, I had a song stuck in my head.  It was still early and I found myself humming outside.  I’m not typically much of a hummer.  This song was playing insistently in my head to the point where I had to go look it up and just play it.  I found it on youTube.  A song I hadn’t heard in at least 8 years.  The lyrics had me instantly in tears.

I ugly cried.  I bawled and bawled and bawled.  Apparently, once the flood gates opened, there was no stopping it, because I literally spent the entire day in bed.  I still can’t get over what that felt like yesterday.  I’m sure to others I must sound strange.  It was just overwhelming sadness.  And to anyone else, they’d probably say “So?  Haven’t you been sad this whole time?”  My answer to that would be both – yes and no.

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I’ve appeared sad.  I’ve acted sad.  And on some levels, I’ve felt sad.  But really – I don’t think I understood what the sad part of grief looked like until now.

I wish there was an answer book for life.  Is this normal?  No way is it normal.  I realize grief is different for everyone, but shit.  To spend 6 years and not really get to this part of the cycle seems a bit – drawn out.

I don’t want to be angry any more.  And I have been – for a very long time.  Stubborn, Angry, Strong… and maybe I was scared to allow myself to feel sadness to it’s full extent because I was scared that it would somehow make me weak.  And if I was weak – that perhaps it would break me.  So I shoved it aside.  I forced myself to keep my head held high and square my shoulders and just keep moving.  Never allowing myself to really feel.  This weekend – I felt.  I allowed myself to swim in it.  Every time someone would try and cheer me up – I’d go with whatever my heart wanted.  If that meant I’d giggle or laugh for an hour – cool – and if it meant that suddenly a wave of sadness would take over and I’d snuggle under the comforters and just cry and cry – that was ok too.

Oddly – allowing myself to do that has been the most freeing thing I think I’ve ever done.  I don’t think that even I fully realize how often I don’t allow myself to really feel an emotion in the moment.  Perhaps, it is time to allow myself the freedom to practice that.

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I went and visited my Mom today.  We haven’t been as close lately and I’ll fully admit to and take the blame on that one.  I’ve needed some space.  But I was feeling a bit guilty over my silence and decided to drop in.  I’m glad I did.  My mom and I may butt heads, but really, it’s only because we are so alike.  She knows that I will always love her and be there for her anytime she needs it.  And I know I have the same from her.  We’re a family.  Perhaps a bit dysfunctional at times – but we love each other all the same.

Tomorrow, I will return to work.  I’m not ready – my game face isn’t on yet and my energy levels aren’t quite where I’d hoped they would be by now – but oh well.  It is what it is.  I’m about to go into “hell month”.  A month long crazy ride of long hours, short deadlines and lots of work.  🙂  But then January will come, and things will settle down a bit.  I may even get to take a vacation.  Lord knows, I’ll need it.

Much love to you all tonight.  Goodnight.

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Tripping over grief

JenLeave a comment

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Today, I stumbled and tripped over grief.  It snuck up on me and took me by complete surprise. The funk started last night and really came to a head today. I don’t remember the last time I cried so much. 

I worked hard today at communicating with my friends and family about what I was feeling or thinking. The old me would have stayed silent. Strong and silent. Silence isn’t healthy and I recognize that. But today, I spoke, even when I didn’t want to. I didn’t always have the best timing, or even wording choices, but rather than stew on something I found upsetting, I opted to share. Hey, emotions were high for me. But at least I’m learning to find and use my voice. I’ll take that as a win.

I struggle to understand grief. Why’d it hit me so hard today? I literally cried for much of the day. As an anti crier…that’s really not like me. I couldn’t shut off the tears today.  Everything set me off into bucket loads of tears. Maybe I just needed to cry it out. I’m feeling a lot better right now…but I’d like to find better ways of either recognizing when a wave of grief is coming, or preventing it completely. That way, I’m not caught off guard.

I know that Ben would be proud of me. He’d want us all happy, and we are. When you lose someone, you mourn their presence, their past and their future. I haven’t cried like I did today over Ben in probably 2-3 years. And at one point, knowing I was losing it made me mad at myself. I have it pretty damn good. Life is going extremely well for me. I was mad that I became a blubbery mess, when by all rights, I shouldn’t.

I’ve struggled with some of the worst dreams ever in the last few nights. Horrible dreams where you wake up shaking. The kind of dreams that leave lasting visual imagery in your mind, and nothing you do will shake it. I hate dreams.

I’m going to contact my grief counselor on tues. Might be good to have a check in of sorts. Get some tips or advice on eliminating recurring dreams, and on grief in general. I think it’ll be good for me.

Well goodnight neverland. Dream sweet. XXO!!

So angry

Jen6 Comments

angry-girl

The anger I’m feeling right now, the injustice of the way our world works is so strong.  I feel like I could spew a lot of hate right now.  Need to get myself under control for the work day, so I figured i’d spew some of it here.

Medical Bills.  Credit.  God just those words almost make me see red.

I’m in a lot of debt.  I’m not irresponsible.  I have no credit cards.  I pay everything with cash.  If I don’t have the funds, I don’t buy.  Simple as that.  So why am I in debt you ask?  Ben.  I had “good” insurance.  They covered 80%.  I thought, like many americans, hey I have a good job, good insurance, my son is sick, but we’ll figure it out.  The last time I looked at the total I owe for Ben’s bills, it was in the 250K mark.  Think about that.   If my insurance paid 80% of the bills.. and MY costs are 250K…. just let that simmer for a second.

Now .. if Ben had made it.  I probably would feel differently about the debt.  But it was the constant mistakes the hospital made that make my blood boil.  They made mistakes with me, and with him.  Massive ones.  Unforgiveable ones.  I should have hired a lawyer.  I should have fought.  I didn’t want money, as no amount of money would give me my son back.  I just wanted the bills to go away.  But I was so focused, after he passed, on learning how to breathe again, that I didn’t fight it.  And now, with statues of limitations, I can’t.  So the debt stays.  I’ve job hopped, house hopped.  Side benefit from that is that the garnishments couldn’t catch up to me.  Until recently.

So now … I’m being garnished to pay a debt to a hospital who I trusted to save my child.  I get to pay for the ambulance that ran out of oxygen on the way to another hospital – and no one in the ambulance caught it.  My child was without oxygen for more than a few minutes.  I get to pay for a nurse who thought it was smart to remove my stitches the day after my C-section.  Which of course, prompted my C-section to rip back open.  They then put me on a wound vac to try and get the wound to close.  The wound vac caused more damage than good.  I get to pay for a doctor who ordered morphine for me during labor, even tho it stated in my chart that I was allergic. And then get to pay for all the staff who helped keep me from having a stroke afterwards. I get to pay for a doctor who didn’t think to look at the 18 medications they had pumping into my son and think – gee – these meds might cause him to get blocked up.  We should add something to make sure he doesnt’.  That was his cause of death by the way.  A blockage in his bowels.  He’d had a brain surgery, a feeding tube inserted into his stomach.  Fought pneumonia.  Won through all of that – but he couldn’t beat the stupidity of those doctors.  They refused to do a 3rd surgery on him.  Said that with the oxygen deprivation from the ambulance that there was a chance he was severely damaged anyway.  No amount of me screaming “I don’t care! Fix my SON!!” would change it.

Anger, grief, disbelief… funny how most of the time I’m ok. But this morning, discovering that 2K was garnished from my paycheck brought it all back.  And this ugly feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I looked into a lawyer after he passed away.  Briefly.  They explained that I couldn’t just go after the hospital.  It doesn’t work like that.  I’d have to sue the ambulance, the hospital, the doctor and the nurse all separately.  4 cases.  4 times in front of a judge.  4 judgements.  What absolute BULLSHIT.  I didn’t want to go through that.  Didn’t want some stranger of a judge to pick apart the time I had with my son.  He/she wasn’t there.  The idea that I could lose and then have to cover lawyer costs on top of it all, plus having to relive it all 4 times?!  No thanks.  I chickened out.  Should have found the strength.  Somehow.

I think the other piece that makes me angry is that they are only going after me.  Somehow, the ex is in the clear.  What the hell?!  It takes 2 to tango. We were married.  Community property should also be community debt.  Yea ok, he makes shit for wages, but he’s still responsible too.  Why is it that only I have to figure this out?

I have a few options.  Going to talk to a lawyer.  Fight it if I can, claim bankruptcy again (did so 10 years ago after my first divorce), move out of country? lol.  I have no desire to move out of country right now.  I want so desperately to lay down some roots.  But for what?  Don’t want to lay roots down if they’re just going to get ripped up by some stupid creditor.  Sigh.  Can I just go back to bed?

Ben’s Story

Jen6 Comments

The following is an excerpt from my journal.  4 years ago.  I’m in a much better place today obviously, but for those who asked… here is what i’m willing to share – at least for today. 🙂

08/04/2009

So this has been one of the toughest pregnancies I ever thought i’d deal with.  I’m depressed – more than depressed if I’m honest.  I never thought i’d want to be validated just for being pregnant.  There are pregnant ladies all over my work – and the other women in the building are always cooing over how big they’ve grown or how they glow – no one says a damn word to me.  They don’t even know what’s going on with me.  I talk to the belly all the time – and play games poking back when i get kicked – but no one in the family (hubby included) does anything like that.  I can’t do a baby shower until after I know whether my little ben will make it or not, i can’t do a nursery for the same reason.  I understand those reasonings, but I’m pregnant – when can i find a little time to have some JOY in that other than what I’m doing for myself?  I understand the hubby – he’s afraid to get more attached – afraid that it will only make it harder.  But it’s NOT fair!  What if Ben makes it – and is fine – or has to fight but ends up making it?  What then?  Yea I know – party down big time as a celebration for the little guy – but doesn’t he deserve some celebration anyway?  There is life in the tummy and no one seems to care.  I just don’t know how anyone does it.  How do you get through this without falling apart before hand?  So much mystery surrounds the outcome of these types of pregnancies – how do you make it without becoming a completely depressed basket case?

10/21 – He’s HERE!!!!

Ben

10/26/2009

Well so far I’ve been “kicked out” of the NICU a couple of times – the nurses all joke that they see me in there far too much and that I need more rest.   My hospital has parent suites for NICU parents – like a hotel room – you can stay overnight 2 nights a week free of charge.  I’m here tonight as his surgery is in the morning and I wanted as much mommy and ben time as I could get.  Been here all day, will be here all day tomorrow too.  I’m absolutely exhausted mind you – but I figure I can rest after his surgery.

I’m absolutely terrified of this surgery for him tomorrow – I guess the neurosurgeon who’s doing it is one of the best here in Seattle – so that’s at least comforting.

Jen

10/29/2009

update on Ben:

ben made it through his surgery and is just amazing the doctors left and right.  they have the shunt on the lowest setting for now, that evening they took him off the ventilator (they put him on it for the surgery) and proved the docs wrong by sucking on his pacifier for a full hour.  The next morning they put him in a normal crib as he’s holding his temp.  he’s been trying the bottle since then, getting a little but on a feeding tube still to ensure he’s getting enough.

He’s more alert and isn’t having any issues other than the feeding tube.  The docs are saying he may even get to come home by the first or second week of nov.  i’m so amazed.  They’re calling him the miracle baby lol.

Me however, they re-admitted me.  I pushed it too hard i guess, my incision came open.  Been here since tuesday for the re-admit and won’t go home till sunday or so by the sounds of it.  I pushed it too hard.  Tried to be too strong for his sake.  God I hate hospitals lol.

Jen

11/29/2009

My baby – after fighting through 2 surgeries, spending 24 days in the NICU and getting to come home for 9 glorious days – was taken back to the PICU and spent another 8 days fighting for his life.  Yesterday, he joined the angels.  I’m so incredibly sad.  On one hand I got to spend 5 weeks with him, I got to look at his beautiful face and tell him exactly how much I loved him.  I even got to dance with him in my living room to my favorite song, so I’m grateful I got that, but on the other hand I’m absolutely beyond devastated.  I woke up this morning and looked in his crib.  I can’t believe he’s gone.  I’ve been carrying his blankie around with me like Linus on Charlie Brown.  I’m so grateful I still have 5 weeks left of maternity leave.  Not quite sure how you breathe after something like this.  It just feels so final.  He took his final breaths in my arms and went so peacefully – but I just want to scream and yell “WHY?!?!”  I just want my baby back, in my arms at home where he belongs!!! I can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that he’s never coming back.  This is my first experience with death and it’s not fair that the first time I get to experience something like this is with my own child.  Children aren’t supposed to go first!

Jen

03/25/2010

So it’s been a couple of months since I’ve written anything here.  And today – I feel like there’s an extra pile of straw on this camel’s back and I’m going to break.  I miss my son.  I think I thought grief would be like anything.  When you get sick or you get injured, you slowly get better.  Every day you get better and better.  Grief doesn’t seem to be like that.  It seems it’s a bit more like a roller coaster.  You have good days and bad, good weeks and bad.  Everyone around me is pregnant.  And while I’m incredibly happy for them.  I’m also incredibly angry and hurt by it.  My best friend has a teenager who’s pregnant and due any day.  She’s spent the last 9 months going back and forth about whether or not she wanted to drop this baby off at the local fire station, or adopt it out or keep it.  I sucked it up and threw her a baby shower.  It set me back $600 and a hell of a lot of heart ache.  No one threw me a baby shower with ben – so I think part of it was me making up for that.  But the baby is due any day and all I can think of is “why?!”  Why does she get to have a healthy baby?  Why does she get to keep him?  Ever since Ben died, everything in my life is changing.  My husband decided he wanted to go back to school.  He wants to become a respiratory therapist and help save lives.  And while I’m incredibly proud of him for what he’s doing – our marriage is falling apart.  He’s an alcoholic.  He’s getting help – sorta.  But he won’t stop lying to me.  After Ben died – he had a bit of a mental breakdown.  Said a lot of hurtful things.  Blamed me and my genes for Ben.  Said that he regretted having our son.  Said that I should have caught the doctor’s mistakes, that my not catching them equates me to be a murderer.  That I’m so damn smart about all things – and yet I fucked this up.  Things he can’t take back.  And while I’m working on learning to forgive – I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone.  A month ago, I had to go to the hospital.  My pituitary gland has shut down and all the systems it controls aren’t working right.  So I’m fighting, and I get an hour, sometimes 2 of sleep every night.  They’re doing tests and unfortunately those tests take time to get the results back.  The doc told me not only am I going through all of that, but he feels I’m experiencing acute grief.  He warned me that I need to avoid stress at all costs right now, because stress will make my symptoms even worse.  I know part of it is because I haven’t really had the chance TO grieve.  I’m the only one with a job in our family.  It’s a good job – but highly stressful.  Combine that with a husband who can’t seem to be good and honest for more than 2 weeks at a time and I’d say my own personal stress level is sky high.  He’s drinking behind my back again.  Lying to me about it, hiding it.  Driving under the influence.  I need to somehow get out of this.  I know it to be true.  There are times when all I want to do is crawl into my closet and hide from all the world.  My “so called” friends have all decided to be mad at me just because I’m not being very social.  But when i get home, I just want to take a nap.  This whole not sleeping thing is really quite tough to battle and I’m doing my best.  I had one “friend” tell me I was self-absorbed all because I didn’t email her the same day she emailed me.  I’m not self absorbed, I’m lost.  I’m devastated.  I don’t know how what to do to move forward.  I’ve never felt so lost.  So alone.  On a positive note, I’m doing better at work than I ever have, and I never knew I was this strong before – but that doesn’t make it any easier.  I wish my body would function normally.  The doc said part of it is because of what I went through in the pregnancy.  I don’t know what i want as far as responses… I guess I just like knowing that I’m sending this out into the void.  It’s only been 4 months since I lost Ben and I know it’s gotta be perfectly normal to experience a lot of what I’m going through – but damn.  I miss him.  I miss him so much it hurts.  I still sleep with his blanket every night.  It no longer smells like him.

Jen

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What’s interesting to me – is how far I’ve come.  I’ve gotten a lot healthier.  I’ve finally realized my own worth.  Or am at least on the path to realizing it fully.  I live each day for the moment.  Funny, the pain fades a lot over time.  4 years.  I don’t hurt like I did.  Sometimes, but not very often.  I still don’t feel that i’ve grieved.  I have done all I could to put on my war paint and masks and go to work and be the responsible adult.  Support the household.  At least I’m not dealing with cruelness or addiction anymore.  I don’t have to worry about someone putting a hole in my wall from their anger.  There’s peace and happiness, forward motion in my life again.