my work of grief

grief is hard work.

one of my friends has been making calls to local support groups for me. she knows i am overwhelmed with the idea of making phone calls of any kind right now, so she offered to do it for me, to find out when/where the meetings are and which ones might be good for me. she is a teacher, and she offered to do this right as the school year is starting and things are getting busy for her. what a big heart.. you know who you are, i love you.

she spoke to one of the leaders of one group. this woman has lost 3 children.. one by miscarriage, the stillbirth of a late term twin, and a 17 year old to a car accident (..lift your chin back up... there are no words..) she told her that ive been sleeping a lot. the leader said this was expected because grief is such hard work.. it takes so much energy.

i was led back to the blogs today. i had a strong day.. i went to church, had lunch with one church couple, and then dinner with another. the pastor mentioned us in the sermon today. i have now mentined each member of my small group in this note. My Rock Group. My Rocks, from Rocky River Church. so although a strong day only gives me fear that tomorrow will be a weak one like yesterday was, a strong day leads me back to the blogs. strength to read about other mommies. strength to carry the burden of their grief on top of mine. to pour some of my grief onto theirs.

grief, one mommy said, lasts longer than sympathy. grief is hard work, she said, with no lunch breaks and no holidays. the world moves on and im standing still. the word "still" is chilling to me now, every time i write it. my mom is still here. i still have to pay the bills. we still have each other. im still breathing. my baby was born still. she's still my baby. "still" sounds peaceful, like still waters or silence, or something that's unchanging or comforting. every time i write the word still, i feel a rift between comfort and between the horror of being "still"born... comforted that she's still mine.. but she was stillborn.

i dont really like referring to her as being stillborn. stillborn is a sweeping generalization that she died before she was born, died before she was a real life, generalized into all babies who die inside their mothers at, by definition, any time after 20 weeks. but kathlyn was so much more than that. she was my daughter and alive and real to me, and alive and real to my husband and to many others, so you cant just say that she was alive to ME because im the MOTHER and she was physically inside me. although that does probably set me apart as the primary griever, the one who suffers her loss the deepest, it doesnt make her less real. no, i tell myself, she wasnt really stillborn. she was my newborn baby who died. i anticipate the question "how many children do you have?" i have 1 child. she died at birth. i was full term, she was not a premie. this matters. it doesnt change the loss of other children who were earlier than 37 weeks, or who were born, took breaths of oxygen and not just amniotic fluid, and then died.. it doesnt make those losses easier or harder. it just means they are different and the differences matter to each mother or parent who is suffering.

there is another mommy who wrote how she wont even type the words stillborn or stillbirth and has never referred to her daughter as stillborn. her thoughts and writings are so very similar to mine, it's uncanny. we are not unique. grief is common. it is unique to have never felt the hard work of grief. she wrote how she has no birth or death certificate, something you've read about here before in my words. john and i had a conversation about this today, over ice cream. OVER ICE CREAM. how normal and relaxing, ice cream on a sunday afternoon. topped not with whipped cream and cherries, but instead with a conversation on how to get a Certificate of Stillbirth to aid in a possible tax break. it's sick. if she had been born alive, born a newborn baby and died at birth as i will describe her, we would have been able to deduct her for the entire year. even if she'd lived outside of me for 60 seconds, we'd get a birth certificate, and death certificate, and a tax break. what is the flipping difference!? she was STILL MY NEWBORN BABY. the government doesnt care.. and in the grand scheme of things, we dont care about the stupid tax break either... it just adds insult to injury.

she writes "Stillbirth: That is the technical term for what happened. It's here in Webster's:

stillborn: adj; dead when born
stillbirth: n. 1. the birth of a stillborn fetus 2. such a fetus

Now, I realize that is what happened. But look at that definition. I can hardly take it, this other term they use: fetus. She was nothing but a fetus to them, just a fetus. This full grown, seven pound, dark haired, healthy girl-fetus. We were all those, once. Only when we were born, we got to be called a baby. My child: a fetus. A stillbirth. I hate those words...


Lastly, I will throw one more term into the pot: two words I found scrawled at the bottom of my discharge slip. They cut into me like a cattle brand, they seared my heart, sucked my baby down into a whirlpool.

Fetal demise.

I don't even need to write about this. How would you feel if someone called your baby this, even if you knew it was true?"

i've got another one for her. my discharge papers. Elizabeth Davis. Reason for admission: intrauterine death. oh. i didnt even get to deliver her?! was i even a patient at all?! i still had major surgery! it's ok.. i work at a hospital too and some of those admission diagnoses are really lame. i suppose they wouldnt write "birth of a beautiful angel into the arms of Jesus" as my reason for admission.

my anesthesiologist during the surgery asked me if i wanted any kind of sedatives. i declined, because i wanted to be alert and aware. actually. they offered to put me completely asleep for the surgery, but i said no because it would mean john wouldnt be there with me. it would mean i would be groggy in the aftermath, in the only time i had with my daughter, and i didnt want to miss that. i was also holding on to the possibility that it was a horrible mistake.. the ultrasound machines must have been broken (two of them. and the doppler, and the NST monitor. they were all broken.) kathlyn was going to cry when they took her out of me. i cant risk missing that! please God, just let her cry! so i stayed awake during the csection, with john at my side, awaiting our babygirl after 9 long months of anticipated joy and then 9 long hours of dread (surgery was delayed because i had eaten breakfast). she didnt cry. still beautiful, still born, but born still. so i was offered a sedative, more than once. i instantly felt bad for the answer i gave when he offered for the last time if i wanted a sedative, because he was well meaning and trying to help me. he had no answer (but according to john, tears), when i said, because i knew the hard work of grief was ahead of me, "will it last the rest of my life?"