someone

someone had a baby.

not me. well, no. i take that back. i had a baby. just not the way you're supposed to ("...you fail!"). when you hear the news about a female friend or family member, "she had a baby!" you would naturally assume that meant the baby was alive and screaming and making her joyous and exhausted.

but no. someone i know had a baby. after losing her first one. and anyone who thinks im "not ready" to have another baby should see her pictures and read the following:
He has brought us more joy in his first 10 days of life than we thought possible. And this is only the very beginning. He has also taught us a bazillion and one lessons as we continue to fumble our way along live-baby parenthood. Very different to deadbaby parenthood but I can assure you, a crap load easier. Even as I sit here, with open wounds on my nipples

what a relief off my shoulders when i read that line about it being easier. not that that wouldn't be obvious. just nice to read straight out of the horse's mouth.

someone else had a baby. her fourth one. but only the 3rd one she will have the oppurtunity to raise. she also lost her first. and she is also so consumed with joy right now, it radiates through her writing. i remembered back to another powerful entry she made about the early months after losing her first, 6 years ago. she lay on the floor in her daughters room, sobbing and clutching one of her blankets. her husband came in, gave her a sincere hug on the floor, and walked back out to whatever project he was doing, leaving her to cry. that is just exactly what john would do. he wants to help, he wants to soothe me in situations like that. but he's stuck in his own grief too, and has to walk away after a short moment.

our situations are so different right now, her with her three lovely living children after learning to parent only an angel at first. though i hope someday they will be the same. every post she makes, i scroll back down to her family photo when she was announcing the arrival of her newest baby.. one of all of them, with a space between herself and her oldest child, a space for the spirit of her firstborn to linger. i want a smile like hers. it's far away right now. so painfully far away. i think of her post so often, grief-stricken, literally floored by the grief. that's still me. i am tempted to rip kathlyn's mattress out of her crib, and sleep on it on the floor. someday i will do it. the mattress is so heavy. i couldnt lift it when i was pregnant. now im afraid if i use the strength to heave it out from the bars, i will keep going. i am afraid of the massacre on my daughter's room.

despite my grief and raw anger, i love so much more deeply. i have been told in person by workmates and in writing by someone who lives on the other side of the continent, that my empathy and compassion is evident, and translates into a gentle bedside manner for patients and families in crisis while im at work. i never knew this love before. and my daughter's not even here to experience it. i love only the thought of her, the image of her, the grief of her, what might have been of her.

someone is pregnant.

not me. not quite time to announce that just yet. hopefully soon. the first friend to tell me she is pregnant since my loss, other than the ones who were already pregnant when it happened. for what it's worth, and it's worth a lot, she told me privately, sincerely, and with great thought and effort into the sensitive news. i didnt have to just see "I'M PREGNANT!" on a status update or a mass email to all 400 of her friends. i appreciate that.

she told me that she thought of me when she saw her baby's heartbeat, and that she hoped i would see my 2nd baby's heartbeat soon too. however, that's not what i expected her to say. i am an eternal pessimist now. welcome. have a seat. check all your reservations about mothers of dead children at the door, please. this is a grim and dark place, filled with raw truths and heartbreaking sentiments. as i peer outside, i see two hawks circling above.

i expected her to say when she saw her 2nd baby's heartbeat (her firstborn is alive and well), that she thought of the horror of the day i saw that my baby no longer had one. interesting, i always thought she was a pessimist too, but she's now filled with the ecstacy and hope of new pregnancy. so she pictured my 2nd baby's heart, too.

i got shivers down my spine though. picturing her on the table, happy tears and she sees her new baby, i was brought back to the horribly different type of tears coming out of me the last time i had an ultrasound. what pops in my head is the perfect form of my first baby, the perfect form and shape of her heart, an image sitting still like a photograph, not a live streaming video of a baby less than 24 hours away from being born.

my first thought when i heard "i'm sorry, there's no heartbeat" was a mix between "i knew it" (eternal pessimist, if i wasnt one before, i am now) and "does that mean she's dead??" but as a medical professional, im so glad i didnt say either of those outloud. "does that mean she's dead???" ummm, of course it does, dimwit. i guess i just imagined that my circulation could have helped her out a little. no heartbeat?! so?! get her out and revive her then! not so much.

i dont really know where "i knew it" came from because i really had no premonition of this happening. i have always been the worst kind of worrier, so of course i worried through my pregnancy, but i dont think i ever, ever thought she was going to up and die. i fear that being a worrier ruined it for me. being a worrier erased any premonitions i might have had, because i wrote them off as the usual worries of an anxious person. fuck. whenever i am that someone who is pregnant, im sure going to give the staff in that office a run for their money. they will recognize my name, phone number, chart number, and voice, if they dont already. oh, it's beth again. what NOW?! you just called 5 minutes ago.

actually, i know that's not the case at all. they are made of gold over there in that office. why else would i be willing to step foot anywhere near that room that housed the image of my precious daughter's perfectly still yet NST-and-autopsy-confirmed perfectly healthy heart. i made that heart from scratch. i just didnt follow through the way my body was made to. it doesnt matter what you say, i will never forgive myself for this.

still cant believe it's true, that babies die for no reason. no worldly reason and no medical reason. the stars aligned, and kathlyn is gone.

i saw a movie last night about the end of the world. hm. i still think a newborn baby dying is worse. the worst thing that could happen anywhere to anyone. worse than the end of the world. the death of a baby is the death of hope, the death of innocence, joy , future, optimism, and pure love. i am devastated. the repeated images from that movie of buildings collapsing, fire, explosions, destruction... that represents my insides. all broken and jumbled up with pieces flying everywhere and missing. if you rebuild any part, it's never quite the same as the original. at least if the world ended, we'd all be together. our world didnt end, but it's upside down. for now it's just john and me, using all our three wishes on the rebirth of joy someday.