Thursday, November 27, 2008

Childless Woman

The womb
Rattles its pod, the moon
Discharges itself from the tree with nowhere to go.

My landscape is a hand with no lines,
The roads bunched to a knot,
The knot myself,

Myself the rose you acheive---
This body,
This ivory

Ungodly as a child's shriek.
Spiderlike, I spin mirrors,
Loyal to my image,

Uttering nothing but blood---
Taste it, dark red!
And my forest

My funeral,
And this hill and this
Gleaming with the mouths of corpses.

-Sylvia Plath

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Fuck Thanksgiving.

I just couldn't do it. I couldn't. I can't pretend to be happy on that day. I can't be thankful on that day. I can't be around all my relatives, pregnant relatives, happy relatives. My dad was a complete jerk about it when I called him. "Get with it" he said. I'm so sick of his 'toughen up' attitude. I'm just going to treat tomorrow like any other day, take a bath, watch movies, and not think about turkey or family.

I don't think I'll ever be able to celebrate it again. My second favorite holiday, all the family, all the food, none of the gifts, one more thing to mourn.

I just want my Myles, how can I be thankful? I was so thankful last year, 37 weeks, my little turkey Myles was cooked.

MISSing Myles, wishing my family understood, but I don't think they ever will.

Myles' big day (I didn't crawl into a hole)

Technically, I birthed Myles on November 24, 2007, but we found out he was gone on the 23rd, maybe left us that very day. The 23rd always held special significance for me as I had experienced preterm labor, and November 23rd I was 37 weeks exact. It was my victory day. I made my space public for a short while and have been using it for a memorial site for him ( (as you may have seen). I'll change it back after Thanksgiving I think, another sad day, but i made it through the last one. Here's how the day went:

I thought I'd crawl in a hole these last few days, but my sister came down with her four kids (2,4,8,12) and of course Simone was there, and I have a small house, so I had a mad house. I ended up taking them all to the card store and letting them pick out what they think Myles would like, getting balloons and some party hats. They were a blessing (is there . Just what I needed to get the job done, with a smile, and some tears. My daughter of course told anyone who asked that we were celebrating her little brother's birthday, 'but he died'.

I added some pics and their in Myles slideshow. I just realized yesterday, I wanted a cake, and it did turn out nice. My sister and I sang the Rose, my 2 year old nephew popped Myles' balloon, but it was funny. The kids were so wise, and just said the right things. They're so innocent, they don't know enough about death to act all awkward and socially handicapped like adults do.

The day went well, but I'm glad this one is over. Now I have today, and tomorrow, all the rest of the days of my life living without my son to get through. I hope I find some healing days like I found this day in the future.

And btw, Thanks Heidi, you were amazing, just the person i needed. Wish mom coulda seen the balloon release, i saw you stopped by and put the ducks on Myles' stone. I love you so much, you're my best friend, even though I treat you like poop sometimes. I know you love me no matter what, and that means a lot to me.

Monday, November 17, 2008

November 16, 2007

I'm 36 weeks today, and I am happy and miserable and nervous and excited and anxious and crabby all at the same time. Today I just wanted to hold my little baby so bad, I can't wait.

Brandon's in the dog house because he laughed (with a weird sort of triumph) when I told him I thought that I could be getting stretch marks under my bellybutton, my tummy is still free of stretch marks. Then, we're laying in bed and he says, "I can't believe you're getting so big." I'm like, jeez thanks, and he says, "Well you were just so skinny, who knew you could get so big." Yeah, seriously, he said this. His excuse is he's just proud his boy's getting big. It's irritating. I'm not reveling in my girth goddamnit, why should he get to?! I can't be too mad though, he acts as if the bigger I get, the more accomplished we are as parents. It's almost (but not quite) cute. I wonder if he were the one this gigantic if he would feel near so proud?


I look over the past year and compare it to last. So many changes have happened, and I just want to go back, back, back and I just keep moving forward. But not forward really; sideways, up, down (down, down, down). My hearts still lost somewhere back there. I wish my son were here with me this Thanksgiving, I feel like there is some alternate reality out there somewhere where he is. And we're all together as a family and happy like it was supposed to be. I can see it so clearly. I pretend to hold my son in my arms, it's so hard not having him here I like to pretend he is. And I know not everything would be better or perfect if he were here, but my heart would be so much bigger. The daily joys of a child? Oh, little children are so much fun. I could use some of that kind of life. That fun, some of those frustrations, and silly worries. Part of me wants to be oblivious to the harshness of this life, but part of me couldn't trade in the knowledge I have now, at how precious this life is. I just want my son.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Countdown: two weeks

I've really fallen apart recently. One of my favorite movies is Donnie Darko (morbid I know) but I've just felt like what happened to him is happening to me. The past, present, and future, are all unrealized alternate realities due to some weird blip in the space time continuum, and yet there is this countdown, to the second, that will lead to self destruction. But for the better?

I was describing how I felt at Thanksgiving last year to my therapist. Oh, how I longed for my Turkey, Myles. I would make jokes about him as a turkey in the oven keeping him in there to get good and cooked (he wanted to come early), and how he was going to be an 8 pound holiday turkey, and I'd sing him the Adam Sandler thanksgiving song and my daughter would laugh with glee and Myles would kick at the rucus.

I remember being so thankful and happy. I had made it through many weeks of bedrest, and on the Friday after Thanksgiving, I would be 37 weeks. TERM!!! A term pregnancy. My daughter was born at 35 weeks, so making it even further, that was such an accomplishment. I thought the worse had come and past. I was counting my chickens before they hatched (a really sad platitude if you think about it). As Elizabeth mcCracken put it, i thought he was a sure thing. I tempted fate, not aloud, but i was certainly cavalier.

Could I wait for 40 weeks?! NO! I wanted him then, that suited me. That friday, November 23rd. I couldn't wait. So I did everything I could to make the contractions that had accompanied me for those long weeks of bedrest work to finally get him HERE, in my arms, my holiday baby that I imagined falling in love with so many times.

It sounds so silly, and romantic isn't the word for it, but I had the weeks after his birth planned like you would have a romantic vacation planned. I didn't want to leave the bed for the first week (YES, AFTER 9 weeks of bed rest!!!). We were going to nurse and sleep and play and bond, attachment parenting heaven.

I was so thankful that week, but for the wrong things. I was thankful that bed rest was over. I was thankful to get up and cook and clean and impress, my first thanksgiving in my own home. I was thankful that my son would be here soon. I was not thankful that he was still in my womb. I wanted him out of my body. I was not thankful (never was thankful) for being pregnant. I was not thankful for that wonderful Thanksgiving day with him inside me, myself completely oblivious to the fact he had likely already passed. That night we watched the movie 'Knocked up' eerily when I first began to wonder when i last felt him.

Life in the fast lane, taking everything and everyone for granted. Thinking I deserved my son. Feeling so entitled and bitter for those weeks of bed rest, broken down into seconds ticking in my mind each day of worry and frustration and of complete vulnerability. It was, nevertheless, hopeful worry as in my mind it was completely assured he'd arrive safe and healthy. He was my light at the end of a long dark tunnel, my reward for what I perceived to be my own self sacrifice, when really it feels like I was punished for caprice and ungratefulness.

That clock ticking away then is as loud and clear today as it was this exact day last november. But everything is the opposite. There is no hope this time, only a deep sense of loss, shame, and failure. But the ticking is there, in the back of my mind, like the crocodile searching for Captain Hook.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Not yet morning in America

You will all have to forgive me, but I’m not celebrating yet. You see, he is President elect Obama. We have two months until he becomes President. And that scares the shit out of me. The negative campaign that capitalized on division and hatred has it’s true believers seething mad. Racist fascist right-wing fundamentalist assholes are waking up pissed off all over America and all over the world. So excuse me if I wait to cry and dance until inauguration day. I don’t think this President will make it. But that’s my life experience talking; calamity is around every corner in my world. I thought there was room in my heart for hope when it came to Obama, but I guess not. I’m just afraid this morning, and that makes me sad. No joy, not even in this.