05 February, 2012

losses

last night i slept six hours straight for i believe the first time in your life. only to be tortured by that with insomnia for about two hours.

so i did some thinking. about sleep. and losses.

i thought back to the night that my water broke when your brother was in my belly. i feel asleep with such a positive belief that everything would be okay.

and i woke up to contractions. and then morphine. and then being moved to l&d. and then to pitocin and an epidural. and then to delivering your tiny brother and holding him while he took his few breaths.

and that night i slept in the hospital bed clinging to your dad. waking every hour or so and reliving again what had happened. realizing that there was no baby in my belly anymore. that he was downstairs in the basement, alone and cold. every time i woke i sobbed again as if i had just learned the news. i dreaded sleep as much as i welcomed it.

i had lost your brother. lost the hopes and dreams that i had imagined for him. i felt as though my heart had literally been ripped out of my chest. and that i had been beaten with it.

i felt ashamed. embarrassed. angry. alone. empty. guilty. the negative emotions that overcame me on a minute by minute basis were so powerful. so depleting. so frightening. i'm not really sure it's possible to communicate the depth of the emptiness i felt.

that all mothers feel when they lose a baby.

some mothers lose them late in a pregnancy like i did. and some very early on. some just after the baby is born or even during the labor. and some when their baby has grown up. either a little or a lot.

i can't imagine there is anything worse than losing your baby. i just can't imagine it. maybe that seems self-centered, but really, i can't imagine it. i truly believe that i would choose any form of suffering over losing another baby.

and i guess that's why i am so emotionally attached to protecting you. when you cry because you are hurt or sad, it pains me. it literally hurts me inside and in my heart. holding your brother as he passed through this world while i knew there was nothing i could do to help him has made such an imprint on my psyche. it has literally changed my genetic make-up, i believe.

i am a new person because of him. because of that experience. because of those minutes with him.

i hope that i can be brave for you. i hope that i can stand to see you hurt and sad. you will get hurt. and you will be sad. and i can't always stop that. and i don't need to. i know this. and i know it's okay.

but you are my baby. and i can't imagine a minute of my life without you.

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