Capture Your Grief - Day 7

First I was three days behind now I'm getting ahead.....tomorrow is going to be busy and I already have my photos picked out so I'm doing it tonight!

Today's prompt is "Sacred Place."  One of the difficult things for me about pregnancy loss is the lack of traditions or ceremony or special places.  There is no grave.  There was no funeral.  There are no pictures (except for two ultrasound pictures and a few of me pregnant which I can still hardly bear to look at).  I think those are all important parts of grieving a loss.

For a while, I did not have a sacred place.  And technically, I still don't.  But the beach or near the ocean has become a special place for me.  A place where I can breathe deeply and find some quiet and clear my head.  There is something about the coach - the crashing the waves, the salt air, the bigness of the sky and the ocean.  Its like you can't get away from yourself or your thoughts there (and I mean t hat in a good way) - there is nothing else but you and water and sand.  And almost every time I am at the beach or near the ocean I think of our baby.

And what's funny is that I used to dislike the beach.  I hated the wind, the sand, the cold water.  Looking at the water or sitting and doing nothing bored me.  I did not appreciate the beauty or the bigness.  And I can't pinpoint the exact time when that changed, but I know it was after we lost the baby.

This was in Hawaii on one of our sunrise walks.  Those morning walks were some of the most precious time from that trip.  It was just Greg and I.  And when he would go off and take pictures, I would walk ahead on my own and we would be alone together.  It was so beautiful and peaceful.  And I felt my baby there.

This is down by the bay where I go walking at least once a week - sometimes with Finn, sometimes with one of my good friends, sometimes alone.  This is a place where my head clears and I feel calm. Its not the same as a beautiful beach in Hawaii but the water is blue and the sky is big.  These are my places.

Capture Your Grief - Days 3, 4, 5 and 6

Sooooo I got a little behind.....

Day 3 - Before

This was October 8, 2005.  Our wedding day.  I remember looking at our wedding pictures maybe a year after we lost the baby.  And I looked at our faces and our smiles and saw us laughing and joking and having a truly wonderful time.  And I remember thinking "we look so innocent, so young, so happy, so unaware of what's coming."  I was definitely different before.  Losing my baby and the difficult journey to becoming a mother to Finn changed me in so many ways.  Mostly for the better I think.  I think (I hope) I have more empathy and less judgement, more appreciation and less complaints, more love and commitment and less fear.

Day 4 - Now

I'm very content with who I am now and the wonderful life I lead.  And by "wonderful" I don't mean perfect.  There are highs and lows.  But I think I'm better at feeling my feelings.  Before, I think I tried very hard to avoid negative feelings.  I lived in fear of being hurt and so I made lots of choices based on that - trying to avoid getting hurt.  Losing the baby was a hurt too big to avoid.  In a way, I'm grateful for that.  I think I live a more honest life now.  And swimming in the depths after we lost the baby has really helped me appreciate the good times.  I'm grateful for even just a good moment.  And I think I'm more aware, more focused on healing and growing.  I often wonder if that would be the case if we hadn't finally gotten pregnant and safely given birth to Finn.  Because truthfully, he brought me out of the dark.  Having him in my life is when I finally started to really feel better and experience joy again. 

Day 5 - Journal

No picture for this.  I'm allowing myself to slack on pictures for days 5 & 6).  I have always WANTED to write more than I actually wrote.  After we lost the baby I did journal a little.  I had to.  I had to get some of what I was feeling out of me.  That's when I started reading blogs and discovered that there were lots of women out there like me.  It was immensely comforting.  I don't write much anymore.  I feel pretty good so I don't need it and life can be pretty busy.

Day 6 - Books

I read a lot of books after we lost the baby.  I'm a book person.  When I have a "problem," I read about it.  So after the baby died, I read grief books, when we had trouble getting pregnant, I read infertility books, and now I read parenting books.  The book that really stands out for me is Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking."  I had never in my life felt the way I did after we lost the baby.  I was lost.  And I felt very alone.  That book helped me understand that grief is a process and that there are not just mental effects, but physical ones.  I remember feeling like my brain was broken.  I had trouble finishing my sentences, couldn't come up with the word I wanted to say.  I forgot things.  And I never used to be like that - I had always been very quick and able to do 37 things at once, I remembered everything.  That book made me feel like I wasn't crazy, that what I was experiencing was normal.

Capture Your Grief - Day 2

Today's subject is "Heart."  Who do I carry in my heart?  I carry my baby in my heart.  A little life that only lasted 20 weeks inside of me.  My husband and I did not name her.  But we had a girl's name picked out.  And I know she would have been named Naomi.  Here's my picture for today:

I made this after we lost the baby.  I had this image burned in my mind from the ultrasound of her little hand waving at us.  I remember seeing that little hand wave and it was a few moments of pure joy and amazement before everything went all wrong.  And I continued to picture that little hand over and over for weeks after.  And then I made this.

And through Carly Marie's project I learned of the e.e. cummings poem "I Carry Your Heart."  And now I will think of these words every time I look at my mosaic:

i carry your heart with me

i carry it in my heart

i am never with out it

Capture Your Grief - Day 1

So I've decided to participate in some way in Carly Marie's #captureyourgrief project for the month of October.  Here's a description of the event from her website: "Capture Your Grief is a beautifully poignant act of remembrance and awareness. There are 31 subjects, one for each day in the month of October. You are invited to share a photo that captures your journey with each daily subject that inspires your heart. You are welcome to take new photos or use ones from the past. Capture Your Grief is about exploring your grief and discovering more about your thoughts to aid in your journey of healing and personal growth."  

I think this is a wonderful idea.  I've been feeling like I wanted to do SOMETHING this year.  Not sure what or how.  Its been seven years since I lost my baby.  Seven was an important number for me in losing her.  So this year, the milestones somehow felt different.  More significant.  Its also been long enough now where I feel like I can process what happened.  It's easier to talk about.  I'm in a  pretty good place.  Wonderful place actually.  But the grief is still there.  Its not the "all-encompassing, weighing me down every day" grief of the first year.  But the experience and the grief are just a part of who I am and will always be present in some form.

Anyway, I don't have much time so here is my picture for today

This is not from this morning.  I did not get to take a picture of the sunrise this morning.  And the story of my morning pretty much sums up where I am in life right now:  Finn woke up at 3:30 this morning, turned on his light and started  reading and talking to himself.  We've been having sleep issue for months now - waking up VERY early, nightmare, night terrors.  I went in to his room and told him it was still the middle of the night and he needed to go back to sleep.  But I was now WIDE AWAKE.  Long story short, he never went back to sleep and I only got about 45 minutes before our wake up time at 6:45.  I am exhausted.  And its pretty likely that he will have a rough afternoon.  But on this  Day 1 of the Capture Your Grief project, I can easily feel grateful for this long night and possibly tough day.  Its so much better than the alternative.  The pain and sadness that I felt from the day we got the diagnosis about our first baby until the moment that Finn was put in my arms (well, next to my face, but that's another story) was hard.  Last night and today?  Lack of sleep and a cranky four year old?  Not hard in the scheme of things.  So that's where I am.  I'm the mother of a bright, funny, curious, challenging, loving four and a half year old.

The picture I chose is of my husband and I on a sunrise walk in Hawaii.  It was a wonderful trip with Finn and Greg's mom and that was a beautiful morning the two of us were able to share.  I thought about our baby on that walk while Greg took pictures of whales and the gorgeous sunrise.  There is something about the beach and the ocean - I always think of her when I'm there.

And even though it was about 20 minutes after the sunrise, I took a moment this morning to think about our baby and try to feel connected to people around the world who have lost babies and to send love and support to those who are still deep in the grief journey.

The Wilson's Make Boys

"The Wilson's make boys."  How many times have I heard this statement?  My husband is one of three boys.  My brother and sister in law have two boys.  Our son is a boy.

My other brother in law and his girlfriend are pregnant and they find out the sex of the baby tomorrow. Both of them posted a "what do you think we're having?" type status on Facebook today.  And of course one of the comments was "well, the Wilson's make boys so...."

Actually, one Wilson made a girl once.  She didn't make it.  But she was made and she was very important to me.  And every single time someone talks about how the Wilson's only make boys it hurts.  I know no one is trying to hurt me, but it hurts nonetheless.

And I feel like when I don't say anything, when I don't stand up for her and say "There WAS a girl, a Wilson made a girl, I MADE A GIRL," I am somehow letting her down.  Or dishonoring her little life. Allowing people to ignore her existence.

Hurt.  Guilt.  Sadness.  It doesn't come as often.  But it still comes.

I'm going to go take a shower and MY two Wilson boys will come home from the park and the hurt and sadness will fade for now.

We're LIVE

Friday, September 27th.  We're "live."  Our birthparent letters are at the agency, waiting to be handed out.  Our online profile is up and running, ready to be looked at.  Pretty huge.  Exciting and scary stuff.

So now we hurry up and wait.  Wait for someone to call.  Wait for someone to look at our letter and see something or read something that makes them want to learn more about us, to talk to us.  Wait for someone to click on our profile and look at our pictures and read the descriptions we so carefully wrote.      Wait for someone to decide that we would be the right parents for their baby. Wow.

Needless to say, our 800 number hasn't shown up on my phone today.  But wouldn't that have made an incredible story?

I would write more but my little man is coming in to kiss me for the hundredth time today (he is in a  very lovey phase - pretty awesome).  He will help to make this wait for this child much easier than the last wait, that's for sure.

Barren Bitches Book Brigade Post

I participated in Mel's Barren Bitches Book Brigade this month.  We read "The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption" by Lori Holden (http://www.amazon.com/Open-Hearted-Way-Open-Adoption-Helping/dp/1442217383).

My husband and I have been in the process of deciding if we should adopt a child for a lonnnnnng time and I had gotten to the "let's shit or get off the pot" point.  I know this is a big decision - HUGE - not one to be taken lightly or decided on a whim.  But I mean, we'd done the research, listed the pros and cons, thought long and hard, found an agency we loved, slept on it, etc, etc.  And I recently told him that I just needed to KNOW.  We needed to actually make a decision.  I felt like I could deal with the outcome either way, I just needed to KNOW so I could move on with my life.  And then I saw the book club selection and thought "this is a sign."  Not necessarily a sign that we should or should not adopt, but that we should DECIDE and move forward.  So I signed right up, ordered me a copy from Amazon and read it all in one sitting the day it arrived.  That's how I roll.

What did we decide?  Shall I keep you in suspense?  Or should I tell you that one week and one day from now we will be attending our agency's workshop to sign a contract, work on our birthparent letter and get started on the home study?  WOO HOO!  I'm so excited.  And scared.  And so many other things.  But that's for a later post (many later posts I'm sure...)

Here are my responses to the questions:


Lori refers to the relationship between adoptive parents and birthparents as similar to an in-law relationship.  Does thinking about the relationship as an in-law relationship influence how you approach open adoption?

It did influence me.  To be honest, the part of open adoption that makes me the most uneasy is the relationship with the birthparents.  It's the unknown.  The fear of lack of control. The wondering what it will actually be like, what it will look like, how it will feel.....But thinking of the birth parents as similar to in-laws makes sense to me and makes it feel less scary.  It makes me feel like, I can possibly relate to this new relationship in some way.  That I have some experience to pull from, that it's not completely new or unknown.  I happen to like my in-laws and don't find them scary at all, but the analogy works regardless ; )  

I know finding my parents' receipts related to my adoption stung when I found them. And I lashed out hard. And I was old enough to not be so reactive (this was just a few years ago) but was despite myself. Like adoption, any type of assisted reproduction has money changing hands and sometimes several. How have you, or will you talk about this with your child/ren?

I hadn't thought about this one from that perspective.  The money ultimately doesn't matter to me.  Our son was conceived through fertility treatments which cost a lot of money.  Adopting our second child will cost lots of money too.  And of course, I wish we didn't HAVE to spend so much money to have kids.  I'd rather go spend it on a fabulous vacation or save it to buy a house....but at the end of the day, its worth it to me.  I'm not sure how I would talk about it with my children.  I don't think its something I would bring up.  But if they asked questions I would tell them what they wanted to know.  I'm not ashamed that I had to spend money to have children.  That's just the hand we were dealt.

The term “Real Mother” or “Real Parents” comes up quite frequently in an adoptee’s life.  Lori suggests in her book that we see each set of parents (birth and adoptive) as “Real”.  Do you agree?  How would you personally handle this terminology? And are there other ways to effectively deal with this term if used by your child or directed at your child by another?

I agree with her.  Birth parents are REAL.  Adopted parents are REAL.  We are all real live humans.  I like the way Lori talked about dealing with it saying "we are both real - let me pinch you (although I'd want to say punch you) to show I'm not fake."  Again, I'm not totally sure what I'd say, but I think going through pregnancy loss and infertility has given me some experience with well-meaning, but awkward questions and comments.  

I thought the book was WONDERFUL.  I'm sure I will be referring to it many times over the next weeks, months, and years.  Lori's approach makes sense to me - what's best for the child is the most important thing.  I am already a mother to my son so I know to my core what it means to put your child first.  I can do that.  There are definitely pros and cons to open adoption.  There are things that I am apprehensive about.  But if open adoption is what's best for my child, and I believe that it is, than that is what I will do.  "Open adoption is a process, not a process in time."  I think Lori's book is a great resource for navigating the process.  Just looking back and rereading some of what I highlighted helps me breathe and focus as I answer these questions and think about the difficult or uncomfortable times that may lie ahead on our journey.  

I feel like I could have written long, rambling page-long answers to each question but I've been busy making some big decisions this week!  And I have forms to fill out!  And episodes of The Voice on my Tivo!

Please return to the main post to read more opinions on Lori Holden's The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption.