Life In Plastic, It's Fantastic

With thanks from Aqua. The song is called Barbie Girl. I remember it very vaguely from University or maybe even high school. I was laying awake again last night, thinking as this song ran through my head. One of the things that I struggle with these days is the loss of my privacy. I think a few of you may have noticed that I'm an extrovert. But, here's the thing about being an extrovert - you control what people see of you. I project. I'm not so much an extrovert as an actress. I use my extrovert tendencies to control what people see of me. I can define who I am, and to some extent how people respond to me, using my personality.

So, the weekend of the baptisms, when I left the sanctuary, sobbing, I was horrified. I don't cry in public. Honestly, I'm not much of a crier at all. One of the hard parts of grief is that I can't control what people see of me. I am overwhelmed by grief, and there simply is no hiding it. I am not the person who is good at her job, or is a good cook, or has red hair, I am one half of the "dead baby couple" as Mr. Spit calls us.

There is no privacy. I am visible. People I don't know, know about Gabriel. They aren't gossiping, they aren't telling rumours, but we are that couple that has had the horrible thing happen to us. We are marked. The "dead baby couple". And we are watched. I can see women look at me, as a child goes past me. I saw their pitying eyes during the baptism. I saw their looks when I first came back to work - a stomach too flat, and no explanation at hand. I see the look when I tell then. A glance at an empty womb, that doesn't quite return to my eyes. They stammer. They don't know what to say.

Now is probably more painful, because I am ever aware that Gabriel would have been here by now. So is everyone else. I was in an elevator moments ago:

"How do you like burning the candle at both ends?"
Huh?
"Well, up all night with a baby, and then at work all day."
Oh, you haven't heard. My baby was born premature in December, and he died.

I tell people - "It's ok" when they apologize. I tell them that we are carrying on. I'm optimistic about trying again. I emphasize how thankful I am that Gabriel had half an hour with us. I try to change the subject when I think that people I don't know well are going to talk about Gabriel.

I see it's getting better. I believe that I am improving. I have meetings, I go to work, I volunteer, I live life. I tell people that Gabriel died, while I'm in the elevator. I do it with sadness in my eyes, but my tone is matter of fact. Short words. Carefully created sentences.

I don't tell them I would give my very life to be up all night. I don't suggest that maybe they could go ask someone else why I'm back, and leave me the hell alone. I don't scream at them about Canada's yearlong maternity leave program. I don't ask who they know that doesn't take the entire year off. I don’t ask where their brain is. And especially, I don't sit and cry in the elevator. I get off, walk into my meeting, and carry on with the business at hand.

I'm not so sure I really have any other choice.

Mostly, I think "What do you want me to tell you - my baby is still dead. My life sucked yesterday, it sucks today, and it's quite likely to suck for some time. Not forever, and it's no longer the worst sucking feeling in the world, but really, what do you expect?” And I'm not sure how much to tell people. I tell the blog everything. My reason for beginning was to write down these feelings.

The rest of the world? Do they really want to hear that I hurt? That doesn't change from day to day. There isn't any 'new' news. I still miss him. I'm still going to work, I'm still coming home. I'm still making dinner, and doing housework. Do you want to hear about how angry I am? Do you want to know what this pain is really like? Do you want me to tell you that I didn’t want to get up yesterday. I didn’t want to get up today, and tomorrow I likely won’t want to get up either.

The sadness is not all encompassing, but it's my shadow. Describe it as my great sorrow. Not great in size but great in the length of time it will be with me. I am sad. Not weeping, not wailing, not sobbing, not always visibly sad. But I am sad. And I hide some of it. It’s too hard to explain to people who don’t live in a place where they have grieved deeply the loss of something precious. I have no desire to educate people about what grief is like, I’m too busy living it. So I don’t necessarily bring everyone into it. I think, maybe they think I’m ok. Maybe they think I have bounced back.

And that isn't necessarily the impression I want to leave people. I want people to know that I am still broken. That those words in the elevator will stay with me. A thoughtless world can wound for days. The sight of a new baby can take my breath away. And the reminder that I make others uncomfortable, makes me want to curl up. Life in plastic, it's fantastic.

thanks for the many kind words yesterday - the many ways that you affirmed that anger is a normal part of grieving. I needed to hear it. There's still an angry woman inside of me, but I discovered that after a particularly bad day, Marble Slab cheesecake ice cream will soothe her just a bit.

Not Fit for Human Consumption

I'm mad today. I woke up pissed off, I went to the gym pissed off, I ran on the treadmill pissed off, I had a shower, pissed off, I came home, pissed off. I made breakfast, got dressed, drove to work, had a meeting, answered email, went for coffee, you guessed it, pissed off.

Not livid, not furious, just plain disgruntled. I'm really not fit for company.

You know the hard thing about grief like this? It's boring. Every day I wake up sad. Every night, I go to bed, sad. It doesn't change. I'm tired of it. I miss Gabriel, but I'd like to be happy again. I'd like to fall asleep and wake up without remembering that I'm the mother of a dead child.

I'd like to be me again. Me before this happened. Me before Gabriel.

But I don't want to leave Gabriel behind.

So, today, I"m disgruntled. And not fit for company.

What if?

The friend that inspired Whiny Thursday said something that day that I didn't whine about on Thurs. He suggested, flippantly, after hearing that Owen and I were struggling with the all the babies in church, that Owen and I find a church with no children in it.

I'm reasonably certain that he suggested this glibly. But his words, tossed out casually, cut me to the marrow. I haven't said anything to him, indeed to anyone other than Mr. Spit, because I can't abide double standards. After finishing this post, I will be sending an email to someone for a flippant remark I made last night. I won’t hold someone responsible for a sin I so often commit.
It's so easy to be flippant. Indeed, we live in an instant society that almost encourages it. It's so much easier to mouth trite words, or show affection by teasing, than it is to engage in the painful, messy lives of others.

But, there are still his words. I lay awake last night, wondering: What if we never have another baby. What if we loose another child? What if I never recover from loosing Gabriel? What if it always hurts to see children? In Natalie's words, "But will I ever feel joy again? Pure, unmitigated joy, without the cut of sorrow through it? My heart feels so heavy I don’t know if it will ever be able to fully pick itself off the ground."

Shortly after Gabe died, I was in church one Sunday, and I don't know what the words to the song were, but they made me sob. And so, I sat in the pew and cried. Someone I knew, sort of tangentially, came up to me. Wendy sat and talked to Mr. Spit and I for a bit. 13 years ago she and her husband lost a son. All I wanted to know was if it would ever stop hurting so much. Not that day, not that month, but ever. Or would the pain always be that horrific. Would I ever be happy and content?

In some ways I have gotten my wish, I can get through the days. I can smile, and genuinely laugh. Mr. Spit and I went on a neighbourhood pub crawl with a group of friends this weekend. As thirty something’s, we didn't so much crawl as saunter - there really wasn't all that much drinking involved. There was karaoke. I laughed so hard I cried. I bent over, my head resting on another friend's leg, the laughter making it hard to stand. For a few moments, laughter rose out of my body on warm, fresh air, and I floated along behind it. There was pure joy and delight.

My grief is no longer fresh and acute, rather it turns most days into long, dull grey affairs. I wander through a never spring, but not white-winter world. I remember the words from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. "It's always winter, but it's never Christmas". I am struck by the particular cruelty in this line. I march along the road of grief, purposefully, seeking the end. My world before Gabriel wasn't necessarily safe and comfortable, I hadn't gotten pregnant with complete ease, but it was a world I knew. And I march determinedly down this terrible road, looking for spring, for the place where I am again safe and comfortable, for happy and content, for the end of the road.

And then there are the horrible nights, when I understand. "Things will never be the same. This will always hurt". Perhaps it is a matter of degree, and the pain will lessen, but I live in a divided world, part of me with Gabriel. Part of the terrible grief is the grief of a world without Gabriel. A soul divided must always hurt.

And I wonder, what end am I walking toward? What end can this grief ever have? Can I ever really be happy and content? What could happy possibly mean, without Gabriel? Is it the birth of another baby? Is it twenty years from now when perhaps I can recall with a smile and not tears? Will content come when my body has moved past these child-bearing years, and my womb no longer tempts me with the promise of children? Will I be whole when our friends have moved past an identity of mum and to one of grandma? Or when those friends have left us behind, as broken, with a defective body?

I must acknowledge, part of my grief is for my lost world, my safe world. Where when you made it past 12 weeks, pregnancy guaranteed a baby, a child in the nursery that was waiting for him. Where pregnancy was something my body was meant to do, designed to do, and I didn't need a high risk obstetrician, an internal medicine specialist, a perinatologist, a NICU doctor, bed rest, baby asprin, labetalol, lovenox, 24 hour urine counts, clotting time tests, chlomid. A world in which pregnancy ends at 40 weeks, where 28 weeks isn't long enough for a fighting chance.

I was at yoga on Friday, and the instructor made an apt comment. She spoke of the need to forgive your body when it betrays you. I would have thought that the betrayal of PCOS was enough. I was willing to forgive my body when chlomid offered such an easy solution to my problems. But pre-eclampsia offers no such easy solutions and I am finding it hard to forgive my body.

My body failed to perform as warranted. One of the theories about pre-e is that it is a disease of allergy, of intolerance. My body, quite literally would not tolerate Gabriel's presence. The baby Mr. Spit and I wanted, dreamed of, hoped for, longed for, my body would not tolerate. And perhaps my body will not tolerate Gabriel's sibling. The numbers are not so good, but perhaps not so bad. 60 percent chance of recurrence, 30 percent at the same time (25 weeks). I would buy a lottery ticket on those odds, they are betting odds. But they are not, perhaps so comforting as to bring me to happy or content or even whole. I remain with a crushed spirit and a defective body. Mr. Spit could get a refund on me, if the Maker of the Universe offered warranties.

And so, I am back to last night. Wondering if I am no longer welcome in a world of children, in a church with families? Wondering if I will spend forever in the land where a flippant comment has the power to cause such angst and pain. Where words, thrown my way lightly, in jest, cause me to lay awake at 3 am, wondering: what if the road I am on has no end, what if this present feeling is spring?

Saturday's are for quotes . . . .. AND WHINY WINNERS!

Because I try to blog every day, and I don't want to do anything difficult on a Saturday.

From Robert A. Heinlein, Author:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

And Winners:

Well, I removed Mr. Spit, and will reward him, ahem, later. . . .

The winner is Kuri, who is upset that life isn't working out the way she planned. I know Kuri IRL, and she's getting a gift certificate to this place.

The rest of you were fabulous! You made me smile. Hopefully you made yourself smile too! Time to put the big girl pan.t.ies back on.

I got nothing

Back in the days when I was an Executive Assistant Extraordinaire, I used to meet with a boss every morning. Most days we would cover the day's schedule, what I was doing, what he was doing, events. . . .

Some days, I would walk in and he would say "I got nothing".

Today, I got nothing.

So, go here and whine about a small thing that has been bothering the heck out of you. Prizes!

Go to Mr. Spit's blog and listen to him vent about our hot water heater.

Crunchy Chicken has a cool poll on what appliance you could live without. (Apparently, at Chez Spit, it will be a hot water heater)

That's it for me.

We interrupt this blog . . . .

To have a whiny, poopy pants, snivel fest.

Really, that's what we are going to do. If you think something in your life sucks just a bit, comment.

Now, I'm not talking about the big stuff, like my baby died, or my husband left me, or my house burned down. If you want to complain about a big injustice, feel free. We'll listen. And sympathize.

That's not what today's blog is about though. Nope, I'm talking about the stupid little thing that just pisses you off. Your husband bought you pink roses. You know you should be thankful for the roses at all, but dammit, why not red ones? You buy pink for your sister. (For the record, Mr. Spit has never done this)

This is your chance to take that tiny little thing, throw it in the comments, fully whine about it. Howl, go on at length, tell us every detail. And you know what? We will all tell you that it's not fair, we'll sympathize. We won't tell you to get over it, or be thankful for what you have. Today, I feel like whinging, and you get to be a part of it. Tomorrow we'll clean up our act, and we'll go back to the being the grown ups we are. Tomorrow we'll put on our big girl pan.ti.es and deal with it. Today we whine.

And the best? I will send you a reward. It may be something cool like a gift card or something knitted. It'll be something worth your while. See, aren't I nice?

Mr. Spit and I are dropping out of Bible Study. Cause, there's a new baby and we can't handle it. And I'm mad, not that we are dropping out (well, I am, but that's beside the point). I'm mad because the bible study leader said "Huh" when I told him we were dropping out. Not I'm sorry, no attempt to talk me out of it, just "huh". I'm not sure how I expected him to respond, and in all fairness, I don't think there was a good way to respond, but I'm disgruntled, and darn it, I'm going to whinge!

What's yours?

PS - For the purposes of contest stuff, I'll take comments until Friday at 12:00 AM, MST. Mr. Spit, the fur children and I will vote on the best written.

Stealing A Story From Mr. Spit

Mr. Spit blogs!

Except, now we have to argue over who gets to blog what. This from a family where we have emailed each other at the same table. We've instant messaged rather than walk into the other room. We are, how you say, geeky? And now, I'm going to know how his day is going and what he's up to, before I even see him at home, peering over the top of his computer screen.

Oh, oh, maybe we can even debate dinner ideas and who's turn it is to wash the mastiff slobber off the walls in our comments. That'll be fun for y'all. (Can you tell it's my turn this weekend?)


So, I'm going to steal his story. And it's entirely possible that I won't tell it as well as he does.

Mr. Spit wanted the new Joe Satriani record. He actually wanted to buy it. You know, on a CD, like when we were young. (Me, I use iTunes). We went to the great Canadian Record Store. Which is possibly the only record store left in Canada.

So, I bought the CD. I went to the cashier and she asked:

"Are you a big fan?"
Nope, said I. I'm not into Satriani. It's for my other half.
"Oh, is your partner a musician?"
Nope, an engineer I replied.
"Oh, is he in a band?"
Umm, no. He's an engineer. He builds bridges. Not very musical, that.
"Does he play the guitar?"
No. I think he played a brassy sort of instrument in high school.

So, there we have it, your introduction to Mr. Spit, who is not a musician, is not in a band, and doesn't play the guitar. He builds bridges that don't fall down, helps the fishes mate in culverts, fixes things, carries heavy stuff, kills icky bugs, and he called me his best friend.

Oh, and now he writes a blog.

Love you babe!

Now, can we go get milk and a weight watchers 4 point chocolate cake from Safeway?