Disbelief Revisited

The energy of disbelief dominates in my mind and my spirit these days.
Disbelief that I am more than three months away from the day we buried Tikva.
Disbelief even further back that I had a baby who was so very sick.
Me. My child. We were one in twenty-five-hundred.
Disbelief that she died.
She died.
Disbelief, sometimes, that she was even born,
That she lived at all.

It's strange how I miss her more right now than I did a month ago,
When I felt more peaceful.

I revisit her last day to try and understand why she had to go
And wonder if there was anything else we could have done
To change the course of the story.

It's crazy-making, but it's the first thing that comes into my mind
In the morning.

For a while I had stopped noticing all the little babies in arms all around me,
Or stopped caring when I saw them.
But lately they have returned,
So many of them,
So alive,
So healthy,
So here.

I am crying a lot,
Huge cries.
The other day Dahlia asked me,
Why are tears salty?

Dahlia reflects every emotion I feel in her own emotions.
She tells me that little birds make her think of Tikva.
Me too!
She tells me she sometimes can't feel Tikva close to her.
Me too!
She tells me it isn't fair that Tikva didn't get to come home to us.
It isn't fair!

I look at the pictures of Tikva and I see spirit never entirely embodied,
So different than that baby at the playground
Sitting on his mom's lap on the swing.
I look at her face looking out at me from her little shrine
On the dresser across from where I sit up in bed,
Big brown eyes speaking from her old soul,
Letting me know that she knows more than me.
So different than I ever imagined.

No matter how peaceful I have managed to feel
On certain days when Red Tail Hawks have visited me,
I don't feel that peace right now.

I didn't want my baby to die.

I hate being part of this Dead Baby Club,
Even if my partners here are among the sweetest holders of hearts I have ever met.
I want to go back to the other club I used to belong to,
The Idealistic Mamas Club.
It's so much more peaceful there,
Where the most challenging quandary to busy my brain
Has to do with how to clear up my baby's unexplainable eczema
Or how long to wait before vaccinating.

What a luxury to be able to worry about such stupid things...
The luxury of the clueless.

I went from a place where the process of birth mattered so much.
I had to have my babies at home, because hospitals are evil.
Ha!
I had to have my babies without pain medication because it might affect our postpartum bonding
Or my baby's ability to nurse.
Double ha!
I had to have just one ultrasound because ultrasounds may affect the cell structure of the fetus.
Triple ha!
I had to not have any other tests because whatever the outcome, I would be at peace with it.
Biggest ha possible!

From where I am now,
That is all ego.
None of it matters
Because all of that is about me,
And me doesn't matter in this.
Next time I am pregnant,
Me won't matter,
Me can't matter.
Not if it means it would be at the expense of a healthy living thriving child.
I had to put myself aside for Tikva's wellbeing
And I will again, willingly.

Honestly, I don't care how my next pregnancy or birth goes,
AS LONG AS AT THE OTHER END, MY CHILD IS BORN HEALTHY AND WELL.
Test away, give me 50 ultrasounds, knock me out and cut me open,
I don't care, I really don't.
The process of pregnancy and birth doesn't matter to me anymore
As long as the outcome is a healthy baby who lives.

The rest is just ego.
And ego is a luxury.
My ego is shattered,
And each time it returns
(Because it always does)
That's when I start asking myself a million questions about those last days of Tikva's life,
Wondering why things went so awry
And if they could have gone any other way
Maybe...

(As if I ever had any control over any of it.)

Is that just ego too?
It's not about me.
Tikva's journey was never mine to navigate,
Even if she invited me to join her
To make the ride smoother,
More cushioned with pure love.

Julie says it is possible to heal, completely, from grief
Because grief is not essential energy.
It sure is a consuming energy in me right now, though.
Hard to be just pure essential energy,
Especially while in this body,
In this life.

I'm going to get my hair cut this afternoon.
I haven't had my hair cut since July.
I'm dreading the question from my young gay hairdresser's mouth,
How's your baby girl?
I'll tell him she died,
And he will probably give me a hug and know not to ask more.
I might cry as I stare back at myself in the salon mirror
While he snips away at my curls.

The last time I got my hair cut he said I should come back in the following week
If there was something I wanted him to fix or cut shorter.
Three times I scheduled a fixit appointment before I was able to make it back in.
Three times I couldn't leave Tikva
Because her body was starting to fail and she was starting to struggle more.
But even then I couldn't admit it, couldn't fully see it.
I thought she was just having some hard days, hard episodes.
I apologized for being such a flake that I had to keep rescheduling,
Explaining that my baby girl was very sick in the hospital,
But that it was just a matter of time to help make her stronger
So that she could come home.
I told him she had just been having a hard week.
And I really believed it when I said it.

When I wake up in the morning and wonder if we did the right thing to let her go when we did,
I go through the list of memories that make me feel calmer
About the decision that, as my husband reminds me, made itself:
Dr. Tom saying that his heart sank when he saw how bad her malatia was on the bronchoscopy.
The pulmonologist saying she would need ventilation for 5 or 10 years, if not longer.
Dr. Tom saying that he has never seen a baby with her severe condition survive,
And that she couldn't have come home but would have needed medical care for years
If she even made it that long without getting pneumonia or some other infection.
(Amazing how such crappy information made me feel peaceful after Tikva died.)
The clarity Dave and I shared about the importance of quality of life.
The moments when Tikva opened her eyes wide,
Letting us know that it was time to let her go
And that she was at peace with that.
The looks on all the doctors' and nurses' faces when they saw how bad her malatia was.
(No poker faces in that room that day.)
The reality that even with 45 minutes of hand ventilation,
She eventually couldn't keep even 40% oxygen in her blood.

The beauty of her goodbye
Outside in the fresh air
In our arms.

OUCH

It absolutely sucks to have had to make the choice to let her go,
Even if in the bigger picture the choice was made for all of us
And we were just moving in that state of grace,
Guided by something bigger.

It completely bites that Tikva didn't live,
That she isn't in my arms right now,
Nursing at my breasts,
Nestled against me in a sling.

It hurts like a bitch that my body will soon be ready to conceive again,
Because I am not an Orthodox Jew,
So if Tikva was alive right now
I would never be thinking about another pregnancy
So soon.

I've heard people who have lost children
And gone on to have more children
Say that if it weren't for their child's loss,
Their next child would never have been born,
And how strange that would be to imagine.
Already Tikva has something to do with the next child who will join us.
Her absence, her loss, is the reason.

I so would prefer to have Tikva right now.
It's striking how vividly present absence can be.