What's on my refrigerator

Birth story

For those who may be interested, I wrote out baby S' birth story and posted it on my other blog. You can find the link to the story on the sidebar on the blog.

Musical Bras

The body is amazing. Especially women's bodies.

In the span of 3 week's time I have expanded and contracted like an accordion in the chest area.

I kid you not.

It is a very good thing that I have a wide variety of bra sizes and shapes in my drawer. I count no less than 22 (twenty-two!!) bras in my drawer. Did I mention they are all different sizes? And some of them are nursing bras.

So in the last two weeks I have been pulling out bras and looking at the sizes and trying them on and tossing them aside and then finally finding one that fits.

Crazy!

Sometimes you just gotta find the humor in your life. And laugh. And then try on another bra.

Where is my brain, and what have you done with it!?

I went back to work this past Monday. Since I only have to walk 20 feet from my bed to the computer (in my pajamas, if I so choose), and don't have to face co-workers in an office, this seemed like no big deal. Plus, with no baby to care for, I figured the distraction would help. Never mind that the distraction could just have easily come in the form of Hulu shows and Netflix movies (the Sex in the City movie is waiting for me). I like to feel useful.

But it hasn't been as easy as I anticipated. I sit there, attempting to review reports, which requires the use of my rational, logical brain. Instead, I find my emotional brain sapping most of my brainpower, with a lovely complement of emotions -- sadness! gratefulness! sorrow! and most recently, guilt (which totally sucks).

So instead of whipping through reports as I'm used to, I find myself having reviewed all of 2 reports in the same span of time I used to do 5 or 6. Which is frustrating. And while I'm totally able to forgive myself for this extreme slowness, I am also wondering, how long is it going to take me to get my brain back??

Tender

I've been doing well these last few days. Enjoying the last of the warm summer weather while feeling the fall chill in the morning air, loving on my sweet boy and my husband, and looking ahead to things to come.

And then, out of nowhere, the grief hits again.

Last night I dreamed I had a beautiful, newborn baby. I was putting clothes on this baby and enjoying it so much. I was so happy.

Then I woke up and realized it was a dream, a dream of what could have been. Such a heavy, heavy sadness came over me. A sad song started playing in my head. I went back to sleep but the heaviness is still with me this morning.

I want a baby so much. I was/am so ready for one. The clothes, diapers, and beautiful slings are all waiting to be filled by a baby who has that sweet breast milk smell and little rosy lips. I want a sibling for my son, to see him interact with this new person. I want to see my husband, once again, cradling a little sweet thing against his bare chest.

And yet, I also realize the immense gifts I've been given, in the midst of this loss. The gratefulness and the grief mixed together are a potent combination that makes this life feel so full, so tender.

Now for the waiting... waiting for my body to heal. Waiting to see when, how soon, we will be blessed with another little one. And then the long wait to fill my arms.

Goodbye...

We had our burial today... dug a hole under the walnut tree in the backyard. We love that tree, it provides me with such beauty and comfort year-round. It provides food for the squirrels, shade in the summer, and opens up in the winter to allow the sun to warm the house. Il Tonino's placenta is buried there.

The hole was dug. First we thanked and sprinkled in tobacco and cornmeal. Then I placed the placenta in, cord side up. Next the ashes were poured in. Then the milk that I had pumped. Next we placed in 2 crystals -- jet and rose quartz. We covered the hole with the dirt, and then marked it with a heart-shaped rock that Il Tonino had decorated.

Rest in peace, baby S. and watch over us with love as we remember you with love.

Spirit Name

Baby S has a middle name that I gave to him after he was born.

His middle name is Sylph.

After he was born, I was trying to think of a middle name, and kept looking up at our blue sky. But somehow, "Sky" didn't seem quite right.

Then I remembered sylphs, those beautiful cloud-like spirits that can sometimes be seen in the sky.

That felt so right.

I look forward to having a beautiful visual reminder of my spirit baby when I see sylphs in the sky.


This is just one such image of sylphs.

Thoughts just 5 days later

Intense sorrow is exhausting. It's been so long since I've experienced that, that I didn't remember it. By the end of the day we're ready to crawl into bed by 6pm. But somehow, 3 year olds are not ready for bed at that time. We're working on an earlier bedtime routine, though, which is easier now that it is getting darker earlier.

Having my milk come in full-force was so incredibly painful, I almost would have rather gone through labor again. I cannot understand how some women do not nurse their baby at all. At one point I was ready to go out and grab someone's baby and put the baby to my breast just for some relief. Instead I had to get through it with my pump, some massage oil, and cold compresses. Not how I envisioned it at all.

I am so grateful my labor was so smooth and short. I plan to write out the birth story a bit later. I feel incredibly lucky that I was able to do it at home. The hardest part was watching, through the upstairs window, the funeral home guy drive away with my baby.

I have a beautiful angel baby. I also have an empty belly, full breasts, and empty arms.

Nearing the End (but not yet, please)

This is one of those things that are in the "I can't believe this happened to me" category, especially since my first pregnancy was so easy and I went all the way to 41 weeks and 3 days before going into obvious, active labor and birthing my boy 18 hours later.

Last Saturday I was at my vacation home in central Oregon (2.5 hours away from home). The husband and I had some fun after we got the little one to sleep. Immediately after that, I started bleeding a little, which wasn't a big deal. But then when I tried to go to sleep, I started having contractions. Real contractions. They were obviously different from the Braxton-Hicks contractions I've been having for a few months now, even the most intense ones. They weren't terribly painful, but I found myself saying "ow, ow, ow" in my head on a few of them just because of the position in which I was lying. The kicker? They were coming every THREE TO FIVE minutes. I kid you not. I had my pager out and was timing them. At only 32/33 weeks, all of the above is not what I wanted. Nothing was stopping them, not position changes, water, bathroom, etc.

I was having visions of having to wake up the entire house (husband, son, and parents) and make the 45 minute drive to the nearest hospital in Bend to get drugs to stop the labor. That didn't sound fun at all, especially after midnight.

Luckily, I was able to text message with my awesome midwife who asked me a bunch of questions about what was happening, and then asked if I had any wine in the house. Did I have wine in the house? Heck, yes! Thanks to my wine-loving parents there was not one, but two open bottles of wine in the refrigerator. I grabbed one and headed to the bathtub to soak in hopes of stopping whatever the heck my body thought it was doing.

After an hour-long soak and a glass of wine, there were no changes, but I was getting very, very tired. I tried to go to sleep again, still feeling contractions, but after a while I noticed they had stopped. Thank the goddess. Truly. The whole thing had lasted for FIVE hours.

The next day I was totally exhausted and my uterus sore. And I was feeling a little freaked out. I never thought that I'd experience pre-term labor, if that truly is what it was. I'm just thankful it stopped and the baby can stay in longer.

So now I need to take it easy until I hit 36 weeks. I am not on bed rest, per se, but it is not easy to slow down, let the laundry be, and not go for a walk and be as active as I am used to. It's actually rather humbling. I have to remind myself that I'm doing this for the baby, and it is only a few weeks. I wonder at my foresight to get all the baby clothes and cloth diapers ready ahead of time and am glad I did. However, my to-do list for September is a mile long, so that poses a challenge: how to get that list done while keeping as restful as possible? I still need a carseat for the baby, the car is due to the shop and the DEQ, the son needs a few more things for school next week, etc. There are also the numerous social engagements penciled in on my calendar.

Breathe.

So send me good thoughts for making it to 36 weeks (and beyond?).