12.20.11

Wow.  December 20.  Last night, I read back through my posts from December last year.  This time last year was most certainly my darkest.  This year, light is beginning to shine through the cracks.

I miss Otis so desperately, and we hit some really rough spots here at home this month.  E had a few really sad nights, sobbing in front of our Christmas tree, crying those tears that come from the deepest part of your belly, missing Otis and asking all the why why why questions all over again.  We hung all our O ornaments on the tree, this year they take on a new specialness with our new O addition, but even just pulling them out of the boxes gave me the body sensations of last December, the hollow, empty, pit at the bottom of my stomach that lasted through all of December...E and I also fought some really nasty fights this month, lots and lots and lots of emotions...I think it's fair to say that December may always be tough.

One of the main sources of our fighting is my anxiety, my difficulty in wrapping my head around and appreciating the joy that is here this year, the beautiful gorgeous miraculous little man that inhabits our home...

We have been hooked up with a program at our local Children's Hospital that specializes for families with fussy babies.  They do home visits and provide a team of support to parents just like us.  And it's all covered by insurance.  It's pretty amazing - all in the hopes of preventing child abuse, neglect, and attachment disorders, among other things.  The team is made up of psychologists, doctors, nurses, social workers.  Each week we get a visit.  Yesterday was our second visit.  They are still getting to know us, but they provide a listening ear as well as advice about specific issues to raising our baby.   I'm pretty sure when they heard about our referral (firstborn died, second born is incredibly challenging), they acted FAST to help us, realizing that an anxious mom and a fussy baby is a dangerous combination for both mama and baby.  We saw the director of the program last week and will see her every other visit, I think. The woman that came yesterday was a psychologist, and we spoke about Otis for a long time, and also about Owen, of course.  Owen, by the way, was a dreamboat while she was here, we all got a good laugh, "WE SWEAR he's a fussy baby, don't kick us out of the program!"  Anyway, she listened, and observed, and provided some suggestions and observations, and it was really helpful. (Geez, I wish I could verbalize it better, but I am still pretty brain zonked these days.)

In good news: Owen celebrated his three month birthday and slept an amazing stint the other night - from 7 pm to 2 am, then again until 6 am.  Last night was a little shorter, but still quite a respite - he slept 7 pm to 11, then 11 to 3, then 3 to 7.  He's been pretty dreamy all day today, smiley and happy.  We've moved him into his crib, from the mini bassinet next to our bed because he has started rotating while he sleeps.  The other night I woke up to him turned completely perpendicular in the bassinet and his head against the rails.  Hence, the move to the crib.  But he's still turning perpendicular in his sleep.   No rolling over, not yet, thank goodness, since he still sleeps swaddled up and I'd freak if he flipped in the night.  (I know the rolling will happen soonish, and we'll have to address the situation, but he's really not ready to sleep unswaddled.  He even naps in his double swaddles still.)

Totally haphazard post, I apologize.

Please know I am reading along with all of your blogs, and I'm thrilled to hear of so many BFPs of late, and also the arrival of some beautiful rainbows, or the very very soon to be arriving rainbows...  Missing all of your babies too,  I know this month is difficult for all of us, with the holidays and the emptiness that is there no matter what.  If you've sent me a card, or a present for Owen, or an ornament for Otis, please know that this means the world to me, and I am finally feeling like I might be able to send a note of gratitude in the next month or so as I emerge from the craziness of these first three months with Owen here.  I said it so many times in my earlier blog posts - I am eternally grateful for all of you who walk this path with me.  I miss connecting more regularly with you all, but please know I think of you and your children often.

X-miss

I miss him.  So much.  So very very very much.  Something about having our tree up and lit, the weather cold and gray...it brings me back to last December - the coldest and saddest on record.  December was so much harder for me than September, October or November last year, and I think my body remembers that.

As Owen is maturing and able to sleep on his own for a lot longer, I realize there are more times that I am left alone right now, and I realize to an extent what a blessing his neediness has been in the last few months.  Huh?  Because now that I have more time to myself, and I'm less hyper-focused on Owen (though still incredibly hyperfocused, don't get me wrong), I have time to reflect on all that we lost when Otis left this world.

This morning I felt physically ill with my grief.  The sinking hole in the stomach feeling.  The "nothing will ever feel right" feeling.

The other night I was standing in E's office talking to him, holding Owen, when all of a sudden I realized Owen's gaze had fixated on something part way across the room.  I followed his gaze, and tears filled my eyes as I realized he was staring at an enlarged black and white photograph of his big brother.

Last night I cradled Owen and bounced him to sleep listening to the lullaby station on Pandora, in the dark of our bedroom, lit only by the lights of our Christmas tree (yes, our tree is in our bedroom, we use it as a night light these days).  I snuzzled my nose into the nape of his neck, into the fuzz on his head, I breathed in deep and tried to take in his smell as best as I could.  I listened to this song, and it felt like my dad sent it down from heaven, and as tears streamed down my face, I missed my first born and held Owen tight in my arms, and reflected on how much has changed since last December, and then also, how nothing has changed at all.

I wish he were here.

I miss him like crazy.


Otis, mama loves you.  

Saint Otis

I don't think there is a "real" Saint Otis.  But the last few days have had me praying to my boy, asking him to please "pull some strings" and watch over us, and take care of his baby brother.

We are sort of back at square one, in terms of Owen's reflux, the oversupply/undersupply, the fussiness, the lack of sleep.  It feels impossible and disheartening and I have moments where I am not sure it will ever be different, and yet I also feel that if it isn't different soon I will lose my mind and end up in an institution.

Last night we were up until 2 with a boy that refused to sleep anywhere but our arms.  I finally fell asleep with him in a chair, only to be awakened at 3:30 to a very hungry little guy; nursed until 4 and then dealt with a screaming burp session (the reflux makes the burps very painful), then a huge blowout (likely/hopefully the reason he was so uncomfortable prior to that), then finally, finally he settled into his bassinet around 4:30.  We all slept until 8, which feels miraculous and like a huge gift and then I wonder when did I start to feel that 3 1/2 hours of sleep is a miracle?

E said to me last night, "This is so much harder than we ever imagined it would be..."

Understatement of all time.

The phrase keeps running through my head, "We have a very sick little baby..."

But see, we don't, really.  Because those were the words that Otis's neurologist told us that fateful day we realized he'd be coming off life support.  And this is nowhere near that.  Owen is a feisty, spirited, healthy baby - except his digestive system is totally immature and he is incredibly sensitive to pretty much everything it seems.  He grunts in his sleep and wakes himself up from about 2 am on, on the nights when he actually has gone to sleep.  He spits up copious amounts of milk every day.  He has days where the spit up causes him to writhe and scream.  But he is not "a very sick baby."  He is not Otis.  And I think I'm wrapping my head around that.  I am really starting to believe he's here to stay...but that doesn't make these days any easier, and I have trouble understanding that.  All I wanted was a healthy, live, baby.  And now I've got that, and I'm still having moments of crawling on the floor sobbing my eyes out and thinking that I can't possibly go another day like this.

I miss Otis.  I miss him more and more every day it seems.  I hold Owen and realize that Owen has now outgrown his big brother, in weight, in age, in breaths taken...I hold Owen and wonder what life with Otis would have been.  My heart hurts to be away from Owen even for an hour, and then I realize I'm spending a lifetime without Otis - and it's almost too much to bear.

On Joy and Sorrow

 Kahlil Gibran

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. 

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. 

11.29.11

I go back to work today.  Minimally, only 3 to 6 pm.  I feel ready, actually.  Owen has been a totally new baby these last few days, it's amazing.

We met with a lactation consultant last week, I had been having nipple pain and also wanted advice about pumping for my going back to work, and advice also on bottles - Owen is such a super-sucker that even the slow slow flow bottles can flood him with milk and he sputters and gags.  The LC was so amazingly helpful - turns out I have very high milk supply even though I don't get engorged, and poor babyboy was getting flooded with milk - causing a lot of his coughing/gagging/reflux issues.  We worked out a plan for my nursing him to try to address those issues and in a matter of days he's become so much better.  The bottle issue still remains a bit of a mystery, we'll see how he does with it today.

We also met on Saturday with a woman who used to work in the NICU as a respiratory specialist (and also worked on med flights for babies) to help assuage my fears about Owen's breathing, and my incompetence as a new mom (!)...  She owns a resource center for moms that has classes, moms groups, etc. and we went up there and spent the afternoon with her.  We have now termed her the Baby Whisperer (nothing to do with the book or the method, just that she totally keyed into Owen and us and helped us so phenomenally it's like we brought home a different baby.)  She told us Owen is perfectly healthy and normal and gave us some excellent strategies to help him sleep out of our arms, to soothe him, to calm us.  It has truly been amazing.  Owen has slept in his bassinet the last three nights, and it's been remarkably peaceful and easy.  He naps during the day in his pack n play.  During the day, when he's awake, he's happy and giggly, cooing and chatting away with us.  Then he gets tired, and then he sleeps.  He's nursing calmly and happily, no sputtering or gagging or choking for the last week.  I'm sure the reflux meds are helping, of course, too.  I feel like I might get through this year after all.

I'm also sure some of this has to do with him maturing, he is now 10 weeks (though 5 1/2 weeks adjusted?).  We saw the doctor yesterday for his two month appointment.  I left the room for his vaccinations, wisely.  E told me I will never be allowed to be in the room for them!  Owen handled them like a total champ though.  Only a little bit of additional fussiness last night and now he seems fine.  Laughing and smiling in the gymini this morning even!

When we met with the lactation consultant, and we were talking about my milk supply, she mentioned that I'm blessed in that Owen has a great latch and I have plenty of milk for him.  We discussed that I had been afraid, having a c-section, that it could've affected my milk supply.  She mentioned that oversupply is often a problem that second time mothers have to deal with...and then paused, and said, "And you are a second time mother, this is the second time your body has made milk for a baby, Sarah.  Your body knew what to do, because of Otis."

I just started crying and crying.  I thought about my first O, my Otis, looking over us, and helping to make sure I have enough milk for my second O, his little brother.

Yesterday when I walked outside there was a huge, glorious, beautiful dandelion puffball, its seeds ready to blow in the wind.  Next to it, a bright yellow dandelion blooming.  There they are, my two boys.  I feel Otis here with me more than ever these days.

I received a card from a very sweet BLM yesterday, and in it, she wrote, "May Otis live in your heart as Owen grows in your arms..."  I couldn't ask for anything more.

Smiles

My baby boy is smiling, finally.  Today he and I hung out all morning and he smiled and cooed, "just like a normal baby!" I remarked...and he napped in his bassinet...and I feel like a normal human being again.  Well, maybe not a normal human being, but a normal babyloss mother to an almost 2 month old rainbow baby.  I know this too will pass, but this has been a lovely bit of breathing room that I so desperately needed.

Time flying

Let me preface this by saying that I am totally and utterly ashamed to be publishing this post, for a bunch of reasons.  I feel like a bad, bad, bad mommy to be feeling so utterly hopeless.  And I feel like a whiny bitch to be putting words to a lot of this.  And I feel like a failure to admit how bad it is here. But I want to get it out there, as well, I need to speak my truth (or at least the truth as I'm feeling it today...)

Owen will be 8 weeks tomorrow.

These have been difficult weeks.  Nothing like what I imagined.  And I suspect to the BLMs who have not gone on to have a subsequent child, and perhaps even to those of you who have as well, I sound like an ingrate.   I remember reading of women complaining about lack of sleep and thinking "Oh cry me a fucking river...."

Well, I've cried that river, and then some, in the last 8 weeks.

I need to remember that Owen came 5 weeks early, and his milestones are different than that of full term babies.  It sometimes helps if I think of him as a 3 1/2 week old baby, rather than an eight week baby, because he just doesn't do "what 8 week old babies do" (or at least according to my observations of other families with 8 week olds.)

We started him on reflux meds last week, which I never thought I'd do (kinda like how before Otis I thought I'd never have an elective cesarean...), and they do seem to be making a difference, but he's still young, and in general just seems unhappy to be out of the womb most of the time.   Please don't link me to the npr article about reflux meds being overprescribed - it's been sent to me twelve times over. The meds seem to be helping my son.  That is all I need to know.

Perhaps because of the meds, perhaps because he's just growing up, this is the first week we've even had a glimpse of "baby."  Up until this point, we have pretty much just known crying, screaming, pooping, sleeping, fussing.  No smiles.  Little eye contact.  Barely any awake time.  And he cries or screams unless he's held, for the most part.  We get about 30 minutes, maybe an hour, two if we are SUPER LUCKY, in the morning now where he can hang out in my arms, or be in a swing or his pack n play just cooing and chattering and generally happy to be around - but this is a new development as of the last four days.  Today was the first time I've even been able to attempt "tummy time" with him, because he was awake, alert, not screaming.  He's only had a handful of real baths in his short life because they cause a crapton of distress for both him and for us.  (When I have the stamina, I'll write up the story of the day we tried to give him a bath and the glass bathroom sconce fell off the wall and shattered on the sink right next to him, sending shards of glass all over him but not drawing a drop of blood or cutting him at all (but taking a huge chunk out of my finger... and causing me to have a full blown, serious, breathe-into-a-paper-bag anxiety attack...))

At night, he'll sleep one shift, usually for an hour, in his cradle.  Other than that, he needs to be held to sleep. I've camped out in a big chair in the bedroom and have him there, on my chest, usually from about 3 am to 8 am.  The early shift, Owen is on E's chest, usually in the rocking chair in the living room.  I get a decent few hours of sleep from about 11 pm to 2 am, then I feed O, then he kindasortabutnotreally sleeps in his bassinet next to the bed for an hour, then he wakes himself up all fussy, and we go to the chair and sleep there for the rest of the night.  He fusses, but it's easier to soothe him when he's right there on my chest.

Nursing a reflux baby, especially when you have an overactive let-down and too much milk, is not always easy.  He has his "I forgot to breathe, mama, sorry!" moments.  He chokes and sputters and coughs and gasps.  He freezes up, eyes popped out, staring at me, and I wonder if he'll start to breathe again. (So far, he obviously always has.)  Night nursing especially is challenging, and I find that most nights I have a mini panic attack of sorts prior to nursing.  The stop-breathing moments seem to be lessening now that he's on meds, but they still happen and they still freak me out.  He still does his gaspy, shrieking breathing thing sometimes and it terrifies me.  I sit and tremble as he sounds like he can't breathe.  The moments pass, but not without wearing very thin on my already frayed nerves.  And I don't even know how much of this is real and how much of this I exaggerate in my frayed frantic freaked out mind.

 He hates the moby, almost always.  Sometimes he'll allow himself to be held in it for a half hour while we walk the dogs.  He tolerates the ergo but it doesn't work so well on me, his head burrows into my chest and then I get nervous about smothering him.  (I can sit at the computer with him in the ergo, as I'm doing now, because it kind of leans him back away from me a bit but still cradles him close to my body so he's cozy but his face rests back; but I'm also sitting on a bouncing ball so he gets that gentle motion to keep him sleeping.)

It breaks my heart to see my son so uncomfortable, so much of the time.  We joked that he's got to be kicking himself, my little Made on Maui miracle baby - we say maybe when he "chose" to join us in my uterus, since we were on Maui when I got pregnant, he was erroneous in thinking that he was choosing a family that lived on Maui.    Poor little guy, living in a small home in a big, cold city that is falling apart at the seams with earthquakes and occupiers...this is decidedly NOT Maui.  Would he be happier there?  (Or, better question, would we?  If there were any way to finagle it financially, I'd move.  Though that would mean we'd be away from my mother, who has been a lifesaver these last two months...)

I love him with every cell of my being.  It hurts so incredibly much to hear him crying, screaming, and to be trying every single thing with every single part of me to make it better.

And I can't figure out how much of my emotional stuff is fatigue and how much is hormonal ppd type stuff and how much is the fact that I am just completely fucked from having gone through the year that we went through last year.  But I see other BLMs with their rainbows having a seemingly much easier time, so I know this isn't just residual grief causing panic and anxiety.  Owen is a challenging baby.  And that feels like a really fucking unfair hand to be dealt after having lost Otis.  And I feel like a fucking failure, pretty much about 90% of the time.

And like I said, I also feel like a total ingrate.  I should be cherishing every peep out of his mouth, including the blood curdling shrieks at 4 am.  The shoulds are killing me.  We should be happier.  He should be sleeping better.  I should be able to get out of the house to join that mommy's group.  He should be smiling more. I should be ready to go back to work.  I should be able to figure all this out. We should just count our blessings that he's here, he's alive, and it appears that he might actually get to stay...

And I can't help but wonder - would Otis have been challenging like this?  He was such a big baby, and hung out until 40 1/2 weeks in utero, and was always so chill in the womb, I feel like he would've been different.  And then I think this kind of thinking further kills me.  The comparing.  The wishing Owen was someone different.  It makes me cry even to type those words, because I love him so much, how could I possibly wish he were any different than exactly as he is?  I worry that he doesn't know how loved he is, because so often I'm just so run down by him.

We went last week to the pediatrician and Owen was weighed.  At 7 1/2 weeks, he weighed Otis's birth weight.  This is what Otis's body would've felt like squirming in my arms, I think to myself.  Would Otis have done that thing with his lip the way Owen does? I wonder.  Would I have felt so overwhelmed, so sad, so desperate, with Otis?  I realized as I folded clothes the other day that I no longer associate really any of the outfits as being Otis's outfits - they all belong to Owen now - with the exception of the dandelion onesie that my bff gave Otis, and the monkey butt pants.  I can't wear my Otis necklace because Owen yanks on it while he nurses and I'm afraid of the chain snapping.  E lost his Otis necklace at some point while we were at the hospital.  The symbolism of these two things makes me want to scream and sob.  Otis, you are here, always, right at the forefront of my heart.  The space you occupy is always yours.  Uniquely and unequivocally yours.

And then I sit here, and I glance down at this beautiful little boy strapped onto my chest, and tears fill my eyes, because he is so gorgeous, so amazing, so miraculous. Because I love him so much.  It's so damn confusing.  So damn confusing.   I read back over my words here and I am so sad because I feel like they don't convey the truth in my heart, that I love this little man so much I would gladly lay down in front of a tank or a bus for him, in a heartbeat.  I look at him, recognize how hard these days are, and my heart hurts, I feel like it's somehow blasphemous or contradicts that love to admit how hard a time I'm having.

I miss Otis.

I grieve that we didn't get to do "newborn" with Otis.

I grieve that these first 8 weeks have been so drastically different than what I hoped for, what I imagined for us, what I dreamt of.

I miss me, I miss the pre-Otis me, I miss the post-Otis me.  I miss what semblance of "solid ground" I felt like I was standing on, even in the precariousness of being pregnant with Owen.  I miss taking deep grounding breaths, I miss feeling like I knew what I was doing, I miss feeling competent.  I miss being able to type emails to my friends (yes, especially you, B), I miss being able to answer a phone call, I miss having clothes that I feel comfortable and presentable in.

And I read those words and I am embarrassed and disgusted by myself.  Because I have my baby, my living, screaming, breathing, healthy baby.  He's here.  He's healthy.  He's alive.  He's ours.

And yet it all still feels so fucking hard, in some agonizingly familiar old ways and some brand new and terrifying ways...

But...when it comes down to it, Steven Tyler still captures the song that's been in my head throughout these last 8 weeks...