Category: Healing

Defining Moments

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Have you seen that Prudential commercial? Here’s a link to watch.

The narration on the commercial says that the past is mostly a mix of half good and half bad items. The blue and the yellow were just about equal. But the future – it was bright. Mostly, people named something good that could happen in their future and placed a yellow magnet on the wall.

I think those colored magnets represent defining moments in our lives. Blue, the bad moments, come to mind very quickly. When I first watched this commercial, the first thought I had about something that happened in my recent past was “Joanna died.” Clearly, her death was a sad, horrible event that forever changed us. It defined us as “bereaved parents.” I live daily with this “blue magnet moment” and wish so much that things were different.

I also think of my recent “yellow magnet moments” – I graduated with two bachelor’s degrees and then got my master’s, I got married, found a job I find meaningful and fulfilling, became a puppy mom and an aunt, went on fun vacations, bought my first new car and my first house. Yet none of those came to mind initially.

I think this is because, of all the defining moments of my life to date, Joanna’s life has had the biggest impact on me. Her life, not her death. Her death serves as a reminder that she is gone, but ultimately it does not take away from her life with me, with us. Those perfect fingers and toes, so tiny and precious, her pretty face, so perfectly formed. The morning sickness and the flutters that turned to kicks. The 6.5 months we shared with her were the best of my life.

So, I want to change my magnet. I will put up a yellow magnet, to honor her life. A yellow magnet to define me, simply, as “mother”. And for the future, another yellow magnet, for the possibility of her longed-for baby sibling(s).

For Mother’s Day

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In all honesty, I didn’t want to blog about Mother’s Day. I thought about putting something on Facebook, but that didn’t seem quite the right thing for me. I’m not having a bad Mother’s Day, but certainly not the Mother’s Day I was expecting. I was going to blog tomorrow, a reflection on the day, but felt that I couldn’t let the day slip away without doing for myself what I have wanted others to do for me today: acknowledge myself as a mom.

I am a mom. And though I may not get to parent Joanna, I get to love her, forever. She is mine and I will always be her mom. She gave that gift to me and I am so thankful. Though I can’t walk down the hall and scoop her out of her crib and cuddle her, though I will never see her take her first steps, go off to kindergarten, graduate high school, dance at her wedding, I will always have some precious moments with her.

The first time I got morning sickness.

The first time I craved avocado.

The first time I felt her move, and the second and the third, and even the last, because that was special too.

The times we heard her heartbeat and saw her little face.

Those 12 hours of labor, and though she arrived silently, she was mine. She was ours.

She made me a mom. I am proud of that. I am proud of me.

And I am proud of all the other mamas out there.

I am proud of the mamas who have their babies to hold tight. Don’t let go.

I am proud of the mamas-to-be. Be vigilant and cherish your pregnancy.

I am proud of the mamas in waiting. The ones who know deep in their hearts they will have children some day. The ones who have just started trying to have a family, and those who have been waiting, hoping, aching and praying for years. Don’t give up.

I am proud of the mamas of babies who’ve grown and moved away. Especially proud of mine – without her, I could not have been the mom I needed to be for Joanna.

And I am proud of the baby-loss mamas. Whether you’ve lost your baby to miscarriage, stillbirth, or sometime after they were born, you’ll always be a mom. Your arms may be empty, but your heart can still be full in remembering your baby(ies). It may take a while. I’m not there myself. But I know it can happen and I know it will happen.

So, mamas of all types, I hope you were good to yourselves today. I hope your families were good to you, too. No matter where you are in your motherhood journey, you are a mom, you deserve to know it and you deserve to celebrate it.

Happy Mother’s Day!
XOXO,
Carol

P.S. I wasn’t sure I would ever share this picture publicly. It’s a moment of both great joy and great sorrow (and messy hair, but who cares, right?). Because it’s Mother’s Day, and one of the few pictures of my little family, today is the day. Joanna, I am so proud to be your mama, today and every day.

joanna

When You Just Need A Hug

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As many of you (oh, so sweet and wonderful) readers of mine know, Wednesday marked four months since losing Joanna. You also probably know that I have been in California for a work trip.

The down side of this is that I was not home with Bill on this four-month mark. No hugs from Joanna’s daddy to squeeze my heart with comfort and tell me it’s OK to cry and it’s OK to be sad and it’s OK to miss her. I also miss my puppy, who of course knows when I am feeling down.

On the plus side, I love the marketing team as it stands today, especially the fact that I call the girls on the team friends. We’ve had a fantastic time this week, margaritas and Mexican food in Laguna Woods, putting our (OK, just mine) toes in the sand and the Pacific Ocean, handmade Italian dishes in Carlsbad during our team dinner, and the most gorgeous California sunset I’ve seen to date while walking Manhattan Beach. Not to mention spending an evening with a great new friend having a pizza dinner in my hotel room watching Chopped.

It’s been a great week. But smack-dab in the middle was that day, April 29. Some people let the day come and go without thinking of Joanna, while others sent a little message or posted on my Facebook wall. It really can help a heart heal to know how much others love and care for you, and how much they loved your child, even if she arrived silently and they didn’t get to hold her or see her pretty, little face.

But there is one problem. As a human being, sometimes you just need a hug. No text, email, call – can replace a hug. Away from home all week, I was struggling through the day Wednesday. I was happy on the outside. But on the inside, I was hurting and missing my baby. It’s true! I just needed a hug – a physical acknowledgement of my pain, and a reminder that I’m surviving.

Instead, I went back to my hotel room and tried to sleep.

But today, this great thing happened. My wonderful, sweet friend took some time to get away for a few minutes, just the two of us. She bought me a coffee and we caught up with each other between meetings. As always, she listened to what I had to say, and I knew she really cared. Just like I knew she cared four months ago when Joanna died. Just like I knew she cared when I felt like I couldn’t be at work on my first few days back and she called to check in on me. And you know what? She hugged me today. Whether or not she knew how much I needed it, it happened. And I am so grateful.

So today, I am finding God’s grace in co-workers, co-workers I can call friends. Who care about what is going on in my life, who take the time to make sure I’m doing OK, who laugh with me, who make work enjoyable and fun (even on the stressful days). Gracious friends who take good care of me, with kind words and comforting hugs.

I am going to miss being in the same city as you (“amazing, wonderful, perfect”) ladies.

See you tomorrow, East Coast!

Manhattan Beach

Pretty in Pink [A Celebration of Life]

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These past few days I have had a lot of trouble thinking about what to say, which is why I haven’t posted in a while. So here goes nothing…

Easter weekend was pretty hard for me. I was surrounded by so many of the people I love. It was a beautiful weekend of joy and celebration. But at the same time, it was devastating. Thinking that I probably shouldn’t even have been up in PA, considering that Joanna could have been born early. Or, better yet, that she was growing and healthy and happy right up until 40 weeks: Tuesday. Which would have meant I couldn’t have traveled so far away for Easter. Those are the things I think of when I’m alone, when I’m in bed trying to fall asleep, when I’m driving in my car… If only things were different.

Speaking of 40 weeks, Tuesday on my due date we had a celebration of Joanna’s life. We decided to plant a winterberry bush in our backyard. It will get bright red berries in December (her birthday) and will have bright green leaves most of the rest of the year (that come out in Spring, around her due date). Prior to the evening of our celebration, we invited friends and family from afar to write “Dear Joanna” letters on tags that I designed and printed on light pink card stock. Then, local friends (and my mom and Aunt Barb) came over for a potluck dinner Tuesday. April 7. We hung all the mailed-in tags and the friends who could attend the celebration filled out tags and hung them as well.

We had wanted to plant the winterberry and hang the tags outside, but the weather was not cooperating. I was pretty upset at first. Something came out of my mouth in the car on my way home from work that sounded like, “God, You get to have Joanna, can’t I at least have nice weather for our memorial?” And it came out in a loud, angry yell. It was certainly a low moment for me, though anger is a common emotion for me to feel when I think about losing Joanna. Regardless, I felt better after saying what I was truly feeling, and a bit of peace washed over me, like God was answering me, “You carry Joanna in your heart, you celebrate her life every day, the weather can’t change that, or how much you love her.” And so I went home, put the tree in the house like a Christmas tree and we celebrated. It was beautiful. The pink really popped, plus we had pink tulips and pink balloons.

Love Mom

I feel so blessed to have so many family members and friends who joined us in celebrating, near and far. I am so grateful for their thoughts and prayers and support during the past three months. There is no doubt in my mind how loved Joanna was and still is – and no doubt that Bill and I are loved, as well.

Proud Parents

A final thought…I feel like making it to my due date and surviving this time is a huge relief to me. Every week I thought about how far along I would be in my pregnancy and what that would mean for us. And now, I am not counting down to the day when my baby would NOT be born. It has passed. I am here. Breathing. Sure, I will think of all those milestones we are missing as the rest of the Spring babies are born. I will be happy and sad all at the same time to see new pictures of those babies on Facebook and even meet some of them once their parents bring them home and are settled. But now, we’ve made it. Now, we look back with love and sorrow all at once. But now we also look forward – and try to hold on to hope that someday there will be a baby brother or sister for Joanna. We look in our hearts and we find her there.

A Breath of Fresh Air

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Jane Austen once wrote, “Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”

While she was writing of romantic love, I have found a lot of meaning to this quote in the disappointment that is pregnancy loss, that is a mother losing her child.

When we miscarried our first baby, I cried for days. How could we have waited so long for a child and struggled with fertility nearly two years only to be disappointed days later? I was devastated. I was hurting. I felt alone.

But in my time of pain and sorrow, friends who had experienced the same kind of loss were there for me. From my mom, to my sister-in-law, to friends far and wide who had lost one, two, or more pregnancies. Their kind words and encouragement and shared experiences helped to ease the heartache and bring some hope back into my life.

When we miraculously conceived Joanna only 3 months later it seemed like she was going to be our rainbow baby. Flash forward nearly 26 weeks. When a doctor tells you, “There’s no heartbeat,” it literally breaks your heart. I say literally because you feel it inside your chest ripping in two and then it crashes to the pit of your stomach into smaller pieces. Heartbreak really does physically manifest as chest pain, among other things.

I cried every day for months. I still cry most days. But the outpouring of love and support and prayers from our friends and family has been what helps us get by. One day at a time. Or more accurately, one moment at a time.

Over the weekend I had the chance to visit a friend. A dear, sweet friend. It had been a long time since I had seen her; we hadn’t seen each other the whole time I was pregnant. She has not experienced the same kind of loss, but this deep, precious connection that we have had for so many years – it was the balm I needed. Her sweet cards and consistent phone calls and texts have been coming to me on the days I have needed them most. Yet there is no comparison to seeing a dear friend in person when your heart is aching. There is nothing like a familiar hug from one whose heart is as broken as yours, for you. Friendship is, itself, a healer. A ray of light and breath of fresh air in a dark and saddened place. A glimmer of hope when all feels lost.

I praise God in all things, even the most devastating times. And I thank Him daily for the blessing of friendship, the balm of the brokenhearted.

Dear Joanna (3.23.15)

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Dear Joanna,

I went home to PA to visit family and friends this weekend. You would have liked it there. The weather was pretty mild, though of course it snowed on the first day of spring. It would have been fun to take you there in the winter to go sled riding. And in the spring to celebrate Easter and your cousin Shay’s birthday. Summer would have been fun, going to Waterford Days and stopping for a nice visit at your Pap’s camp so your daddy could show you off to his family. The fall is great too – cool temperatures and beautiful leaves. You would have grown up looking forward to those visits up north, just as your dad and I look forward to them.

This trip was pretty special. I got to meet little baby Annabelle. She is only a few weeks old and her mama, Erin, and I liked to share baby bump photos while we were both pregnant. I took her some breakfast and we got to share labor and delivery stories, though there was but one baby to hold. I wish there were two; I wish one was you. For most of the visit I just looked – I watched as AB lounged quietly while her mom and I talked. I looked on as Erin breastfed her, changed her diaper, redressed her. Toward the end of my visit I decided to hold her. She was much heavier than you, but still felt so tiny. She was warm and smelled like babies smell, so sweet and clean. And as I cuddled her on my chest, I wished for you.

Joanna, no one can replace you or fill this hole. Holding AB was priceless, so special, even healing. It helped me remember that all babies are precious and all babies are miracles, even if they aren’t mine. But there is just one you. So someday when your dad and I decide that we’ll have another baby, we know that your brother or sister will be a precious gift, but not a replacement. Even in that upcoming joy – you will always be missing from our lives on Earth.

I also got the chance to visit with another friend named Erin. She and I have been friends 18 years this year. That’s a very long time, especially considering I only had you for 6.5 months. While visiting, I was entertained for the evening by Annakay. AK is almost two and is very sweet. I wish you could have been her friend, just like her mom and I are friends. AK and I danced, put hats on and marched around the house, shared a snack and watched the end of Tarzan together.

I find that being around baby girls and little girls is much harder on me than being around boys. Mostly, I suppose, because they are a constant reminder of what I am missing – you. However, I realized the sharp edges of my broken heart are ever so slowly being smoothed: playing games and dancing with AK warmed my heart and made it feel full for a little while. Though the hole where you belong will never go away, there are small, fleeting moments of pure delight that take my breath away. Even though I cried for you the whole drive home from Erin and AK’s.

Who you would have been, how you would have looked as you grew, what we would have played…I still dream of those things. But I know you are doing all those things in Heaven.

I am grateful for the strength to get out of bed each day and live here without you.

I love you.

xoxo,

Mom

P.S. Sweet girl, you’ve been in Heaven for 12 weeks today. How we miss you, Joanna.