Riley's Due Date

Today is April 10. Riley's due date. It also marks a month since this picture was taken on the night before we found him. The night before our world fell. 

Pretty sure this picture shows the last time in my life I was or ever will be truly happy. I know this acid fog that fills my mind and lungs will lift, and days and months and years will pass as life goes on in its "new normal," but losing Riley has changed me. It has hit me like a 2x4 in the face. It has not enriched me or made me stronger. I am not kinder, more patient or more present. I am not better. I am just broken. 

 A month is so long to not have held our baby. My heart aches. My arms ache. I miss him so much it physically hurts. Surviving a month in this horrible reality has been so impossible. I just can't believe we have to spend the rest of our lives here. 

This

This is just the worst. It really is. 

Not doing very well tonight.

I hate this so much. 

Ugh.

Yesterday I wanted to scream. I think I had my first taste of anger about the whole thing. Today all I want to do is sleep. This is all just so unfair.

I just want my baby. 

Ugh. 

Another Day

Well, it looks like the sun rose again today. Guess I'll go to the gym. 

Well, I survived a wedding.

I made it through the wedding. At least mostly. It was an 8-hour contract, and everything was really easy and beautiful. Only 3 people gave me that horrible look that people usually give me when they know what happened, which I thought was pretty good considering how many guests there were, and I did a good job of trying to focus on exactly what was happening in front of me and trying not to let my mind go anywhere else. It didn't really work (I think about him constantly), but overall, I was pretty proud of myself for not curling up in a corner and bawling or wandering into the street hoping to get hit by a car. You know, the usual markers of success and emotional stability. (Ha) There were moments that got to me... The mother-son dance in particular, but I was doing a pretty good job of holding it together until right at the end. When I looked at the clock and realized that we only had about 15 minutes to go, I remembered something.

You see, although I had spent months looking forward to today's wedding (the bride is really pretty, and the groom is a Razorback football player), a few weeks ago, I had started to dread it. Why? Because I just wasn't sure how I was going to survive being apart from the baby for 8 hours.

8 hours. It sounded like forever. I had even contemplated having Mom bring Riley up to the church or the Town Center so that I could find a secluded spot to nurse him, because the thought of being separated from him for 8 whole hours after he was finally home sounded like an eternity. And now, instead of missing him for 8 hours, I've been missing him for 11 days. And I am slowly coming to the realization that I will be missing him for my whole life. Every. Single. Day.

There is literally not a moment that goes by that he isn't in my head. I'm constantly either replaying the last night he was home, looking for any clue that might have been trying to warn me that something was wrong (he hated those vitamins so much, and he spit up right as I laid him down, and was he breathing faster or did I imagine that later? Did he have a fever and I missed it? What did I miss?), or replaying that horrible moment when Jason woke me up to ask if he was okay. On very occasional good moments, I will be thinking about how nice it felt to have him sleep on my chest or how soft his hair was and how good he smelled. But mostly, I see the end. I see the doctors working on him, trying to start an IV, trying to ventilate him, pumping his heart with their giant hands wrapped around his tiny chest. I see Dr. Palmer giving me this awful look... A look that told me with certainty that what I had really known all along was true. A look that said it was too late. I hear her asking me if I wanted to go hold his hand. I see myself, almost as if I'm floating above the whole scene. I see myself rocking him back and forth, saying "This can't be happening. This can't be real. I just want to wake up. I just want to wake up." I don't know how many times I said those words on the morning of March 11, but I know that I still say them every day.

I just want to wake up.

"What doesn't kill you..."

I had always thought that if I ever lost one of my children, it would kill me. But it turns out that some of the things in life that you knew, just absolutely KNEW, would kill you... don't. They just leave you wishing they had.

Dear Babycenter:

Please. Just stop. 

Before and After

The funny thing about "Before and After" is that you never know you were in the "Before" until you're in the "After."

I really hate the After.

Role reversal

I used to go lay by the children at bedtime to keep them from being afraid.

Now they come lay by me.

Advice

Never ask a grieving mother how they are doing. Trust me, you do not want to know.

Sunshine

Logic tells me that riding my bike or going to the gym would be positive coping strategies right now. That getting outside in the sunshine would help me. That getting my blood pumping on the track or the bike trail would be constructive ways to manage my pain. But quite frankly, doing anything other than sitting on the couch staring at the floor sounds like am impossible feat at the moment. The thought of even actually loading my bike onto the car sounds about as daunting as climbing Mount Everest right now. But if I don't do something, I'm going to drive myself insane. So I guess it's time to go outside. I think I'll take my bike to Phat Tire for a tune up. Then at least it will be ready whenever I am.

Tonight.

Tonight it will be a week.

Today

I can't breathe today. I feel like the kids are buzzing around me in colorful blurs of need. My body is here for them, but my heart isn't in it. I've got to figure out how to bring my brain into the present. 

Blessing

Right now I'm just feeling awful because it dawned on me that I never had someone come in to bless Riley. I was in such a daze once we had to let him go, I could barely even register where I was. I held him for a long time afterwards and stroked his hair and studied his face and hands and feet and kissed his cheeks, and then they told me the coroner was there and it was time to put him down. We walked out, and I never saw him again. They led us to the chapel, then told us it was time to go meet the coroner and detectives at the house (standard procedure for any death at home, but it was still awful), and then they sent him to Little Rock for the autopsy and then to the funeral home. The chaplain was right there in the room with us. How could I have not asked him to pray over Riley? What kind of mother forgets something so basic, something that has no opportunity to be fixed? I just feel like I want to throw up.

Bedtime stories

I have been reading some articles and journals dealing with the sudden death of infants. Some are written for a parent's perspective, and some are addressed to assist EMS and other medical personnel in handling such a scenario. 

Somehow reading that the exact chain of events that happened to us has played out in other families, with other babies, in other people's bedrooms, over and over, thousands and thousands of times, has been comforting. Not that I would wish this horror on any other human (oh, how I would not!), but it is reassuring to know that it is not just us who have experienced this. It seems bizarre to find solace in articles that would have previously been unsettling, or even haunting, to me, but in a way it makes the whole thing seem more real. Less like I'm trapped in some bizarre nightmare. (Although what I wouldn't give to wake up from this...)

There is a strange comfort in having his death and unsuccessful attempts at resuscitation fit a pattern, however horrible... To make a tragic sort of sense... To have followed a disastrous, but logical progression. It is settling and grounding in the saddest way to know that others have been exactly where we are now. However awful it may be, we are not alone.

It doesn't take away the pain, but it makes me feel a little less disoriented and unmoored. At least at this moment. Like the sick surges of adrenaline have stopped pumping through my veins, however briefly. 

I guess I'll just be glad for the break, even if I'm not convinced it will last until bedtime. I'll take what I can get.

Sometimes

I just want to run out into the street and stomp my feet on the asphalt and scream at the sky, "HE IS STILL SUPPOSED TO BE INSIDE ME, HE IS NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE BORN YET, HE CAN'T BE DEAD, IT'S NOT FAIR."

It's not fair.

Simple questions

Norah and I decided to go get pedicures together today. It sounded like a harmless way to take our minds off things and get out of the house for a few minutes. 

Shortly after I sat down in the chair, though, the nail tech asked a question I've heard a thousand times before, one I usually answer without even giving it a second thought. 

"How many children do you have?"

I froze. I stared at her, open-mouthed, for what felt like an eternity. I realized that I had no idea how to answer that. 

After stammering for a moment, I settled on the easy answer.

"Four."

It's a lie. It tastes bitter on my lips. It hangs heavy in the air like a bad smell. It makes me sick. 

I don't have four children. I have five children. Five.

She probably thinks I'm crazy now. Who doesn't know how many children they have?

Me apparently.

I still can't sleep.

But this rain is nice. 

I wonder how long before I stop being afraid to go to sleep. And afraid to wake up. How long until I stop waking up in the middle of the night in a cold terror, shaking Norah and Shiloh gently from sleep just to make sure they are still breathing. How long until I can lay in this room where Riley's soul left his body without my stomach sinking down so low it feels like my chest will cave in from the pressure. 

I find myself stepping over or around the spot on the carpet where we did CPR, as if the fact that I can see him laying there helplessly with such clarity means that he is actually still there. 

How long will his pale face, with his purple lips and shaded fingernails, that I only saw briefly, overshadow all the time I spent staring at his eyes while they fluttered, dreaming in his sleep, while his cheeks were still rosy and the only thing marring his lips was the little nursing blister I was so proud of. He smiled constantly in his sleep, sometimes even laughed out loud.

Sleeping babies used to be my favorite thing. Now they are the visions of my nightmares. This is my nightmare.

I just want to wake up.

So how am I supposed to sleep?

Milk

I just realized that I haven't pumped at all today. Not because I was avoiding it (although I wanted to avoid it for the first couple of days, because the thought of it and the memories of all those hours pumping over the last couple of months weighed so heavy on my chest), but because I didn't need to. 6 days ago, on Monday, I was making between 6 and 8 ounces of milk every 3 hours. Like clockwork. If Riley ate so much as 15 minutes late, my breasts turned into boulders on my chest. Every time he ate, no matter how heartily, I had to pump afterwards to reach anything resembling comfort. I assumed we would have plenty of time to correct this imbalance. I was wrong.

Instead, I went from having milk running out my ears (or more accurately, out my freezer... We had to buy a deep freeze to accommodate the excess) to no milk at all. I was so full at the hospital after we let him go. The nurses brought me a pump in the chapel so that I could get some relief. And I sat there in that stained-glass room my pajamas, knowing that the coroner was examining my lifeless baby boy at that very moment. I pumped, staring vacantly into space as tears streamed freely down my face, falling into hot, wet blotches in my lap. The soft whoosh of the pump carried on in its normal rhythm as if nothing had happened. But everything had happened. In the span of an hour and a half (he ate around 3 and we found him at 4:30), my whole world caved in. I went from the happiest I had ever been to sadder and more empty than I ever dreamed possible. Oh, how far we fell.

I pumped probably 3 times that Tuesday. Maybe twice on Wednesday. Twice on Thursday. Once yesterday, the day of Riley's funeral, before bed. My breasts felt full and heavy and sad. My heart felt empty and heavy and sad.

But today, they are soft. Empty.

Like me.

Part of this is probably because right now I have trouble eating. I didn't eat at all on Tuesday. I've eaten sporadically since then, although somehow eating makes me feel bizarrely guilty. I think part of the dramatic decrease in production must be psychological. I think so much of what caused me to overflow with milk was my happiness. My desire to help Riley, to nourish him, to give him life and make him grow. To give him chubby cheeks and roly poly arms like my other babies grew at my breast.

I would think of him and fill up. I would walk into the NICU and let down before I even laid eyes on him. When we started "non-nutritive" feeds, we quickly realized that there was no such thing... As soon as that precious boy got anywhere near me, my breasts would fill with milk again, no matter how completely I had pumped to empty them. But now, there is no joy. I am every bit as empty inside as I was filled with happiness before. It feels like someone has completely carved me out like a jack-o-lantern. Or maybe they carved me on Tuesday morning at 4:30 am, and now I wilt more and more by the day, caving in on myself a little more each hour, until soon I will just be a sad puddle of rotten pumpkin on the porch, no good to anyone.

I think my breasts have comprehended this loss much more quickly than I have.

It just makes no sense.

Ugh

People keep telling me how strong I am. I'm not strong. I'm not even close to strong. It feels like my knees forget to work half the time. I just don't understand how I'm supposed to breathe.