late night

I was up late last night, wanting to write.  But then Livia woke back up and slept restlessly the whole night.  She's teething, she's a toddler, she's not that great of a sleeper to begin with.  But I'm back now, again late at night, glad I still have this space to come and write.  I may not need to write openly about my grief often, but when I do I like having this dedicated space.

I think with all of the reminders that October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss awareness month, I am thinking more about my grief and about Kayla.  It is painful to write this but there are some details that I don't want to think about, last night I was re-playing some of those painful moments in my mind and I kept trying to to QUIT thinking about them.  For maybe the first time ever, I didn't want to think about each detail of learning she had died, of saying goodbye, of going home without my baby.  It was too sad.  Why did my baby have to die? Even though my grief is so different now than it was in the beginning, some of the questions are still the same.

As Livia enters each new stage and learns new things, sometimes I just catch myself thinking "this is what we lost."  I am so happy to have Livia here with me so I30 can experience each new phase and joy and even frustration (because mothering a living child can also be very overwhelming).  But there are times when I still feel bitter, because we should have already known about each of these stages.  We lost everything.  All of it.  Each smile and first food and walking, now these first little words (Livia can say BALL, and then we totally confuse her by saying YES, BOLA so she will learn it in Portuguese too).  Posing with pumpkins and teething and eating sand at the park.  It just...was lost.  A whole lifetime of missing.  Most days, I am ok with that reality.  But lately it's been keeping me up at night. 

Besides all of the October reminders, we have also been considering if and when to "try" for a sibling for Livia.  It seems like as soon as she turned one the whole world started asking us when we are going to have another baby.  While we would LOVE another baby, that question really irritates me when it comes from casual acquaintances or if the person is seeming to forget that I ALREADY have two babies.  I was pregnant for practically two years straight. My first baby DIED.  Pregnancy is not just a light decision for us.   It really makes me mad and sad that my timeline will never add up.  I'll be 30 next May, and I will never ever have three babies before I'm 30, which was my life plan before real life got in the way.  No matter what I will always come up short.  I can only imagine how great it will be to (hopefully) someday see Livia interacting as a big sister, having that bond that only siblings can have, but some days I just tell her, "you should be the little sister."  I wonder if baby loss affects birth order behavior? In my mom's group I hear mom's saying how second babies are always 'easier' etc., but Livia is a first child in that sense.  She is first and second. 

I am trying to delete old emails because I have no more space on my google drive account to store pictures.  I never delete emails so I have almost 15 gb of emails saved up in my g  mail  account.  I used to be the type of person who would type out a quote and save it in my drafts folders. I used to copy song lyrics on little scraps of paper.  I used to save story ideas and dream big dreams.  I missed that person as I was going through emails tonight.  I am not sure how much of that person just changed as I've gotten older, or how much was robbed from grief, from becoming old and grieving at 26 years old.  I know there is still time to dream again, to rebuild some of that creativity, but that innocent and optimistic person doesn't exist anymore.

On Sunday we have a remembrance ceremony at our hospital.  I have just volunteered to read something at the service and I'm so nervous!  In 2011 I stood there and cried the whole time, bewildered that I was standing among a big group of people who know lost babies too.  I was desperate to get pregnant again, which actually happened the next month.  In 2012 I pushed Livia in the stroller and felt so happy to have my baby girl there to honor her sister.  This year I will read something (WHAT?!  What is the perfect poem/quote/passage to summarize my love and devotion to Kayla?  Nothing is good enough!) and hope that Livia doesn't through a fit while I'm standing in front of everyone.


And now...the photo I've been meaning to print out and frame for over two months since Livia is already 14 months old... a year of my baby girl! 

months 10,11,& 12 we couldn't keep a bow on or focus at ALL