The TRUTH About Motherhood

Tag: Loss

For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn
Anyone who has ever read this blog before knows that I don’t write flash fiction. In fact, I write the complete opposite of “flash fiction” I write drawn out nonfiction. I’m a story teller who tells you my stories in their entirety, even a moment can last 350 words.But when I saw the Hemingway piece, “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn” again with new eyes, new experiences, they were no longer 6 words. They were like a brick thrown at my heart and the weight of those words brought me to my knees.
I’ve read these words before but I never really knew what they meant, not truly. I never knew the hole in your heart that could be left by losing someone you never got to meet; never got to hold, kiss and cuddle. Never got to hear them call out to you, “Mommy” or wrap their tiny arms around your neck. But, I think you miss them even more because you are missing the promise of something that never came to fruition. You have to cling for dear life to that one single memory, the loss.
Thankfully, I haven’t lost a lot of people who were close to me. I lost my grandparents that I never really knew and I’ve lost two uncles who I was very close to and that hurt. It hurt bad. I felt those losses and I still miss their presence in my life. I wish my daughters could have ran to them when they came to visit and known the giving hearts and comforting smiles of these men. I’d like to say it taught me to appreciate those who are alive even more. It did, for a little while, and then as some sort of a survival mechanism, I had to put that loss on a shelf, so I could continue on. I think that is how we are made; this is how we survive the pain of loss.
Not until I lost a pregnancy, my third child, did I feel the true weight of loss. It nearly killed me. There is nothing like it. The only thing that I can imagine that would come close would be losing a spouse or a parent. I know that sometime in my life I will lose my parents and that scares me. It terrifies me but not for the reasons you might suspect. Not because I won’t know how to live in the world without them but because I didn’t have enough time to know them; to really know them. The hole left by words unspoken and memories not made is an unfillable one. I know that now.
I don’t know why these words have been haunting me over the past couple days. I think it was triggered by watching my friend go through the painful loss of her dear mother and watching another friend give birth and struggle with complications and a very sick baby after losing her twin pregnancy last year. My heart is breaking for these two women. I have all of these feelings swirling around in my mind, in my heart and I I can feel my own scabs being ripped off. I can imagine how their hearts are aching with these fresh wounds. I wish I could do more than pray for these women but they need their space to process; to contain the hole that feels like it will swallow you up. It’s survival.
The pain of losing someone you have so much love for leaves a giant hole in your soul and with them they take a part of you. You don’t feel whole. You feel fractured and broken and it hurts it ways that you didn’t even know it could. It’s an indescribable, all-consuming pain.
Please pray for these two women, Alexandra Rosas and Diana Stone, that their hearts might know peace and comfort again someday soon.
For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn
2013/08/19
A Sky Full of Paper Lanterns
Sitting there, immersed in the moment of a baseball game, the ordinary; the laughter of my girls, the deep, baritone voice of my father-in-law excitedly recounting the last play, my husband sitting quietly by my side and then I glanced upwards towards the sky. I don’t know why, I looked to the outfield and then it happened and everything changed.

There on the horizon, just beyond the energy of the ballpark, where people were cheering and happily enjoying a popular summer pastime, in the darkness beyond the cathedral; slowly and one by one, Chinese Paper lanterns lifted higher and higher into the July night sky. For a brief moment, my heart leapt into my throat. I was still and quiet. I did not move. Then I glanced at my husband and gestured in the direction of the soaring, fiery lanterns. He knew.

The sight of so many of those Chinese lanterns floating up to the heavens was glorious and magical, especially in such quantity. I am assuming they were being set free in celebration of some newly married couple’s wedding; their first act of creating their happily ever after. I couldn’t move or breathe. I was still.

Those airy, delicate Chinese Paper lanterns will always remind me of something bittersweet. That is why I found myself sitting there at the ballpark, surrounded by strangers and the smell of popcorn, unsuspectingly overcome with emotion.

Last year, when I miscarried our third child, it emotionally crippled me for most of the following twelve months. I mourned almost constantly. But one day last fall, after my heart had been completely shattered, I received a message on my phone from a friend I’d gotten to know online who had virtually held my hand and helped me through on of the hardest things I have this far had the misfortune of experiencing. I looked at my message and there was a photo of one single beautiful Chinese paper lantern, floating gracefully up into the sky as the sun set at that moment when day meets night. That one single Chinese paper lantern ascending into heaven meant the world to me. I get choked up just thinking about it.

You see, my friend, Jessica Watson, is an angel in my eyes. She made a gesture on my behalf and she helped me to heal. Though, I am not sure I could ever repay that act of kindness. I will always remember the evening, a mom who understood the weight of loss, did the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. She heard the unspoken words that I could not voice, she felt the pain that comes with losing someone before you truly get to know them, she saw the hole in my existence that this blow had left and without asking, she gave me the gift of gracefully letting go. She may never know what she did for me that evening but I will never forget her or her beautiful and kind heart.

And so as I sat there in the ballpark on Friday night, stunned and transported back to that overwhelming loss, I was reminded that our sweet baby is in heaven and that there are angels here among us. As I watched the paper lanterns ascend, my heart followed into the moonlit sky and then I smiled and heard the excited laughter of my daughters’ beside me, of life going on.
2013/07/07
A Year Ago Today, the Loss of the Unimaginable
May 1st is the anniversary of what has so far been the worst day of my life; the day that I lost my third baby. I feel so many emotions. I am overwhelmed and consumed, swallowed by inescapable grief. There is a feeling of finality that I was not prepared to feel. I don’t want to feel this; not today of all days. (more…)
2013/05/01
Mommy, I Want Another Baby
As I lay here cramping, a cruel reminder, stifling my tears as my 5-year-old brings up an old topic; one that we try not to discuss but has been lingering around my heart lately; the miscarriage we had last year.
It was this time last year that we conceived our third child. I know that. I’ve thought about it every day since Fat Tuesday but tonight, my 5-year-old asked me a simple question as she lay on my stomach and I read her a bedtime story, ” Mommy is there another baby in your tummy?” (more…)
2013/02/25
Mommy Moment Monday ~ Permission to Breathe
My mommy moment almost didn’t happen this week. This past weekend, I wasn’t a very attentive mommy. I was a little self-involved in what was happening to me. From an outsiders view, I spent the weekend being selfish and self- absorbed but in reality, I was dealing with my own shit to make me better for my girls. I know that today.
Sometimes a mommy moment is nothing more than remembering to breathe.
You know that saying that parents should take the oxygen in a plane going down before selflessly handing it off to their children? Well, there is a reason for that. The reason is that if you act all martyr like and give everything of yourself , in the case of the oxygen, you are of no use to help your children get oxygen. So you must make the counter-intuitive decision to get yourself some oxygen, breathe and move on with being a good mommy to your children.
That’s what I did this weekend, I stopped for a minute to breathe; to help myself get through something so that I could be better for my children. I’m human. I have to accept that. I can’t always be perfect. Sometimes I can’t even be around. That’s okay. I need the moments of solitude to move forward. My children need me to step away to give them the independence to take flight. I stepped away for a few hours and it gave the Big Guy time to step up and he did.
My Mommy Moment was found in my daughter’s gaze.
Then on Sunday, we all resumed our roles; refreshed, thankful and able to breathe. And then this happened and I remembered why I do this. Why I grew children and give so much of myself to them. They give me moments of complete bliss that I would not other wise have. There is something about a child’s love that is irreplaceable by any other thing in this world. There is no satisfaction greater for me than seeing the little people that I created genuinely happy. It moves me on a level that nothing before or since having them ever has.
What was your mommy moment this week?

2012/11/26
Throat Punch Thursday ~ A Miscarriage, a Due Date & the Misery in Between

The other day, my 5-year-old, Gabs walked into the kitchen wearing a pair of jeans that she had outgrown. She was being silly. We laughed because they were practically up to her knees and wouldn’t button. My unsuspecting heart was happy and then she said, “It’s okay Mommy, we can just save these for the next baby you have.” And just like that my eyes were stinging and my vision was getting blurry and I wanted to fall to the floor and assume the fetal position as the knife in my heart worked itself out. (more…)
2012/11/15
Some Things Change You Forever
It was a sunny Monday morning. I had just dropped my 4 year-old off at preschool. I had approximately 2 hours to get to my OBs office and have her check me and tell me nothing was wrong. As I lay there alone on the cold, hard table in the ultrasound room, I expected nothing to be wrong. I had some spotting, as I had with both of my previous pregnancies. Both times previously, everything was fine. I had overreacted. I was 10 weeks and 4 days pregnant with our third child. I just needed the ultrasound and the confirmation that everything was okay and I could continue on with my full day of errands. I wasn’t scared at all. That’s why my husband wasn’t with me. I was wrong.
The ultrasound tech made idle chit chat, apologizing for the wand of the vaginal ultrasound and any pressure that I might be feeling. Then her face went white. I knew. But it had to be a mistake. She continued on in silence. Then the words came, as if in slow motion from across the world, “I’m so sorry, I can’t find your baby’s heartbeat.”
I was in shock. All I could think was, she must have done something wrong. There is a heartbeat; she just doesn’t know what she is doing. I lay there for a couple more minutes, paralyzed and horrified. Embarrassed and humiliated, I wanted to disappear. I wanted to die. I wanted to be dead with no heartbeat, just like my baby inside me. I couldn’t talk. I didn’t cry.
I was interrupted from my internal psychotic break by the ultrasound tech taking my hand softly and telling me, once again, how very sorry she was for my loss and that she would take me downstairs to see my obstetrician “the back way”. I know it was so I wouldn’t have to walk through the waiting room filled with beautiful round bellies full of life. I knew. But it felt like, I was being taken down the back stairs because I was not worthy.
My body had failed my baby and me. There was malfunction and all I could do was take one step at a time and try not falling to the ground and crying forever. It felt surreal like I was watching this happen to someone else. I was outside of my body as I found myself in the Ob waiting room downstairs, not sure if I should politely smile or cry at the other expecting mothers. I was jealous. I was pissed. I was hurt. I felt like my initial reaction of surprise to this pregnancy had somehow made me unworthy to hold my baby. I could not speak. I saw my doctor. She explained the situation. I could barely hear her through my own thoughts. My head was so congested from holding in my pain. I was afraid to open mouth because all of the emotion would come pouring out and drown us all.
I was physically aching. My legs were shaking, my mind was racing, my head was spinning and I was alone; more alone than I have ever been in my life. I needed to hear my husband’s voice. He had to be told. I was the only one who could make that call. He knew I was at the doctor’s office. We’d been here before. We worried for nothing. It was always fine. Not this time.
I dialed the number through my blurry vision, I heard his jovial voice on the other end, “How’s our baby?” I was silent. “Is everything ok?” his concern was palpable. I started to speak, but it didn’t sound like me. It couldn’t be me speaking those words. I opened my mouth and the words came out like a death sentence, “ We had a M…………” and then I began to sob in an uncontrollable and animalistic way in which I have never experienced before. I could not finish the word. It was choking me. I could not say it out loud because then it would be real and then my baby would be dead. The promise of our baby would be broken. Life would be different. I would be different. It would all be less. I would never get to hold my baby in my arms because my baby was gone.
How do you survive a miscarriage? You don’t. You are changed forever. On the day that you lose a child, you lose part of who you were and become someone new; different. Your destiny is changed. You will never be the same. Eventually, you learn to breathe again, you get up of the floor, you stop crying and you somehow carry on.
I wrote this in August on Scary Mommy but today is the day that I share exactly what happened on the hardest day of my life. Our babies who have gone on to heaven may not be here in our arms but they are always in our hearts. During National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, please remember what we can never forget.
photo credit: Jason A. Samfield via photopin cc
2012/10/15
Some Things Truly Do Change You Forever
Today is October 1st, the first day of National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Today also marks 5 months since we lost our baby. It’s been 5 months since my miscarriage. It’s the anniversary of the worst day of my life.

This was the first time we ever saw our third baby
We had already been blessed with two beautiful children and I was waiting for the day that the little heart beating blip would turn into a goo covered bundle being laid on my chest. I looked forward to it. My brain ran wild with thoughts of my girls playing with their newborn brother or sister, fawning over his every breath and cry and whimper. I could already see Bella mothering him and sitting by my side as I nursed him begging me to hold him. Gabi would be over the moon. All she’s ever wanted was to big be a big sister. She would have adored that baby like you couldn’t imagine and the Big Guy, he would have fallen so deeply in love with that baby that he would have been his forever, just like he has done with each of our babies. I wanted that baby so much, for so many reasons.
In the past five months, my heart has broken a million different times at the most random occasions but lately it’s gotten harder. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that I keep bumping into women at school, at church, in the store who are pregnant and look to be as far along as I should be. Every time I see one, my heart is reminded of what will never be and it hurts. I know that I am not the first one to suffer this devastating loss and I know that those around me don’t feel this gaping hole that is where my heart used to be but I do.
My girls have moved on from asking about our baby in heaven and the Big Guy never talks about it but he listens when I need to. He knows that the first day of every month, I’m not myself and a little part of me wants to crawl into bed and die just like I did on the day that I found out. I am not purposely lingering in my loss but it’s always there. It haunts me. I think it might always haunt me. I will never forget, any of it. My miscarriage changed me forever, I know that now.
I am past the anger of my miscarriage now, on most days. Now, it’s just a quiet lingering pain of loss. I am happy for those around me who are pregnant and having babies. I am excited at the prospect of my sisters and sisters-in-law and friends to tell me their joyous news. I can’t wait to hold them close and kiss their tiny foreheads but still I am sorry that I will never get to hold my third baby. I will miss that. I am sad knowing that just for a little while I had a little miracle living inside me that I will never get to meet.So today, on the first day of the month and the first day of National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Month, I sit here looking at the ultrasound photos and sob for my beautiful baby in heaven.
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I first shared this post on my friend, Jill’s site Scary Mommy on August 23,2012. She gave me a place to share the events of that day when I was too afraid to share it here. I didn’t want to be that mom who couldn’t stop talking about this one moment but I feel that today is the perfect time to share the details of that day. I can’t promise I won’t talk about it again. I have a feeling that my due date is going to be a pretty painful day for me. Thank you for all of your support and love.
For National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, I am sharing my story with you
It was a sunny Monday morning. I had just dropped my 4 year-old off at preschool. I had approximately 2 hours to get to my OBs office and have her check me and tell me nothing was wrong. As I lay there alone on the cold, hard table in the ultrasound room, I expected nothing to be wrong. I had some spotting, as I had with both of my previous pregnancies. Both times previously, everything was fine. I had overreacted. I was 10 weeks and 4 days pregnant with our third child. I just needed the ultrasound and the confirmation that everything was okay and I could continue on with my full day of errands. I wasn’t scared at all. That’s why my husband wasn’t with me. I was wrong.
The ultrasound tech made idle chit chat, apologizing for the wand of the vaginal ultrasound and any pressure that I might be feeling. Then her face went white. I knew. But it had to be a mistake. She continued on in silence. Then the words came, as if in slow motion from across the world, “I’m so sorry, I can’t find your baby’s heartbeat.”
I was in shock. All I could think was, she must have done something wrong. There is a heartbeat; she just doesn’t know what she is doing. I lay there for a couple more minutes, paralyzed and horrified. Embarrassed and humiliated, I wanted to disappear. I wanted to die. I wanted to be dead with no heartbeat, just like my baby inside me. I couldn’t talk. I didn’t cry.
I was interrupted from my internal psychotic break by the ultrasound tech taking my hand softly and telling me, once again, how very sorry she was for my loss and that she would take me downstairs to see my obstetrician “the back way”. I know it was so I wouldn’t have to walk through the waiting room filled with beautiful round bellies full of life. I knew. But it felt like, I was being taken down the back stairs because I was not worthy.
My body had failed my baby and me. There was malfunction and all I could do was take one step at a time and try not falling to the ground and crying forever. It felt surreal like I was watching this happen to someone else. I was outside of my body as I found myself in the Ob waiting room downstairs, not sure if I should politely smile or cry at the other expecting mothers. I was jealous. I was pissed. I was hurt. I felt like my initial reaction of surprise to this pregnancy had somehow made me unworthy to hold my baby. I could not speak. I saw my doctor. She explained the situation. I could barely hear her through my own thoughts. My head was so congested from holding in my pain. I was afraid to open mouth because all of the emotion would come pouring out and drown us all.
I was physically aching. My legs were shaking, my mind was racing, my head was spinning and I was alone; more alone than I have ever been in my life. I needed to hear my husband’s voice. He had to be told. I was the only one who could make that call. He knew I was at the doctor’s office. We’d been here before. We worried for nothing. It was always fine. Not this time.
I dialed the number through my blurry vision, I heard his jovial voice on the other end, “How’s our baby?” I was silent. “Is everything ok?” his concern was palpable. I started to speak, but it didn’t sound like me. It couldn’t be me speaking those words. I opened my mouth and the words came out like a death sentence, “ We had a M…………” and then I began to sob in an uncontrollable and animalistic way in which I have never experienced before. I could not finish the word. It was choking me. I could not say it out loud because then it would be real and then my baby would be dead. The promise of our baby would be broken. Life would be different. I would be different. It would all be less. I would never get to hold my baby in my arms because my baby was gone.
How do you survive a miscarriage? You don’t. You are changed forever. On the day that you lose a child, you lose part of who you were and become someone new; different. Your destiny is changed. You will never be the same. Eventually, you learn to breathe again, you get up of the floor, you stop crying and you somehow carry on.

Our babies who have gone on to heaven may not be here in our arms but they are always in our hearts. During National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, please remember what we can never forget.
October, National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month
2012/10/15
There are Angels Among Us
Sometimes something unexpected happens, when you least expect it. Awhile back, my dear friend, Jessica Watson, asked me to join in on a pregnancy and infant loss memorial. I was happy to join in but when it came time to contribute my photo of me holding the last ultrasound of the baby that we lost, I just couldn’t do it. I’m still muddling through the muddy waters of loss and just when I think I may be getting to a point where I am less affected by our loss, I’m slapped upside my head with the realization that it’s still actually a gaping wound on my heart. But this is not about that open wound, this is about the amazing women who have held my hand, cradled my heart and come to my rescue. There are angels among us.
I’ve known these women for quite some time. Mostly we know one another through our blogs and social media. We’ve never met in person. I’ve never had the honor of hugging them or thanking them for what they have done for me. They are beautiful, humble and genuine to the core. We are connected, some through our shared wound and some who just have hearts so big that they completely envelope you when you are in animalistic pain and they soothe your soul with their kindness and caring.
They don’t know me. Not really. I am practically a stranger by most standards but it didn’t matter. They are not restricted by time and space, they are angels. What have they done, you ask? They are the type of women who see past what you are saying and see what you are feeling. When I had my miscarriage, so many wonderful friends online and in real life, sent me condolences and cried for my loss. They shared their stories and they eased me gently back into the world of the living when all I wanted to do was curl up and disappear. You can’t imagine how badly I wanted to just disappear from existence. I just felt like part of me had died on that day.
But these women have never forgotten. They check on me periodically, ask how I am doing and genuinely care what my response is. Erin (@ErinMargolin) is my first angel. This lady has done so much on so many different occasions that I will never be able to repay her kindness to me. There have been cards to make me smile when I thought I never would again.We may have never met but make no mistake, she is my sister. She is truly one of the most amazing human beings that I have ever known. You all know I don’t gush, so you realize that she must really be someone special and I am sure if you know her, you know this already. She is just a really great person. I don’t know how else to explain it. She is the standard by which all people should hold themselves to. @mommaKiss sent me a card, in the mail and to my house. I know it sounds like such a simple thing but for someone to take the time to choose a card, sign it and mail it is a big deal these days. It meant so much to me and it made me feel connected when I felt disjointed from the world. Jessica (@JessBWatson) this dear and beautiful soul, who deals daily with the pain of her own loss, made time in her life to check on my during mine and , more importantly, to check on me still. She knows the lingering pain of loss. Sunday night, she participated in a lantern launch in memorial for our babies in heaven and I had no idea that she was going to include me until I received a photo via tweet of the lantern this sweet woman launched in memory of our baby that we lost before we ever got to hold. This small gesture has renewed my faith in humanity. It meant more to me than words can ever convey.
Believe me when I tell you that my online friends are real and there are angels among us.
Photo Courtesy of Jessica Watson/ Four Plus an Angel
2012/10/15
Is There a Dream Interpreter in the House?
Last night’s dream has me perplexed. This morning has thrown me for a loop. I am a bit out of sorts. It’s only my second day completely alone since the girls started school. This is weird for me. I’m not so sure that I like it. This is it. I will never have my sweet little girls home with me on the weekdays again. Is it wrong that I am actually looking forward to days off?
Sunday night, I stayed up until 1 am. I blame HBO and insomnia. Anyways, when 6 am on Monday morning rolled around, I was pretty much feeling like death warmed over. Not just tired but sick to my stomach. My body was mutinying saying “BITCH, why don’t you give us more sleep and better food?” I splashed some cold water on my face, brushed my teeth and got everyone ready for school. I came home and cleaned like a crazy woman, trying to avoid looking in any direction because all I kept seeing was where my dog is supposed to be. The tired mind plays tricks on you. Needless to say, I spent most of the morning folding laundry through tear filled eyes; partly because I miss my dog and probably in part because I miss my Gabs being home with me during the day. It’s lonely when you’ve been used to a little side kick for the past 7 years. I’ve not been lonely because I am never alone until now. Yes, I stood around my house crying like a big baby all by myself. So last night, I did what any really tired, completely sane person would do. I went to bed when I put the girls to bed, at 7 pm.
Bad dream #1
Guess what happened? I woke up three times and I had a shitload of weird freaking dreams. The first dream was this; I was with my girls at what looked like a school of some sort. We were there to see some sort of pet show. Obviously, in this dream, Gabi, my 5-year-old, immediately runs toward the animals. This kid loves animals. I see veterinary medicine in her future. Quite honestly, I’m pretty convinced this kid prefers animals to people most days of the week. The entire time that she ran ahead, I had her in my sight because I am terrified of stranger danger and I’m pretty sure that I would die if something really bad ever happened to the girls. Suddenly, the dogs became roving exhibit and those bitches were being moved to another location. Gabi was not stopping. She ran after them, out of my line of sight. I am running down the longest corridors I’ve ever had the misfortune of running with her sister in tow. We run down the retractable bleachers and at the bottom they were not pulled all the way out. I jump about 6 feet to the ground. I am not stopping. I. MUST. CATCH.GABI. My 7-year-old refuses to jump.
I beg and plead with her. Gabi is disappearing into the venue and I can’t even hear the stampede of children anymore. This is my nightmare. Bella looks at me and shakes her head with that “not gonna happen” smirk that infuriates every mother. We’ve all seen it. And then she turns and runs in the opposite direction. I am simultaneously terrified and pissed off. Who do I follow? Who do I save? What if something bad happens to them? Then. I . Wake. Up in a cold sweat.
Commence Bad dream #2
I lay awake for 2 hours in the middle of night trying to figure out this riddle of a nightmare. Here’s what I came up with; it obviously has something to do with the fact that we just lost the dog and Gabi is having such a bad time of it. It also speaks volumes to the fact that Gabi always runs off without thinking (not listening to me) and Bella has recently started defying me, to test boundaries.
Then I tried to go back to bed and had another nightmare. What? Forget this. I’ll just be tired and stay an insomniac. Sleep is brutal, not for the weak.
When I went back to sleep, I dreamed that I was at a hotel with the Big Guy when we spotted an elderly woman who could not walk and had been stranded in the lobby by her people. She gave us some story about feeling really dizzy and needing to get up to her room. The Big Guy, being the nice guy he is, picks the elderly woman up and carries her up to her room. We were waiting for the valet to bring our car so her told me to wait while he took her up. Then he never came back. I spent what felt like forever searching the hotel for my husband. He had been kidnapped. It was a scam to get him upstairs. Eventually, after much freaking out, questioning hotel patrons and workers alike and crying on my part, we found him locked in a dog cage, which is totally bizarre because the Big Guy is 6’5″ and would never actually fit in one of those cages. Even more bizarre was that when we arrived at the room and found him locked in the dog cage, our deceased dog was walking around the outside of the cage.
So what the fuck does all this mean? I’m serious anybody have any good theories? Obviously, it has something to do with losing the dog and fearing losing the people I love but it was one of the weirdest dreams that I have ever had. I may be off sleep completely after last night’s dream.
What do you think this dream means?
2012/08/21