I am thinking I might have just reached my anger stage. All out of order. I seemed to have skipped guilt and anger (if you don't count some of my interactions with my MIL, but I think those were justified) before now. I still can't do guilt-- just can't find anything at all anyone could've done. But maybe it was the anger talking last two days or so.
I want the baby I had. I want A. I want the next one too. But dammit, I shouldn't have to be trying now. I should be tickling my boy.
I feel better today, but not all better.
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About Me
- Julia
- Dealing with life after the death and stillbirth of my son. The title of this blog comes from a song by Sarah McLachlan.
glow in the woods
Things that maybe possibly could turn out to be useful
Because Mel said so
Places to go
- A charmed life?
- A Little Pregnant
- A Mending Heart
- A natural scientist
- After All That
- Amelie's Welt
- Apron Strings
- Awful but Functioning
- Birdie's mama (protected)*
- Broken Heart Diaries
- Certainly Not Cool Enough to Blog
- Crib Chronicles
- Dorcasina
- Eight Million Pieces
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- Expectant Waiting
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- Here Be Hippogriffs
- It's a strange world...
- Just crazy enough to try
- Losses and Gains
- Magpie Musings
- Moksha*
- My Reality
- Nicolas' Garden*
- Niobe
- No matter how small
- One Big Maybe
- Phantom Scribbler
- Quiet sanctuary
- Rhymes with Javelin
- Slouching Towards 40
- Snickollet
- So Close
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- Uncommon Misconception
- Uppercase Woman
25 comments:
I haven't had a child die of my own. But, my nephew died. I still struggle with that. And, for me too---it's the anger. Sure, I get sad...but more than anything...I get angry.
Again, this is something so foreign to my own experience that it kind of takes me aback. Guilt? Absolutely. Sadness? Sure. But I just can't imagine feeling anger at a loss. Which probably shows that there's something missing in the way I react to bad things.
I remember once, when a very close friend of mine did something unforgiveable to me, everyone kept asking if I was angry at her. But I wasn't. I felt terribly, terribly sad, but, even though I'm sure that the vast majority of people would have been furious with her, I couldn't manage to drum up any anger at all.
I think, even if I'm unable to feel it, that anger can be a very helpful emotion. That it can even be healing to the extent that it energizes you, rousing you from a torpor of grief.
I have never felt a fury like I have at times in the past few weeks. I've wished I could actually break things.
I don't think there's really an order is there? And I move back and forth between feelings.
A should be here dammit.
That, the last thing that Sara said. I don't know if it makes sense, and hesitated to share, but I really missed A. at your birthday party. I guess that was mostly denial: "How can that be? That's so wrong! I can't believe it!" And then sadness...
I'm with you on the anger. Angry that things should have been different. I'm angry at myself for not being more paranoid about the increased discharge, about not demanding to be seen by my ob about the tiniest spot of blood at 23 weeks.
I still think those thoughts - that I want another baby (desperately), but I want Thomas back too. So badly I could scream.
I don't know that that ever goes away. And I don't know that you can ever not be angry about having to deal with these feelings - or about A not being here to be tickled and loved by you.
And yeah, I'm with Sara - I don't know that there is an order to the stages of grief. You just feel what you feel when you feel it.
I just wish it all didn't feel so flocking awful.
((((((HUGS)))))
I also agree that there really isn't an order to the *stages* of grief--it just isn't that linear/sequential. I did feel the anger intensely for a while, it came on for me at around 6 months.
I completely feel the way you do about wanting the baby I had. Of course some day I will want the one I will (God willing) have, but the more time goes by the more intensely I realize that nothing will ever fill the empty place left where my son should be.
Here's to more days where you feel better.
Yeah, there is no order.
Like niobe, i had/have a great deal of trouble feeling anger at my loss. Anger for me needs a specific object -- and anger for Nicolas' death doesn't make sense to me, i mean, it was nobody's FAULT so the only person to get angry with is God/fate. Which seems futile.
Which is not to say i haven't had plenty of anger, but it takes the form of irrational outbursts at other people in my life. Just ask my dh. Heh heh. And yes, smashing things helps. Wine glasses, plants, cellphone -- word of advice, try to smash CHEAP things, you will regret it less later!
I'm with Kate, smash some stuff, lots of stuff.
With great big mallets...
My anger felt almost all consuming at times. In fact, totally out of character, one night I repeatedly punched the wall in the shower. DH did actually hear me do this and was concerned. I started going to the gym every day to get the aggression out. It really helps AND it's good for me physically. Sometimes I have to amp up the speed on the ellipical trainer for a few minutes and then after that, I just ride the "high"
This might be a little strange, I don't know.
I just found your blog a few days ago, and I've been reading back on a fairly regular basis.
I realized today that our sons died on the same day. Granted, the situations are different. Will was born 3 1/2 months early, in October when he should have been born in February.
Some of the things you write... they're so familiar. Word for word. Things I've thought, things I've felt. I know that your heart hurts like mine does.
I hope that writing does help you. It has helped me to read... to know that there are other people out there, that I'm not alone in these feelings. Everyone always says they're so sorry, and they wish they could do something. It's different to read something by someone who knows.
I just wanted to let you know. I hate the whole being a lurker thing. Thank you.
Hi Jen,
Welcome, and thank you for delurking. I am so sorry we share this grim anniversary. I am sorry Will's life was so short and under such extreme conditions. I am glad my words are helping, if only a little. I often wonder about the lurkers. Thanks again for joining the party, such as it is... Hope you stick around.
De-lurking ..... I was five when my little brother was born and died: it reshaped my childhood. I've lost seven babies, myself: that has framed my experience as a mother perhaps even more strongly than raising my living children has. The anger, it comes and goes, like grief. It wells up and crashes down and you learn, over time, how to navigate it. As one grows and changes through the years, so too changes the anger and grief -- the depth, the quality ... It doesn't lessen, necessarily, but one becomes accustomed to carrying it.
Reading other womens' experiences has always helped me. Thank you for writing. I am so sorry your son is not here with you, being tickled and cuddled and kissed.
Greetings from over two years after you wrote this post... I am here via Mel's latest creation for us ALI bloggers "Blogger Bingo." Today's category is to find a post that is about or includes anger written before 2008.
I scanned the BB list for blogs that sounded like they had been around for awhile, as I knew many of them hadn't been going since before `08. I recognized the name of yours and though I feel like I must have been here before, it may have been awhile.
I thought I would do a search on your blog for the term "anger," which seemed to0 easy, but I tried it and it gave me this post of yours. That was this morning... I read your post and was touched and could relate (having lost our 2nd child, a baby girl, in April 2008).
I have definately gone through the various stages of grief since and not always in the theorectical "order" and spent time in some of them, more than others and have cycled back through off and on since our daughter Molly was born and died.
Anyway, though I did feel a connection to your post, I wanted to know more about you and your story before I commented on a two year old post. So I have spent some time today reading various blog posts of yours from over the past two years and feel I have a bit better sense of your journey.
I too have been blogging since April 2007 (as that is when my husband and I were in the midst of our first ART cycle and I wanted a space to share about our experience).
My husband and I have a son who will be 6 in October, our first daughter (as I already mentioned) was born/died w/ a rare and severe combination of congenital heart defects on 4/17/08 and our second daughter is due to be born two weeks from today (if she doesn't come early).
So I see some parallels in our experiences and find some comfort in that. Happy (belated) first birthday to your second son! I can only imagine how surreal that must be for you, as I still don't completely believe that this baby moving around inside of me as I type this will actually continue to be healthy and get to come home with us sometime in the next few weeks.
Anyway, thank you for your blog, this post and for sharing your journey with all of your children. I am proud of you for not fearing love and I am glad to have spent sometime here (on your blog with your posts) today. I wish you and your family the best.
Take care,
Kathy :)
I am so so sorry for your loss and I hope that the time that has passed has dulled the anger and pain.
I can only imagine the anger I would have if I was in your place. I know time can't heal completely, but I hope you are doing better.
I've just spent the last 1/2 hour or so reading through your blog. I found your post from Blogger Bingo.
I know this post is two years old, but I just have to say that although I can't relate to your situation, I know that there is no textbook list for grief and the order we must experience it in. Anger is okay (and good) to get out and it doesn't matter what stage you are in in the process.
I am so glad to read later posts and see you conceived again and had a beautiful baby boy.
Stopping in on my Blogger Bingo adventure...
I am genuinely sorry for your loss. Sending vibes of peace and comfort your way...
Just like everyone else has said, while there are stages of grief, there is no magic finish line for each stage. The stages are very fluid, and we bounce and slide back and forth between them. There are those times when we can even feel all of the stages in a single day...
My best to you.
I agree, there are stages I am told but I hate when people tell me about them. Tehy come and go. Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm sad, sometimes I feel guilty, sometimes I feel like I'm getting over it, and then it all comes back again.
I hope you have found some peace.
Here from Blogger Bingo...
Seems like even when there isn't anything that anyone could have done, many people still find someone to blame, someone to be angry at. Even if it's The Universe, or Fate, or a higher power, or whatever entity shouldn't let such things happen.
Take care.
(from bingo)
I can't fathom what you have gone through - I hope the days have gotten better for you.
I cannot imagine your loss or your pain and I am truly sorry you have to endure such sorrow.
(here via bingo as well)
I've never been given the gift of a child of my own, nor have I had to deal with the unbearable loss you experienced. Your post was so straight forward, it helped me to see that sometimes things are terribly complicated and that it's okay to just be pissed...
I am so sorry you had to go through that.
here for blogger bingo too... so sorry for the anger and sadness you were feeling when you wrote this, i can so identify with your line:
I shouldn't have to be trying now. I should be tickling my boy.
i wish i too didnt have to think of trying, i wish i was mothering my little girl not grieving her. your post is heartbreaking in its honesty
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