Facebook has been an incredibly useful tool in my post-loss life. It has been a way for me to reach my network of friends and family easily, a chance to keep up on where everyone else’s lives are going, and it has also provided me with opportunities to connect with other women in the infant loss community. It’s given me a way to share our story with others, which is priceless. All of those things are positive reasons to keep a social media outlet like Facebook in my daily life. It has actually helped me tremendously. However, the downsides of such an avenue of communication for someone who has lost their newborn baby are also numerous. I know that when I check my Facebook, there is always the risk that I might see something that saddens me, and I accept that. Sadness is honestly one of my predominating feelings for obvious reasons, so I’m not afraid of it. What makes it tough though are the multitudinous baby product advertisements that pop up in my newsfeed. It’s a lot like the random assortment of infant-related mail that shows up in my mailbox at home- unexpected and hurtful. Just another reminder that any of those things are useless to me because fate decreed that my baby would not survive.

On Facebook, there’s the option to “Hide this ad” when you click on the little down arrow at the top right corner of the ad. Upon first using that option, I was pleasantly relieved that, like the ‘unfollow’ button, you could choose to unfollow an advertisement. After that click, however, you have to take another step and answer the question “Why don’t you want to see this ad?”. Instantly, the painful answer, “because my baby died”, forms in my mind. I can almost see the words as if they are listed in the options that you can choose from. But, alas, that isn’t exactly an answer they’ve formulated, nor is it one they’d truly want to hear. No one wants to hear that. One potential answer option is “It’s offensive to me”, and that doesn’t quite fit, and though it’s hurtful, it obviously isn’t intended to be. There isn’t an option to write an answer, so the closest answer I can select is “It’s not relevant to me”. The trouble is, it IS relevant to me because I DID have a baby, and I WANT those things to be a part of my life. But instead, I must give a generic answer, because it’s the easiest way. The team behind the scenes (whom I believe must analyze page interests and likes and then figure out which ads to target my page with) then promises not to show as many ads like that in the future. It rarely works though, because more baby ads inevitably show up again. There’s just so much of it out there in the world. This isn’t meant to bash on Facebook at all. I use it every day, and of course there is always the option for me not to look at it. The point here is that our society as a whole, along with social media networks, often don’t think about infant loss. Though it happens more often than you’d think, it’s just not something the majority of the population experiences. There’s no option to be exempt from advertisements, pages, mailing lists, emails, etc. because your child died, but maybe there should be!

Being a bereaved parent hurts enough on its own, and there will always be certain things that are difficult to see, but the extra, constant baby reminders add another unnecessary layer to it. But, if I’ve learned nothing else as a grieving mother, I’ve certainly learned that the world is an unfair place. Life is unfair. Life after loss is even more unfair.

Today was going fine and I was feeling good. The summer weather is nice and mild right now, the birds are chirping, I planted another beautiful rose bush in Lucy’s Garden (given to us by a kind friend), and I’ve been feeling altogether light-hearted, which is nice for a switch. But when I went to grab the mail, I was accosted by an absolutely malicious (albeit unintentional) surprise as I shuffled through a few pieces of junk mail. Oriental Trading sent me not one, but two copies of their “First Birthdays” edition catalog with an adorable, smiling one year-old on the cover. Ouch. How they even knew that our child would have been nearly one, or how I ended up on their mailing list, I’ll never know. I realize that once upon a happy time, I registered at places like Babies R Us, and that by doing so, I was magically part of a network of all things baby. That was all fine and good, until my baby died. Things like this have sporadically shown up in our mail over the past ten months, and it kills me every time, twists the knife just a little deeper. I no longer feel okay at the moment, as that stupid catalog has reminded me that there is no first birthday party to plan, there is no smiling Lucy getting ready to dig into a ‘smash cake’. I have unsubscribed to several email promotions and flyers over the past months and some have been nearly impossible to get rid of. It’s frustrating because there’s no true way to know just how many places were given my information because I created a registry, and no telling how long I will be tortured by stuff like this. I know that Chris and I are not the only loss parents dealing with this mailbox conundrum, I think all loss parents are faced with this. It leaves me wondering what can be done about it. It seems that once you’ve signed up for anything baby through a website or any other organization, there’s no backing out, no matter the outcome of your pregnancy. All that does is add more painful complexities to the parents trying to cope with loss. If only I were a tech wizard, I could maybe figure out some online list loss parents could put themselves on that could unsubscribe them from the most common or notorious baby-related sites and mailing lists. Maybe it’s time to put that idea out into the world and see if anyone can come up with an easy solution. It sure would help the baby loss community from feeling as if they’re ‘going postal’ every time an unwanted, hurtful reminder shows up in their mailboxes!

On a much more positive note, a few weeks ago, I thought I’d try my luck and apply to be an ongoing contributor for Still Standing, the online magazine. I truly didn’t believe I would be accepted, but was absolutely ecstatic that I heard back from them with an invitation to join their writing team! I hope that I am able to contribute some meaningful pieces that will comfort others as I have been comforted through Still Standing. I truly feel honored that this opportunity has presented itself; it’s one of the few things I have truly felt excited about in the past ten months. If you’re reading this and are not familiar with Still Standing, it’s an online magazine focused on those surviving child loss and infertility, and has many contributing writers who share articles written about the topics that resound with the loss community. You can find the website here: www.stillstandingmag.com. It’s absolutely worth a look, and I can’t believe that I will be able to join with the voices of these wonderful writers. I hope that I will not disappoint them!

Okay, now back to trying to heal my fresh wounds from today’s mail…

A painful, unexpected reminder.

It’s been a tumultuous week, to say the least. It began with hope, contained a brilliant disappointment, and ended with a graduation commencement. Somewhere in all of that, the fog lifted and descended, then lifted again.

I’ll start with hope; I’m just going to put it all right out there. On Monday, I took a pregnancy test. A faintly positive line was just barely there, but both Chris and I saw it. I took two the next day, they were so light, but they were there. By Wednesday afternoon it seemed apparent that the lines had progressively gotten lighter. By Thursday morning, I could discern nothing when I looked for the second pink line. Nothing. There was some spotting throughout the day, and by late afternoon, my cycle restarted in all of its scarlet glory. And with it, my hope went out the window. I had two days of believing that maybe, just maybe, the tide had turned in our favor, only to find that no, it wasn’t to be. I am not surprised. The whole time, I was simply too afraid to completely embrace it; I was just waiting for it to disappear. And, it did. No baby, not now. I talked with the nurse at my doctor’s office after the gentle encouragement of my friend Beth, and she confirmed that it possibly could have been a chemical pregnancy, or blighted ovum. Disappointment. I went to have some bloodwork done on Friday just to follow up to see if there really was any HCG in my system; I’ll find out tomorrow if there was anything there. I didn’t know that walking into the lab at the medical center was going to be so triggering, but it was. I could remember everything from the last time I was there at that particular lab to take my glucose test when I was pregnant with Lucy, and it was almost more than I could bear. I turned into an anxiety-ridden, bumbling idiot at check-in and then barely made it out the door to leave before bursting into tears. It was terrible.

There were a few happy things this week at least. Chris and I gave away our first Lucy Rose’s Light Scholarship on Friday night to a very deserving senior in our school. The applicants for the scholarship each wrote an essay with the topic “How I Intend to Share My Light With the World”. It was a tough choice, but I believe we made the right one. Chris and I both felt very emotional, but it was a wonderful thing to experience, and we’re both thankful for the opportunity to share Lucy’s light with the world. It means a lot to us.

Today, we wished our graduating seniors farewell and good luck at their commencement ceremony. It was bittersweet this year. While sitting in the little white faculty chairs, listening to speeches, watching the graduation slideshow, and smiling proudly at our students, I couldn’t help but think back to last year’s ceremony, when I was about 7 months along with Lucy imagining all of the amazing things the summer was supposed to bring, and it made my heart ache. I remember thinking that we’d better get ready for an incredible, fast, beautiful ride, because one day, just a mere blink from that day, we’d be getting ready to send our own child out into the world at her graduation ceremony. As I watched the slideshow today that showcased the baby and kid photos that transformed into the Senior portraits of our students, my lips started to quiver and tears spilled out of my eyes. “We’ll never have this with our sweet girl,” I thought as I tried to control my emotions. This, and so many other countless things. It will always hurt.

It also hurt a bit today that we were verbally accosted by the parent of a long-ago former student that Chris had about our loss. Each year at graduation, a church group stands outside the entrance of the high school and hands out bottles of water to the people attending the ceremony. It’s always a kind, appreciated gesture. This year, this person that I don’t know (the parent of the former student), who was a part of that group,comes up, puts her arm around me, and begins to tell me in a very heartfelt way that they have been praying for us so much and we have been in their thoughts. While I don’t always like hugs from strangers, I understood that she was just trying to be kind. However, a few minutes later, as staff members were lining up in the hallway for the graduation processional, this woman finds Chris and I again, and starts talking to me. Chris was conversing with another of our colleagues and so he didn’t really notice right away. She said she didn’t mean to cause hurt by bringing our loss up. I told her that she need not worry about that, we are always thinking about it, and it is nice that others acknowledge that sometimes. She continues to say how sorry she is and how she hopes we get our heart’s desire now. I agreed, while thinking, “We did have our heart’s desire, and she was taken from us”. THEN, she proceeds to say, while jokingly gesturing at Chris, “…because he’s not getting any younger!” By then, Chris was paying attention, and she said to him, “Oh guess what? Our son Adam just had his first baby!” Chris’s eyes turned to ice and he said to her, “You know, it’s just not the time or the place for this. Sorry, but it’s just too much.” She sputtered out a few unintelligible words to me and hurried away. Chris was fuming and our colleague/friend asked what was up, and Chris explained how ridiculous it was that in the same breath of giving condolences to us for our child that died, she was also sharing the bubbly happy news of being a brand new grandmother. Maybe not everyone understands why that might be tough for loss parents, and maybe they never will, but it just is. Always, there are little things like this that just amplify the pain even more.

Yesterday, I had another session with Julie, my therapist. The fog lifted just a little again. One thing that I have noticed over these past months is that it’s been nearly impossible for me to see much more than the week in front of me, never more than that. I guess that’s part of survival in the fog of grief… just seeing the task at hand, making through that, and then taking the next necessary step. When I thought there was something magical to look forward to for a couple of days, for the first time in nearly ten months, I thought I could see ahead into the future, toward something bigger, something happier. It felt like the fog had lifted just a bit. Then with the disappointment came the descent of the fog once again. It was like having a very pleasant dream, only to be awakened and jolted back to reality. I’ve felt so irritable these past few days, and I think it’s because I am simply tired of it. Tired of feeling the weight of grief, tired of missing my baby so much (not that I will ever stop– I won’t because I love her so much… just wish she were HERE, and tired of knowing she never can be), tired of waiting each month to find out if we are pregnant and then being disappointed… tired of work, tired of being “Mrs. O., tired of the clutter in our house, tired of feeling like I’m 100 years old, just tired. I’ve been putting my life on hold waiting to get pregnant again. I’ve come to realize that at some point it will probably just happen, but I can’t keep allowing my entire existence to waiting for it to happen. I also understand that I have to, at some point, begin moving forward. Not necessarily move on, but move forward.
Something has to change because I have become so weary of the way things are right now, and I am the only one who can make things change. With summer break five days away, I am finally able to see a little further past the current week in front of me. I can take a break from being Mrs.O. the teacher, and just be Jess for a while. I have become lost in this grief and am only treading water because of the demands of my job. I did get a glimpse during those two hopeful days earlier this week of what a rainbow baby could potentially do… another baby will not fix everything, but it will give us happy things to experience and look forward to. Life can be better. But, it is up to me to make life better in the mean time, however I can. So, as summer inches closer, with only one hard week of work left before a break, I am tying to create some feasible goals and projects for myself. I will get to a better place, but only if I start making it happen. It feels tough right now, but I have to keep trying to move forward. I will keep doing it, one step at a time, and I will keep looking for signs of Lucy and her purpose… I won’t “move on”, just forward. I just wish it weren’t so hard.