Being There

Below is a post that I had written over the summer, but never ended up publishing (until now). A big part of this journey for me has been accepting (or trying to accept) my own limitations. It's a bit difficult to share, but I feel it's important to acknowledge the difficult parts.

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August 11, 2014

Grief has taken a lot out of both of me and Kayleigh. For the vast majority of the time, though, when one of us was having a weak moment, the other was there to comfort, and vice-versa. In a perfect world, we would always be able to balance each other out in this way.

But there are times when emotional exhaustion has had the better of me. It happened once last week, where I had to say "I'm sorry, I really can't help you right now". I felt I didn't have the capacity to deal with the anxiety that comes with the fears and tears.

Then I caught myself, and I thought "wait. I can't help my wife right now? When she needs me? This difficult stuff is part of the job that I signed up for - the good and the bad". Then came the guilt. And a bit of fear that maybe I wasn't deserving of all her love, while I stood there unable to give her what she needed.

As I started explaining to her why I felt I wasn't able to help - along with the self-loathing that came with it - she thanked me.

That surprised me. For the most part, I would've said I understood our love very well. I hadn't understood until then, though, that love can mean realizing that your partner may not be able to give you everything you need - and being okay with it.

Hello December

It's December again. It almost feels like we've been living in December for the past year.

This month of course, on the 19th, we'll celebrate Anya's first birthday.

I'd be lying if I said that approaching this milestone hadn't already been a challenge. Everything about December, about the holidays, reminds us of Anya. Putting up our Christmas tree. Going to work parties. It's too easy to remember what we were doing exactly one year ago. Those last few weeks where everything was so... normal. 

If you had asked me at this time last year what the next twelve months had in store for us.. this current reality would not have been one that I could have pictured. Some possibilities are too sad to really consider.

Yet here we are, almost a full twelve months after Anya left us, and we have a surprising amount of things to be grateful about. Kayleigh and I have had some of the worst moments we could possibly face, but we've faced them together. We've weathered the storm (if not all of it, then hopefully the worst of it). And we're still here, stronger than ever. We've also been lucky to have the support we've received from our family, friends and work colleagues.  

We're also incredibly lucky to have William. Our son. He won't be joining us for another three months, but there's no doubt that his presence - and his flurry of kicks -  has made us much more hopeful about the future. In that other reality, he may not have joined us for another few years. 

All that to say, December feels bittersweet. It's a month of sadness, and a month of hope. It will forever be Anya's month. When I think about her legacy, it is not measured in tears, but in how much love she brought to our world. How much she made us appreciate the people around us. 

Anya, we hope to be better parents to your little brother because of you.We're going to tackle December thinking of you. We're going to be sad. But we'll remain forever thankful for having the chance to have you.

Time Plods Carelessly Forward: 10 Months Later

The leaves are turning on Anya's tree.
Soon, it too will be bare.

For 10 months I have sat in the same spot, writing about Anya. The oak tree in our front yard has gone from bare, to budding, to vibrant green... and this morning, a beautiful golden-yellow.

The tree reminds me of life's wonder and beauty... and of the passing of time. In a few weeks, the tree will be bare.

10 months is a long time. Anya and I have now been apart longer than we were together. I am just starting to realize I will never see my daughter again.

I struggle with expectations of where I should be in my journey of grief...

In the weeks after Anya died, I scheduled yoga classes, coffee with friends and visits to my mom's place in the country. I set aside time to grieve and heal.

10 months later, the focus of my life has shifted. I am back at work, a job I love. Another baby is on the way, and I rejoice at flutters and kicks. I am invested in life.

This has been healing, but it has also slowed my journey through grief...

After a busy day at work or when I'm overwhelmed with worry for baby #2, I am completely enraptured in the present. I think this is a good thing. Yet in such a flurry of motion, thoughts of Anya get buried deep within.

Then I stop. Thoughts of Anya bubble up... and my instinct of self-preservation pushes them back down. I think I have spent the better part of the past four months, pushing away the hurt of losing Anya.

Pain and sadness are so much harder to bear after a taste of happiness.

Last weekend we planted bulbs at Anya's grave.
In spring, life will bloom here.

Anyone who has taken an intro course in psychology can tell you burying your feelings is not a good coping mechanism. Eventually, you can't hold them in anymore...

When the wave of grief hit me again, it completely drained my energy. For two weeks, going to work was all I could manage. I wouldn't have eaten anything but cereal and takeout if not for Alex and a close friend of mine.

I couldn't take care of myself, and my feeling of self-worth took a hard hit. 10 months later, I had expected more of myself.

Today, I try to give myself time and space to feel... to heal. It's a struggle. It hurts so much to let the loss and the pain in. But as someone once told me, the only way out is through.

Grief and Rainbows

I haven't written for quite some time... since the day we decided to try for another baby. For months, all my energy was focused on the future. I dared to hope, to dream of a healthy baby in my arms! If I am honest with myself, it has been really hard work... and it hasn't left much room for other emotions, especially not grief.

I choose not to feel guilty about setting my grief aside. It is good for our second baby to have time that is set aside just for him (or her). I am happy to know my child will not live in the shadow of his sister's death.

But now, as I start to feel the first flutters of our baby move, as our worries for our second baby's safe arrival increase, my thoughts turn to Anya. I yearn for my daughter. I dream of the life she might have lived... the life she should have lived. I wonder if her death might have been prevented... I want so badly to hold her in my arms.

At times, a deep seated part of me feels like if our second baby can be born healthy, somehow Anya will be okay. I try to reason these feelings away, and I feel guilty. I love this new baby, whoever he is. I know he will not replace Anya. I fear that watching him grow will remind me of all Anya never got to have. This seems like an unfair burden for a child, and I feel guilty.

But I won't dwell in this guilt.

Our second baby has been a balm for my heart. I feel a mother's love blooming inside me again. I can see pregnant women and newborns, without crumbling inside. With each ultrasound and flutter, as I listen to the womp-womp-womp of our baby's heart, my love grows.  I am delighted that my belly is starting to show! It gives me a new excuse to caress my belly and hug my baby.

Now if only this baby can be born healthy... for his (or her) own sake... so we can spend our lives together.

Trying Again

Six months. That's the minimum amount of time that Kayleigh and I decided to give ourselves before seeing if we might be ready to try to be parents again. Waiting was difficult, at times, since the urge to want to be a parent grew exponentially after losing Anya.  Still, the last thing we wanted was to try to bring in a child who might feel like he or she had to live in Anya's shadow, brought into the world quickly to fill the void.

Mourning is one process, and welcoming another child is a different one. We needed to feel completely ready.

If you're doing the math, the six month mark was June. And we decided that yes, actually, we do feel ready to try again. We know Anya's gone, and even though we aren't done mourning (we still talk about her every day), we are ready to open up to the possibility of another life.

Another life. Another person. But the hurdles we need to clear before holding a healthy baby never seemed so daunting. Getting pregnant? What if we got lucky last time? What if it just doesn't happen?

And if it does, what about those daunting miscarriage statistics?

And if we pass the first few weeks, what's to say the baby will form properly?

And even if it does... What about stillbirth?

And even if Kayleigh makes it all the way to labour, with a perfectly normal baby... So did Anya. What about the birth?

As you can probably guess, I have spent a lot of time thinking about all that can go wrong. But there's a thought that dawned on me the other day - There's a very real possibility that things could go right. It's something I need to tell myself, and something I need to keep reminding myself of. Especially now.

Tomorrow, Kayleigh will hit the ten week mark. Our second child is due March 29th. I'm scared of what might happen between now and then, but I remind myself - it really might be okay.

The Long Wait for Answers

For the first time since Anya's death, the 19th of this month came and went rather unceremoniously. It's not that we forgot - we acknowledged having reached another month. Month seven. But we didn't feel forced to do something about it. I don't know why, but it would feel sad to call that progress, even though it likely is an important step.

As we reached this seventh's month, I took a look at the list of topics that I had intended to tackle when I first started this blog. The glaring omission from this list, to this day, is the autopsy result. It's something that I get asked about fairly regularly, and I know that we're not the only ones curious to get answers.

I wish we had answers. I even wish we had 'Unknown' as an answer. But for over seven months, we have been waiting to get these results, and they have yet to come. That's because the process for a coroner's investigation takes, according to the Bureau du coroner du Québec, 12 months on average. Because Anya's death was 'obscure' (according to their definition), this is a process that we were forced to go through.

The one and only time I spoke to someone from the coroner's office was late in the afternoon of December 19th. I had had a sleepless night (Kayleigh had gone into labour at 11pm on the 18th), and had been spending the only day I could in the hospital with my deceased daughter. Truth be told, I don't remember exactly what was said - I consented to Anya's remains being sent to Montreal for an autopsy. I thought I had understood that the autopsy results would be available in 7 or 8 weeks, but clearly I must have been wrong.

It was all a very matter-of-fact process. There was going to be not only an autopsy, but an investigation. That's good, I thought. The more we can find out, the more information we'll be able to act on in the future. Maybe this will help inform how to prevent this in the future.

But they did not tell me it might take a year. That I know. My impression that there was a well-organized system - one that cares about giving mourning parents a timely answer - is long-gone. As we start to look to the future, it would be nice to know what went wrong. If it was going to take a year, we should have been told, and we should have had the option of going with a faster route - a hospital autopsy.

Instead, here we are. Seven months later, no answers. Anya's autopsy results are just part of the paperwork buried at a department that is clearly either overloaded, understaffed, or both. They'll get to it when they can. Calling them doesn't seem to change that. Heck, the folks they deal with are already dead- what reason could there possibly be to rush?

Her Monument