I am happy to share that our family will once again be growing in early 2017. Anya and William's little brother or sister is scheduled for a late February / early March arrival. We're 15 weeks along today (a bit over one third of the way).
I'm excited. And nervous. And scared. As is to be expected. But cautiously confident.
I continue to remind myself that everything is likely to continue to go well. The numbers are on our side. I identify as someone who believes in statistics (even though I'll admit that I am less confident in them than I once was). But beyond just believing in numbers, I now know for a fact that it can end well. William taught me that. We'll get there. One day at a time. One week at a time. Together.
The year 2013 feels distant. In many ways, I feel like I can no longer relate to the devastated person that started writing this blog.
That person knew where his life was going until he didn't. In an instant, he was faced with crippling uncertainty. Never mind the future - the present suddenly looked frightening. Could I fight off the depression and anxiety that accompanies crippling loss? Could my marriage survive this? Would I be able to return to the day-to-day?
At that point, there was no 'next year', and certainly no notion of what my life would look like in three years.
Today, there is. Once again, I have hopes, dreams, and a fairly good idea of what the next few years will look like. Just as I used to.
Now, though, it's in the back of my mind that it could all change tomorrow in a devastating instant. But hindsight at least provides me with the knowledge that it's possible to make it through some of the worst of what life can send my way.
I have often reflected about whether what I have learned can be of use for others who are going through similar circumstances. I hesitate to say that my advice would be useful in entirely different circumstances, but I think that the following might have been useful for me in December 2013:
The only certainty right now are the members of your family and your friends. Don't let any of them slip away because of Anya. She wouldn't have wanted it that way.
You are not alone. Others are going through similar losses. Reach out and talk to them through local discussion groups. It can help much more than you can realize right now.
You might think that you can make it without getting help. You might be right. But it is foolish to make the hardest period of your life harder than it has to be because of pride.
What you thought the future would look like will look painfully different, but that does not mean that it will always be painful, even if that notion feels completely unbelievable right now.
Hopefully this can be useful to someone, somehow, some day.
Finally, it's important to remember that, in hindsight, we wouldn't be where we are now without the support that we were luck enough to receive- even if I happen to be repeating myself.
Thank you first and foremost to you for reading this - if you're still reading and caring about our journey after two and a half years, we are lucky to know you.
Thank you to the incredible friends and family members that were there for our lowest lows, and our difficult journey back.
Thank you to those who shared their grief and our grief through discussion groups. I wish that we would have never met under these circumstances, but I am glad that we did. And thank you to those who created those discussion groups in the first place - it is incredible that they are not a formal part of our health care system. As far as we might think that we have come as a society, we still have a while to go.
Thinking of where to spend eternity? Are you considering St-Paul's cemetery in Aylmer, and looking for an honest review? Look no further!
The Good:
Location - If you're looking for something local, within walking distance from many houses, it's great! Very convenient to visit ★★★★★
Digging the hole - If you're considering dying in the cold months of the year, this might be the place for you! They can be dig during winter! ★★★★
The Bad:
Treating anything left there with respect - If you're hoping the mementos or decorations that are brought to your grave won't get smashed up, you will be disappointed many times over! ★
Solar-Powered Butterfly?
To hell with your butterfly
Temporary plaque until headstone can be placed?
Lets run it over. And your plant too.
Staff - If you raise a fuss about those broken things, they will tell you you shouldn't have had those there in the first place, even though you had asked and they had said it was fine. They might also tell you, if you lose a baby, that at least you are young and can still have more. Then they might tell you, proudly, how they just took sensitivity training. ★
General respect for the dead - Do you think a cemetery should be used for as a place for a speed trap? Our local police does. ★
In summary:
It's nice, but it could be run better. Much better. Fortunately for them, I suppose most of their clients don't raise too much of a fuss, by virtue of being dead.
The memories of December 19, 2013 have become less vivid. I have been going through this month of December with joy and excitement for William's first Christmas. It's strange - the idea that this time of the year could ever really feel happy again.
Two years ago, the idea of feeling happy during the holiday season would not only have been unbelievable - it would have made me angry. Just as the happy people at the grocery store made me angry. How does the world dare go on so carelessly?
But here we are. Anya's loss is a part of us, but she is a happy part of our lives. That is something to remember, if I am ever unlucky enough to experience another difficult loss. The world can seem like a terrible place, but it will go on, and the terrible place will not be terrible forever.
This Wednesday, November 11, after nearly 23 months, the investigation into Anya's death was closed. I should note that I received the report only nine days after filing an official complaint about the delay, so there's probably a lesson here about the necessity of complaining to get things done.
Here's the body of the text (click to make this bigger)
A summary: Anya died of severe perinatal asphyxia (lack of oxygen). The pregnancy was adequately followed, given the information that was available at the time. While Anya's size and weight was normal, a couple of things suggested a delay in where the pregnancy should have been: her bone density was not what would have been expected, and the size of the placenta was small, which presented placental insufficiency (a side note: this may have been due to clotting, from an undiagnosed issue - see Kayleigh's post here).
The endotrachael intubation (placing a tube to help deliver oxygen) presented difficulties. The sole recommendation is for the birth centre to ensure that revival skills are maintained, particularly for intubation.
Well, here it is. It's over now. There's nothing else pending, nothing else to expect. Where do we go from here?
Some of the same old questions keep coming back, after reading this. Principal among those: what if we had been in the hospital?
But other questions are, at least, answered. There doesn't appear to be anything we could have done to have known that anything was wrong. I am satisfied that we made the best possible decisions with the information that we had.
The report gives us a smidge of closure. We know now that Anya was born at 6:58 AM, and died at 7:54 AM. She had all of 56 minutes of life in this world.
There are a few questions that I feel I should still strive to find answers to, but I am not sure that I have the heart to do the necessary followup to force answers:
What possible reason can there be for a two page report to take 23 months to complete?
Why was Anya's autopsy conducted in Montreal rather than in Ottawa at CHEO?
Why was I not offered the option of staying with Anya in the ambulance and at the hospital?
William celebrated his half-birthday on September 12. Six months old, already. Having a child really skews your sense of time. I've heard it said that a newborn slows down your perception of time going by, and I would agree. And yet, I can't believe that six months have already gone by.
Watching William discover the world around him is wonderful. The sense of wonderment looking up at a tree as the wind blows. The genuine surprise and joy when he discovers his dad's smiling face when we play Peekaboo. The smiles and laughs he gives his cousin as she keeps him entertained.
When I see them, I often wonder how Anya and William would have interacted. What kind of (almost) two year old would she have been? Jealous of the attention William is now getting? Or perhaps overprotective of her little brother?
That world is a nice place to imagine. And it makes me wonder about the people she would have met: the other children in her class; her best friend; her first boyfriend; her future spouse.The people that she would have really impacted, and who would have impacted her.
In this world, though, she won't get to meet them. They are still very real, of course, but they will go through life without ever crossing paths with her. They won't even know to be sad for losing what they came so close to getting. It makes me wonder about who in this world I might have met, throughout my life, had circumstances been just a little different.
I am grateful for how many people my beautiful daughter's short life has positively impacted. Can her legacy make up for the impact that she would have brought others? Somehow, I doubt it. But I hope so.
