My little girl, the love of my life, was born still 76 days ago. She was 39 weeks and 2 days, and a gorgeous 8 pounds, 9 ounces. I cannot believe I have lived 76 days without her.
Life has been full of challenges these past 11 weeks. It seems like with every step I take forward, I take 10 back and go home to lick my wounds and cry. The love that I have for my child is fierce and passionate and I would do anything to have her with me again. I still cannot believe it.
As it happens, I have a niece or nephew due to be born (alive, presumably, because I'm sure we took the tragic luck away from everyone in our path) in a few weeks, and a niece expected to enter the world in 4 months. Of course. And I'm supposed to be happy for them. I am. I'm just incredibly sad/jealous/miserable/depressed that my daughter didn't live a longer life. And of course this poses issues for my husband and me as we sit in the depths of grief. Nothing distracts me, so I think about every situation, and run every possible scenario for each situation (dinner out, weddings, birthday parties, family gatherings, work, etc). I am exhausted. Grief is exhausting.
One such scenario is my internal debate of if I will or won't be invited to the baby showers of my sisters-in-law. With no sisters of my own, I don't have an ally in these situations. It's just me, trying to not be an asshole.
So this week, my mental obsession is trying to come up with the perfect gift for these babies. A gift fun and creative enough that says I care. And nice enough that will hopefully give us a longer grace period for not being physically present in the lives of my niece(s)/nephew for awhile. These children are always going to be a few months younger than my little love, and I can't fathom how this is going to play out. For the rest of our lives. The good thing is they won't know that we will be an absent aunt and uncle for the beginning of their life. But with that, I feel guilt. I have enough damn guilt. Guilt for not being able to bring my baby into this world ALIVE (who knew you needed that codicil at the end of a sentence?), guilt for not giving my husband a breathing child... guilt never stops. But now, I have guilt for not being whole-heartedly happy for these unborn children because my sadness is so suffocating.
So back to the gifts. These thoughts have been pounding through my head for weeks. I would love to craft something person, but the thought of knitting a baby gift for a baby other than my baby is paralyzing. And something off the registry just seems a little too impersonal for an aunt and uncle. Dammit.
I finally decided that part of the gift would be an engraved pewter cup. And all I can think of is that I want to see my child's name in something permanent. We didn't know if she would be a boy or a girl, and we weren't fully set on a name until we met her. The downside of this (this is an understatement) is that we never actually wrote her name anywhere, and the first time we did, it was on her cremation paperwork. The thought of having something with my baby's name on it is beautiful to me.
But wait, why the hell am I worried about these other little babies when no one bought my baby anything? Seriously? I mean, I get it, who buys gifts for a dead baby, but I want a fucking engraved baby cup too. I want to see her name on something personalized. And why the hell am I worried about getting gifts for my niece(s)/nephew when my baby's aunts and uncles never bought her anything? Not even a damn card. How is that possible that I feel guilty over a gift for a child who is't in this world yet, when my little love got nothing? Her aunts and uncles can't seem to handle this, so they have chosen to be absent. Guess what, I can't handle this either. I am forced to.
Now, I understand why she got nothing. I understand that she is not alive, thus gets no gifts. But honestly, it isn't about a gift. I would give every material thing for the rest of my life for a living, breathing, cooing baby girl. But since she isn't, I don't want people to forget that she was real. I want her to be acknowledged as part of our family, not just my family. That she belongs to her aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins also. At some point, I'd like to come up with a way for people to gift books to a homeless shelter, or equipment to a NICU, in my daughter's name. But right now, this is all too raw and painful, and all I want is her to get a present.
This was our fourth pregnancy, and we have no living children, so the anxiety that led up to her birth was immense, and led us to not buy anything or celebrate with friends and family. We did it to keep us as mentally stable as possible during pregnancy, but now, it just adds a layer of guilt to our experience.
I think people just assume that gifts or things wouldn't be welcome. I think that they think that by not talking about our daughter, or acknowledging her presence, it makes it hurt less for us. I wouldn't know.
People seem to be avoiding us like the plague. Like childless lepers. Or even worse, a couple who can't bring a living child into the world. I know it's because my world stopped and everyone else's keeps on turning, but damn it sucks.
I want my sisters-in-law to celebrate. To have parties and laugh and buy sweet things for their babies. And I want these babies to be showered with love and adoration. I can't wait to be happy enough to celebrate them. I just want mine to be celebrated also. Please don't assume that we don't want to talk about our babies, or look at their name, or get little reminders of them in the mail. We do. More than anything. And by showing a little bit of kindness, you will make me the happiest mommy that ever lived.
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