Stay with me

I never thought I would end up loving this area that we live in.
But something happened in July.
I found my place, my community and I settled in. I stopped fighting it and realized, I had always fit in here, I had just been through way too much to let it happen easily.
After 4 years of grief, stress and not fitting in anywhere, I found my place and my footing.

And since then this place has been wonderful. More than wonderful. and I can say without hesitation that I love living here.
This is Truman's home, Remington's home. Our home. Me and all my boys.

So it doesn't even matter where we are moving to. The news is, we are moving.
and I am panicking inside.
I am leaving Truman's spots, our roads that we were together, the houses, the beaches, the forests, the stores, the doctors offices, our entire story has been here in Northern California and San Francisco.

For so long I struggled and was isolated. Grief was my only friend. There were no visitors. There was no company. Just stillness.
I don't know how or why but I found myself in love with with all of it.
I am in love with our tragic story. I think it's beautiful and meaningful. and sacred. More so than anything else in my life.
I sat in my garden, my chest heavy with grief and my body broken in despair and I let the California sun warm my skin and comfort my cold heart.
My dogs and I laid in the grass and I remember thinking every flower was for you.
Every breath that I struggled I to take was for you.
You were alive here.
You lived here.
You died here.

So when I think about us pulling out of this neighborhood and driving away and never coming back I feel sick.

Where will I go to be with you, Truman?
Where will I see you?
Where will I grow my dahlia garden for you?
Will you come with us, please?
Or will you stay in the redwood trees? In the waves at moonstone beach? In the hills and tall buildings of SF?

I'm scared and grieving and we haven't even packed yet.

I wanted to write many times between last time and now.
The day in and day out just doesn't leave much time for writing now a days.

Today I pulled Truman's ashes off the shelf and held him for a while.
He has been around more lately in a sense that I cant quite articulate. Or maybe my grief has just been heavier lately. It's hard to say.
His name has been popping up more than usual from outside sources. And it's not a common name so it when I hear it It really is like finding a rare gem.
As Remy grows I feel like I get to see pieces of Truman. They are completely different. But here i am getting to know his little brother. An honor that Truman never got. Maybe they would have had the same laugh or the same mannerisms. I like to think so.
So i day dream about him. Sit in wonder and in missing while my heart is full of pride and gratitude that i have been blessed with both of these children.
I yearn to smell sunscreen on his skin. To see him run through the back yard. To hold his hand. To nuzzle into his neck. To feel his soft blonde hair one more time. To feel is small hands grab at my skin. To get the chances that are long gone. But most of all, it's the moments when I'm comforting Remington when he has fallen and hurt or is just upset, that i'm cradling him and making it better that my heart screams for Truman. I wish so much that I could have been that comfort for him.
That I could have picked up his broken body, kissed his boo-boos and made everything all better.
and i just couldn't.
and i didn't.
not until he lied there dying. and after he was dead and gone.
His suffering was so completely unfair.

There are still many triggers.
The lady across the street (we moved) had her son a month before I had Truman. We were in the same NICU at the same time. Now she is my neighbor and I see her son all the time. It's not her son that is the trigger. In that situation it's her. She constantly talks about how we "are the same family" in her eyes and how she views my family and her family as "the same." And then rehashes all of her NICU experiences. I understand that I am probably a comfort to her. Because I was in the NICU too. So i get it. But part of me, the bitch part of me, wants to say "Your son is in the other room and it's 2.5 years later and you are taking about this non-stop to a lady whose son didn't make it out." Traumatizing as the NICU is, I don't want to hear about how hard it is for those who survived and are living a pretty normal life as far as NICU graduates go. Go figure she is a psychology major who doesn't pick up on my distressed facial expressions. I swear it's ironically always the social workers and psych majors who are the most oblivious to grief.

My father knows a couple who just had a 24 weeker. She is doing great. You would think that it would make me feel good, which logically it does. But deep down it breaks me that so many babies that are so much earlier and sicker than Truman that live and grow and make it. I just don't understand and i never will - why my baby needed to die. I will never have those answers. and these NICU stories bring back some strong PTSD symptoms sometimes. I'm never going to get over what happened there. In SF, 2.5 years ago. For as long as I live, my entire life will be defined by that July and August. People may not like that I say that. But it's the truth. Nothing in my life compares. It's everything before that and everything after.
So many people walk away from these hardships stronger. and the truth is, i have suffered a lot through out my life and usually, in other cases, i have walked away stronger. But not this time. Losing Truman truly broke me as a person.
I still haven't found my new normal. and while many of the 2011 loss parents seem to be letting go and doing well in their new normal... it almost makes me panic that i am so far behind schedule. I have some new hobbies. But i am blander. Sadder. Less interesting. Less enthusiastic. Less friendly. Less of everything. Still. I look in the mirror and all I see is grief in my face. The vibrant Laura is gone. Long gone. Died August 4th, 2011 the day my first drew his last breath.
As much as i want to live life to the fullest and live enough for the both of us- I am just so tired still. I am still stuck in the fog. and I am really starting to wonder if other loss parents are in the fog still? Or if their fog is their new normal?
I don't know.
My grief has come to a point where i am no longer at a loss for words. I am no longer silent again. I am now reflective. I am now able and ready to look back and try to make sense of all of this. To try to attempt to fix my broken self.
I work hard every day of my life trying to make Remy's childhood a magical and happy one. But I think i need to get my muchness back in order to really live a normal life. and i wonder if it will ever come.

Truman has a memorial garden that I work on a lot. I have been searching for years for a lion statue to add to the garden. The missing piece to showcase his space in my world now a days. I can not find the right one. nothing seems good enough. nothing seems right. and as I search and search I think about my poor boy. The one who never ever got what he truly deserved. and i can never give it to him. and the thought instantly brings tears to my eyes. How could someone so innocent and sweet have their short life so horrible and hard?

 Now that Remington is here my new time with Truman is in the middle of the night, right after R falls back asleep from his feedings. I lay there and think about him. I listen to his brother breathing and my heart fills with an ache of massive gratitude and longing. I wish so much that he could have been able to breathe as well as R.
My poor baby.
I find myself sleeping less and less these days.
Juggling Remy's schedule and Truman's.
To quote a Still Standing Mag article I read not to long ago.... "I am the the exhausted mom meeting the grieving mom."
What's weird though... Is these days my grief energizes me, kind of.
I get way less sleep cradling Truman's memory and my aching heart. But when I'm awake I am squeezing every single slippery moment with Remington so tight- out of pure gratitude- that my exhaustion seems to just go away.
I wish that Truman got all of this, but he didn't and he doesn't. So i give Remy twice as much. He gets extra patience. Extra kisses. Extra everything.
And at times, on some days, that means an extra weepy momma too.

This doesn't go away.
This doesn't get easier.
Sorry.
It's so so complex.
His life and his death are still woven into every aspect of our lives and it's still so confusing.
It's still hard to make sense of and find the words.

I walk past his ashes every single day.
I kiss his urn and whisper I love you  whenever I think of it.
Yup, I just wrote that.
And it was hard for me to do.
Admitting to myself and you the reader that I get so wrapped up with my living son that he only gets an occasional kiss and a whisper "when I find the time" or his pictures help me to remember. The overwhelming heaviness and guilt that comes with that emotion, that realization, that sentence.... It's crushing.
It really hurts.
I realize it when I give him a moment.
I realize it now when I'm coming clean.
It fucking hurts, like make you howl out in pain, hurt.
I wish so much that he wasn't in that box.
I wish so much that he was a loud mouthed, boundary pushing, crazy little force to be reckoned with ripping through this house right now. Demanding attention and love and kisses.
Taking up physical space.
Instead of the shelf
and these 2 hours in the middle of the quiet night.
But I guess i just needed to write tonight and say that all this loving the now, gratitude, and living here on earth in the moment takes time away from me mentally being with him, where ever he is.
And I feel it.
And it's hard.
It creates a whole new level of missing.

-L

Our sweet rainbow baby, Remington, made his way into the world on Aug 17th!
We had an amazing birth experience and have been bonding like crazy.
I did have two elevated BP's but no other sign of pre-e! Which I'm totally stoked about.

36

I've made it past the first goal set by the perinatologists.
37 weeks is the next goal.
I'm almost there.
as the days are ticking by my fear and anxiety is rising.
I am scared every single day that he has died inside me.
We 12 days away from his birthday and I just don't want to lose him now... we have come so far... we are so close.
It's all just so far out of my control.... just like it was with Truman.... just like it will continue to be if he is born alive... i can only do what i can do to the best of my ability.
If i make it til the end of the week it will mean that I will have myself a TERM baby. and the thought of that literally blows my mind.
So much for reading all of those preemie books just in case as a refresher- so much for pulling out Truman's tiny preemie clothes thinking maybe his brother would need them. Nope.
These two children are so different. and I love everything about both of them and all of their differences.
my two precious lion cubs. Who would have every thought.

I've been re-assessing my need to blog lately.
There is a lot of things going on in my mind and heart constantly.
I used this outlet for the past 2 years and it has helped me to heal.
But at this point i just feel like I kind of want to keep my beautiful life private and.... I just feel like shutting up.
I'm not sure if this feeling will last or if it's temporary.
But either way I'd like to thank you guys for reading and being a part of my circle here in the blog world.
I've made a lot of amazing connections through this blog.... blog friends have turned into really life friends and I'm truly grateful for my community.

I will obviously update when Remy arrival news but I'm not sure how much more after that. xo

33

33 weeks.

The nurses at my the hospital here in town today verified my very grateful feelings on my decision to not give birth here in Hum.
I went in for another weekly non-stress test and you could tell from the moment that I walked in that no one had read my chart.

"Why are you doing these weekly?" the first nurse asked coldly as she hooked me up, assuming that i'm probably full of shit. Or at least that is what her tone read. After i was gaslighted so many times with my pre-eclampsia I really have a short temper when it comes to medical professionals who treat women like they are constantly over-reacting.
It's like if you can't read my chart, if you don't already know why, then go fly a kite.
"Because UCSF wants them done." I replied in a short tone in response.
I was actually considering cutting some of my favorite dahlias from my TruGarden and bringing them to to nurses station today too- because last weeks nurse was such an angel. Last weeks nurse was sweet and teared up when I told her about Truman in a compassionate way.
I was grateful that I had run out of time to cut the dahlias for them with every word she spoke.
"Yes, why though?" she repeated.
I left a deliberate pause hoping that the silence would leave room for her own thoughts about how she should have read my chart to enter her brain.
"Because I was flown out of here down to UCSF with my last pregnancy, had early on set, severe pre-clampsia and resulted in 2 weeks of hospitalization where my son had decellerations on and off during that time and then ended up dying in the NICU."
"Oh, I see." she said. No sorry, no nothing.

Then the next nurse asked the same question and my patience level was low at the point.
I am an animal nurse, so I know that it is unprofessional to walk into a room and start asking questions when all of the answers are literally sitting right there in my chart and they are just too lazy to read them. Not to mention deeply personally and painful questions.
All someone needs to do is write PREECLAMPSIA on first page in my chart and INFANT LOSS and highlight it so every new nurse can quickly look an get the gist.
After the second explanation that day.... for a total of 4 explanations at the same Labor and Deliver in this small hospital I had definitely had it.
Before I left the laborist for the day came in to talk to me- she (thankfully for her sake and for mine) had read my chart before coming in and proceeded to talk to me about fear and birthing this time around. She mentioned that it is very good that I clearly understand that these are two totally different pregnancies and two totally different babies because it will help with the fear.
Don't you think that maybe the nursing staff would figure out that if you are making a patient re-tell and re-live her last experience over and over again every single time she comes in that it might be detrimental to her relaxation? It definitely reassured me that they are not the hospital for me.


Today on ultrasound I got some really good peaks of Remy.
He is beautiful- big chubby cheeks, pouty lips and some duck fluff hair already. My little lion cubs are serious about their manes. ;) He yawned and stretched for us.
One characteristic really jumped out at me though- his nose. It looks exactly like Truman's.
After Truman was born Jeff and I were both trying to figure out whose nose it was and where he got it from and what I think now is that its just some sort of genetic mesh of mine and Jeff's together.... because it's pretty distinct of a baby nose in my opinion.
Brother's with the same nose.
I wonder what else they will have that's alike.

31 weeks

Things have been going really really well (knock on wood).
No signs of pre-e at all.
Titers are low.
Placenta previa is still an issue but not one they are worried about.
I failed my 1 hour glucose test but i'm doing the finger sticks and I think so far so good. We shall see how that pans out.


I'm 31 weeks and I can't believe I only have 7 more weeks to go. It's scary. and a bit overwhelming but I'm excited.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My friend Stephanie hasn't always had it easy. She has experienced loss in her own way. But i'm not going to get into that because that is her story to tell not mine.
But this girl is a bad ass. I always joke that her and her husband have a "Moon list" which is a list that i made up that has everything that they have ever done and goes from here to the moon. In fact going to the moon might be the only thing that isn't on the list.

A random list of bad ass stuff that they have done in their short lives: surf, scuba dive, treasure hunt, live on a sailboat, travel the world on a sailboat, invent majorly complex things that go on oil rigs to keep them from exploding (like the Gulf incident), wrangle horses, save animals small and large and the list of impressive things just goes on and on.
It's like hanging out with the coolest pirate and the coolest mermaid that you've ever met in your life. They sort of seem like fictional characters because of their tales.
But in all honesty i have seen Steph at work and she is a gentle soul, a compassionate and caring soul, who spends her life healing and taking care of the innocent and the broken.
and you just wonder where is that good karma bad around when you need it?

Stephanie and Dwight have been battling infertility.
Its been a long road for them. So things are starting to pick up speed and now is the time for them to really push the pedal on this.
I decided to start a fund to try and help them out.
It's something that I wish someone would have done for me after Truman died. I mean its really stressful when funds are short and medical bills keep coming.
Honestly it feels REALLY good to even attempt to help out these bad ass people.
They really deserve support and a good shot at this before time runs out.

She will be blogging on this link with updates as she moves along in her fertility treatments.
I thought I would share her info on here in hopes that you guys would share her story and this link with people who you have met either in real life or in the blog world who can help her through this time.
Here's her link:
http://www.gofundme.com/BrookerBaby

Thanks guys, xo

Just below the surface

28 weeks.
Something is going on with me that is just out of reach.

On Sunday the lady who performed Truman's memorial service came into my work.
This lady is a bonafide Humboldt weirdo so I wasn't horribly offended when she clearly forgot who I was and started asking questions about if this was my first child or not.
I said no, this is my second son. It still didn't trigger her memory.
She talked about her life, her family member who is pregnant and her dogs and then left.
I found myself thinking about the memorial and how beautiful it was and how much it really helped me process everything that I had happened.

I totally forgot about the interaction.

The next morning I woke up and tears just wouldn't stop coming.
It wasn't that I was sobbing or crying really.... It was just a constant flow of tears streaming down my face.
It's so hard to explain.
This went on for hours and I truly couldn't figure out what brought this on until I mentioned to Jeff that I had run into weird memorial lady the day before. It then hit me that she must have been some sort of trigger.
The timing itself is enough to make anyone weep really. But that must have been it because as soon as i talked to him about it, brought the thought to the surface of my mind, I stopped crying.

Then last night I cried in my sleep.
Down right sobbed for Truman.
Talked about how much I miss him and long for him to 3 women who I have no idea who they are.
I woke up with a stuffy nose and a wet pillow.

This is the first time that I can remember crying in my sleep since the very beginning. Right after Truman died Jeff said I would sob loudly and call for him.

So I think even though I know that this is a hard time for us I still feel a level of detachment from heavy grief. I feel like I'm calm waters on the surface but just below the surface there is a lot going on.

27 weeks

I woke up this morning with grief. I am 27 weeks.
I laid in bed and thought about what 27 weeks meant to Truman and I.
I was emergency flown out of the county at 27 weeks with him.
I had already been pre-eclamptic for weeks.
Once Truman was born at almost 30 weeks, he was the size of a 27 weeker because of his growth restriction.

It kills me that that's all he got in life. Almost 30 weeks in my body and 4 days outside in a plastic box with needles and tubes down his throat and machines.
and the scientist in me is grateful because i know that he would not have made it that far without the medical advancements we have today.
It's just so heartbreaking.

As you know i'm not religious but will be the first to admit that anything is possible and i'm not the one with any answers.
Part of me wonders if Truman knows Remy on any level. Or knew him. Or will know him.
I think about these two boys, these two brothers and I am compounded with grief that they too will be separated, they too will not hear each other's laugh and play and fight and do things that brothers do together.
How do I even begin to help Remy understand any of it once he is able to.

Remy's kicks are very strong and they are the most comforting part of my day.
I hope that he lives a long and normal life and my intuition says that he probably will.
It makes the fact that Truman died even harder to believe.
How the hell did any of this even happen??
How is it that babies die? What is the point of that?
It's such a confusing and disorienting cycle of thoughts and feelings.
I miss my first son, my sweet little lion cub, who had so much courage and strength.
I'm missing all the places and times that are suppose to be filled with him and all of his wonderfulness. I feel the griefs largeness... it shook my foundation, rocked it, broke it up, filled in the cracks and now has settled into the very same foundation of who and what I am. Everything that I am and ever will be is built upon this foundation. It's the sky, it's the horizon, it's the sun and the clouds, it's my heart, it's the colors, it's everything.
and for Remy, I find myself grieving on his behalf. He will never know his older brother. and it breaks my heart that he will be coming into the world already missing someone that should be here.

Remy 25 weeks. With Truman.

A MUST listen radio podcast called "23 weeks 6 days".....
and don't forget to read the comment section (unreal!)

Had to share it with you guys.

I think many of us loss parents, TTC parents, preemie parents and NICU parents can majorly relate. I commend these parents for their bravery and articulation.... it's hard to describe our struggles as well and as clearly as they do!


http://www.radiolab.org/2013/apr/30/?utm_source=local&utm_media=treatment&utm_campaign=daMost&utm_content=damostviewed