Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mother's Day


It's difficult to believe it's Mother's Day. I had imagined celebrating it this year with my two children. No, it never occurred to me that when my pregnancy was over that I would have what people call an "Angel Baby".  

I don't get it. It's been four months since Kai was stillborn and it doesn't make any more sense to me now than it did that snowy Tuesday morning when they told us his heart beat wasn't there. How could my healthy boy just stop breathing. Why didn't someone hint to me that a perfectly healthy pregnancy and baby could result in death! Why did the cord detach from the placenta two weeks before his due date? He looked so healthy and chubby when I delivered him! My head is full of questions that go hurtling through my mind and crash against my skull over and over again. It still seems unreal. If not for the photos of Kai and the fact that my hair is falling out, there would be no clue that I had ever had a second child.  I'm supposed to be breastfeeding him, showing our daughter how to hold him, taking him for walks in the sunshine, singing to him, watching him grow... I just cry over a life that was supposed to have been.

Life goes on and our old routines return - even if we cannot bear it. 

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Ugly Shoes

Someone posted this on one of the forums I am on. It describes what it is like to go on after your child has died.

I am wearing a pair of shoes.
They are ugly shoes.
Uncomfortable Shoes.
I hate my shoes.
Each day I wear them, and each day I wish I had another pair.
Some days my shoes hurt so bad that I do not think I can take another step.
Yet, I continue to wear them.
I get funny looks wearing these shoes.
They are looks of sympathy.
I can tell in others eyes that they are glad they are my shoes and not theirs.
They never talk about my shoes.
To learn how awful my shoes are might make them uncomfortable.
To truly understand these shoes you must walk in them.
But, once you put them on, you can never take them off.
I now realize that I am not the only one who wears these shoes.
There are many pairs in the world.
Some women are like me and ache daily as they try and walk in them.
Some have learned how to walk in them so they don't hurt quite as much.
Some have worn the shoes so long that days will go by
before they think of how much they hurt.
No woman deserves to wear these shoes.
Yet, because of the shoes I am a stronger women.
These shoes have given me the strength to face anything.
They have made me who I am.
I will forever walk in the shoes of a woman who has lost a child.
Author Unknown

Sunday, May 3, 2009

I have to make it myself

This afternoon I finally finished the card I was making for a Mother's Day card exchange. The card is for another woman who lost her infant. It was organised by a woman in Ontario who has also lost a child. I think it's a great project! We sent her our name and address along with our child's name. She then sent each of us another participants name and information. You have to send a Mother's Day card to the mother that you received and it is done in the name of the child that was lost. I made my card. The mother I received lost a little baby girl. I used my handmade rag paper and decorated it with ribbon, a paper butterfly and paper flowers around the butterfly. I tried to make it a girlish card, like one my daughter would pick for me. I hope she likes it!

I'm fearing Mother's Day. It is two days before Kai would have been four months old. I have not booked anything for that day just in case I end up not being able to cope. I hope it doesn't hit me hard like Easter did.

May 5th is Boy's Day in Japan. I'm trying to make a Koi no bori (carp windsock) to hang outside for our son. I guess I could buy one, but I really feel that I need to make it. This would have been his first Boy's Day. We even have a Japanese jinbei for him. When it's done I'll hang the koinobori outside from our Mulberry tree. Probably no one will understand why it's there but I often feel the need to tell people about Kai - that I had a son over the winter and he was stillborn - that I do all of this to comfort myself and to remember him- people don't want to hear sad stories so instead I make these little tributes for Kai and put them out where everyone can see them. This way I feel like I am telling everyone about our baby boy, but at the same time I am not.