Jan. 7th, 12:44 a.m. Happy Birth Day Kai! We love you!

Friday Jan. 7th should be Kai's Birthday. He should be two years old this year. We are lucky enough to have a great bunch of friends who think it is a wonderful idea to remember Kai and his Birth Date every year.  I'm not sure what I want or need to say... I'll leave this until later. These are some beautiful pictures of the evening taken by our friend Valerie.

My friend made a delicious carrot cake for Kai's Birth Day. She even remembered to put two candles on top!

Our daughter helped me blow out Kai's two candles.

My husband lighting candles outside.
Our friends helped us remember Kai by  being with us and placing candles around his tree in our yard.

My candle.

I placed it in the snow around Kai's tree.

Our daughter, Kai's big sister and her candle.

Kai's big sister placing her candle around her brother's tree.

Our friends also placed their candles  around Kai's tree.

SO pretty in the snow. We left them out in the dark for several hours while it snowed. There were still four candles burning when we put them out at 4am! The rest were buried in snow!

Part of our gathering of friends who think it's a good thing to remember  Kai's Birth Day!
I love them!! I think Kai must love them, too. I like to believe he sent the snow as a reminder of himself.  He was born during a snowstorm!

12:44 am, 20 months later.

In one hour it will be 20 months since I gave birth to our still born baby boy, Kai. I still wonder how a perfectly healthy, strong baby can suddenly die two weeks before his due date. I do understand that he suffocated and his heart stopped beating because the umbilical cord "broke" off from the placenta. His life line "broke". But no one can tell me why or what might have caused the cord to detach from the placenta. No clots (that might have explained the withered look of the cord where it was supposed to be attached to the placenta). Nothing abnormal. He was a healthy 7 pounds when he was still born. When he was born his colouring was purpl-ish. His lips were a bright deep red. In my mind I see him all pink-ish with rosebud pink lips. The black and white photos I have of him that were taken by a NILMDTS photographer barely hint at the fact that he was born without breath. He looks like a healthy baby in a timeless black and white baby photo.

How have 20 months gone by? When I gave birth to him I just wanted to die. I wished I could die. I couldn't imagine going past that moment. For days and says and weeks and weeks I wanted to die - unable to understand how I managed to still be physically alive each moment upon moment when all that was going through my mind was that I had somehow failed my baby and I deserved to die. Needed to die...
" My older daughter would be fine with her dad looking after her. Kai would be out there without a parent. I could be there with him. Did he even know how much we love him? Did he know that his death was so unbearable that sometimes I thought it wasn't true? Was he feeling abandoned? I definitely felt I was abandoning him when I had to leave the hospital without him - but what could I do? I needed to know that he knew we love him. I needed to take care of him; keep him warm, cuddle him, sing to him, love him."

Twenty months later I still sometimes have the urge to be with him, holding him out in the universe. All those moments have turned into almost two years. I still love him. The memory of Kai still hurts to my core, but it isn't as acute and desperate anymore. I don't think of the pain I feel when I remember him as a bad thing anymore either. As I explained to my daughter, "The pain you feel when you miss someone is a positive thing. It reminds you that you love that person and that you want to see them again - that you will take notice of their absence and look forward to being with them again."

We miss you and love you every day, Kai.

Wishing . . .

I've really been pre-occupied these days with wishing I had Kai to hold in my arms. I feel a need to love and nurture him. . . but I can't because he's gone. I've given up on my gardening. I usually love seeding and nurturing my little seedlings until they become flowers and veggies - now it just keeps reminding me of Kai. It hurts.

I don't understand how he could have died? We were both healthy! Isn't that supposed to mean something? The cause of his death was because the umbilical cord detached from the placenta. Apparently the cord was 'withered' where it attached. There was no reason the doctors could find as to why that happened. He was still born at the beginning of 38 weeks. He was chubby! He weighed 6 pounds 12 ounces! He was so perfect in every way except that he wasn't breathing and his heart had stopped beating the day before. Did the cord develop that way . . . did I do something to cause it to form improperly . .  . or did I do something that made the cord wither part way through my pregnancy? I hate not knowing - but would knowing be any better?

I hate this. I wish he were here!!!

We went to see the 3D animated movie "UP" this afternoon. I had been warned that a part in the beginning might be a bit difficult. Well, actually I found 2 parts in the beginning a bit difficult, but the rest of the movie was very enjoyable. The two parts in the beginning are only momentary and they are about loss. The rest of the movie deals with (in a hilarious manner) the old man, Mr. Fredrickson,  slowly overcoming his losses and grief.

I quite liked the movie. We are almost at the point where Kai would be 6 months old. I cried a bit at the two brief glimpses of Mr. F's losses. In a way, it helped me to release some of my grief over the loss of my son. 

Six months later, friends and relatives seem to assume that you are almost back to normal. Nobody calls, nobody visits. Sure, I have longer moments in between feeling overwhelmed by pain and grief, but those heart wrenching moments still appear several times on a daily basis! 

Night time is horrible. It's the end of another day that takes me a day farther away from the time I held my still born son. It reminds me that Kai is not in bed beside me. My hand holding his tiny foot and him contentedly breastfeeding, big eyes staring at my face and slowly closing and opening until he falls asleep. Kai is not here. I will never know what he looked like with his eyes open. I will never know his smile or his voice. I can feel my heart crumble in my chest every time I realise these things.

Weekends are very difficult, too. I'm not sure why. Kai died, most likely on a Monday. Tuesday morning we found out he was dead (technically we were told that "his heart is not beating"). I delivered him in the first hour of a Wednesday morning. All these days are during the week. Do I dread the weekend; because it was the last time Kai was alive? Because it leads up to Monday and finding out he wasn't going to be ours to keep and bring home? Because it's two days with my family at home and yet I still feel totally alone? I'm not sure. I've been asking myself about this for a few weeks. So far my "gut instinct" isn't telling me anything. Unless I can pinpoint the reason I dread the weekends it will be difficult to work through and get past. That is one thing I have learned about myself after 20 years of therapy.

Memory

It is so much more difficult for me to lose the future (that we had in Kai) than it is to lose the past. The past has memories, relationships, character and mementoes for us to remember it by. 

Kai did not have time in our community of family and friends to form these things that would make up a Memory of him.

Even though I know that it is impossible, my greatest fear is that I will forget about my still born son, Kai.