It’s been a very long time since I’ve been able to even think about writing. I feel creatively blocked most of the time. The majority of my energy goes into the everyday tasks of being a working a mom to an infant. I have settled into a routine that mainly consists of just basic functions to keep our household and myself going, and I pour absolutely everything else I have into Nora.
I considered, for awhile, that maybe I simply had healed more than I realized from the trauma and pain of losing Evelyn. I don’t cry every day anymore. Most days, I don’t even feel capable of crying. Thinking of her feels less heavy and I can look at things that remind me of her without crying. I laugh a lot again. I have so many moments of pure joy in my life. Being a mom (to a living child) feels like I’m living out my dream come true.
I was reflecting last week in therapy about how I’m really doing, and honestly, I don’t know. I’m certainly happy but tired. I’m grateful but stressed. My brain right now is so focused on the running list of things I need to get done every day (and the things I know will never get done) that it’s really hard to create space for anything that slows me down, and the thing that will slow me down is my grief.
I inadvertently created a way of coping by what I’m realizing is just being “too busy” to grieve.
I think this is actually something that a lot of people do in early grief as a protective measure to avoid the intense and earth-shattering pain of those initial days. And while I definitely made sure I always had the company and distraction of a comfort show playing in the background at that time (how many rewatches of Brooklyn 99 is too many?), I really allowed myself to be fully immersed in my grief. I didn’t realize how much that would benefit me at the time in terms of helping myself to heal as much as possible. My motivation behind the grief-immersion was simply to feel as connected to Evelyn as I possibly could. She was no longer physically connected to me, and I wanted to do anything I possibly could to feel close to her.
It feels different now. My grief is, of course, different because time changes how it looks and what it feels like. But I’ve also fully numbed myself to my grief in order to protect myself. My brain simply cannot take on anything at this point that would cause more of a mental load. I don’t feel like I have the mental capacity to become completely undone right now, even momentarily. Between taking care of a baby and starting a new job this year, my plate feels really full. Numbing myself to the pain seems like the safest option, and I’m really afraid of what would happen if I allowed myself to feel the full impact of navigating a holiday season (or really, any time) with my living daughter who would not be here had her big sister lived.
I feel this low-level sadness creeping in the closer we get to Christmas. I already see ways in which Evie isn’t included. I miss her so much and feel like I’m always grasping at opportunities to keep her as close as possible. Part of me wants to fully let the grief to roll in so I can connect with her in a deeper way, but I’m afraid that once I let that happen that it won’t stop.
So I keep going.
My full spectrum of emotions is staying contained right now because I really feel so numb. In some way, I miss the intensity of the early grief days because I knew Evie was always close. I worry now that she’s somehow slipping further from me. The guilt creeps in and tells me that I’m not doing “enough” for her. It tells me that this numb feeling isn’t okay and that it would be better if I were sad all the time.
I also fully believe that Evelyn knows I love her and I don’t need to always have the capacity to fully process the reality of my life without her. Sometimes, it’s okay that the intense feelings just stay under the surface.
One day, a strong enough wave of grief will come and melt the numbness away, and when that happens, I’ll survive that day, too.
There really aren’t enough words or adequate words to describe what having a living baby is like after losing your first child in pregnancy.
To have a positive birthing experience.
To have my very much alive baby placed on my chest.
To feed her from my own body.
To carry her out of the hospital instead of leaving her body with a nurse.
To be exhausted because she’s waking us up at night instead of my own tears.
To take her to the pediatrician instead of picking up her ashes from the funeral home.
I could go on forever about how bringing Nora home has been both everything I’ve ever wanted and also a constant reminder of what we should have had with Evelyn. I’m both the happiest I’ve ever felt and still so freshly grieving the biggest loss of my life. It’s so far from how I pictured being a mom.
It would be naive of me to say that losing Evelyn has not affected the way I parent and will parent in the future. It affected my pregnancy and birth decisions in every way possible.
I chose to have a scheduled induction based on my pregnancy history and level of anxiety. Nora ended up coming earlier than my scheduled induction, but a decision was made with my doctors to have her at 37 weeks based on their concerns and my history. Had I not had a previous loss, I wouldn’t have even had a 37 week ultrasound to find this information out.
I constantly battle intrusive thoughts of terrible things happening to Nora and my family. I think, to some extent, that’s a normal part of being a mom, but for me, the feelings are amplified by loss. Unless you’ve had to sit at a funeral home and pick out a tiny urn for your baby, I don’t think anyone can truly understand the constant fear of knowing that the worst can happen at any time.
I’m an anxious person, and I’m an anxious mom.
There will always be things that I question or read into more because of Evelyn. I will probably always worry more about something happening to Nora than is healthy. But I’m also so grateful.
I’m certainly not saying that loss moms love their children more than those who haven’t had a loss. I’m also definitely not saying that I’m in any way thankful for our experience or that there’s a silver lining, because there absolutely is not. I didn’t lose my first born child to become a better person or to have some lesson taught to me. She died, it was the worst possible experience of my life, and it changed me deeply as a person in so many ways.
Sometimes, loss parents feel like they can only be grateful for their living child or children because we know the other side of the coin. This doesn’t leave room to feel frustrated with the normal struggles of parenting because having a screaming baby is a much better alternative to no baby at all. I’ve felt immensely guilty for not loving absolutely every minute of parenting. The endless hours of screaming with a colicky baby, the breastfeeding struggles, the multiple nighttime wake ups; it’s everything I’ve ever wanted and it’s still hard.
I’m finding these days as we settle in with Nora (and her hours of screaming has subsided) that I’m truly both the happiest I’ve ever been while also grieving so hard. I can be happily snuggling Nora one minute and burst into tears the next because I never got to do this with Evelyn. My grief has certainly changed, but it’s still ever-present.
As I write this, I’m sitting in the rocking chair that we bought last year as a faith purchase in the room that used to be just Evelyn’s but is now what we refer to as “the girls’ room”. I’m rocking Nora to sleep, and as I hold her close to me, I think about how completely broken I have been and how our lives were so vastly different last year.
This is a different parenthood than I clearly ever imagined, but it’s the one I’ve got. My heart is simultaneously so full and so broken every day. Some days look completely joy-filled and others are full of tears.
Parenting after loss is complex and challenging and beautiful. It’s the feeling of despair in getting to see what could have been play out in front of you but also knowing how lucky you are to watch your first child’s sibling grow up right before your eyes.
Being Evelyn and Nora’s mom is truly the greatest privilege of my life. I’ll continue to spend every day holding them each in different ways.
To Heaven and Back 