Our life, our loss, and honoring our sweet little man
Carter is already 2 months old, so it’s probably about time that I told you about his arrival and first days, eh? They were eventful.
Carter came into the world the same way his two older brothers did – via c-section. There were no other options. Like with Connor, we made it to our scheduled date of 37 weeks 1 day, which still amazes me, after how early Brady John was delivered.
Continue reading “Carter James”I thought it had been a while since I wrote the last time I wrote, but now, it’s been much, much longer. Connor was a just little at the time (5 months?) and I thought that life would get less busy when Connor was a bit older. I was wrong. Just like grief is always there, the busyness of having a living child is always there, both just change over time.
Continue reading “Three”It’s been a while, again, since I wrote – and as I write this, we’ve officially made it through our second month of Brady. January is all about Brady John. It’s the month he was born and the month he passed away. The latter being a date that we don’t like to acknowledge. I’ll share more on that later.
It’s been 11 weeks, and I’m just now getting around to writing out a blog post about our newest addition – Brady John’s younger brother, Connor Brady! I’ve meant to write this post for a long time, but it turns out life with a newborn at home is kind of hectic. I wish I would’ve written it down sooner, since I know I am already forgetting some details, but here is my best shot at it:
We made it to our date – 9/18/18, which is a pretty cool birth date. I was scheduled for 9 AM, so Jeff and I showed up at 7. We got all the way to the point of Jeff changing into his sexy surgical suit before they informed us that we got bumped for an emergency c-section.
If you’re friends with me on Facebook, or follow me on Instagram, you already know that we’re expecting baby #2 this fall. I’ve been pretty quiet about it, and it feels good to now be at a point where I’m comfortable enough to talk about it. Emphasis on enough. As of yesterday, we crossed the 14 week mark, and I want to catch you all up on these first few weeks. I know the blog post title is a bit inaccurate. It’s really a review of our first 11 weeks, since we found out we were expecting at 3+1. Yeah, I know, that’s early, but if you know me at all, you know I am that kind of person.
Growing up, as a young adult, and as a not-so-young adult, I worried. Conscious or not, I was constantly thinking about, or preparing for, the worst case scenario. Worrying and planning has its place, like if you’re ever stranded on a desert island and your very continued existence depends on it. Otherwise, worrying really doesn’t do much, except maybe ruin an otherwise fun life. Let me explain.
Option B has sat on my nightstand for 6 months. It’s been my “next to read” book for approximately that same amount of time. I’m just not a huge reader anymore, but I’m really trying to be better about that. Reading more will (at the very least) make me feel a bit better about my out-of-control TV habit.
I wanted to read Option B to expand my understanding of my grief experience. While the author lost her husband, not a child, I heard that it was still really relatable from one of my loss mom friends. What I learned while reading it is that anyone could benefit from reading this book, even if you’re not in the throes of complex grief yourself. In fact, I’d actually especially recommend it if you aren’t. My experience has been that a lot of people absolutely do not know how to interact with someone who is experiencing complex grief, and this book is a perfect little toolkit to help folks understand what’s happening and what they should do.
I’ve spent a year in the trenches as a loss mom. In that year, I’ve learned a lot about how to navigate this difficult course, as I’ve had successful (and not so successful) interactions with others. I started this list a while ago, and slowly added on to it throughout the year. Some of them are for loss parents, some are for the general public that interacts with loss parents, and some are for both.
Anyway, here’s my collection of 5 things I’ve learned in my first year as a loss mom:
It’s been a whole 365 days since Brady was here.
A year passed, and we made it through all the firsts. In some ways, it feels like a new chapter opened today. I no longer have to anticipate the unknown of any holiday or anniversary. I’ve been through one of them already. I learned that sometimes the anticipation of the date or holiday was worse than the actual day. Of course, there were plenty of days that were unexpectedly hard too. Moving into the second year, I know it doesn’t mean that I’ll react the same with each holiday or anniversary as I did with the first one. There is some relief in knowing that I made it through this one horrible year. And if I can make it through that, I can make it through anything.
Up until the morning of Sunday, January 14th, I had every intention of celebrating Brady’s first birthday that day. Though he was born on the 15th, I figured that had he lived to see his first birthday, Sunday would’ve been the day we had people over to celebrate. I doubt we would have had great turnout for a party on a Monday night. However, when we woke up that day, we decided we’d rather visit and celebrate on his actual birthday.