Life through the eyes of a new mother and a grieving widow…

Today should have been Mike’s 42nd birthday.  And after over four years I still have a hard time writing that.  His life was jerked out from under all of us, and I’m still occasionally wavering to hold myself upright in it’s wake.

It was harder than I expected it to be today.  Most likely because of my extreme lack of sleep, but also because of the questions and conversations from Eli.  He enjoys hearing those funny stories about his Daddy and keeps asking for more.  Until this morning when he blurted out, “Mom, I don’t really like talking about people that are dead.”

Eli’s looks and mannerisms are more and more like Mike every day.  Obviously it’s a constant reminder, but sometimes it still catches me off guard.  I mean, he’s his own little person, he’s Eli.  But randomly, like when I’m driving and I steal a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror, he looks so much like his Dad it hits me hard, like a punch in the gut.

So I’ve been thinking about doing something for some time now… but I’m just not sure if it’s the right time yet or not.  I’ve been contemplating taking off Mike’s wedding band that I keep on a chain around my neck.  It’s been there since the night of his memorial service, almost four and a half years ago.  It didn’t come off for my c-section.  It didn’t come off for cleanings.  It didn’t come off when baby Eli was pulling on it every day.  It’s not come off my neck ever.  This is a big step for me.  I know that taking it off doesn’t mean I love Mike any less.  It doesn’t mean I’m “over” it.  It doesn’t mean even that the grieving has stopped.  But I can guarantee that it’s going to mean that to others who might notice the change.  I haven’t made that definite decision yet, but perhaps I’ll get a feel for it, and should it not feel right, then I’ll try again later.

I woke Eli up for school this morning.  Normally he gets up on his own before, but not this morning.  So I gently went in softly singing our good morning song to him to bring a smile to his face.  The first thing he said to me was, “Mom, why did Daddy’s ball get stuck in the moon?”

He never talks about dreams.  I always ask him, but he just says the usual, “I dreamed about you, and Tony and Ainsley.”  But this morning I think I may have woken him out of a dream and he actually talked about it for the first time ever.  And you just can’t imagine the joy I have hearing him say he was dreaming about his daddy.

Every day this past week I have been working on reminding Eli the importance of being thankful.  When we first started he would tell me he was thankful for things like his monster trucks, his pirate ship, and his games on his phone.  Then he began saying that he was thankful for going on bike rides and having a good day with his mommy.  I was so thrilled when on his own accord he began saying that he was thankful for his grandma and grandpas, his sister, Tony, and Mama.  A few days ago he really made me smile when he said he was thankful for me being so lovely.  Today we were out on the porch swinging the baby to sleep and I told him that today was Thanksgiving day and that at dinner tonight we would go around the table and tell each other what we are thankful for the most today.  Quickly he said that he wanted to tell me now what he is thankful for today.

“I am thankful that I love you so you don’t worry about my daddy”

Tears formed in my eyes and I told him I love him.

Then he said, “And I’m thankful that I am here and you love me so that you don’t miss my daddy so much anymore.”

Then he noticed the tears and got a concerned look on his face, so I told him that sometimes people cry when they are happy too, not just sad.  He asked me to wipe the tears away, but they just kept coming.

It’s been two whole weeks now, VERY hard to believe!

I would have written sooner, however I’ve been suffering from some terrible infection in my upper respiratory system.  I’ve been coughing pretty much non-stop for three weeks now, with horrible chest congestion, coughing so hard I’ve pulled muscles in my ribcage and back.  Along with this came extreme lack of energy and loss of appetite, neither of which is good just after having a baby, but I’ve not had any control over it.  I’ve been on two different antibiotics already and it’s still not going away, and I’m currently awaiting a call back from my doctor trying to decide what the next step should be.  But, I could not hold out the birth story any longer, and while I have a moment of peace while my angel sleeps, I will try to write a brief story about her birth experience.

So here goes… keep in mind I will spare you most of the gory details. 

Thursday, August 11th:

Did I know something was going to happen very soon, if not that night?  I still can’t answer that for certain, however I did spend the entire day cleaning the house, doing laundry, moving furniture to sweep and mop under, finishing dishes and putting away little things here and there, and straightening the baby’s area in our bedroom.  After Tony came home from work that Thursday evening and we sat down for a quick dinner, then we decided to go for a walk because I felt guilty that Eli hadn’t been outside much that day since I had been busy cleaning.  We walked while Eli rode his bicycle through the muggy evening air.  Sooner than expected we were ferociously attacked by swarms of mosquitoes, though thankfully Tony had the foresight to bring the mosquito repellent along.  Barely down the road halfway along our normal route, I began really slowing down, breathing harder than usual, and my pregnant waddle became more prominent than ever before.  I couldn’t have walked straight without looking like a penguin no matter how hard I tried!

Tony suggested turning around and heading back to the house, and as much as I wanted to get a good walk in, I quickly agreed, feeling my belly tighten stronger and stronger.  When we got home Eli and I took a bath to clean the mosquito spray off, then we got our jammies on and ready for bed.  I put Eli down for bed around 9:15, instinctively I suppose, crying a little as I was saying to him that it may be the last night that it’s just us before his baby sister joins us (I didn’t actually feel like anything was going to happen that night, I just said it without thinking).  As I was walking out of Eli’s room the first contraction of the day hit me.  Again, thinking nothing of it because I had been having one or two mild contractions a day for the past few weeks.  This one was not any stronger or any different than usual, I just assumed it was due to going on that walk, because walks tended to bring on belly tightening for the past few months.  Tony and I sat down watching the season finale of So You Think You Can Dance, while enjoying a delicious mango.  Just before 10:00, and just before they announced the winner of the season, the real contractions began.

And they never stopped.  All the books were wrong!  The books said that the contractions were going to begin slowly, 10-15 minutes apart, able to talk through them and plenty of time in between to do a project to get your mind off of them.  Gradually getting closer together and gradually getting stronger.  This, was NOT the case with me!  When they began, they were fast, close together and never let up.  I was completely taken aback, thinking… “this is crazy, they can’t possibly get any closer together and stronger!”  I went to bed, laying on my left side in the hopes that they would slow down a little in order for me to just catch my breath.  But no, they didn’t.  Tony was rubbing my back because from the very first contraction I had terrible back labor.  We tried timing them, and it seemed they were on top of each other.  I suppose realistically they were between 2 and 3 minutes apart, each one lasting about a minute, but to me they felt like they never stopped.  Just as each one was easing, the next one came on before I could even catch my breath.

I decided to call my doula, though I could barely speak to leave her a message.  I was fighting to get the words out, and praying that she would call me back very, very quickly.  Tony was so freaked out by how fast they were coming, that he called as well and left a message too.  Then he called our midwife Sheila and spoke to her for a moment, though she wanted a more accurate report on the timing of them.  So we tried again to get a better time of how far apart they were.  I began to feel anxious about it all, shaking like crazy because of the adrenaline running through me.  I wanted the tub filled as fast as possible, I wanted in that warm tub to ease the pressure I was feeling.  So I asked Tony to fill the tub and he gave me his phone to try to time my contractions.  I got two more timed, one was 2.5 minutes, one was close to 3 minutes apart, then thankfully my doula called back.  The sweet dear offered to come by and help time them as Tony was so busy setting everything up, running around the house as we knew this was the real deal.

Shortly later Tony called our midwife back, trying to explain to her that the contractions were very fast and strong, then handed the phone to our doula.  She explained to Sheila that yes, they were strong and I was really working to get through them.  As soon as she got off the phone, I asked if she was on her way, because I was beginning to get worried that she wouldn’t make it here in time.  It was probably an hour after the contractions began until the birthing tub was set up and at the right temperature for me to get in, and I just couldn’t wait.  I have to admit, I felt just a moment of embarrassment as I took off my clothes in front of my doula friend, but it diminished as I settled into the soothing warm water.  I was so thankful to be at home, in my own environment with the candles lit and smelling so wonderful, light music playing in the background.

I labored in the tub for about an hour before Sheila got here, which was only 2 hours after labor began, and I was already fulled dilated.  The next few hours were some of those gory details that I will spare you, but I’ll just say that I was in the worst physical pain of my life.  I was very vocal about it too, and kept one eye on Eli’s room the whole night, certain that my moans of pain would wake him.  I was ready to ask my doula to bring him downstains immediately, to my tenant’s apartment since she had agreed to watch him if need be.  Surprisingly, he never woke up!  I am still amazed by that.  Especially considering that for the first three years of his life, Eli was the lightest sleeper I’ve ever known, next to me.

Friday, August 12th:

Around 3:00 am, my midwife broke my water after I had been pushing for some time and not make any (or much) progress.  That made a big difference.  I could NOT believe how hard pushing was!  Now I had a whole new perspective of pain and pressure!  I never had that urge to push as everyone says should happen, I just went by what the experts were telling me to do.  I was certain that she was never going to come out, no matter how hard I pushed.  I did not want to keep going.  I was ready to give up more than a couple times, ready to give Tony our secret password that told him that I was really serious about not being able to keep going.  However, I knew that I was already too far along to give up, as there was half a baby’s head coming out!  Talking about it after with my sweet midwife, she says I only got “fussy” a couple of times, “no big deal”.

There were some more gory details that affected why I wasn’t making more progress with each push, but eventually, with a little help from the midwife and her assistant, at 4:41 am I finally pushed Ainsley Josephine Golden out into the water and into this world.  I reached down and pulled her the rest of the way out of me and onto my chest for the first time, elated that she was finally in my arms instead of in my belly!

There is absolutely nothing that can compare to the birth of your child!  I felt enormous relief.  I felt incredible pride.  I was in absolute awe of this tiny life that we created.  My God she’s beautiful!  The love I felt for her was coming out of every pore of my being.

Next to her actual birth, and seeing her daddy fall instantly in love with his daughter, the best part was when Eli woke up around 7:00am and slowly walked out of his room to find a room full of people, and his baby sister was out of Mommy’s belly!  He was a little quiet at first, probably very surprised, but very soon he fell in love with her as much as we had!

The next two weeks:

I have been living in newborn bliss.  I just look at her and start crying because I just love her so much.  I am reminded of Eli as an infant, and how much I love giving myself 100% to my babies.  She is naturally a wonderful nurser, a perfect sleeper, and pretty much only cries when she’s hungry or is getting her diaper changed.  I do not want her to get any bigger, but surprisingly she has already changed in just two short weeks.  I just love this stage, even all the sleepless nights.

How can she be so perfect?  How can she be such an angel from the moment she’s born?  I can hardly believe that she’s here, that Tony and I created her, and that her birth, though excruciatingly painful, was the most wonderful of experiences in my life.  I’m so very thankful that she got the opportunity to be born at home in the most gentle of ways.

I think this is the longest I’ve ever gone without writing, besides the exception of when my computer crashed and I had no way of writing, even as badly as I wanted to at the time.  My lack of writing this time has been pure crazy busy hectic life.  I’ll spare you all the gory details, but in a nutshell, we have been remodeling the house in a last minute effort to give us more space for our upcoming arrival.  Anyone who has done a remodel, while living in the house they are remodeling, can attest to how stressful and irritating this process can be.  Add to that the ever growing and expanding belly boulder I’m carrying around and you have the making of a hormonal nightmare!

But my goal to keep up with the different faces of grief I deal with is not being met when I let so much time go by.  Thankfully, with all the distraction, and the more positive turn my life has taken in the past few months, I actually haven’t missed all that much by not writing regularly.  And wow, that’s a good feeling!

I still have my moments, some worse than others. Yesterday, Father’s Day was on the worse end of the spectrum as it is every year.  But rather than focusing on my loss and the grief I was suffering, I turned my attention to Eli.  He certainly doesn’t have any grief in regards to his father’s death, as he doesn’t understand any of it.  He knows what happened to his daddy simply because he’s reciting what I have told him, but because he never met his dad, he doesn’t have any feeling associated with his dad’s death.  Instead, I feel his loss for him.  I am saddened that he never got to meet him.  My heart aches on Father’s day for what Eli will forever be without.  He doesn’t get it now, but he certainly will in the next few years when he has a better understanding.  And so on days like yesterday I try very hard to instill in him how much Mike loved his son he never met, and how much Mike talked about doing different things with him as he grew up, and how he never ever would have wanted to leave him but that it was an accident and he didn’t choose to die.

And on Father’s day yesterday, I was burdened with my fears once again that I thought I had let go of, which is of Tony getting into an accident and not making it back from his 2 month long fishing charter in the Bahamas.  It’s so close now, he will be home in just 9 days, but as I know all too well, anything can happen.  Especially when all is going so great and you least expect it.  I spent the night before and the morning of in tears and fears, imagining and feeling what it would be like to lose another father of another child.  I desperately needed him to reassure me that he will not be going out free-diving for the rest of my pregnancy, no matter how shallow the water.  I am trying very hard, and most of the time at least lately, succeeding at not letting my fears take over my life as they used to, but yes, I still have my moments.  Especially on Father’s day.