The day

Today I would like to give you a recap of year one after my daughter passed. There really is no way to truly show you the anguish I went through, but if you will humor me maybe I can ease someone else's pain or grief just a little bit.

Lets start with the day Alexis passed. October 25, 2001. Not a day I will soon forget. I was at home on the 24th cutting my bangs because they had became too long to not put back or cut, for army standards that is. In the middle of it I got a call from the hospital. It was difficult to understand the nurse that called me but he said "You don't need to come now, but your baby is not doing well." I said I would be there in 5 minutes, he told me to take my time. Um yeah right. I got there in 10 minutes after the call. I had a nanny that lived in my house for my daughter Anna, so I was able to leave right away.
I got to the hospital and called my husband, as I have no skills at driving and calling on the phone. I guess that is a good thing. As I am in the elevator I give him a call and he doesn't answer. I left a message on his voice mail and started calling my commander and first sergeant. Both of whom answered. My first sergeant told me not to worry and to come back to work when I was done. My commander asked if this was real this time. I still don't understand where that came from but what ever. I hurried and gowned up, called into the nicu and they allowed me in. I went to her and was out of breath. She was still alive. I was so worried she was going to pass without me there. They allowed me to hold her. They took all the tubes and positioned them around me in the chair. It took about 20 minutes to get Alexis in my arms and all the wires and tubes positioned correctly. I finally was able to hold her. I put her on my shoulder and just cuddled her. I fell asleep with her on me. It was a very precious time for me. A million things were racing through my mind. First and foremost was where is my husband, is he really going to miss this? He showed up about 45 minutes after I did. I guess he had gotten my voice mail. He came in and just sat down. He didn't say much. He asked why I was holding her. Another strange question I don't really understand where it came from. He had never liked it when I held her or touched her. He told me not to bond with her that it would make it easier when she passed. Not likely, I had 9 months to bond with her. I created her in my own body, I think I was already attached.
We sat there for a couple minutes before I fell asleep with her on my shoulder. At 2 am, on October 25, 2001 I felt the first big breath of air from her tiny little body. A couple seconds later all the alarms started to go off. I woke up and started to freak out. The nurses rushed in, took her off me and laid her on her bed and asked me if I wanted to do anything to keep her alive. I kept saying no. No I didn't want my baby girl to suffer any longer, no I didn't want measures taken to keep her alive. If this is her time then it is her time, I can't change that and it wouldn't be fair to me to watch them try to keep her alive. The doctor came in and took all her tubes and monitors off. There were a lot of them. He then left the room and had the nurse wrap her up. The nurse wrapped her up like she was a newborn. She was so big by this time she didn't fit into the receiving blanket so they used one I had made for her. The nurse asked if I wanted to change her clothes. I shook my head no. All I really wanted to do was hold her. I had assumed she was already gone. No change in her this entire time. He left her there on the bed and said "you can hold her if you want" and left the room. As I went to hold her she gasped. Oh the life that was sucked out of me in that moment is unreal. I freaked out. I went outside the room and began yelling "she's breathing" knowing they didn't know enough English to really understand what I was saying. The head nurse said "no, it's not possible." I demanded he come in and see for himself. He said "it's not possible for her to live". "OH!" With complete and udder pain I realized he was right, she wasn't going to live.
I went in the room and picked up my baby girl. She was gasping. She would convulse every time she gasped. It took me by surprise every time she did. She gasped for 3 hours. Each time there was more time in between gasps. I learned later this is how your heart slows down when your brain doesn't feed it. Sometimes your heart doesn't stop until it decides it wants to. Watching this killed me, it robbed me of who I am.
I put her down at one point so my husband could take a picture of her. I thought it was barbaric and didn't want one of her. But as he was taking it I got jealous that he would have a last picture of her and I wouldn't so I asked him to take one for me. The nurse came in and did feet prints for us. Then I got to hold her again. Her dad finally asked to hold her. He was allowed to hold her for a total 3 minutes before I asked for her back. I saw his heart break at that point. Until then he was just being a person in a tough situation, but at the point when he had her in his arms I think he realized how painful this situation was.
I held her the rest of the time. When all was said and done, I grabbed a stethoscope and used it to listen to her heart. There was an emptiness in her chest I will never forget. Nor will I willingly use a stethoscope again either. I got to hear what a broken heart sounds like. Empty!
I asked what happens next when the nurse came in. He said she would wait here until the morgue came to get her and that would be that.
I broke at that point. I just became cold. I just didn't know what to do with myself anymore. I just watched my baby die in my arms. What do you do after that? Where do you go? What is your next move? I just stood there sobbing. By this point my husband went outside and smoked. I just stood there. The nurse came in and gave me a side hug, as him and I were the same height. It was the biggest embrace I had ever received. My husband came in and said "What do you want to do now?" I just said wait. He didn't want to wait. He started to leave and I grabbed my things and left with him. It was the longest walk of my life. It felt like I was walking the mile. Oddly enough the hospital had a green floor so literally like walking the green mile. I grabbed Alexis's outfit that was just like the one she was wearing, and a couple other small items and cut a big chunk out of her hair and put it in a baggie. I told the NICU staff they could have everything else as a donation. They said thank you.
My husband and I left. It took ages to get to the car, not only the crying from me, but the fact that I wasn't healed from my c-section enough to walk around well made it slower. I got in the car and my husband asked where I wanted to go, I said work. I asked where he was going to go he said to see Anna. I agreed. He hadn't been over to see Anna in a week so it was time. I walked into work and immediately went to my first sergeants office. There I sat, my commander and group commander came in. My first sergeant asked "What do we do now? I have never been through this before." I thought he was talking to someone else, and when I was nudged I responded quickly with "I don't know, I have never been through this before either." By this time I had no more tears. I went to my office and sat down. I stared at a blue screen on my computer for a couple hours when a liaison found me. She grabbed my hand and told me to come with her. I followed her. She took me to her car. I asked where we were going and she said "your baby needs a birth certificate" "We have to do this now". Um, ok. It didn't hit me until we were in the office and they asked what her name was that I was getting my babies birth and death certificates on the same day. I gave them the information they needed and paid the fee's and got the papers. The liaison dropped me off at the morgue when we were done where I met up with my husband. We had to identify her body. I was not prepared for this, nor was I ready to take that responsibility on.
We walked in the morgue and they had her in a queen size bed with the blanket up to her arm pits folded down, her fingers interlaced on her chest. It was so quiet. Sterile, if you will. There were huge mirrors. The mortician said they were for parents that don't want to go closer. I don't have to go any closer if I didn't want to. I marched my self right up to the bed side. I couldn't imagine not wanting to be closer. I stood there staring at her and they asked me three times if this was my baby. Yes I answered. My husband just stood there. I wanted to touch her so much but then withdrew as I thought about it. I don't know why I did, but I just kept my hands on my stomach. Knowing the last time I had her in my stomach she was safe and alive.
I felt like a failure. We went the next day to do all the paperwork on the military side of things. At this point I became angry.

I will post more when I am able, right now I have been stopped by kids.

Emotions

Today I am going to cover the awesome power that emotions have on us.
Before my daughter was born, I thought I was a pretty typical person, with typical emotions. I didn't create a lot of drama or really stick my neck out in the world all that much. I just kinda let things happen and reacted appropriately.
While my daughter was in the hospital I was a mess. I was nothing but stress, I was on pins and needles and it honestly felt like I was someone else all together. The moments of not knowing were the worst. Not knowing when she was going to pass, if I was going to be there when she did. If I was ready to take on that type of trauma. What I was going to do when she did pass. What I should do now. How I should act when I go see her. Was I going to die before she did? Was I going to survive and have to suffer through life and have to watch her suffer as well? There were so many questions I couldn't answer. So many issues I was trying to tackle.
No one gives you a book on how to deal with it. No one tells you it will be ok, or that it will get better, or you will get through it. Well no one told me those things. I wanted to hear something like that. I just wanted someone that had been through it to tell me it was going to be ok. I would have taken a hug too. Since I did not get to process these questions they just remained. That is the thing about grief, if you don't deal with it, it lingers. The best thing you can do for yourself is to process it. Know it is your process and know you don't have to grieve in any particular way or amount of time. Everyone is different. I have found (coming up on 11 years) that I will never truly stop grieving, but I have learned to hide my feelings and learned to cope with the trials and tribulations that have been put in front of me.
As my daughter was passing away, the emotions were great. I don't think I have ever cried so much. I actually got to the point where I had no more tears. My husband seemed stone cold. He didn't cry much and when he did I could see a coldness in his nature. I couldn't believe it. I didn't understand that men grieve differently than women at that time. That came with time. What got me the most is how he was able to continue to function, when my world had literally came crashing down around me. I wanted nothing more than to die with my baby, so that way I wouldn't have to suffer the way I have. A lot of that suffering was my own personal issues that I held onto a little longer than I should have. I honestly believe you have to put yourself first when you baby dies. Don't worry about others, don't worry about how you look to them, don't worry that you might loose it, just worry about yourself. Allow yourself to grieve, love yourself, you took an entire pregnancy to bring this baby into this world. You did all the work. You are allowed to feel shitty.
After my daughter passed I just didn't know what to do anymore. I was so lost. I felt like I was walking through a candy land filled with all the most wonderful candies in the world and all I wanted was to hold my baby again. I didn't care about the candy that surrounded me, I just wanted to hold that dear baby girl one more time. The time I did have seemed to of been robbed from me. I remembered all of it, every single second, but it seemed as though it wasn't enough. I am sure it will never be enough. After all, what do you do after such a great loss? What is that first step you must take? When do you start to be normal again? These are questions I still can't answer. I remember walking out of the hospital, crushed. We had to walk around the hospital in order to go in the entrance with the morgue. Not a site any mother ever wants to see. It is just not natural to see your baby on a slab or in a bed with no life in them.
I was taken from the hospital to a paper processing center to get my daughters birth and death certificates as soon as I walked out of the hospital. The lady that took me was very nice and just kept saying I had to do it. I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to accept it. I was so hurt and confused. I remember this like it was still happening today. Such a strong memory for me. When I was done with that I got the pleasure of identifying my daughters body. My husband did meet me there and they asked me 3 times to identify her body to make sure it was the correct one. So many things were going through my mind at this point. First was, wow, there are other babies that died today too? I must of said it out loud because the mortician told me that 14 people had died over the weekend due to an anthrax envelope that had been delivered to the hospital to the floor above us. Um wow, that was shocking to say the least. Not information I really wanted to process then. So I barely got through the process of identifying her body. I just wanted to give my life for hers. To not have to do that. I think that was the worst part about her death, aside from watching her die in my arms.
About a week after she passed, I identified her body, and went back to work I started to get flash backs. Did you know those are real? I figured they were but never considered the fact that I would get them. I would flash back to a time when my baby was alive or when I was giving birth. It was amazing, I could smell the same smells, feel the same pain, I could even taste the food. The awesome power of a flash back is no joke. When you flash back you literally are in two places at once. My mind would focus on that memory, so well it was real, but then at the same time you are in the real world and having to work your way through it. You can't control the flash backs, you can't do anything about them. They happen and that is that. You have to allow them. I still get them. Not as often thank goodness but I do still get them. It floors me sometimes. It is unexpected and there is no way to tell if you are going to have to deal with one that day or not. I most often flash back to the day I was giving her a bath and she squirmed in my hands because of the water on her body. That must of been very powerful moment for me. I can actually feel her squirm in my hands, even now.  Truly amazing.
There is an emptiness that develops in you. Your pain seems to go there. It's a big empty space that seems to become you or you become it. Your job is to work to sculpt a new person out of this empty space. To learn to love yourself again. To trust yourself again. To begin to heal.
After my daughter passed I tried so hard to find anyone that could just listen. It was so raw and so painful that words were sometimes the hardest of all. I just wanted someone to sit with me and listen to my story, I felt if I had been able to do that, I would of had it a little easier. It seemed like no one wanted to hear about it. Immediately I lost every friend I ever had. No one listened, no one hugged me, no one told me it would be ok. All I wanted was to feel human again as fast as I could because I know I did not like the place I was in, but I couldn't find my way out of that. My Chaplin was in school, her assistant didn't know much of anything. So I tried to go to the base Chaplin and he was deployed. So that left me more alone than I had ever been in my life. That is when I got mad. I couldn't find any other feelings to accurately describe my state at this point. I was just plain angry. Angry at my body for doing this to my baby, angry at my husband for ditching me for another woman (I will get into that later) Angry for feeling such pain and feeling so alone in it. Angry at myself for not being able to come back to the land of the normal again. I was angry for years. A good 4 years before someone finally saw the anger and gave me a hug and sat down and listened to my story. It felt so good after that. I began to heal after that. Thank you DJ, your hug and compassion couldn't of came at a better time for me. You listened and gave me the tools I needed to heal. I think without your thoughtful nature I would never of started the healing process and would still be angry.
So thus begins my adventure of healing from the death of my baby girl. I will write more as I get time and energy for this. Thank you for reading. I am open to comments but anything negative in any manor will not be accepted.

Balloon

Loosing a baby is one of the hardest things to overcome, I believe. People have told me I need to write a book on what I went through with my daughters life and death. I often feel that would be a very depressing book so thus I have never sat down and wrote anything on the subject. I do however journal occasionally about the way it has changed my perspective on life in general. With this life change, I have been looking for an appropriate way to put onto paper an accurately portrayal of the depth of change I have experienced. So lets start at the beginning with me. I was born into an unstable household and had a unique child hood. I learned to ride horses at a very young age and became a professional horse trainer at 16. My First paid gig was a thoroughbred that just needed to be ridden in order to be "tamed" for younger children to be able to ride it. It was a year long gig and I had a lot of fun. That was when I came up with the idea I was going to be a horse trainer and really just "go for it". I had dreams of going to the Arabian nationals show and the Olympics as a groom, just to be able to go really. I figured that would be the easiest way into them. lol While a senior in high school I took an auto class to fix my vehicle. I met an Army recruiter there and he put the idea into my head I should try the army. I was game for basically anything, so I went for it and two weeks out of high school was in basic training. I had not thrown my dream of being a trainer away, I was training horses and children to ride while I was in. So not all was lost. I tried out for the mounted color guard and passed all their tests. My commander said that since I had not been in the Army that long (4 months) he didn't want to let me go. It was a one year special assignment where you get to work with horses everyday. I was completely crushed. I didn't give up, I just kept at it until I had another chance to try out again. So by now you are most likely asking yourself, is this going anywhere? The answer is yes, but you have to understand the back ground in order to fully appreciate the story. I met a man while in, I married him after knowing him 6 months. I was 19 and felt like I was on top of the world, I had it all. I had a husband, horses and a baby on the way. My first daughter was a honeymoon baby. I had waited until marriage to do any experimenting as well. So when I found out I was pregnant two months after we were married I cried. I was way too young to have a baby, I was still a baby. In no way mature enough to care for a baby. Once you have a baby you go from being a baby yourself to a woman in an instant. Well at least for me this is the way it happened. I was so scared I would drop the baby or hurt the baby while pregnant, but the instant I had her I couldn't believe the rush of hormones that all of a sudden made me confident I would be a wonderful mom. The love that overcame me was something I had never felt before as well. It truly was an amazing day in my life. I will always hold that dear to my heart. Six weeks after my daughter was born I had to return to work. My husband had taken a week off to help me around the house, as I had a c-section and couldn't hardly move. I also had ripped my staples out of my stomach while on morphine and caused a lot of issues. Upon going back to work I realized that I wasn't even healed fully from the c-section and was still changing dressings on the wound and still had to go to the hospital every day to get it cleaned out and bandaged up again. I looked at that and said to myself "well if I can do this then why can't I try out for the mounted color guard again?" So I did, I tried out again, this time making it with a written recommendation that they could really use my riding skills and would be a valued member of the team. I was confident I would make it this time. For some series of circumstances my paperwork stalled and never came back. I walked it up by hand 4 times the last time to the general of the base. He commended me for my bravery with talking to him directly, but nothing ever came of it and I was just not ever written orders to go to the mounted color guard. I was crushed again! So my First sergeant ordered a PT test for the company two weeks after I came off maternity leave, and since I was no longer on profile I had to take the test. I failed that test, by 2 sit ups. Before my daughter I was so in shape I never even came close to failing. I would average 285-290 out of 300. I was so dismayed by my failure. I was immediately put into the "remedial" PT program that is for soldiers that fail their PT tests and need to work to get a passing test again. I worked out 3 times a day for 4 months and took another test. I failed again by 2 sit ups. I couldn't figure it out, I had done everything I could and still wasn't able to pass. I got a memo that I would be on written orders to go overseas. I was terrified. I did not want to go to Korea. So I didn't open the memo for three days. When I finally opened it I was excited because it said Germany. When you relocate overseas while in the army there is a lot of paperwork, blood draws, and physicals to check to see if you are still fit enough to go. I went in for my first physical and found out I was pregnant. So immediately I knew why I wasn't passing my sit ups, I had a human inside me. Hmmm, what to do now. Since I was on orders and only had a month or two before I left they did not give me any prenatal visits. They said I could get that when I went to Germany. I would be 5 months pregnant by then. I figured that was the way the military worked and didn't question that decision. When I got to Germany the first thing I did was find a doctor and get checked out. I was fine, baby was fine. I noticed I was considerably bigger than I was with my first. I had a belly much earlier and I was already past my full pregnancy weight of my first. I took that as a good sign. I passed all my tests for gestational diabetes and anything else that could go wrong so I was was confident that I would be ok, just a lot bigger. I completely doubled my weight in that pregnancy. I got huge. The doctor wanted me to go into labor naturally so they let me go super late into the pregnancy. Since we were in Germany, we went to German doctors and had to follow their rules. I didn't mind, it felt like we had been taken care of a lot more than when we had our first. They were much more protective of everything. They let me go to 43 weeks and 5 days before they decided I would not have this baby without some sort of induction. So that is why I doubled my weight because I was allowed to go that far into the pregnancy. In Germany your prenatal doctor does not deliver your baby, they have separate doctors that do that job. So I went off the recommendation of my prenatal doctor to find a doctor who he had known for 25 years that was a delivery doctor. We went to him. The day my baby was born will forever turn my life upside down. Since this time in my life is so stinking depressing I am going to skip over it with minimal amount of attention. Fourteen hours of labor, an epidural at 9 hours, and I dilated to 6 but no more. So thus no baby was going to come out, no matter how small. I had an 8 pound, 23 inch baby girl through an emergency c-section in which they found her cord to be wrapped around her head and neck and had to pull her out with forceps. She did not breath right away so they had to put her on life support. I was pronounced dead after my heart stopping. I woke up in a morgue or holding area, not really sure to tell you the truth, I know for sure that I super scared the person in the room at the time I woke up. The doctor had told my husband I was dead and to go be with the baby, who was now in a hospital across town. So he did that. When I gave him a call that morning he was so shocked he hung up thinking it was a prank. I couldn't imagine, thinking someone had passed and sitting by your baby while the person who you were told has passed calls you. How awful that must of been. I was put into a room with a laboring mom, I rolled over, covered my head and just cried. I didn't really know what had happened at this point. Just that I had a baby, and was told it might die, as well as me. Thankfully a nurse saw me crying an had heart enough to move me to another room. This room had a mom that just had a baby. She was holding her baby, and laughing with family members. I lost it at this point, I just started yelling. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, they even left an empty bassinet at the end of my bed for "my" baby. As soon as I did, the nurses took me out of that room and put me in the hall way. They argued in a separate room for quite a while although I could not understand the language that well but I took it as "we don't have a room for her, what are we going to do?" It took about an hour but they did find a room for me. I got a closet all to myself. They were still bringing in furniture to make it look more like a room while I was in there. At this point I was I was exhausted and fell asleep for a couple hours. When I woke I had a nurse by my bed that didn't speak english but went running out as soon as I woke up. My delivery doctor came in and said "I don't like English, I don't speak well." "Your baby is going to die, and you are too". I was so taken back. I said "What?" he then told a translator in German and she told me "Your baby is going to die, and you might too, do you understand?" Yes. I understand. Through the translator, the doctor told me he had cut my bladder four times and I was going to die from infection in a couple hours or days, depending. My baby was in a different hospital and I would not know it's outcome until it's doctor was able to tell me, but from what he was able to gather is that my baby was real bad off and they don't expect it to live. At this point my question is "Boy or girl?" The doctor left, and the translator said "girl". I was given a phone to call home and some numbers to call to get out of country with their phone. I called everyone I knew, the only person to pick up was my mom. I broke down immediately and she really did not understand what I was talking about. I was able to say "good bye" and that was about the end of the talk. I called my husband again and by this time he was at home. I asked him "what happened" he answered me with "you killed your baby". I started yelling and he hung up on me. In all honesty I believe he was in so much shock he just didn't know what to say and that slipped out of his mouth. I called him back constantly until he answered. We talked and at the end I told him "never talk to me like that again" He hung up. I just laid there in bed and cried I went to sleep for a while and woke up to my entire chain of command in my room saying their last good byes to me. I guess word had gotten around that I was going to die. The procession was sweet, everyone was so nice. About 45 minutes later my husband showed up. He wasn't able to talk without insulting me. I still remember every single one. They still cut super deep, but not as deep as later. I finally was able to sign a paper saying I would take my life into my own hands and they were not responsible for me any longer. I did and then got to go see my daughter. It took me 90 minutes to walk to the front door and to get into the car, another 90 minutes to get from the car to her room, and I finally got to see her. She was in neonatal intensive care unit at the biggest and best hospital in Germany. Oh to be able to see her face, to touch her skin. It was truly amazing. She had so many tubes going out of her, so many wires, monitors and beepers going off. It almost seemed unreal. She lived for two months and 10 days, after 3 weeks I took her off life support and asked for a DNR. I signed it and basically waited for her to go. As she was passing away, it was violent, it was awful to watch. She gasped for air for so long, and I jumped every time. When she was finally gone, I didn't know what to do with myself. So I went to work and stared at a blue computer screen for the entire day. This is after a lady took me around to get her birth and death certificates. That was awful! The next day I had to identify her body. I will be scared from there on out. After all this, I was left with such an empty feeling. I just didn't know what to do with myself. I was angry, hurt, and basically got the pleasure of feeling every human emotion at once. Needless to say I was a basket case. I was a balloon that had been popped. Never the same. This brings me to 10 years later. I have finally came up with the perfect wording to describe it. People are like balloons, as we grow, we get bigger, and seem to go from one "group" of balloons to another. As a baby we are in the "baby" group, as a child we move up to the "child" group of balloons. These balloons are all different colors shapes and sizes, but all have in common that they are all still balloons and have a string holding them at some point to the same spot. As I went into the "adult hood" group of balloons, I also got to join the "motherhood" group. I was getting smarter, growing up, and now a mom. Upon my daughters death, I as a balloon I popped. Never to be inflated again. Broken, deflated, hurt, and now in pieces. Each piece having a special meaning or purpose. All my edges are now rough and curling on themselves. I still have my string attached reminding me I am still a balloon and still belong to a group. I am also hanging with other families that get to feel this awful tragedy of life (death). When someone asks about my daughter and what happened I remind myself I am still a balloon, but I will never be repaired or inflated again. I am able to tell them in such a way where it is not so obvious that I am still in massive amounts of pain and that the pain has never really gotten any better, I have just gotten better at hiding the fact that I am hurting. This is for all the moms out there that have lost a baby, no matter how far along you were or if you baby was born still or passed after being alive for any amount of time. If you need to put it to words, think of yourself as a balloon. Forever changed, never the same but still a balloon. Your still a mom, your still very much valued in this world. Your pain may never get better, you may have to learn to get better at hiding your pain, I believe it is our job to remind ourselves that we still matter as much as our baby mattered to us if not more.