Dear Diary: May 6, 2008

Please join me as I revisit my thoughts and feelings from the early days after Baker's death. From my journal nearly one year ago:

My midwife called yesterday with the final pathology report. It's upsetting to think of Baker's little body shutting down inside of me and blood going into his lungs. I hope he didn't hurt or feel anything. I hope he felt love from his mama. I hope that all he know was how much we love him.

Chris has a surprise for me this weekend for Mother's Day. I don't feel like I deserve something nice or special. I wish my body had worked and kept Baker alive. I've let him down.

We drove to Vermont that weekend, and the surprise that Chris had been planning was to design a ring with an artisan jeweler. He sat me down on a bench, next to the store where I bought my wedding veil, and confessed his plan before we entered. The jeweler gave me a hug and explained several ideas about how to design a meaningful ring. I remember being in a complete fog, still wracked to the core with grief. In the end, we chose a small birthstone diamond, bezel-set into a ring molded from a poplar twig. She patiently explained that the balm of Gilead comes from the poplar tree and is known for its healing properties. The ring arrived a few months later, inscribed with Baker's initials and birthday, and assumed its place of honor opposite my wedding rings.

Dear Diary: April 30, 2008

From my journal nearly one year ago:

Chris and I sent Baker's pictures to some people. It makes me so sad to realize that those are the only pictures we'll ever get to send our family and friends. No Christmas cards, no school pictures. He'll always be a baby.

Thank goodness for the pictures that the hospital staff urged us to take. I wish we had a thousand more. A friend who is a professional photographer contacted me shortly after Baker died and shared that she is a volunteer for Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. She offered to retouch the pictures and did an amazing job sharpening up the close-up of his foot that was originally so very blurry. Chris thinks that Baker would have been a barefoot water skier given the size of his tootsies.

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Some random thoughts to finish out the month of April:

I spotted this obituary for a baby named Lizzie Marie Horner and loved the words: She was also loved by many aunts, uncles and cousins. Lizzie enjoyed talking to her family and friends through mama’s belly, and loved to kick daddy in the mornings. She will be forever loved and missed.

We didn't put a printed obituary in the newspaper. At the time, it was too much to bear along with the other details of Baker's burial and memorial service. If we had, I would have liked to say something similar.

The most emailed Boston Globe article on Wednesday (until swine flu took the top spot) was
Bereaved fathers find healing in friendship.

The forsythia wreath we placed on the door of Lazy Cat Farm on Baker's first birthday, April 3rd:















Hyacinths from Baker's funeral arrangements blooming in our garden:

Dear Diary: April 26, 2008

From my journal one year ago today:

This morning, I discovered the birthday cake I made to celebrate Baker. Mom had put the two halves in the freezer. I baked it on April 2nd while in labor. He was alive and kicking then. I threw it in the trash and cried.

I miss my baby. I hope that he is happy in heaven. Our minister says that there is no suffering where he is. I hope that Baker knows that he is loved and that we miss him. I hope that his baby spirit will stay with me and help me through this.

He was so active and alive inside me. I wondered for so long what he would look like. When I finally saw him with my eyes, he was dead. So still and lifeless. It was so wrong. My heart is broken. As C. told me yesterday, this is the worst thing that could happen.

I briefly thought about attempting the same chocolate birthday cake for what should have been Baker's first birthday on April 3 of this year. Then I decided to do cupcakes from a box, and even that felt like too much to expect of myself. Maybe some future year, but not this year. So on his birthday, when we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things before making the trip up to Lazy Cat Farm and I spotted the single blue or pink birthday cupcakes, I knew I had found the perfect solution. Later that night in the dark, Chris and I lit the single candle that came with Baker's blue and white-iced cupcake and whispered a tearful rendition of "Happy Birthday" to our sweet boy. Chris read Baker's favorite book, The Pokey Little Puppy, to our two boys, and we were both mercifully asleep by 11:31 pm, the time that Baker was born without breath.

Dear Diary: April 25, 2008

From my journal one year ago today, 3 weeks after Baker died:

April 25, 2008

I miss having Baker in my belly. He would stick out his baby bum on my right side, and we would spank it. I rubbed it when I sat at my desk at work and loved him. I loved him wholly and completely. I fell in love with my son. I miss his baby hiccups toward the end of my pregnancy. He squirmed a lot when he hiccuped. I could tell he didn't like them. Chris wanted to take him out and burp him when they happened. Sometimes they were faint and sometimes they were jarring.

In related news, Baker's little brother is 28 weeks today, solidly in the third trimester. He pokes and hiccups and squirms around often, which I hope are little reminders that he is alive and well and is going to come home with us in July. My fundal height measured 30 cm at my midwife appointment this week. At the end of May, I start twice weekly non-stress tests until delivery. I'll have two growth ultrasounds in June to check fluid levels. It's all for peace of mind, really, since Baker's death was likely a freak cord accident during labor. That's the good news and the bad news for us. It is maddening to know that Baker should be toddling around today, if not for an accident. That knowledge coexists with the knowledge that his little brother should make it out alive and well.

Dear Diary: April 22, 2008

Since I didn't start writing on our blog until Baker had been gone for 6 months, I feel the need to share some of my thoughts from the early days of my grief, when the pain was so raw that I gasped and choked for breath. For the next few posts, possibly for the next several months, I'm going to share excerpts of what I wrote one year ago in my journal. I carried the notebook, stuffed with a few select cards that I read and re-read, like a security blanket in my purse to work, along with a small photo album of Baker's pictures. In the days leading up to what should have been his first birthday, I cracked the book for the first time in months and remembered through my tears. It doesn't take long to get back to that place. These were the first words I could manage to get down on paper, exactly one year ago today.

April 22, 2008

I did not ask for this. It is so unfair and totally sucks. I don't want to be a grieving mother. I just want my baby. My beautiful baby boy. I want him more than anything. I'd give anything to change this. This isn't how it was supposed to turn out. I feel lost. I feel empty without my baby. I feel hopeless and aimless. I am afraid of the dark. I am afraid that we'll get hit by a car or that Chris will get hurt and killed. I feel paralyzed and in a daze. I have trouble remembering things. Baker died almost 3 weeks ago. I should have a 3-week old newborn. We should be taking Baker out for walks in the sunshine in his stroller. We should be figuring out nursing and be waken in the nighttime by his baby cries. We should be changing his diapers and rocking him to sleep and watching him breathe. I want to see his eyes look at me. I want to hold him and smell him and comfort him. Instead, we are left with an empty house, a quiet bassinet, a room full of hopes and sadness, and our baby in the ground. It isn't right and it isn't fair.