Laughter in the Midst of Grief

Since I think about Lexie and our journey nonstop, I also frequently think back on a few little funny stories that popped up in the midst of our grief. The three weeks between learning of her diagnosis and actually losing her were so emotionally charged and quite frankly, horrific, that Sean and I both found ourselves doing weird things... like buying completely meaningless Costco items. Sean decided that we needed Sonicare toothbrushes. We had been talking about them for a while and by God, this seemed like the best time to do it, right? So he bought these toothbrushes and he brought them home. We stood in our bathroom and he gave me like, a TEN minute lesson on how to use these things. I remember standing there and literally thinking... " Yeah...... I don't get it." My mind was so fried that I literally couldn't even get my head around how to use and care for those damn toothbrushes. Later that night, we stood at the bathroom sink again and he was using the toothbrush. It is like the slowest toothbrush...ever. I watched him use it.... he was so into it. It makes this pathetic little motor sound and then the sound very subtly changes when you are supposed to move it to a different part of your mouth. It's a painfully slow process... I really didn't and still don't have the patience for that thing... I am used to just wildly brushing my teeth and tongue and calling it a day (which would explain my chronic gum recession). He kept telling me how clean his teeth felt. Ohmigod... I just wanted to take that toothbrush and poke his eye out. ;)

But in all seriousness, when I think back on that toothbrush story, I kind of love it. Not that it happened during that time obviously but because that story is so perfectly Sean. He is far more detail oriented than I am... everything he does, he does with 110% effort. Even buying toothbrushes. He showed me exactly how to clean it, how it is supposed to be stored and even the nifty little travel container it came with. He takes good care of his stuff and he takes good care of me. So now our two little automated toothbrushes sit next to each other every day - his is nice and clean and perfect. Mine has dried toothpaste all over it and isn't plugged in which means it will probably be dead when I use it tonight. But those toothbrushes just belong together dangit. They look perfect next to each other on our bathroom counter. They remind me of a very messy time in my life and they remind me that I didn't walk it (or brush it) alone. Sean was right next to me the entire time.

While Sean was fixated on the toothbrushes, I became fixated on this picnic table I had seen at Costco for the girls. I was on a mission for it. Our usual Costco didn't have it so I tracked one down in Tukwila. I brought it home, set it up and proceeded to mindlessly stare at it for chunks of time over the next week or so. I kept saying to Sean "Isn't that a great picnic table?" He would gently reply, "yes it is a great table." We would exchange that exact same dialogue over and over again. I look back now and I laugh. What a weird purchase during that terrible time. But it was so cute and at the time it made me feel hopeful. Hopeful that someday maybe all three of my girls would sit at it.

The week between making our decision and saying goodbye to our girl was the hardest. It was seven days of anxiety, severe depression, tears, disbelief. Sleep was my only escape so I slept all the time. I was truly just going through the motions of life. On one of these days, I had to get out of the house.. well, Sean kind of pushed me out of the house. I was quite literally, losing my mind. So I met Heidi for a pedicure. We sat there getting our toes done - it was so weird to get my feet massaged while I faced such a horrible time. I am sure it was so sad and weird for her to know how to help me but she handled it beautifully which is just so her and why it was her I chose to go with. She knew that there really wasn't much to say. That it was just terrible and unfair. And since she is no stranger to those feelings or the unfairness of life, she was the perfect person for me to be with. Heidi and I had met two weeks before that, on Mother's Day, and gotten pedicures too. It was a much different day - We had gotten coffee, chatted and had a grand old time having no idea that two days later my world would crumble. This pedicure, on this day, was so different. I was literally wearing my pajamas. I hadn't combed my hair. It wasn't pretty. And yet - my best friend, being the amazing person she is - was still able to make me laugh so hard my stomach hurt. She started telling me about how she and her husband, Brian, had just gotten back from their anniversary trip to Vegas. She told me how when they were sitting by the pool, sipping on some drinks and relaxing, Brian took of his shoes and threw his feet up on the lawn chair. She said she glanced over and saw that his entire toenail had fallen off... they weren't sure where he had lost it. The pool, their hotel room, the airplane... who knows. But um... ick! We were laughing so hard in the nail salon. People were staring at us. It was a silly story and told by her, it really is so much better but it made me laugh. Only for a minute or two but it helped. If you have a friend who can sit with you in a pedicure chair during the worst time of your life and make you laugh, hold her tight. They are few and far between.

My mom came with us to our horrible second ultrasound, the one that officially told us what we were dealing with. Thank God she was there.... Sean and I could barely function after it... I am not sure we would have found our way home had she not been with us. A week later, she also came with us to meet with the cardiologist at Seattle Children's. If you know my mom, she is clutzy. Like, really clutzy. Yes, I come by it honestly. When we pulled in the parking garage, she parked the car and we all got out. Well, Sean and I got out. We had made it all the way to the door of the building and she wasn't with us. We looked back and she was literally crawling from the drivers side door to the passenger side door because she had parked so close to the car next to her that she couldn't get out. We started laughing... so inappropriate to be laughing right before this extremely monumental appointment but again, life pokes its head in whether you like it or not. A few minutes later... we made it up to the floor we were supposed to be on. We all took a turn using the restroom. Mom was last. Sean and I waited in the hallway. We heard her trying to get out of the bathroom but it was a struggle... she couldn't get the lock undone or something. It was loud and just clearly a struggle. Sean and I looked at each other and just burst out laughing. She was so funny - it was so her and again, just a teeny tiny little piece of sunshine amidst a huge thunderstorm. Looking back, I know she was nervous and anxious and all flustered. We were all so nervous. While I was facing the worst possible news about my baby, she was watching her baby face the worst possible time of her life. I think she was so upset that she literally, couldn't find her way out of a bathroom.

There have been so many little stories throughout this journey... these are just a few of the mildly funny ones. It doesn't at all touch on all the people who have been there for us - for every one of these little funny stories, there are five little sad ones. My counselor says that within this one big loss are a hundred little losses. So true. And I have decided that within this one big story, are a hundred little stories. And I know they aren't over yet - our journey continues... it's only been three months since our world changed. There is still so much to process, still so much healing to come. Still so many moments of laughter in the middle of grief. But they are coming more often and for that I am grateful.

Three Months

It's been three months today since I drove to my clinic for my 20 week ultrasound. Three months since I was SO excited to find out if it was a boy or girl. Three months since I walked blindly into the most heartbreaking situation of my life. I wasn't sure how I wanted to bring Lexie's story to this blog - I envisioned a big, meaningful post. Something I wrote and edited and finally posted. I have plans to scan in her ultrasound photos and include them in our yearly blog book. And I will do that. But today, at this three month mark, I think I will just start writing. Writing about where I am today.

Today I find myself reflective and teary and as usual...  sad. However, I am not where I was three months ago. I am not where I was two months ago. The raw grief has passed and for that I am thankful. I am not sobbing regularly in the shower and I am not crying myself to sleep each night. These moments come further apart now. What has replaced them is as a I describe - a constant ache, a constant sadness. Lexie - both the imagined healthy version of her and the realistic sick version of her - are never but a few moments from my thought process. I miss my girl. I miss feeling her move. I miss feeling excited for her. I never got to really cherish the fact that we were having another little girl because along with the news of a little girl came the news of her severe heart defect. She would have fit so perfectly into our family. A trio of girls - what a blessing and what a loss. People have said to me "be glad this didn't happen with your first baby." Yes, it is true. I am glad this wasn't my first baby because of course that would have come with it's own set of sadness and heartache. But guess what... when it is your third baby, it comes with it's own set of unique sadness too. I know exactly what I lost. I know because I spend my days with two very real examples of what I lost. I have two little girls and I lost a little girl. It's very real and very raw and because I live and love these two little girls every single day, I face what I lost every single day.

It's been a weird summer. A sad summer. I have spent a large portion of this summer in a fog and on edge. I am ready to say goodbye to this summer and I am scared to say goodbye to this summer. What comes next is fall. The season in which she was supposed to be here. Fall is my favorite season and I was so excited to have a fall baby - and in October no less, my favorite month of the year. I would love to skip the whole season and re-appear mid-winter. But, as I have so quickly discovered, it just doesn't work that way. Life motors on ... it doesn't care what happened. The sun keeps coming up, the rain keeps falling, the seasons change... it literally never stops. So whether you like it or not and whether you are ready or not, you attempt to move forward with it. I see pregnant women everywhere - pregnant women with huge bellies, as mine would have been by now. Every time, it is like a punch to the gut. Every time, I want to stop them and ask them when they are due, how many weeks they are. But I already know the answer. I know they are around 33 weeks - I know they are due in the fall - probably late September or early October. They are right where I would have been. When you are pregnant, time passes slowly and you count down the days and weeks. When your pregnancy is abruptly taken from you, time moves painfully fast. It moves faster than you are ready for it to. You mentally live through the remainder of your pregnancy but the cruel part is, there is no baby at the end. All of these babies will be born - my friends who were due after me are now due before me. They will finish their pregnancies. They will meet their babies. They will have sleep-deprived nights and wander around in a daze... and all with their baby snuggled up next to them.  All of these things will happen for them and not for me. It isn't fair. And yet I feel guilty saying that because I have so much to be grateful for. I mean, so much.  I tell myself all of the time "Get off of your pity pot! You have your health! You have an amazing husband! You have two beautiful daughters! You have great friends! An amazing family! You're only 32! You can have more babies! Get off your damn pity pot!." And it's all true. And sometimes it works. Mostly it doesn't. Because no matter what you have, sometimes the situation you are in just sucks. It sucks that we had to choose life or death for our own child. It is an unnatural, horrific choice to make. Three months ago, I would have obviously said life. I choose life. Who wouldn't want life for their own child? But what if that life actually isn't what you want for your child? In our case, choosing life also meant choosing pain and suffering. Ultimately, had we chosen life...  It wouldn't have been any kind of a life I was okay putting my child through. Death was actually the least painful option for our little one. And the reality of that is mind-blowing. I wish that choice on no one. I will spend the rest of my life in constant amazement that that choice fell in our laps. People have all kinds of opinions all over the place about life and death and what they would do in any given situation. Until you are sitting in that chair facing what we faced, they don't know. I thought I knew. I would have bet money I knew. I didn't. They say a mother's love has no limits. And it really doesn't... a mother will even choose to let her child go in an effort to save them. She will face the pain of that choice head on in an effort to save her own child from pain and sickness. Lexie's life was spent with me. She began in me and she ended in me. She only knew my voice and the beating of my heart. There is great beauty in that journey, in that life too. I will cherish our five months together always.

I recently finished a memoir called  Signs of Life. It is written by a woman who, at 24, lost her husband when she was five months pregnant with their son. The tagline is "Finding the best in yourself during the worst life has to offer." I bought it because I thought it would be helpful to read about a situation that was "worse than mine." How did she get through it, I thought. I read it cover to cover and even broke out my highlighter for the first time since high school. It is a raw and truthful book and what I discovered is that no matter what the loss is - a baby, a mother, a spouse, a sibling, a divorce - there are common feelings associated with all loss. Each story is of course different and uniquely heartbreaking in it's own right and yet when she wrote about her feelings of loss, I could relate to so much of it. She writes about how it felt like she had a train ticket to a life she had planned and suddenly her ticket got changed. That is exactly how I feel. I had a ticket to three kids, three girls and my train got derailed. Just like her, I want to go to the counter and say "Hey! Wait a minute. You gave me the wrong ticket. I am not going to this place. I am going to a different place. A better place." And then I envision the lady at the ticket counter giving me a sad little smile and shaking her head no.

This loss has simultaneously been a loss of innocence for me. I feel like I was like a big puppy dog roaming through life until this happened. Running feely, tail wagging, ears blown back by the wind. Loving life - enjoying life. And then BAM. A big truck came and ran me over. I suppose everyone has this moment in their life - the moment when they realize exactly how hard and difficult life can be. Some face it earlier than me, some face it later. Maybe some are lucky enough to never face it. I no longer have to wonder what a broken heart feels like. I know exactly what it feels like. My heart is broken and though it is healing, it won't ever fit together like it did before. It's kind of ironic that I am so heart broken. My daughter only ever had half of a heart and I kind of feel like half of my heart is gone now. We are forever connected by our damaged hearts and my life will forever be divided - before Lexie , during Lexie, and after Lexie. And each phase has it's own story.

So that is where I am today. Three months post-trauma. This is how Lexie's story will begin on this blog. It won't be just one post. It will be many posts, many thoughts along the way. I have so many thoughts - they wander in and wander out all day everyday - so maybe I will start putting some of them on here. Writing has always been an outlet for me so it seems appropriate. Bear with me. :)

Sprinkler Fun with Cousins

I took these photos back in June ... they are so cute, I wanted to make sure they made it on the blog!

In the years to come, we are going to love looking back on these images of these four goofballs!

 

 

Rachael is 10!

How this girl has already been with us an entire decade is beyond me!

I am in constant amazement at how fast the years go by.

This is Rach and I in 2004 when she was only four months old. I was 22!

A few words that come to mind when I think of Rachael at this moment:
- FUNNY AS ALL GET OUT
- SMART
- GORGEOUS
- ATHLETIC
- KIND-HEARTED
- SENSITIVE
- EMPATHETIC

We celebrated Rachael's birthday last month with a fun afternoon at Candle Water Park in Tacoma followed by pizza, cake and presents at my mom's. Here are a few photos from the party and if you would like to check out Rachael's "official" ten-year photos, click HERE to head over to my photography blog.

I love you sweet girl!

I have said it before but I love that my mom and John are still friends and are amicable enough to still take photos together with Rachael. I think it is so great that even though her parents are divorced, she will still grow up with photos of herself with BOTH of them.

 

Not only does Kennedy look exactly like Sean but she has the same issues as he does when faced with the sun in their eyes. :)

Fox Hollow Farm

A couple of weeks ago, we spent a fun day at Fox Hollow Farm in Issaquah with some of our favorite friends. I have been wanting to check out this farm for quite awhile and I was not disappointed. I should mention that I LOVE farms. I love everything about them - the animals, the dirt, the smell of cow poop... I love it all! This was a really fun farm - they had baby kittens (which I am a huge sucker for!), a rope swing, bouncy slides, play cottages, a train, pony rides, a beautiful creek, lots of animals to pet and a fun farm stand with homegrown goods. The girls had a great time and I loved spending the day with three of my most favorite friends - Robin, Melissa and Jami. I affectionately refer to them as my "work friends" because we met when I was teaching but in reality, they are much, much more than just work friends. They have been godsends to me the past few months and I appreciate their friendships more than I could ever put into words.

  

 

 

 So this pic is either really gross or really cool. I couldn't decide. Probably gross.