The Before and After

I never thought I would be joining this club. I was already a part of the the infertile mom for a few years, then the 60-hour-a-week-working-mom club for many years, the unemployed mom club for a short time. But here I am. A new member of the mother-to-stillborn-baby club. And I wouldn't wish a membership to this club on any person. Ever. My therapist said beginning a blog would be good for me, and I knew even while still in the hospital that getting back to a little writing might be helpful. But with this story, it's hard to know where to begin. Right now my life feels divided into one great "before" and "after" since losing my Brooklyn. Every problem I felt I had before October 29, 2016 seems so insignificant, so stupid although at the time the ache I felt with each big problem was very real. Every day since then feels like a huge weight and a giant hole in my chest at the same time. 

Everywhere I look are reminders that I am missing my baby, my perfect angel who was born without a single physical flaw. Her little body was so perfect that I couldn't bear to let the doctors perform an autopsy to possibly give us answers as to why her heart stopped working so suddenly, just minutes before they could perform the emergency c-section. I held her body all six days before we buried her. I tried to take in all 7 pounds, 4 ounces of her, every blonde hair, memorize her little button nose, tried to burn every detail of her into my brain so I would never forget the physical sensation of holding her in my arms. I never did see what color her eyes were, but something tells me they would have been blue. In those first hours I felt if I could cry enough, wish hard enough, have enough faith that she would just wake up. 

I dreaded the day we buried her because it would be the last day I had something physical to hold on to. Letting my husband take her from my arms and place her body into her small white casket for the last time was one of the hardest things I've ever done. My life took a jarring turn down a road I was not prepared to take. I believe that our Heavenly Father knows us perfectly. He formed our spirits, raised us in his holy home with our Heavenly Mother until our spirits reached maturity. I keep wondering why, if He knows me and knows how I am emotionally structured, that losing a child was one of my worst fears from before I ever gave birth to my first child, why would he do this to me? Why would He take my baby back home when it would wreck and devastate me? I've always felt that God is in perfect control of who is born, when they are born, the families they are born into, and when and how a person dies. He knows exactly what mortal experience each of us needs. I knew my first two children were meant for me to raise, sent to me when our family was ready. I know I do not have to figure out answers to everything right away, or ever, actually. I've been trying to make sense of why I never got to take Brooklyn home. When I look back at my life so far and try to find a theme of what God may be trying to teach me, the answer comes back to me, "Trust Him." That answer is so easy and so hard at the same time. I believe I will see Brooklyn again, and I will still be her mother and be allowed to raise her in my own home. But the wait until that time seems so long and looms in front of me like my own personal Everest. I've never been good at waiting. At times I don't even know how to get up off the ground and take the first step up that mountain. I am going to need so much heavenly help. 

There is hope in my story. There is praise and thanks for spiritual blessings and the outpouring of love from everyone we know. I can't possibly tell all of that in one blog post. Grief doesn't allow you to feel all of those things when you feel like it, and I've learned I cannot control this grief. I can channel it, I can nourish myself. And all the while I am on this journey through grief, I will carry my Brooklyn with me.