A look back at summer

I didn't do a very good job of documenting our summer. So here is the short version of it all, which probably won't end up being that short since I am trying to squeeze a whole summer into one blog post. 

We did pretty well on our summer fun list. We went swimming at Cull Canyon Lake, went to a couple pools and splash pads, we went swimming at Uncle Matthew's house, went out to ice cream at Tucker's, and lots of other stuff including

 Going to Santa Barbara over Fourth of July weekend. Easton loved being out on the water. 

Camp fires at John Muir's house. We love singing along and listening to the park rangers' stories. 

 Lots of summer reading. This is what I found one day when I was trying to get to Ikea. IKEA can wait. Reading can't. 

Did I mention we loved monthly campfires at John Muir's house?

G wasn't the only one who enjoyed being out on the water. She got to go with auntie Adie. Oh, and someone lost a front tooth this summer   

We went to the beach and built sand castles. 

We went for a ride on the steam trains at Tilden Park. 

Easton and Gabriela each made their own kites and tested them out. 

We took the ferry to San Francisco one day. 

The kids love feeding the animals at Little Farm. 

What? That's not what you'd wear to feed farm animals??

We picked and enjoyed lots of tomatoes from our garden. This was a pre-breakfast snack. 

Lots of swinging in the park. In skirts 

Some river fun with friends, and possibly where G got her first round of poison oak ever. 

Dinner by the campfire in Inverness with the Swans. 

Family fun night at the park with the kites

We took a couple trips to the Lawrence Hall of Science. 

This cutie pie is too much. 

And who doesn't enjoy painting on the park?

Lane built a chicken enclosure for our chickens. I am so excited to not have chicken poop everywhere and to finally be able to do some work on our front yard. 

Lane had a helper

All this summer fun would tire anyone out

See what I mean??

Easton calls these his pizza undies. That's right, he is completely potty trained. That was a nice birthday present for this mama. 

My story continued

It was no coincidence that Simone was born nine months, practically to the day, after we moved into our new house.  More space obviously meant more room for another little lovely person in our family.  On top of all the devastation at losing Simone so tragically, I also felt like I was suddenly a year behind in the schedule of my life, of our family.

And then at one of our SAND meetings, a mom showed up who had lost her son at 41 weeks, just like me, and had gone on to have a healthy pregnancy and another son, 11 months later. She came to offer her support to mamas who want to go on to have another baby.

The next morning, out of the blue, Gabriela asked me when I would grow another baby in my tummy. And later that morning, I had a positive pregnancy test. I was thrilled, terrified, I cried. And then, I did the math and my due date was April 16th, three days before my due date with Simone.  It was very eerie to think I might have a newborn baby by Simone's birthday. But I felt better than I had in months.

That didn't last long.

I took that pregnancy test on Thursday. Sunday afternoon I started bleeding.  It was like flashing back to my labor with Simone. Blood, there wasn't supposed to be blood.  I tried to relax. I read about implantation bleeding.  Sometimes it can be really light, but sometimes women mistake it for a period.

I checked in with my midwives. They said it could be normal, and even if the bleeding continued, it could still be normal. I would just have to wait.

On Monday, when I was still bleeding I felt like everything was wrong. I was devastated, scared. I checked in again with my midwives. And it felt like some seriously shitty deja vu.   walking around the house, bleeding, feeling like this wasn't normal, awaiting a response from my midwife. And then, Beah telling me it was possible I was miscarrying.  I mean, she was right last time, when she told Lane she thought we had lost the baby, before we even left the house for the hospital.

I decided to have a blood test. It would be two tests done three days apart in which they would compare the levels of pregnancy hormones to see if they were increasing or decreasing.  Michelle, another of my midwives, came to my house to do the draw.

By this day, I was feeling some weird sense of calm in the universe. Whatever was happening, was happening and extra worrying on my part wasn't going to to change whether or not the baby was okay or miscarrying.

Wednesday morning, I was getting ready to take the kids on an overnight trip without Lane to Inverness.  We were all packed, had just finished a grocery run, all buckled in, when Michelle let me know that there was no need to do a second blood draw. I had, in fact, miscarried.

What. The. Fuck. Universe.

So, there I was, in the car. I hadn't told Gabriela about the pregnancy. Thank goodness I hadn't told her.  And I drove to Inverness.  I couldn't tell Lane right away. Not when we were going to be separated for the first time since Simone's death. Not when he would be all alone.  So I had to wait until the kids were in bed the next night after we returned to tell him.

I wasn't even 5 weeks yet. It was before an ultrasound would have even been able to detect a heartbeat.  Apparently these kinds of pregnancies are called "chemical pregnancies" and, unless you are paying attention to your cycle or trying to get pregnant, many times, women just think they are getting their period a few days late.

Of course this was upsetting news, but I have this awful perspective where I'm like, 5 weeks vs. 41 weeks. In comparison, it's a walk in the park.

I hardly told anyone in person. It's the same kind of deal where I feel like I need to come up with words to comfort others, or like I am asking for a big ol' pity party by telling people what happened.

Gabriela still doesn't know and I think it's for the better.  There's no reason for her to feel even more loss.

Whenever, if ever, I have another pregnancy, it will be terrifying every step of the way.  I mean, with Simone's death, there is some strange comfort in knowing that it was some awful random accident, that there was nothing I could have done to prevent it.  But that same comfort is absolutely terrifying when I think about another potential pregnancy. There is no way to know or to be sure until I am holding a breathing baby in my arms.

At my appointment last week, the doctor said there was nothing to prevent me from going on to have a successful homebirth. If we had care with them, they would do frequent ultrasounds and also have me go in for non-stress tests several times a week from 36 weeks.  I think it's just something to do so they feel like they are doing something. Had I had all that extra monitoring with Simone, nothing would have changed.  But, I can't stand the idea of having something go wrong again, and not having jumped through their hoops.

Obviously, I don't have to worry about these things now, but I can't help but wonder.

I'm writing about this here not because I want to broadcast it to the world, but because this, too, is a part of my story and I want to remember it later.

Gabriela's Frida Party

Way back in October, when I was supposed to be planning Easton's birthday party, Gabriela totally threw me off track.  She came up to me and announced out of nowhere, that she would be having a Frida Kahlo birthday party when she turned six.  I was so proud of my little girl.  After all, every year that is not a princess party is a win in my book.  But then I started to feel a little disappointed in myself.  Wait a minute, why didn't I ever think up this brilliant plan?!?! The miracle was that she stuck with this theme, by the time her birthday rolled by in July.

And so the planning began.  I got a set of Frida postcards with photos of her and copies of her paintings. I hung them up everywhere. I gathered all things Frida that we have - art sets, coloring books, paper dolls, children's stories,you name it!

And back in May, while out on a wine stroll, my sister-in-law, Meliss, just happened to spot some Frida fabric.  I bought some, not having any idea what we would use it for. But as soon as Gabriela saw it, she asked if I would make her a dress with it for her birthday. Done and done.

We had Frida tattoos and stickers for the kids, and some of them colored the Frida pictures we copied for the party. But I was bummed that the kids weren't really into the other activities I had planned.  We had a game of Loteria all ready to go (Mexican Bingo), chalk for kids to draw murals on the wall, like Frida's husband, Diego Rivera, and I also set up a painting station so kids could paint their portraits like Frida.  Um, they ran screaming back and forth through the house and yards instead, playing Zombie.  At least they had fun!

For years, Gabriela has been begging me for a piñata at her birthday party.  We figured, the Mexican themed party was the year to do it.  I was so nervous that someone would get hurt or get their feelings hurt, but it went much more smoothly than I had imagined.  We put little Mexican flags in the mini birthday cupcakes and, well, I forgot that I made a ton of mini popsicles to pass out for the kids.

The party was a hit. I am so glad it turned out as fun and festive as it did.  Gabriela dressed like Frida, from her handmade headdress, to her dress, and jewelry.  I dressed up also. 

I was half way hoping Gabriela would abandon her headdress so I could wear it but she kept it on the whole day!

Easton didn't want to be left out of the fun either. 

A few months down the road.

It has been just over four months since we said goodbye to our daughter, Simone. Even though I remember everything so clearly, it sometimes feels like some awful warped alternate reality - how could this have really truly happened?

We have good days and very bad ones.  For the most part, we have gotten back to a new sense of normal - one that includes our grief as our daily experience. I cry at some point nearly every day.

It has been helpful that we continue to attend our SAND (Support After Neonatal Death) meetings.  We just attended a meeting after skipping a month, and I could tell that I really needed to be there. There is something to be said about having our kiddos keeping us going through the day to day activities of life. But sometimes it's hard to find the space to truly experience our feelings of grief between trying to make dinner, and homeschool, doing the laundry, and entertaining our kids. It's incredibly helpful to have the space at our meetings to talk about Simone. I always feel a sense of relief after talking and crying and being with others who have also lost their babies.  I am so grateful to my sister who regularly watches Gabriela and Easton so Lane and I can attend these meetings together on a regular basis.

I continue to find that I feel very anxious whenever I am around people who do not know about Simone.  I am constantly worried that they will ask me how many children I have or if I am pregnant and still haven't figured out a comfortable way to answer these questions.  Just Friday a woman asked me if I was pregnant, and it was the first time I was able to say that I had in fact given birth a few months ago to my stillborn daughter. I just feel like I am carrying such a burden, and then, somehow, it becomes my responsibility to ease that burden for other people, to comfort them after they find out my reality. But why should I feel the need to take away others' discomfort, when no one can take away mine?

Last Thursday I went to an appointment to discuss Simone's death, what happened, and how my care would be managed, if I were to have another baby.  It was awful. Thank goodness my friend was able to watch the kids for me, and I was able to go alone.

So there I was, in an unfamiliar place, to speak with an unfamiliar doctor about the death of my newborn baby. And that was the start of my anxiety that morning. There I was holding my hospital discharge papers, looking at terms like "fetal demise", surrounded by pregnant ladies, newborn babies, and pictures of babies and pregnant ladies everywhere I looked.

I had to focus on a picture of Easton to concentrate on something different and take deep, deep breaths in an effort to calm myself down.  My anxiety skyrocketed when they called my name for my appointment and the first thing they did was take my blood pressure.  I have never had blood pressure problems in my life, but that day it was through the roof, crazy high.  The nurse asked if I was okay, which was when I promptly lost it.  I answered her no and sobbed while she took my weight. 

No one at this office knew my history, so they immediately sent a counselor to the room to talk to me. She thought I was in crisis. She came in holding the postpartum depression screening questionnaire I had to fill out.  But with questions like "How often do you cry?" my responses were a giant red flag.  Through my tears I had to assure them that I didn't feel like hurting myself or others.  I think my emotions are perfectly normal and expected for someone whose baby just died. I mean, here I was surrounded by pregnant ladies and babies in a room with an ultrasound machine. The last time I saw one of those was when the hospital staff confirmed that Simone's heart was no longer beating. What do they expect??

So that was an experience I don't care to repeat.

The more time that passes, the more I understand the medical reason for Simone's death. Her cord was attached to the placenta at the very edge, which meant that it was traveling along the edge of the amniotic sac, rather than firmly attached to the middle of the placenta and coming down into the sac, completely away from the edges.  When my water broke, it just happened to burst the amniotic sac right where her cord was traveling, which was why I lost so much blood. That was all her blood that she needed to survive.  There is no indication that because Simone had a velamentous cord insertion, another baby would be likely to have the same condition. But it's certainly terrifying to think about.

They say that it can be checked for in ultrasounds.  In fact, the doctor went back to my ultrasound report and saw that the technician had indicated that I had a normal cord insertion. So apparently, it was checked last time.  The doctor went back to the still frames of the ultrasound and, even knowing that the cord insertion was absolutely not normal, he couldn't detect it in the still images. It looked normal to him.  He said it could have been the angle, but knowing my history, they would have more frequent ultrasounds to very carefully check the cord insertion in the future.

Gabriela seems to be doing much better. Just last week at Park Day, she and her friend were on a swing together. I was pushing Easton nearby so I heard her conversation. She asked her friend, "You know how I have a sister who died?" and when her friend asked what happened, G calmly and matter of factly explained that her cord got pinched and that was how Simone got all her food and oxygen, through that blood and when she couldn't get that into her body anymore, her heart stopped beating.  She told her friend that Simone was in ashes on our mantel.  It is so relieving, yet incredibly heartbreaking to see Gabriela work this all out. 

Every picture Gabriela draws of our family includes Simone. Her latest creation is my favorite. Simone is in a front baby carrier smiling, her legs are sticking out and she's holding a rattle in one hand, and a bottle in the other. Our whole family is holding hands and there are hearts everywhere.