Bear With Me

It’s now been a month since we said goodbye. I have lingering complications that have left me in more pain than I could have imagined. If they don’t resolve on their own, I’ll be facing surgery at the start of January. I’ve been told that surgical recovery is two weeks of true agony when heavy narcotics are needed, then six weeks of pain. This terrifies me because I left the hospital on 800 mg of ibuprofen every 6 hours, 650 mg of Tylenol every 4 hours, and 2 Ox.ycodone every 3 hours, and that did NOTHING for the pain I was in. I can imagine how much worse it will be after surgery, and I know that the drugs just don’t help. Overall, more difficult choices ahead.

That all reflects the physical part of healing. The emotional part is another matter. I have my good moments and my bad moments. I don’t think the postpartum hormones help, or the fact that I’m still in too much pain to return to my “normal” life, so I’m left with little to do. I hope the physical healing can help to be a catalyst for the mental healing. In the interim, I hope you’ll indulge a few things I want to share.

I only took one “bump” picture my entire pregnancy, because I was so sick the whole time I didn’t feel like it. Although the girls are gone, I feel like I need to share this. Why? Because it’s one of the last good memories I have with them. Because I hate that there are times it feels like they weren’t real, and by sharing this photo, I can disprove that feeling. Because, out of everything that happened that I might have controlled, I get the most upset that I never got to see or hold Zoe, and this photo reminds me that I got to hold her for 18 weeks and a day. Maybe just because it’s a talisman to me, that proves that DH and I can make beautiful, healthy babies, so that gives me hope that one day we’ll get to be great parents to babies we can take home and raise.

The other picture I want to share is of the girls’ bears. I mentioned how amazing the Fairview Southdale nurses and doctors were. Also amazing are two other parents, who also lost a child at Southdale. They started a program to give small teddy bears to other parents delivering babies who will never come home. This is a lousy picture, taken via my cell phone a few hours before we left the hospital. But these bears are so precious to me. Seeing them snuggle each other gives me hope that my girls are out there somewhere, taking care of each other.  In the first days home, DH would bring them to me, and we’d just hold each other and the bears on the sofa and talk to our girls. I have conversations with the bears most days. Today we went to the picture window and I showed them the six deer who were grazing in our yard. Am I crazy? Well, of course, we’ve known that for years! But does it help to think that maybe our girls are up there somewhere, listening as I talk to their bears? Yes, it does. To the parents who started this program: I am so, so sorry that you went through a loss, but so, so grateful to you for what you’ve done with it.