The other day I had a moment of such peace and tranquility. I was laying in bed and I just felt like everything was going to be okay. I don’t know if that means that this is going to be our month, or if it’s close, or even if it just means that I’m coming to terms with things. But it sure felt good to feel that way, if only for a short moment.<\/p>\n
I am getting further away from the “how it was supposed to be” feelings. It’s not that I think it was “supposed” to happen like this – how could I, my baby is dead – but it’s sort of settled into an acceptance of the situation. As life progresses and I continue to work Devin into my life I am kind of getting used to this idea of having had a stillborn baby… it’s becoming the “new normal.” It doesn’t seem quite so traumatic anymore. I think I’m coming to terms with Devin being who he is, not who he was supposed to be. For a long time I was just so overwhelmed with this feeling of injustice, picturing Devin as a newborn, as a live baby, raising him. Those thoughts still hurt so deeply, when I think of them – but I think of them less. When Den and I talk of the future we talk of future babies and the plans we have for them, just as we once talked about Devin. We talk about Devin in terms of memories of his pregnancy and how he is in our lives now: his pictures, his tree, his place in our family as firstborn. Those are the things he will always be, the things we will always have.<\/p>\n
And I am thankful. Thankful that I am slowly healing. Thankful that it doesn’t hurt like a hot poker in my chest every single day. These are the days that I promised myself would come again. This is not joy, but it is peace. Half of the equation. Half of living. I still have a long ways to go – I don’t always want to live a half-life. But progress is being made, and that makes me believe I will find the other half someday.<\/p>\n
::<\/p>\n
I do, however, get extremely cranky sometimes. Low on patience, low on tolerance. For all I talk about being accepting and supportive, sometimes my thoughts are far, far from it. I just get so angry sometimes. But my eyes are rather tainted right now. I have a hard time telling when I’m upset because of my recent loss, if I’m upset because I feel like my opinions\/preferences are being threatened, or if I’m upset for some sort of rational reason. Sometimes my grief strikes in rather ir<\/i>rational ways. I just try to rein myself in, take some deep breaths, and find something else to do… and remind myself to be fair.<\/p>\n
And I get just so frustrated, so worn down, by the constant negativity and bad stories. You all know how I feel about labor and birth, so it’s just hard to hear again and again women talked into inductions, ending up in c-sections. Whose to say if they were necessary or not? Some of them most certainly were. But I swear it seems like EVERYONE I know that has had a baby recently has had a c-section, and it’s depressing. And I just feel like crying, I really do – crying FOR them. Is it the worst thing to happen? Absolutely not. But I just keep seeing the snowball effect… over and over again. I rarely rarely see anyone attempt an intervention-free birth, much less actually achieve one. It’s really no wonder that when I announced I was going to have a natural childbirth no one thought it was possible.<\/p>\n
Oh, and as a side rant (well not really a rant, more like a… frustration). I’m watching season one of Lost and someone gives birth to a baby in it. And it was very hard trying to prevent my eyeballs from rolling back into my head while I watched. The good doctor’s advice to the person who had to deliver the baby was to wait until the contractions were 60 seconds apart, then tell her to push. And when she did just that, she was just pushing when the clueless person told her to. Oh for heaven’s sake. And when she pushed, she was screaming. Dude, if you’re screaming you aint pushing right. (But of course, a birth scene wouldn’t be complete without screaming. No one would believe it otherwise!) And what about the important parts… you know, delivering the placenta, how to tie off the umbilical cord? The last thing you want is for clueless people to be going “OH MY GOD what do we do with THIS?!” Would it have killed them to actually look up what a birth progresses like?<\/p>\n
Interesting factoids about my labor:
\n* My labor was 6 hours long, from start of induction to birth. And I was 0cm when we started.
\n* My contractions never really hurt until I hit transition. They were strong<\/i>, and they required all of my concentration to breathe through (at least at the end they did – at the start they didn’t), but as long as I kept on top of them and didn’t tense up I was fine.
\n* I didn’t scream. I panted and whimpered and kept saying “I can’t, I can’t,” at one point, but no screaming. Den even told me so. I don’t even think I moaned very much. I guess I’m a silent laborer.
\n* My “transition” lasted for I think 2 contractions. Possibly 1. So a couple of minutes total. That was the point where I said, “I can’t, I can’t.”
\n* When you don’t have an epidural and you have to push? YOU HAVE NO CHOICE. My body was getting that baby out with or without me. I HAD to push or it hurt so very much.
\n* I was prepared for a very long labor, with hours of HARD labor. If I had gone into labor like that at home I would have completely missed getting to the hospital, without a single doubt. By the time I realized I was in full labor I was about 15-30 minutes from delivering. (And the hospital is 30 minutes away.) Next time I plan on going to the hospital immediately, just in case it follows the same order as last time.<\/p>\n
It was crazy. So not what I expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The other day I had a moment of such peace and tranquility. I was laying in bed and I just felt like everything was going to be okay. I don’t know if that means that this is going to be our month, or if it’s close, or even if it just means that I’m coming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,69],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ivf-3","tag-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}