what i am doing today to try to make some tiny bit of good come from johannes's death

filling out this study on stillbirths

lists: a cop-out

today sucks. i have been bombarded by erratic emotions all day and i've had enough. the bottom line/s is/are: my son died, i want him back, i have so much going on inside that i need to write pages and pages to work it all out, but frankly, i don't feel up to the task of making sense of it all. so i am wussing out and making some random lists; it is the only tool i have to create any order at the moment.

THINGS THAT I DON'T EVER, EVER WANT TO HEAR AGAIN:
1. he was too good for this world.
2. god needed him.
3. when are you going to try again?
4. it only happens to the strong (to which i say, fuck being strong!)
5. you're worrying too much - it's nothing.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME ANGRY:
1. the absence of my son from his bassinet.
2. people who have a line of stair-step children who look neglected.
3. parents who scream at their children, especially in public.
4. fellow airline passengers who mistake me for someone who wants to hear about their ridiculous, irrational and ignorant complaints about the airline, especially people who get up to go to the bathroom during final descent and think their rights have been abused because they're asked to sit back down, as well as people who get on my flight at the last minute and expect to be able to stow their oversized bag that never should have gotten through security in the first place in an overhead bin above or in front of their seat but under no conditions anywhere behind their seat (which would apparently also be a violation of their most basic rights).
5. the complete silence from my father since the memorial service, which is typical and absolutely to be expected but still shitty.

THINGS THAT STILL GIVE ME SOME JOY:
1. being with justin
2. babies, especially my new nephew
3. driving with the sun roof open
4. the tulips that bloomed in my flower beds in the 48 hours i was out of town; they are purple, white, purple and white, and yellow.
5. girl scout cookies, and thin mints in particular.

what to do with myself

since justin went back to work sunday, and my house was already clean, and i don't go back to work until the 7th of april, i'm at loose ends. i actually did the laundry myself and then - gasp! -ironed all of our clean clothes that should be ironed. and then, i pulled all of the unironed clothes out of our closet to iron them!!!! clearly, i need professional help.

so i came to jacksonville to see my mom and my sister and my new nephew for a couple of days. my visit turned out really to be just for one day, since i have to go back first thing tomorrow morning or be stuck here until monday. but it was a good one day. my mom went into her office for half a day, and i slept in (by her standards - 11:00 has become my standard wake-up time), then i called my sister and she brought jay over.

i am happy to report that he has grown into his face and no longer resembles buddy hackett. he is such a sweetie and a snuggler; i feel a little guilty for my prenatal prediction that he would be a brute (to johannes's sweetie-pie). he is huge, but he has a very sweet temperament.

granted, i did take a xanax before they came over - i didn't want to spend another day like the last two, where i got teary at every little thing - but i was really happy today. after they went home tonight, my mom asked if it had been difficult for me to see jay, but it hadn't. i did think a couple of times about how much i had looked forward to jay and hans growing up together and being exactly the same age and always having each other, so it made me a little sad, this time for jay, that he wouldn't have hans to be his buddy. but jay being healthy and happy and just plain alive doesn't take anything away from me. it's not his fault, or his parents' fault, or really anyone's fault, that hans died.

i look forward to having all day friday and saturday and sunday morning with justin, but i wish the flights were not all so full that i have to leave early tomorrow; i will be getting home just as he leaves for work and so will have another day home by myself.

maybe i could strip and refinish the floors tomorrow...

surface friends

Friendships take on several forms. There are those that we can have a good time with, though things generally stay fairly amiable; we just wouldn't think of delving into our most profound and vulnerable emotions with them.

Then we have those that are here for us; anytime, anyplace. Willing to lend a hand, an ear, a shoulder to cry on. Without them, I'd be completely lost.

Throughout the last few months, we've really learned who are friends are and these roles have quite clearly been redrawn. Several times. Friends with whom I have never had much in common are now coming out of the woodwork and are presenting themselves as kind, thoughtful and compassionate; while some friends with whom I've shared my deepest and most intimate details with in the past seem completely distant. It could be a matter of time and place. Who knows?

What's been most striking to me, however, has been the friends that on first look seem to only be surface friends. Those that are calling, not seemingly to check up on me, but to share a moment with. It could be coffee, a beer, music, whatever.

The loss of my son is never mentioned in any of these conversations, but conversation generally is quite flowing. And while temporarily, my mind wanders, rather than wonders. And here's the thing, one of these people, in particular, has been calling me - out of the blue - quite randomly: sometimes just to say hello. sometimes to play a song that they are hearing on the car stereo, wanting to share it with me. sometimes to tell me about a particularly brilliant meal that they've had, thinking that at somepoint, I may very much enjoy this. While we're not broaching the devestating feelings that I am having - he's one of the only people who is constantly checking in with me.

This is his way of dealing. And I am so incredibly grateful that he's been here for me, in whatever way he can help me.

monday

i woke up from a dream in which i had looked in my backyard and found that all of my rose beds were empty and dead, which worried me; i haven't really paid any attention to my little yard the last six weeks. so i got up and i looked out my bathroom window to try to make sure that some plants were starting to come back, but the kitchen roof was in the way, so i crawled back in bed with justin. and then i remembered that johannes was gone, and i missed him so much.

that seems to be the worst time for me every day: when i wake up and we're just hanging out in bed and i want to be getting johannes up and bringing him to bed with us.

so i got up and came downstairs - the earliest i've been out of bed in weeks! - and opened my kitchen blinds and then went into hans's room and opened those blinds. the tulips and irises are starting to push through the soil in the back and side yard as much as they have been in the treelawn, which i find very encouraging. i really need my plants to come back in this year and prove that i didn't kill them all off in my first summer as caretaker. i itch to get out in the garden to prune and shape and pull weeds and cut flowers to bring into the house.

and then i saw two of the cats that think they own our property. lately, when i hiss at them to get off my porch, they just keep on lounging there and look at me as if to say, "moi? get off your porch? you must be mistaken!" the grey-striped cat's belly is swollen and writhing and she can barely crawl along my sidewalk. the sight of her belly being ripe and moving felt like something out of a horror movie to me. god knows why. you would think another sign of life would give me some hope, too, but it was too horrible to look at.

i've been awake less than an hour today, but i feel like all of the progress i've made through my grief the last 5 1/2 weeks has been reversed in this short little period of time. ugh.

on the bright side, it was tough to take justin to work yesterday - it's the first we've really been apart - but it was good to be with family. after i dropped justin off, i went to his grandmother's for easter dinner, and i was the first one there, so we sat and talked for a little while all by ourselves.

she had hans's picture and a picture of the three of us in the frame my mom had given her for christmas, sitting on her side table in the living room. she offered to put it away, but i assured her it was okay and that we had pictures in our living room, too.

she asked about our trip and eventually it came up that we had picked up johannes's ashes just before we left. she asked what we planned to do with them, so i told her that justin's dad wanted a little to put in the little memorial garden he's making on the hiking trail he's creating on his property; she was alarmed that my father-in-law would ask to separate some of his ashes from the rest of them, and said she really didn't understand how anyone could disperse ashes to the wind. so i told her that we would always keep some of his ashes, but we planned to disperse some in south africa next year. ''but," she said, "aren't you worried about the resurrection???"

without getting too theological or disrespecting her beliefs, i tried to gently explain that i thought god was beyond needing all of hans's remains to be in one place. oh, she said doubtfully. so i asked her about innocent people who were bombing victims; their bodies would be blown into bits and scattered who-knows-where - did she think they couldn't go to heaven? oh, she said, much more certainly, this time; that argument seemed to comfort her.

later, she told me tearfully that her sister had said johannes must have been one special baby, and i agreed that he was, and then she added that her sister said that he was so special that god took him right up to be with him. that made my blood boil. i told her that i know that sentiment was comforting to some people and a way to wrap their heads around something that makes so little sense, but i though that god was bigger than that; he doesn't need to take things away from me to make himself happy. hans's death was just an accident, a horrible one, but an accident - god didn't strangle my son so he could have a little buddy.

i'm sure i'm being cut a certain amount of slack because i'm assumed to be out of my mind with grief, but i have to say, my grandmother-in-law took my responses pretty well. it's so good to be able to speak directly and freely; i don't know what i'd do if i couldn't.

a couple of days ago, one of justin's aunts e-mailed me pictures of her new great-grandson; the e-mail only gave his weight (no name or anything else) and two comments: (1) the birthmark on his face could eventually be lasered, and (2) the mother is 15, the father is 14, and it's not a very good start for the boy.

the baby is really beautiful, and the parents clearly adore him in the pictures. of course, it's unfortunate that the parents are so young, and it will be difficult for all of them, but what made me sad is that she clearly had no joy from his birth. i was frankly a little surprised that she sent me the e-mail in the first place, but i'm used to wacky things from her. when i was in the hospital, between when we found out that johannes had died and when we delivered him, she called to let us know that her pastor was leaving that day for a mission trip to the phillipines [never mind the problems we have with that prospect] and she had called him and asked him to bring us back a baby.

so my expectations are pretty low.

yesterday, when i overheard her going on about the baby's birthmark to one of the other aunts, i spoke up and said what a good-looking kid he was. she was shocked; it turns out she actually hadn't meant to send the e-mail to me and was pretty horrified that she had done so. i assured her it was fine and reitereated how lovely he was, but she couldn't stop apologizing. then the other aunt cut her off and said, "don't exclude her!" she went on to say that when she and her husband were trying but couldn't have a child, the worst thing anyone did was exclude them from news about other children. i have never appreciated her more.

i usually complain about holiday dinners with justin's family - they are stuck in the deepest rut and the dinners are always exactly the same: same menu, same places at the table, same negative conversations - and we usually go late and leave early. but his family took me in from the start and made me feel as though i had always been a part of the family, and i love them for that. yesterday i arrived early and left late, and it was so good to be with them, ruts and warts and all.

things change, well atleast for me they have

This is what is most striking to me. I've changed, my entire life has changed. The folks at work have not changed, their lives have not. It's driving me mad hearing all of their inane blabber. The same conversations, the same gripes, everything the same.

This is going to take some getting used to.

incognito like

Well, I'm back at work, though few know this. I walked in underground and went immediately to my office. Door closed. I keep hearing all sorts of holiday like cheer outside of my door: "Happy Easter", but I'm not really feeling very festive.

The first day back, I presume, will be the hardest. And, perhaps thanks for Xanax, it hasn't been so bad. The few people that have seen me have been solemn, but pleasant enough, and have simply welcomed me back. This is much better than the not knowing what to say, so saying something inappropriate for the sake of saying something that I was expecting, and am counting on happening soon.

Blah blah blah. I'm just rambling, but wanted to get something on here. I know that I've mentioned how I was dreading coming back to work, so here I am. And I've made it through to write about it.

happy easter

this morning i'm thinking about the meaning of easter, or at least the christian version of it, and it boils down to the resurrection of god's son, and i'd like to know: why can't my son be resurrected? he was innocent, too. it only seems fair.

turn out the lights

we've washed and put away all of the dishes that wouldn't or shouldn't go in the dishwasher, rinsed out the beer bottles, and scraped the cake icing off the coffee table. by our normal standards, 12:15 is a pretty early finish for a party, but it was about right for a simple dinner with a handful of friends.

everyone survived my cold pomegranate soup, supposedly an ancient ayurvedic digestive aid, after they got over their coughing fits from all of the fresh black pepper in it. i've been wanting to try this recipe from world vegetarian for a couple of years; let's just say my curiosity's been satisfied.

we ate dyan's salad and mike's baguette and my fusilli pasta with tomato and mushroom sauce and spinach walnut sauce. the latter sauce was tofu-based, much to the surprise of everyone here. i always feel a certain sense of accomplishment when i make something vegan that non-vegetarians really like and not just tolerate. we finished with a mandarin orange cake (not even remotely vegan!) for jim's 40th birthday and a conversation that went from the existence of god to bollywood films to dead baby jokes.

it was good to have our 5-month-old friend charlie in the house along with a few reliable adults. in between the more absurd threads of our conversation we talked about johannes's ashes and our plans for them, and it was comfortable, and that's a relief.

sometimes i feel like i've reached a peaceful acceptance of johannes's death but other times it still feels surreal and i have to make sure he really died. i am a Planner, and i like to know where i'm going and at what point i will experience which experiences, and so i'm a little disoriented in my journey right now. i don't know what the timetable is for my grief, and when i'll feel what feelings, and when i'll be switching back and forth between different facets of grief; it's discombobulating.

the big lie

one of the first things i thought about after delivering hans was what i had read about the high rate of divorce for couples who have lost a child. justin and i talked pretty early on about not letting his death drive us apart, and it was a conversation worth having, certainly.

our friends who have lost children have encouraged us to focus on the relationships that become stronger as a result of this kind of tragedy. i expressed in a previous post that i hoped that the higher divorce rate thing was just a nasty rumor, and now, thanks to kath, i have proof!

the compassionate friends published their survey of bereaved parents called "when a child dies" in 1999. the results include these findings under the heading "grief and divorce":

"Newly bereaved parents frequently read or hear disturbing statistics about a high divorce rate (often claimed to be 80-90%) among couples following the death of a child; however, TCF has never found reliable statistics concerning divorce rates following the death of a child.

To confirm or refute these claims, the survey included a series of questions regarding marital status. Based on the results, it is clear that the divorce rates quoted so often are erroneous. Overall, 72% of parents who were married at the time of their child’s death are still married to the same person. The remaining 28% of marriages include 16% in which one spouse had died, and only 12% of marriages that ended in divorce.

While this percent may be slightly understated due to sample composition, the undoubted conclusion is that the divorce rate among bereaved parents is significantly below the often-cited numbers, and may in fact be lower than the level in the population in general. Furthermore, even among the 12% of parents whose marriages ended in divorce, only one out of four of them felt that the impact of the death of their child contributed to their divorce."

so according to this study, only 3% of couples who lose a child divorce as a result of that loss. and only 12% divorce at all. which you must admit is a bit better than the 50% or so divorce rate for the general population. goody for us.

party time

it doesn't seem right for us to hang black curtains and shut ourselves off from our friends, so we're venturing lightly back into party-throwing mode by having a few close friends over for drinks tomorrow night. i'm wondering, though, what to do with johannes's box.

justin joked while we were away that he hoped hans was behaving himself while he was home alone; i replied that i just hoped he wasn't leaving everything dusty. god, it's good to be able to joke about him a little.

we joked today about how he might behave at his first party (he technically wasn't at the after-memorial party since he was busy being autopsied at that point). but seriously, i don't want to just leave his box on the bookcase where it is now where someone might accidentally knock it over. he's sealed up pretty well in his bag inside the box, but i would hate for someone to feel awkward and uncomfortable about having done it. on the other hand, i don't want to hide him away, like some crazy aunt in the attic.

maybe pottery barn has something for this kind of situation; they make crappy little unnecessary semi-furniture pieces for every other purpose. i can see it now: the newportcastlehaven funeral urn shadow box, with coordinating death certificate frame. lovely and tasteful.

parenthood talk is everywhere

I post on a few online communities. Most of which are political in nature, but on a few, many of the regulars posters have become quite familiar with each other and conversation tends to become more personal in nature. When Johannes died, a group of folks from the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree, and the offshoot group of Talk Politics regulars (now posting on a independant branch political stew) came together and sent us flowers and a kind contribution to Hans memorial scholarship fund. They've been incredibly kind, and it's been beneficial for me to be able to post over there about everything that has happened, because many of the folks over there have been invested in our story from the begining.

There's been lot's of talk about parenthood on the boards (maybe I am just more in tune with these conversations now); or more so, whether to become a parent or not and how this might be seen as a selfish endevor (selfish in either being a parent, or not being a parent by choice, all depending on which particular side of the fence you lean). A fairly lively discussion ensued about the merits of parenting and the general nature of children. I seem to think that children are for most intents kind souls; compassionate, curious and kind in nature. It's the world that is a bastard, and children often overcome this with their good spirits.

Someone, as often occurs in such discussion, disagreed, and offhandedly mentioned that I obviously had no children, and that children are selfish and self consumed by nature and that it's a good parents that set a postive example for their children, creating happy, content, good natured children.

The 'you obviously don't have children' comment really set me off. What can I say, I am hyper sensitive to this at the moment, and she probably had no idea that what has happened, has happened, and that it's still so incredibly fresh.

I don't necessarily disagree. I do think that we are all selfconsumed and selfish, and it certainly works in a childs favor to have loving, willing and compassionate parents to set them on the right path. But this does not always happen. Children, perhaps because of their nature, often overcome less than ideal settings and less than perfect parental situations. I saw this everyday when I was teaching. Sometimes parents are just shite, and the children strive. This is what impresses me most about children.

Since we lost our son, we've noticed (in excess) just how ill-equiped many people are in dealing with parenthood. For most, no many, having children and becoming parents (there is a huge differance) is not something that they plan for, it's generally just something that happens. That's fine. Some people adapt and become brilliant and loving parents. Others don't excell, and the child suffers.

We'd planned on having our child. He was part of our lives as soon as we knew that we were having him, infact he was part of our lives even before he was conceived. Years of thought went into whether or not we'd even have a child, how we'd raise him, the common morals that we'd like to share with him, how we'd swing it to be able to be there for him, without shipping him off to have someone else raise him.

We were (are) both in almost perfect circumstance (emotionally, finacially, ect) to be having a child.

These things are important to us, and it's not a decision that we've taken lightly. I guess that this was what was most heartbreaking when Johannes died. He was our son, he was loved and cherished from the moment we knew of his existance.

I guess what I am trying to say is this; I have the utmost respect for families that choose to have children. Those families that want children for all the right reasons and are not in it for familiar or societal obligation but because they want to share their life with a child. But even more so, I have ultimate respect for those families that for a multitude of reasons, choose to not become parents. They are not selfish, they are not strange, they are families or individuals who simple choose to live their lives as they are. That is admirable.

bathtub sweet bathtub

i wasn't too sure i was ready to come home yesterday and face reality, but i find it's good to be back in the place where if there's any funk in the bathtub, then at least it's my funk.

we ended our getaway with a couple of days in new york, where we visited old favorite red bamboo (if i had access to food like that all of the time, i really would go vegetarian - honest) and a couple of new favorites on west 4th, patisserie claude and vol de nuit. say what you will about cigarettes and alcohol going together or rights in general, but it's really nice for someone like me who is allergic to cigarette smoke to be able to sit in a bar for a couple of hours drinking raspberry lambics and reading the paper without getting ill. we also watched the skateboarders and the balloon man doing the latex glove routine and the big and little dogs in their respective runs in washington square park, and discussed what kind of dog we might get (not too big but not too yippy, not a shedder, friendly but not a jumper). we had always talked about the day we knew would come when johannes would just have to have a dog or he would just die, so maybe our consideration of a dog now is some kind of compensation - i'll have to think a little more about that...

on our way home from the airport yesterday, we stopped by the hospital to see marianne, the hospital chaplain, who had just gotten back the semi-professional pictures of johannes taken at the hospital. the pictures were disappointing - they were taken after we had spent time with him, when he was getting cold and more bruised- and pulled-looking - so we were glad we got a few of our pictures taken when he was first out, even if they are grainy. it was good to talk to marianne, though, who was the first person to give us some of the vocabulary that helped us start to figure out our identities as parents of a dead child. we have missed the first two sessions of a support group she facilitates (the first one was too soon for us to even think about going, the second one was the day before we came back from our trip), but are thinking about going next month.

my fear, though, is a room of people perpetually bogged down in their grief and not interested in moving through it. i want to deal with my grief but not be slaughtered by it. honestly, i almost feel like i've gotten off easy - not that my son dying is lucky in any way, but it could be much worse. i was in the best possible place in which i could have been, mental-health-wise, when johannes came into the picture; i did the big work i needed to do to get on with my life a few years ago, and i had made peace with the niggling little loose end issues i still had in the last year, not wanting to pass any baggage on to johannes if i could at all help it. also, we had already had to deal with the possibility of terminating the pregnancy half-way through, and so had stared into that abyss a little already.

we also had the benefit of not experiencing the loss of johannes on our own. granted, no one else's loss is quite like ours, as his parents, but so many people were already so invested in our son that they experienced a loss, too. we decided early on, when i was classified as "threatening miscarriage", to go public with the pregnancy; i felt that if i did miscarry, i didn't want to grieve alone. consequently, an incredible web of family and friends have been involved in every step, every up and down, and every triumph of hans's gestation. so when he died, we had an incredible community to grieve with us - people that could speak freely with us and with whom we could speak freely about him. what a horrible, wonderful blessing.

another thing that has made grief easier is the experience of some people that have boldly gone before us. justin's friend jen, who lost her daughter a year ago just a few minutes after birth, has become my friend now, too. and marianne from the hospital introduced us to david hansen; he and his wife toni lost their son similarly four years ago and have lived to tell about it. talking to jen and david and toni and learning more about their experiences has been comforting, but more importantly it's helped shape my perception of myself as a parent. without their instruction-by-example, i'm not sure i would have viewed myself as a parent-of-the-dead, or at least not so quickly. i could have wandered in the wilderness for years otherwise, trying to make sense of my identity in the wake of hans's death.

today when i woke up, what i wanted most in the world was to pick up my son from his bassinet and change him and bring him to bed with us to feed him and to have him lay between us in our bed while we showered him with affection. that this scenario will never happen, at least not with johannes, makes me deeply sad - but not so deeply that i'm drowning. i'm still grieving, but i'm still living, dammit.

We're back home

We're back home. Three weeks: San Francisco, Vancouver, Bellingham/Seattle and a few days winding down (if winding down from spending 5 days in Seattle - alone - were necessary) in New York.

It's all really bittersweet: back home, in our dream house (and being able to walk around in bare feet!), yet without our son. He'd kept pretty good guard over our home, which is just great as this was his first time home alone without mom and dad.

We saw Bride and Prejudice the other night. Quite entertaining, in a cheesy Hollywood meets Bollywood sort of way. I've been thinking, maybe life would be much easier if we lived in song and dance. Just imagine it: walking down the grocery aisle and busting out into song and dance about milk and dairy. It would certainly make my return to work much easier.

I am scheduled to return to work, and everyday life as we know it, in four days. This is freaking me out. For several weeks now, we've operated pretty well in our waking hours. Days are going by, some of them really fast, and the pain of losing our son is ever changing. I won't say that it's gotten better, it's just something that is not necesarily at the point of every thought.

The thing is, we've been operating on our own schedules, with plenty of time to step back and most importantly, without the need to perform to anyone else's expectations. With the return of work comes the expectation to function according to someone elses expectations. I am just dreading all the nonsense conversations, and the non conversations, that I will inevitably have with folks who have no idea how to speak to/with me, personally or professionally.

Let's sing and dance.

next time you see me, please, kick me in the stomach

An opportunity such as this is rare, so do act fast while the offer is on the table.

There's a placard on the street below the Empire State Building which reads "no standing". I found this particular sign quite ironic, at 1100pm, as there was a line queing directly below it. There were no other obvious signs of life on the street, just a parade of perhaps 50 people. We deducted, by way of time of night and camera to person ratio, that this must be the cue to ride the elevator to the top, something that I'd never done before.

I asked Laura if she was interested in doing this. She shrugged her shoulders, mentioning that if we fancied it, we could do this on one of our many visits to New York. And we kept walking.

With the building behind us, having not taken the ride to the top, I couldn't help but think of all the times that Laura had encouraged me to hold her belly, feeling for the touch of our unborn sons movement. I'd tried, with my hands and with my face, to feel for him, yet I'm still not certain that I ever did feel him. Truth be told, it all seemed quite inconsquential at the time: thinking that I'd be feeling his skin against my own, his warm baby breath tickling my ears so very soon.

As tears rolled down my face, I kept mentioning to my wife that 'tomorrow is never a promise' and that 'we shouldn't so easily pass on opportunity, simply because we will soon again have a similar chance'.

"Does this mean that you'd like to go back and climb the stairs of the Empire Building?"

"No, it's not about the building. It's not that arbitrary. I would, however, like to have you kick me in the stomach. Especially if I am ever again with such a splendid opportunity, and I so easily have a pass."

thank you, seattle!

a couple of rainy days in seattle - who would have guessed? actually, the rain has been kind of nice, the fuzzy kind of rain. i'm finding seattle rain to have the same effect on my brain as the tropical sun for which i packed.

we left it too late yesterday to make it to the seattle art museum, but we did catch a matinee of "be cool", a slow-to-start piece of fluff that did finally kick into gear. vince vaughn played the same character he plays in every comedy (the one making a complete ass of himself, the one that makes you want to punch him), but he does it so well that i couldn't fault him. today justin's friend nancy from the thorn tree and her husband john came and picked us up for lunch at copacabana, a bolivian place overlooking the pike place market; the food was a little bland, but it was ideal for my still-recovering stomach. then they took us to kerry park in upper queen anne for a spectacular view of the city and the bay and for a driving tour of much of the rest of the city; we ended up at verite for lattes and cupcakes(!) before coming back to the hotel to gather our laundry and visit the local laundromat. it's been a really low-key weekend, but it's given us time to sleep and talk without other distractions. and really, that's what getting lost in some exotic destination was all about, anyway.

tomorrow, before we fly to new york, we're going to take a quick tour of the new seattle library, which we didn't even realize was one block away from our hotel until tonight. doh!

curses, be damned

I am Justin Christopher, son of John Charles and the father of Johannes Christian. There's a bit of a pattern here, as you can see, but the story behind this goes really far back; to a Czech Bohemian town and a 'curse' that plagued the Jelinek family. See, generations of Jelinek men named their first born son after their initials, well sort of. My great great grandfather was CJJ, my great grand father JCJ, my grandfather (Popo) CJJ, and my father JCJ. This goes back as far as I can see in the family tree and as far back as the story goes, so goes the 'curse': every other generation of first born Jelineks (bearing the namesake initials) is set to suffer some unspeakable tragedy.

My father, not wanting to carry on the 'curse' but wanting to carry on some form of family tradition decided that he could surpass it by having me carry on his own initials. He being the first Jelinek to be fully of America, it made perfect sense to he, and to Popo that this would be the best way to carry on the family name, without passing on the family curse. I seem to have turned out OK, eh? Curse be damned.

And what happened to Johannes? It's still unclear, though we'll have autopsy results in two weeks. I do know that the autopsy will not conclude that there is some mysterious curse, which I pay little to no credence to anyhow, but I do find this to be a curious sidenote to our tale.

I guess, ultimately, that I am grieving a bit for myself. Something that I've done little of since we lost our boy. It's really selfish grieving, mind you, it's a grieving that I will/may not ever carry on the Jelinek name in the way that I had imagined. Macho bullshit, I know, but my feelings none the less.

sleeping in seattle

i promised my doctor i'd get lots of rest and not over-exert myself, plus getting on a plane with a head full of snot would be torture - plus, frankly, there were no seats on any flights out of seattle for the last two days or the next two days. so we're here for the duration.

after two nights in an airport hotel, we finally accepted we need to stay here for a while, so we scored a room on hotwire at the crowne plaza downtown. we had already enjoyed good afternoon naps in the beds here (which are always among the best anywhere, plus they give you lavender linen spray...mmmmm) when we heard knocking on our door. i looked through the peephole and saw two kevin-ish looking guys on their cell phones; i figured they had the wrong room and would mosey along. then our door opened! justin shooed them away...and then the door opened again! this time, they were with a security guy, who let them in! and then while justin was screaming at the front desk staff, the door opened again! this time, it was a completely different couple with a clerk!

the end result is that they moved us to a suite (but not before i stripped the first room of its sleeping aids and premium toiletries!) and are comping our breakfast and internet connection. woo-hoo! seattle was not what we had in mind when we decided to get lost (belize was more what we packed for), but it's working out okay for us. besides the deluxe accomodations, we've enjoyed a couple of walks to and around the pike place market and will probably go back for more tomorrow. today we saw the lunch counter where tom hanks and rob reiner discussed the date with the frizzy-haired decorator in sleepless in seattle, but they didn't have much for justin to eat, so we ambled on to saigon, a vietnamese lunch counter, where we had fabulous vietnamese sandwiches (tofu for justin, roast pork for me), and then we got the doughnut guy to turn on the little machine and make us some hot mini donuts, which we ate right from the paper bag on our walk back to the hotel. tonight we went to a place called dilettante, which is a dumb name for a mocha place that is anything but amateurish; we had fantastic, almond-flavored mexican chocolate in a setting that made us both think of the chocolateria in a little alley off the plaza del sol in madrid, where we always ended a night of pub-crawling with cups of thick, pudding-y hot chocolate and churros. then we wandered around downtown and had a couple of small plates at il fornaio, which was surprisingly good for a chain. tomorrow, between naps, we plan to hit the art museum and a bolivian restaurant across from the market.

maybe the best thing about seattle is that while it's a new destination for both of us, it's not so exotic that we feel compelled to rush around and see everything...which is giving us plenty of time to talk over things, the biggest thing being the future and in particular our reproductive future. we have some objectives to accomplish first (some more genetic testing, counseling for both of us), but we will be the parents of another child.

making babies

I've always had mixed feeling about having children, or shall I say, creating more children. Adoption, fostering, being the best uncle or teacher ... I've always known how much children impress me, and I've known forever that they'd be a major part of my life. I just hadn't thought much about birthing my own children. Maybe it's selfish? I don't know, the jury is still out on this for me.

I'd even entertained having a vasectomy some years ago. I guess that this is good for our story that I had decided to wait on that one.

Let me tell you, Hans birth was the most amazing thing in my life. Watching Laura through pregnancy, reading about Hans daily growth, feeling him kick (or was that stretch out?), ultimately seeing him first thing as he was born: so peaceful, so warm, so beautiful and so much a part of us. Simply amazing.Laura and I had talked about only having one child, and if we were so moved and able to swing it: adopting our other children. I'd still like to adopt at some point, but I really do have this feeling (a feeling I have never had so strong in my life) that I'd like to try this birthing process again and have another child. It may be some time, and we certainly don't want to invest in this sort of thing until we've worked on some things, but as of now, I think that we'll someday be heading down this road again.

wallowing

this morning i sat on the side of the tub, all the better to be able to keep hacking stuff up in the toilet, of course, and i started to cry. i think it's the first time i've cried for myself. after the initial shock of johannes's death, my tears have all been for him - for the life he won't have, the things he won't experience. but this morning, all i could think, over and over, was "i want my baby back" (no, not the chili's kind).

i've studiously tried to avoid self-pity. i mean, it's ugly, isn't it? especially when i have so much. i have the best husband ever in the history of the world, i'm rich in family and friends i love and who love me, other than these wacky viral things i have my health, we have our dream house, we travel all over the world. it seems tacky to indulge in self-pity when my circumstances are better than something like 98% of the rest of the world.

also, i have known people who have lost someone or had some great tragedy and never gotten over it, who have never moved on from self-pity. and i never wanted to be one of those people. i've always thought they were sad and kind of repulsive.

but i've had to acknowledge today that the loss of johannes is my loss. he was already my son.

i will never know his love, or the feel of his chubby toddler arms around my neck, or the sound of him saying, "mama," or what he learned that day, or a million other things i would have known as his mother.

i have had a loss, a huge, life-altering one, and i need to grieve for myself - i deserve the time and space to do it.

so the question is, how do i really dig in and grieve my loss without getting stuck there?

Happy birthday Hans

It's been a month, which is almost impossible to believe. Everything is still so incredibly surreal; though the fact that we've made it from thinking only in terms of minutes; then onto hours, days, weeks and now an entire month should certainly mean something. Well, it does to me atleast.

Strummer will turn one in the next few weeks, and Calvin will be turning four next Sunday - I wish them and their parents the best on their days. Happy birthday kiddos.

t-shirt philosophy

this afternoon in a little touristy, pseudo-boho shop in bellingham, i saw a baby t-shirt that said:

a baby

born not by luck

but by the process of a thousand miracles

i wouldn't ordinarily put much stock in a slogan on a t-shirt, but this one pierced me. i immediately knew whomever wrote that bit of verse has walked in my shoes. i wrote it down, and when i read it to justin, he said, "we had 999 miracles."

the shopkeepers in this town must be really tired of me crying in all of their places; it can't be good for business.

i also cried today in a coffee shop when my primary physician called me. i had spent all day trying to penetrate the horrible office staff, and when i finally heard her voice, i broke down. i had not seen her in a year, since my ready-to-get-pregnant physical, so i brought her up to date, and she asked a lot of questions, and cried with me, and it was so hard but also so good. (she also called in a prescription for my horrible cold, which i knew she would do but her office staff swore she wouldn't.) i could just hug her.

tomorrow, justin and i will head off on our own, and hopefully being alone combined with me starting finally to feel better will help us a lot.

the jet-setting lifestyle

a number of people have kidded me in the past about being quite the jet-setter; when i flew into rio for a weekend and came back engaged, for example, i endured much teasing. i certainly have been able to enjoy phenomenal travel opportunities, for which i am grateful and of which i would be envious if i were someone else looking at me.

but if those people could see us now, they would not be so envious.

after johannes's memorial service (about which i really need to start writing...), we were going to go somewhere and get lost for three weeks. except that i wasn't really healing from the delivery as fast as i thought i was immediately after i got home from the hospital. and then there were more things that needed to be done if we were going to be gone for three weeks than could be done in a few hours (which highlights the benefits of only jetting off for a weekend at a time, doesn't it?). and then the doctor encouraged us to wait to leave the country a few days more.

so we left three days later than originally planned, and then just went to san francisco...and on the way there i developed a nasty cold. so on saturday (now a full week after the memorial service), we came to see our friends in washington state...and my cold got much, much worse. i have green stuff coming out of more than one orefice and haven't held down any food since saturday night. and no surprise, the doctor thinks we should wait longer to leave the country. not that i could get on a plane right now, anyway.

so in a few minutes (pacific time), it will be our second wedding anniversary; justin is in bed, snoring so loudly i expect emma to wake up momentarily, and i am laying on the floor next to a trash can in which i am about to expel the three sips of broth and one bite of pizza crust i managed to swallow a bit ago. and we don't have our son.

yes, we are flying high now.

justin and i have known each other for five years this month. i was 30 when we met, had no intentions of ever marrying, and knew in about five minutes that i wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. justin was 22 (thank god i didn't know how young he was until after i was hooked!) and needed a bit longer to be sure. but here we are. we've survived the long distance relationship, the age gap, the getting married or not question (and a laundry list of issues about how we would get married), depression, job insecurity, the house-buying experience from hell, nine months of pregnancy, nausea and high anxiety, and the death of the son we both wanted more than anything in the world. but we're still together. and i still want to spend the rest of my life with him.

happy anniversary, justin...xoxo

I just want a freakin' slice of pizza

and I'm too inept to accomplish this, or I should say that three seperate establishments are too inept to accomplish this: One doesn't serve carry away pizza, just in store (and Laura isn't leaving the house), another had just turned off their stone oven, the third charges $20 for a large cheese pizza.

It must be amazing, but I'm not willing to pay $20 for a carry away pizza. Sure, I'll fly across the globe to drink a certain beer, or drive overnight to see a band, but $20 pizza is where I draw my line. Honestly, I just wanted a pizza, out, but it was becoming such a hassle to even accomplish this most simple task. I was about to break down and sob like a baby -or- just break something.

So Bobeli pizza kit it is. Meh.

It must be quite evident that I'm a bit irritated at the moment, which is about the biggest understatement of the century.

Now, some meat and potatoes: and I preface this by saying that I feel like a real asshat even mentioning it, especially since we share this blog and Laura is bound to read this, BUT, I am absolutely sick of Laura being sick!

For ten months now; nausea was a bear during pregnancy and obviously post pregnancy has not been much fun: for both of us - emotionally and for Laura physically.

When most people have babies, they go home and are there for a certain amount of time doing baby-mama things, not tramping around the world living out of a suit case and most importantly, they are generally not grieving for the loss of the baby that they've just delivered. We are.

I cannot even begin to imagine the physical pain that Laura is going through right now, or what any mother goes through for that matter, but what I really can't get a grasp on is how she is dealing with all of the physical things going on (the virus, the post birth girly part pains, the constantly changing of the hormones, the reemergence of her menstral cycle - and - starting again a few days ago ... the everyday cold and flu). It's a huge plate to be put in front of her.

Of course, I've my own crap to deal with, which is not really happening. I'd hoped that us being away from home would give us an opportunity to grieve together, out and away, and that we could collectively feel this through. As best as could be expected atleast. What I am only realizing now is that we obviously are moving forward (or backwards, or whatever) at completely seperate paces: me physically fine but struggling to deal with the emotional baggage, and Laura just trying to hold on to whatever she can to maintain her stomach. It is driving me insane that she is unwilling (and unable) to leave the house, to go for a walk, to do much of anything. Other people have been great at getting me out and about, but it just isn't the same.

I want Laura, I want a freakin' slice of pizza, and I want a Xanax.

pictures of a young elton john

i am stuck on bedrest today and so am amusing myself with pictures of justin in the bird of paradise sunglasses. i hope you enjoy them, too. god knows we could all use a laugh.

 

 

 

 

melting away

last night on the flight from san francisco to vancouver, i found out that i was angry; i was making lists in my head of (1) things that make me angry generally, (2) my bodily malfunctions, (3) things johannes will never experience, and (4) things i never want to be told again.

and then we got to richard and candice's. and when i walked in the door i felt safe. hans is not the proverbial elephant in the room here. richard and i talked a little bit last night before we all watched eddie izzard's fantastic hbo special, and we talked a little more this morning over espresso and jasmine tea, and i just feel so relieved.

wonderful emma was asleep when we got here last night, but this morning we woke up to the sound of her talking to herself next door. i peeked into her room, and she peeked back at me through the rungs of her crib, and she lit up. i took her into our room, and justin and i had a good chat with her. it's been three months since we've seen her, and she's grown up so much and become even more wonderful, if such a thing was even possible. such good medicine.

it feels impossible to dredge up that anger in this environment. i know there's probably some more anger in my future; god knows i'm dreading the autopsy results and the possibility that johannes's death might have been prevented. but for now i can just breathe easy.

ba baa baa ba ba

I'm just going to babble a bit ...

Emma, whom I've known and loved since she was 20 minutes old is now grown up and so incredibly beautiful; just a perfect blend of mom and dad. She will be one on my birthday this May.

We haven't seen her in three months, and she is now so animated. It was incredible to wake up to her talking. We can't yet figure out if it's mom's Chinese or dads English, but are certain that whatever it is that she is saying is very profound.

I think that we've figured out my back thing, that turned into a terrible stomach thing, which turned into a not eating and generally feeling shitty thing: some sort of acid thing going on in my stomach. I haven't slept a full night sleep since Hans died, and recently instead of waking up out of absolute sorrow, it was insane stomach pains keeping awake in the sleepy time hours. Randy had suggestes Prilosec, which essentially turns off the acid flow into my stomach, which 3 days into the process seems to have worked brilliantly. Yesterday I had a huge appetite again, eating the toast from Randy and Laura's plates and last night I slept like a baby, not waking with any sign of tummy warfare.

Richard and I are like two peas in a pod, which is to say that we are like the little old ladies down at the social club ... we can talk about anything, and we do and will, which is something that I really need at the moment. Thus far we've talked about fado music, lady boys, and most importantly Hans. That basically covers the essentials, eh? He is cool with talking about this, infact it was he who was curious to know anything and everything. I'm so glad to be here.

We're headed out alone for a bit of a hike in a bit, then I believe that we'll all be heading into Vancouver to check out a few things. Catch ya on the flipside, homeslice.

and now, a restaurant review

yesterday i kept my promise to lay low (mostly). we slept in, ate a few fruity pebbles, burned cds and read shelter magazines. randy got home at lunch time and took us to a good little taco place, and we stopped by jenny's work, where she tightened up our glasses and let us try on the avant garde frames - the ones they keep locked up. i got justin to try on some ferragamo sunglasses with gigantic red, white and blue bejeweled quetzals on either side, a la elton john circa 1973 or so. i've got to figure out how to get the picture posted here.

when we got back home we settled on to the balcony to better enjoy the breezes off the bay, and then the most surprising thing happened. randy started telling us about the rape of someone we know and to whom he is very close. for us to have had this conversation before would have been unthinkable. however shocking or uncomfortable it was for r&j to hear us talk about hans, i think it pierced something. last night the four of us went to millennium for dinner (more on that in a moment), and it was so relaxed and happy and we all talked freely and any passing references we made to johannes or his death or my pregnancy were just natural.

i'm reminded this morning of something david hansen told us; to paraphrase him, it's not that johannes died for a reason, but you'll be surprised to find things happening as a result of johannes's death that never would have happened otherwise. i'm botching that one - let me blame it on the benadryl. but i'm beginning to see some truth in what he said. i think our conversation on the balcony and the change in the air last night are things that wouldn't have happened before johannes's death. interesting.

a word about millennium: wow. it's a completely vegan restaurant, but even a flexitarian like me could give up meat completely if i could eat there every day. we drank ladybug red and started with a raw spring lasagnette and a sauteed mushroom bruschetta with sundried tomato butter that made my toes curl with happiness. my entree was a perfectly-baked phyllo purse stuffed with all kinds of exotic mushrooms and white beans and all kinds of other things i can't even remember, the thought of it makes my brain so fuzzy. it came with what the server called an english cream - i have no idea what that name means, but it was this wonderfully creamy green sauce that tasted like it was based on the fat of good english bacon; good lord, it was insane. justin had pecan-crusted portabellos over wilted greens that really and truly tasted like a top-notch argentinean tenderloin. jenny had an orechiette gratin with stinging nettles and kale that was supremely comfort food-y, and randy had a perfect risotto that starred soy chorizo that was out of sight. dessert was so good that it required the kind of savoring that made that course take as long as the entree course - maybe longer. we had a chocolate almond cheesecake-y sort of dessert that was unbelievably smooth, and a pear strudel with cinnamon/vanilla bean sorbet that was beyond anything i had ever tasted, a sorbet sampler (kiwi-coconut, blood orange and chocolate chip cookie dough - incredible), and a plate of truffles (dark chocolate and mint), tiny oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies, and blood orange slices. honestly, it may be the best meal i have ever had. afterwards we drove to north beach and walked around little italy and found a tiny corner cafe for port and espresso and we closed the place down.

i find it bittersweet to think that johannes will never enjoy such a perfect meal, but i feel this morning like going out and living so in the moment and just continuing to live and to breathe and to keep putting one foot in front of the other and to keep talking about him is a pretty good way to honor him.

risks and rewards

our new friend david hansen (also the parent of a dead son) suggested to me that if it was exhausting trying to not mention johannes, maybe i should take a hint and talk about him. so i gave it a whirl, but the results were disappointing - when i make references to our son to our friends we're visiting, their facial expressions freeze. i'm starting to see a trend - hans's death has strengthened my relationships with people with whom i already had real relationships and distanced people with whom i have had only surface relationships. a mixed bag, isn't it?

this afternoon, randy took us in his saab convertible to berkeley. (my new and unintentional buzz cut came in handy - last time i rode in the convertible i got swatted to death by my hair.) i realized that riding in a convertible and feeling the wind whip through your hair was one of those experiences johannes was never going to have. i remember my first ride in a convertible as a six- or seven-year-old and what a thrill it was for me, so i grieved a little for my son and yet another experience we won't share.

we ate garlic air-baked fries at smart alec's and shopped for records at rasputin and amoeba, which shouldn't have been that taxing, but in retrospect i was on my feet for about four hours straight and did a lot of uphill walking and stair-climbing, which turned out to not be a good plan. without being graphic, i will just say that i tried to do too much this afternoon for having delivered a baby three weeks ago and need to take a day off for bedrest, according to the experts. however, we already had tickets to see the futureheads tonight, and i could not bear to miss seeing johannes's favorite band, so against advice i went anyway.

what a great show! slim's was a great venue, and i was able to stake out a spot on the end of a bench in the front left corner of the room so i could see the band clearly but technically stay off my feet. our friends jen and laine had told us what great energy the futureheads had live, but i still wasn't prepared for how explosive they were.

we discovered the futureheads while i was still pregnant, and whenever we would play their cd, hans would go crazy inside me. he was always responsive to music, but something about this band just brought a huge response from him. as soon as the band came on stage tonight, i couldn't help but remember the first time justin played the cd for me, and we just had to dance (which doesn't happen spontaneously in our living room often) and then we discovered hans dancing, too. i remember so clearly feeling complete happiness at that moment.

i thought i must be the only person ever to cry through a futureheads show, but then i found out justin cried through most of it, too. after the show, we held on to each other hard. i remember reading somewhere (long before i was pregnant) that couples who lose a child are statistically much more likely to split up eventually. i hope to god it's not true (like the one about women over 40 having a better chance of being shot by a terrorist than of getting married, or something like that). at least in our case, we seem to be closer than ever, but when the pain is unbearable i can understand the temptation to let go of the person most likely to remind me of my pain.

lately we've been talking a little about (and i've been thinking a lot about) risk and reward in relationships. if i open myself up enough to make a real connection with someone, i'm risking experiencing pain but i'm also creating an opportunity to have a deeper relationship. and i'd rather deal with the shared pain of johannes's loss than to insulate myself by letting myself drift away from justin; he is the love of my life, and making a life with him is the best thing i ever did.

happy third week birthday, hans.

Han's Tofu House

One of the things I've seen recommended for new stillborn parents is to choose a name for their child, but not a common name that they'll constantly be running into. This was never really a problem for us: Johannes was always Johannes - well, almost always; Laura initially vetoed me on the name Jaromir (jaro, being the Czech for spring - mir, peace) - quite a beautiful name, don't you think?

Anyhow, as soon as the ultrasound announced the arrival of a boy, we just knew that Johannes was the name and that Johannes (Hans) would always be Johannes (Hans).

Living in North America, we had never really thought about constantly encountering our son's name, it's not all that common a name at this day and age. Yet, his name is everywhere: Driving home from the memorial service in Cleveland, we spotted a truck operated by Hans's Freighter Company and here in San Francisco we just passed Han's Tofu House (take that Laura, I knew that our boy would turn out to be into more sophisticated foods than hamburgers!). Richard tells me that there is a Johannes Grocery in Vancouver, which we plan to visit sometime later this week.

I guess that Han's is everywhere and I like that.

from the land of rice-a-roni

dude. we're in san francisco.

we thought we got everything, everything, done before we left this morning, but on the plane justin remembered we forgot to file our taxes. doh!

it has just occurred to me that we will not be able to claim johannes as a dependent on this year's tax return.

it's not really the deduction - i'm sure we would have spent more on him than we would have saved in taxes. but a tax return is an historical document; some future descendant (if there are any - god, i hope there are) trying to trace his family tree might search tax documents looking for us and totally miss johannes's existence.

i feel a compulsion to document my existence for future generations, which is ironic since thus far our next generation consists of some disturbingly-large bone chips in a small laminate box.

justin cannot understand why i need to keep six boxes labeled "childhood memorabilia"(among other boxes) in our root cellar. when he recently opened one up (presumably on a mission to prove there was nothing worth keeping there) and found my second grade report on the virtues of chairman mao, i thought i was never going to hear the end of it, to which i say, it was a different time, okay? nixon had just been to china, it was like a bold new frontier to us, and we didn't know then, at least in society at large, what we know now. we were just fascinated with this exotic place that was being opened up to us (admittedly only opened a tiny bit) and there was a ton of goodwill toward china and mao. justin wasn't even born yet when i wrote that report (which i do not even remember, by the way, so it's not as though it was some horrible indoctrination experience for me), so he cannot relate; he has never known a time when we didn't know about the less virtuous practices of mao - tiannamen square is probably the beginning of his political awareness of china. but back to my original point - the fact that i wrote the thing at age 7 is, to me, an interesting reflection of society in general at that time - which hopefully that mythical future descendant would find interesting and not an indictment.

this is my first time to visit san francisco, which seems odd, but it's true. randy was waiting for us at the airport and whisked us off to herbivore for mushrooms, bean tacos and marinated tofu (i think it was the garlic aioli that made the tofu so fantastic). he and justin have spent the afternoon trying to get their laptops to talk to each other and noodling on randy's guitars, which seems to have been good for justin, but i find it exhausting to not talk about johannes at all. maybe when jenny gets home from work it will be different, or maybe this will just be a tragedy-free zone for us, which may not be all bad. r& j sent us this insanely huge, incredibly beautiful basket of flowers last week, which i broke down on saturday to use the flowers in the arrangements i made for the memorial service/party (still not sure what to call it - i'm experimenting with terms - bear with me).

boy in a box

we picked up our son, or what is left of him after cremation, in a disturbingly small box this afternoon. we did okay at the funeral home, but as soon as we walked out, i broke into tears. we finally got to take johannes home today, but not in the format i would have preferred.

we are exhibiting cracks in our family unit today, justin by being uncharacteristically irritable, me by crying like i haven't cried in at least two weeks, and poor little johannes is in a million tiny pieces. we suck at being a family today.

justin apologized for being snappish a little bit ago, and i said (by way of trying to express forgiveness, i suppose), "hey, it's not every day you bring your boy home in a box."

we took our friend taih to lunch at frankie's (well, she insisted on paying, so technically she took us to lunch) before taking her to the airport. she is the last of our out-of-town people to leave. now we just need to get ourselves out of town. one more thing to do before we leave tomorrow: take the baby gear my mom packed up over to mike and kath's attic. the last thing we need is to come home and find that our basement flooded and the stroller and highchair and swing and carseats and whatever else are covered in mold.

i am most unhappy to find myself awake at this hour. i have been steadily getting up later and going to bed later every day for the last nearly three weeks, yet this morning i awoke at 7:46, which is not a time fit for decent people anyway. after lying in bed for exactly one hour i had to face up to the fact that i was not going to get back to sleep, especially listening to the snoring justin was producing; normally when he's snoring while i'm awake i shake him a little to get him to stop, but neither of us has been sleeping properly and i was loathe to wake him if he was actually sleeping soundly. one of us might as well be getting some sleep. so i'm eating oatmeal cranberry cookies and drinking apple cider (leftovers from the memorial party) and listening to the roy haynes trio and trying to be calm and let my daily pharmaceutical cocktail sink in and do its thing.

after i posted yesterday, i felt compelled to offer an apology to you, the reader, for how long my post was and for all of the details that could not possibly be interesting to anyone that didn't already know and love me greatly, and even then i might be pushing it. but it has occurred to me that no one writes a blog who doesn't feel some need to express something to someone, and if you're out there reading someone else's blog you probably have a borderline-unhealthy interest in the secret lives of others anyway. so we all have a role, and i'm just fulfilling mine. or at least that's how i'm rationalizing it.

so i pick up where i left off with getting the story of johannes's stillbirth out:

shortly after i was admitted to the hospital, my nurse brought me a large gray teddy bear and gave some schpiel about it, which i tuned out. i did not want to be given a child's toy; it's not as though ny child would ever enjoy it. later, after the delivery, i was brought another bear, apparently since the nurse on the night shift didn't see a bear anywhere in my room (i had asked that the first one be removed promptly); i did manage to accept the second bear a bit more gracefully before stuffing it in a large plastic hospital bag. i finally got around to reading the tag around its neck a couple of days ago. it's a nice cause (check them out at http://www.sierrasbears.org/) - just not the one for me. i don't think strapping a bear into the car seat would have made things any easier for me.

my mom got through to the room at 11:15 to let us know she was boarding her flight. i didn't know what she knew; all justin told his mom when he first called was that there was no heartbeat. so i asked my mom if she knew that he was gone, and she said yes. my mom is such a rock. if i had just found out that my grandchild was dead, i don't think i could have kept my composure and gotten myself to the airport on my own and spent all day by myself on planes.

let us all now praise the epidural. i had vacillated between wanting one and not wanting one through most of my pregnancy, but since my child was dead all of the medical personnel felt i should have all of the pain relief i wanted, as though it were the least they could do. the anesthesiologist who administered it was congenial in an appropriately subdued way, but the attending anesthesiologist stood in my room the whole time, talking to the doctor working on me and another resident about how they were going to handle the c-section down the hall. if i wasn't terrified of moving even a millimeter while a needle was being inserted into my spine, i think i would have ripped the guy up. even if there weren't all kind of legal problems involved with him discussing another patient in my presence, just basic decency should have come into play, shouldn't it? anyway, i will be eternally grateful for the 1-2 punch of the epidural and the nubain they gave me, which took care of my physical pain and made me hazy enough to not go out of my mind.

justin's grandmother and brother and his fiancee came to keep us company in the afternoon. we watched seinfeld re-runs and were treated to such comedy classics as "we were so poor, we couldn't afford to pay attention" by his grandmother. just one more reason to be grateful for the nubain haze.

in the mean time, justin went out and called most of our friends and broke the news to them. i was and still am overwhelmed by his courage; talking on the phone was the very last thing i wanted to do that day (even now, i'm a little averse to it); i don't know how he did it, but i'm blown away by it. the one person i wanted with me was my friend kath, and justin got that message to her and she came and sat with me and cried with me through the evening. one of the things i love most about kath is that she shoots from the hip with me and i can do the same with her, and it was such a relief to just be brutally honest about how i was feeling with her. then, about 8:00 that night my mom got to the hospital; another huge relief. when i'm in crisis and my mom comes to me, i can just let go and let her be the grown-up. then a little after 11, justin's dad got to us after a day of flight delays. i never knew his dad could be so emotional; i've gotten to know a whole new side of my father-in-law the last three weeks.

a little before midnight, i asked for another hit of whatever they were putting in my epidural, but the nurse anesthetist who was on that night informed me that she could tell by the way i was acting i was ready to push and wouldn't give me a new dose. she was the same person who came to our childbirth class to explain epidurals and she had rubbed me the wrong way with her tone then, which probably didn't help my attitude toward her now, but i don't think i would have appreciated her telling me what i was feeling wasn't pain, it was just pressure, even if i hadn't already met her. she went to get the attending ob (my ob had apologetically left at about 10:00 when i was still only dilated a couple of centimeters because he had been there the previous two nights and was also sick but promised to be back early in the morning) and i begged my nurse kelly (maybe the best obstetric nurse in the history of the universe) to not let the anesthetist back in the room; thankfully i didn't have to see her again other than for the few seconds it took her to pull out the epidural later.

i'm not entirely clear on all the rationale but what i could understand is that they wanted me to feel the pain (or pressure or whatever) so i could work with it to compensate for the fact that johannes couldn't make any efforts toward getting out, or something like that. by now, the epidural had worn off completely, so i had lots of pain/pressure with which to work. justin held one leg and kelly the other while i pushed for an hour. i identified with the sea turtle we had watched lay and bury her eggs a few years ago in costa rica; the sea turtle mother goes into a kind of trance that ensures that nothing stops her until she's dug the hole, laid all of the eggs, covered them and camoflaged the spot. the pain was so intense and exactly what i had feared for nine months and amazingly one of my first thoughts was, i could do that again! absolute insanity.

when johannes's head came out, justin turned toward me and i saw him mouth the words, the cord is wrapped around his neck, although i didn't hear any sound. my mom reported later that she heard justin wail those words at the top of his lungs, and it broke her heart to hear him. with the last push he came all the way out and i felt immense peace and relief. there was no slapping of his backside or first cry, but they quickly cut the cord and wrapped him and put him on my chest, and it ranks as one of the sweetest moments of my life. i find that to be one of the memories i keep trying to conjure up - the feel of his sweet weight against my chest. he looked exactly like i knew he would. a few weeks before, at one of our ultrasounds, i had gotten just a quick glimpse at his face before he covered it with his hands again (he was soooo his father's son), and so i knew his face as soon as i saw it.

he looked so much like justin - the same nose and cheeks and mouth and chin. justin says he sees me in him, too, especially in his mouth, and looking at a few of the pictures now, i can see a little of me around his eyes, but there is no doubt that he is justin's son - not to suggest that there was any reason to doubt - just that you could have walked into a nursery full of babies and said immediately, oh, it's that one!

we spent some time with him and justin took some pictures, then we let kelly take him to be weighed and measured and cleaned up, and our family came in to wait with us. it was a little weird to all stand there waiting together. everyone was so sad but still eagerly anticipating seeing johannes and holding him. the way everyone was gathered around my bed in a semicircle, i felt like i should be conducting them as a choral group, but i don't think anyone else found it as funny as i did. kelly finally brought him back in, dressed in a green gown and cap, and i got to hold him some more and then we gave him to my mother, and each family member got to spend a minute or two with him, saying hello and goodbye at the same time, while justin took pictures. finally, justin's family left to get a little sleep and my mom stayed at my request but gave us some time alone while we said goodbye to johannes.

he turned out to be 20 inches long - a shock because he had been small and short every time they measured him in the ultrasound. he was six pounds, three ounces, which was about what we had guessed he would be, although he might have been even bigger before he died and started to waste away. he had long fingers and long feet and toes - who knows where he got that from - some freaky recessed genes or something. the hard thing was that once he was cleaned up it was easier to see where his skin was peeling and he was coming apart. and the longer he was out, the colder and more bruised and pulled looking he became. but he was still amazingly beautiful.

later, we wished we had unwrapped him and looked at all of him, but i think it might be best that we just have his sweet face and beautiful hands and feet in our memories. according to the preliminary autopsy results, he was in pretty bad shape. i think it might have broken my heart even more to see hm falling apart.

after we said goodbye my mother came back in and the nurses cleaned me up and the three of us tried to sleep for a few hours. i tend to be hot all of the time anyway, but between the delivery and a fever i had during it, i wanted the room to be as cool as possible, which the staff accomodated, but it drove justin and my mother nuts. i slept with a sheet only so my butt would not be hanging out, but justin and my mom each piled on all of the blankets they could score plus all of their sweaters and coats and my robe and my bed jacket, and my mom even wrapped a blanket around her face and head. when i woke up at 7 to go to the bathroom, i took pity on them and asked the nurse to turn the heat back up. it turns out that during the delivery when i screamed for them to make it cooler, they complied by turning the thermostat down to 50. i liked it but i guess not everyone else has their personal thermostat set to match mine - but they should.

I wish that I could live on air and music

It's really freakin' spooky in my house at the moment. It's been almost three weeks since our son, Johannes, died. Since that day, our house has became a hub of activity. Two days after the memorial service, everyone has finally gone home; which is so bittersweet. I've been feeling really cramped, but at the same time, our company has kept me somewhat sane, if only because I was so busy entertaining them and fulfilling endless lists of things to do.

By my best count, 79 people showed up at Hans memorial on Saturday. We fealt very much loved, and we know and trust in our hearts that they too loved Hans as we did. Still, I can't help but wonder what happens from here ... for many, Saturday served as a point of closure for them with our son. He was someone that existed, briefly, but not in the same light as he had existed for us. For us he will always be here, and I don't think that most people understand this. "Time heals all wounds". I don't think so, infact, I call bullshit. My wounds are bleeding deeply, and they will continue to do so for quite some time. They may very well scab over, but they (he) will always be here. You can't just sweep your child under some rug. A dear friend of ours had poignantly mentioned that being the parent of a dead child is much more trying than being the parent of a living child. She gets us. I get her, but then again, she's the mother of a dead child. I suppose that we 'get' each other, while others look at us in disbelief; grieving for ghosts.

alone at last

this is the first time we have been completely alone since we learned johannes was dead. we have always been in someone else’s presence for the last 19 days, even at night after we came home from the hospital, when my mom was asleep downstairs in our little 1500 sq ft interior-door-less house. i think justin is a little spooked at being home alone, but i confess i feel newly normal, or at least the way i would like normal to be, i.e. neither of us going to work and just hanging out around the house, me in my t-shirt and rash, justin in his homer simpson slippers, listening to patsy cline and elvis costello.

our son, johannes christian (aka hans), was stillborn on 17 February 2005, although he probably died two or three days before that day. on the morning of the 16th, we got up, ate our toast and drank chocolate silk, and went to the fetal diagnostic center for our weekly non-stress test. and when i got up on the table and the nurse put the monitor on me, they couldn’t find our son’s heartbeat. and i couldn’t stop sobbing, because i knew he was gone. they rushed us into the ultrasound room (if only we had known that thinking your baby was dead was the way to get in fast, we could have saved the hours and hours of our lives we have lost sitting in that waiting room!). as soon as they put the transponder on my abdomen, i saw the flat lines at the bottom of the screen, and the technician said, “i can’t find anything.” and then it was real. that was the single most horrible moment of my entire life (and there have been a few truly horrible moments in the last 35 years). i must have scared all of the other mothers whose fetuses were still alive with my screams, and a nasty, small, spiteful place in me kind of likes it. i remember clinging to justin and howling the word “no” over and over. justin alternated between holding on to me and rubbing his face into the ultrasound gel on my stomach, shaking with sobs.

if there is a hell, that was it.

i just realized i have not woken up in the night reliving that horror the last couple of nights; what a relief. but writing it down makes it raw all over again.

justin called his mom and said “there’s no heartbeat” and “get [laura’s mom] here” and called his work and said “i’m not coming in” and “don’t ask”. the radiologist came in and asked if i had noticed any fluid leaking, which i hadn’t, because there was almost no amniotic fluid left. fortunately, my ob’s office is in the same building, on the same floor, and they got his exam room cleared and took us over through the winding halls that connect the offices, for which i am thankful, because at that moment i could not have walked through the waiting room of women with bellies full of throbbing, galloping heartbeats.

my ob is the kind of person who really thinks about what he says before he says it and doesn’t feel obligated to fill a silent space just because it’s there, for which i love him. he came in prepared to give us lots of space in which to freak out (maybe he had heard my howls 15 minutes before from across the building), but what i needed most at that moment was to know exactly what the plan was and in particular how he planned to extract this dead baby from my body. so he gave it to us straight: they would induce labor, the best case scenario was that i would deliver in as little as 12 hours but 24 was probably more like it and it could take longer than that. i had expected (in the flash of a moment i had had to generate any expectations) that it would be more like an abortion, where they would sort of disseminate the fetus and extract it semi-surgically; at the very least, i assumed they would do a c-section. But my ob felt that there were too many unnecessary risks with a c-section. with the hindsight of 20 days, the day i spent in labor gave me a little time to begin to process everything that was happening (and everything that wasn’t going to happen) and for my mom and justin’s dad to get to us. but at the time i was horrified that i was still going to have to go through labor and deliver a dead baby.

the weird thought i’m having today is that for once justin and i weren’t snickering in the doctor’s office. months ago i had a dream of a somewhat intimate nature involving my ob and certain, shall we say, “adult” behaviors of the variety that i do not normally prefer in my waking hours. (i feel the need to defend myself and assert that i am a pretty open-minded individual, but there are some things i like, and some things for which i do not care, and i’m over that need now.) when i woke up, i found the dream so funny that i had to tell justin; consequently, at every subsequent check-up, we would at some point look at each other and have to suppress our giggles. the week before we found out johannes was dead, the ob was examining me manually to determine if my cervix was at all dilated, and justin plead ed with him to give us something, even a centimeter. and for the next week we kept cracking up at the absurdity of my husband watching another person, about whom i had enjoyed an erotic thought or two, feeling me up, and begging him to give us something, anything.

so i guess you had to have been there.

after we had gotten an idea of how things were going to go, my ob examined me and found that i was dilated about 1 ½ cm and that the membranes around johannes were still intact, which at least explains how i wasn’t aware of the loss of amniotic fluid.

my ob went to get the nurse’s aide with hair even shorter than mine to walk us over to labor and delivery, justin and i held on to each other, and cried a little, and i think i asked him more than once to assure me that we were going to be all right. walking over to l&d was difficult when we got to their entrance with all of the beautiful black and white photos of parents and babies together. i had been enjoying those photos for months, going all of the way back to when i was only about 4 or 5 weeks pregnant and we weren’t sure if he/she was going to make it, and i had to go to l&d for blood work on a Sunday afternoon. the babies in these pictures are beautiful and homely and perfect in their imperfections; they were just the most incredible, breathtakingly-honest baby pictures i had ever seen. i felt from the first that the photographer really loved these babies. now i felt like these pictures mocked me.

we had to wait a few minutes while they got their most-private birthing room ready for us (translation: if we put her in the most remote room, she will be less likely to scare the women with real babies with her howling). justin’s mom and brother got there 30 seconds later; i have always told anyone that would listen that i hit the jackpot in the in-law department, but i loved my mother-in-law more than ever at that moment. she called my office for me and then sat with me and held my hand while justin and his brother went to get the suitcase we had packed so carefully and had in the back of our station wagon for what seemed like an eternity, anticipating hans's birth. i was glad that i had packed johannes's things in a separate bag; at that moment i could not have handled seeing his little alpaca sweater our friend mike brought him from peru that we had planned for him to wear home. they also put the car seat and his bag in my mother-in-law’s car, for which i was grateful. i did not want to drive home with an empty car seat.

in the first moments after i stopped howling in the ultrasound room, my immediate thought was that i wanted someone to go through our house and strip anything remotely baby-related from it before i went home. thankfully, before i asked anyone to do that, i had a change of heart and realized i wanted, needed to go through his things myself.

justin’s stepfather got to the hospital, and he could barely speak. not to take anything away from justin’s dad, with whom he has a great relationship, but his stepfather was as much johannes's grandparent as anyone else. My in-laws and i bonded a little further when they came into the birthing room to see me after i had gotten into my hospital gown; when they moved to the side of the room to get out of the way of the anesthesiologists, they were treated to a prime view of my big, blindingly-white behind. Later, my mother-in-law insisted they didn’t notice, but i think they were just trying to spare my feelings.

the outside world invades, but it’s a welcome invasion, because (1) it’s matt and sara, who (like my ob) are people who think about what they say and don’t feel obligated to speak to fill in the conversational gap and therefore can be trusted to mean what they say when they say it and (2) this has become the world’s longest blog entry and i’ve spilled about all of the guts i can stand to spill right now and could frankly use a therapeutic margarita. oh, and also (3) continued contact with the outside world motivates me to bathe daily, which i must go do promptly.