I have recently come to learn of a community of "babyloss." It is both a blessing and a curse. I am reminded of Sartre's wisdom: Hell is other people. But I guess that I would add that hell is their presence and their absence. Hell is the isolation I feel in a crowd and the darkness I inhabit in broad daylight. Loss is a new language that most people don't speak and have no interest in. It is sand in the throat.
I am waiting for that moment of trancedence that somehow justifies or mitigates this impossible state of being. The pain is renewed so often by so many innocuous situations that I wonder how much longer this can continue before my despair smashes everything around me.
Recently my coworker's triplet grandsons were admitted to the hospital with a mysterious presumed virus. She related that her daughter saved one of the boys by recognizing he was unwell and taking him straight to the hospital. My friend, who is no stranger to stuggle, also managed to save her sick child by insisting that her babies co-bed and by never leaving her side. Although no one intended to suggest that my parenting was inadequate, I have not been able to shake the feeling of abject, fetid failure. And that's all I can say about that right now.
This started as an online journal in early 2006. At the time, it was a carefree spot for silly diatribes and the occasional photo. Since then, I got pregnant with mono.amniotic mono.chorionic twins, learned one of our daughters had a heart defect, spent 11 weeks in a hospital room and 29 more days with Eva in the NICU and PICU before losing her. We have two children who are alive and thriving and one who didn't make it. For me, this has become that place in between.
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