i opened my eyes this morning and my first two thoughts were:1- i think i left a comment on p@ige's name in the s@nd picture using my charmedgirl name and the pic is posted with her full name and OH MY GOD someone can google my last name and find this blog and i have open legal cases and i say whatever-the-fuck on here and HOLY SHIT i couldn't have done that, could i have?? (i could have and absolutely did...)
2- what the fuck was i thinking, having so many visitors in the hospital after having p@ige? i was in the hospital for five days, and there was a steady stream of people coming in and out, and i didn't even care. (don't bother asking what the fuck the photographer was thinking taking this picture, i mean, you'd think someone just announced i won the lottery for the love of god. husband will capture the moment, goddamnit. don't make me prove it by posting the picture he had taken of the two of us with his dead mother...) anyway, still sleepy this morning, i remembered this picture and thought, what a perfect summation of what it's like to have a dead baby, week 1. there i am, shocked, composed. there everyone is, visiting. mulling. carrying on with whatever the fuck. when it's time for them to leave, they leave. still i sit there, sometimes crying softly, sometimes ridiculously philosophical, sometimes just there, ever composed. there i was in bed this morning, thinking of this picture, this scenario. i cringe when i think of the visitors. i cringe when i think of how i was just so gone, so not even there. i hate that i allowed all those visitors. i hate that i was so gaping open and everyone saw...well, they saw what you see in the picture, me sitting there, composed. such a juxtaposition in my mind....
i'm glad i have that fucking awful goddamned picture. i'm not sure why, but i am.
proof? probably.
eta: i just noticed the bag full of piss from my catheter by the bed...meaning i was what, a few hours out from the c-section?? jesus CHRIST...it was worse than i thought...
18 comments:
This photo took my breath away. I knew exactly when it was taken. It's so symbolic of grief -- you look alone, like an island, in a sea of normality, and your focus is somewhere else entirely. A movie director couldn't have shot any better.
The really sad thing is that a lot of days, I still feel just like that. Sitting on an island, a million miles away, everyone milling around me.
Can you ask the sand people to trash your name? I'd think they'd oblige.
I didn't let anyone come to the hospital, not until the day after and then it was just my mom to bring me clothes so I wouldn't have to wear my maternity things home. I know exactly ehat you mean about people seeing you open and gaping, wounded and weak. I hated that. Absofuckinglutely hated it. Still do. Makes me feel like a bad car crash that people are just slowing down to look at...not because they care but because they are fascinated by the gore that is not their own.
The thing about the pic that is so telling to me is that no one is looing at you, they are are looking past you, away from you, away from the horror I guess.
I lived that picture, expect I was still in labor. The circle of chairs filled, then emptied - then filled again, like a wake, as I sat stunned and disbelieving. I mean, how could the child inside me be dead when I was having contractions?
And hell- look at the number of KIDS in that room with you. Seriously, who thought that was a bright idea?
That's not composed, that's stunned and shocked. Tash is right-- you could set the scene to music and have all the people around you move on time lapse, and you would still be sitting there, just like that. A fucking movie.
That is horrible! There are no words to capture the moment...but I think you're right. The photograph did.
oh geez. Look at how alone you are. everyone engaged in something or someone, then there you are, in shock, staring off in the abyss...
this gave me chills..
YOu could label that "The Horror Story". And I say that only as a fellow deadbabymom. But you are so right, everyone is just carrying on around you while you sit there in shock. I hate the gaping feeling too. I don't like being on display.
If I had allowed a camera in my room, it would have been a similar shot. I could remember my father and father-in-law chatting about mundane shit and my step-mom and MIL straightening things in the room. I sat on the bed with a similar look on my face, blood pooling out of me, hours after delivering. I remember having actual conversations about stupid bullshit and thinking "what the hell am I doing?! Being the hostess? This isn't a goddamn cocktail party I'm throwing..."
Amazing that the world doesn't crack open and swallow us whole afterwards. Sometimes I wish it would have.....
This photo took my breath away. Because I totally get it. And you mention "being gone", that is exactly what it was like for me.
Oh, and I have never seen the name in the sand thing before. Interesting, because one of my traditions after M died was to write his name in the sand every time we visit the beach. Thanks for introducing me to the site.
I am on the other end of the spectrum from you. I wish I had let people come to the hospital albeit not that many!
I'm with Tash, it took my breath away, I too see the loneliness and the lost look on your face. Didn't notice the cath until you pointed it out!
Thinking of you!
Yes, shocked. Just look at you. That picture is so sad, charmy. I sort of feel that we get to spend the rest of our days feeling exactly like that but not being able to show it.
Did you get the name in the sand pic taken down? I'm happy to know you're going forward with, well, you know. Some recognition of fault would be nice.
There is more truth in this one picture than in all of the words of loss I have ever read.
Like k@lakly, the first thing I noticed was that no one was looking at you, like you weren't there. And that you were looking, but she wasn't there.
Sad picture, indeed.
I felt alone. My husband. Then my mom and dad came. That was it. Besides the hospital staff, we were the only people to actually see Sophie. I wish we had done it differently.
I had to search for the bag of pee.
Fuck. I recognize that girl. That picture takes me right back. I think I sat like that for hours. Fortunately not surrounded by people.
You know if it wasn't so personal and we all hadn't been there I'd probably comment what an amazing piece of portrait photography that is. But, yeah, we have all been there and it's way beyond an interesting observational picture on stillbirth.
Seriously - Fuck.
That's an extraordinary picture. It could almost be a scene from a movie or a play.
Though, sick as it sounds, looking at it makes me a little jealous. Because I had preeclampsia, I was in the hospital for a long, long time -- 2weeks? three weeks? I spent almost every minute of it entirely alone. My family and friends don't do grief and on the few occasions when someone visited, s/he stayed only a few minutes, said little, if anything, then left.
I have stumbled in here through a few other blogs,
I am happy to take your babies, name off the website if you would like me too :) Or if you like I can remove her last name.
Please, please contact me if I can do anything for you, the last thing I want that site to bring you is worry.
Sending you my love
Carly
carly@namesinthesand.net
oh yeah..shock.. ain't it a bitch? I have one where my face looks
just. like. yours. Amazing. The beginning of the end, really.
That picture so perfectly describes the lost feeling I had for days following. I actually have similar pictures, with family in the room after I delivered our daughter. When I saw them for the first time, it freaked me out. I don't have any memory of them ever being in the room, but the pictures are evidence.
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