i have never been less self-confident in my life.
i haven't posted for days, and not from lack of things to write. it's more from feeling in a place of total hypocrisy. it's about the fact that i have children.
i remember being on email loops when i was going through infertility. i was in the more elite, primary infertility club. there were some groups you couldn't join at all if you had secondary infertility. i mean, how could we feel sorry for you, with your first, second, or (imagine this) third child already born? we had no idea if we'd ever have a child at all. secondary infertility? yeah, assholes...right? and i kinda, a little, felt that way, but at least not in a *no moms allowed* or *skip (pregnancy/child mentioned) posts* kinda way.
after i had them, i would still read infertility blogs constantly...still infatuated with the two lines (can't say that's changed, but now it brings excitement with bone-wracking fear). the thing is, though, i wanted to email each one of those pregnant infertile chicks and warn them: HAVING THE BABY IS GOING TO SUCK and you are going to feel like shit for being stressed, anxious, depressed...because you worked so hard for it. i wanted to tell them to be prepared for the confusion and that it was normal and ok. you wanted the baby so fucking bad, desperately even, and now you want to leave it on the street corner? normal. don't worry about it. carry on.
three live and one dead baby later, i can see the juxtaposition of emotion that dealing with any type of pregnancy or baby loss (including infertility) brings when you have other kids.
these children are driving me insane. literally. they are at the point in age (almost three) where, as a mother, i should expect them to exert constant pressure. they are testing boundaries, and are unable to control their impulses. fine. but i can't handle it right now. I WASN'T TRAINED TO BE A NURSERY SCHOOL TEACHER.
i feel like my reproductive life is a total freak show. i mean, come on! yeah, sure...i survived infertility. but the evidence will stay with me forever in the form of higher order multiples. i hate the *special* attention...and it's not always even nice. now.....see what i just wrote? shouldn't i know better, as an infertile AND a dead baby mom? YOU HAVE THREE CHILDREN, YOU ASSHOLE.
on a daily basis, i feel like i can barely handle these three. i am in serious need for time-outs just so i don't scream my lungs out at them. i think to myself (in reference to the back-and-forth of trying to decide whether or not to try to have another baby), "ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY??" yet, i SHOULD have another baby. RIGHT NOW.
and i want her so bad i want to die...but i am not even confident about that...the only thing i feel sure of. whatever that means.
what i'm trying to say is, how can i feel so terrible about not having her here when i can barely emotionally handle these kids? i feel like a total hypocrite. i am constantly, emphatically, screaming in my head, "NO MORE CHILDREN!!!" yet i am grieving my dead baby girl. yes, i already know it's normal for your kids to drive you up a wall, even when you yearn for the one you lost. but emotionally, i have no such knowledge.
like i said to coggy, on the topic of "what's worse...," i lost count a long time ago. primary infertility? secondary? miscarriage at 8 weeks? stillbirth at 27 weeks? at term? SIDS at two months? losing your first baby? your third? your fourth when you have triplets in the terrible twos?
yet i know how i would feel if i lost my first baby. i think, a little, because i know how i felt to have primary infertility. and i don't want to hurt anyone with complaints about what i feel so fucking grateful to already have...especially when i'm so screwed up about it myself. my fantasy about what that baby would have been is shattered by the daily, soul-grinding anxiety caused by these three; by the constant thought of, "oh my god, THIS SUCKS." although i do sometimes admit that maybe, just maybe, the stress of dead baby is what's pushing me over the edge. wow, you think? or would it be even worse if i had an infant to care for, too? the dirty rotten fact is that i'll never know.
i think that's the biggest mind-fuck of all for me. that i can't just grieve my beautiful dead daughter without all this other bullshit assaulting my brain. doubting myself- as a mother to the living and the dead.
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You know sometimes I worry about the wanting a baby thing. I wonder that while I do want a family part of it right now is wanting something because I haven't got it. A bit like infertility I guess. I want to have a baby so badly that it's obsessive, but when that baby arrives????? mmmmmm. Will the grass be so green?
Dealing with three young children, you have every right to be pissed and finding it difficult to cope without the added nightmare of grieving for P@ige. You still love them, they're just like you say testing you, and yep I'll say it again there's 3 of them.
I don't know many women who lose a baby and don't want to have another. Despite the current situation with your triplets I don't think that feeling will change, and even though it may seem hypocritical to you I really don't think it is. I think deep down a lot of the urge stems from us not wanting this to be our last experience of childbirth regardless of our current situation. For you to have that single pregnancy and single baby experience that you had so looked forward to. For all of us to have the baby we had so looked forward to, even if it's not the one we thought we'd have.
Sorry feel like I've waffled on a lot and not said anything productive.
You know I beat myself up about all sorts of stuff all the time. DH keeps telling me I'm too tough on myself. So I'm going to pass that on and say please try not to be so tough on yourself either. You have a lot to deal with right now and you are still able to get up every day and face it you are doing amazingly well even if it feels like you're doing sh*t.
I just want to say keep venting, I certainly don't ever think, oh whatever you've got kids. Not ever. It's all relative. sorry long comment ;o)
big ((((hugs))))
I guess in a way it is hypocritical. I mean I have 2 kids They aggravate me. They completely irritate me. I scream and yell when I know I probably shouldn’t. I let them sit in front of the TV when I just can’t cope with being a mom. Being a parent is hard. And yes, it ABSOLUTELY, REALLY, REALLY sucks sometimes. But this doesn’t negate the fact that I love my kids and I know that I am (overall) infinitely a better person because I have them. Nor does it negate the fact that I loved my little boy and really, really wanted him, even though I was so scared to be a mother to three. I would tell myself all the time that I could barely cope with 2, how was I possibly going manage being a mother to 3???? Many of my dreams for him were for me. I felt that, with his birth, I would do better this time as a mom. That he would help me erase all the errors of my past. I would become a more patient mom. I would be less controlling. I would be less stressed. I would let them finger paint more and do more crafts and not worry about whether they got food all over their clean clothes. I would do better; I would try harder…if only for my little boy.
And right now, as much as I would LOVE to just lie in bed all day long and mourn the little boy I’ve lost, I can’t. My 2 living kids won’t let me. I trudge through my days and do things because I have to, not because I want to. And even with this said, I believe Callum has made me a better mom. I still get insanely irritated with my kids. I am short with them. I let them be babysat by the television way too often. But, I also know that I hug them more. I don’t stress as much about bedtimes and food spills. I participate more only because I KNOW that it could be gone in a fraction of a second. My not-so-happy life as a parent could very easily be taken away from me and I would be left with nothing. Nothing is not what I want, if you can pardon the double-negative.
You’re not a hypocrite, charmedgirl. You are a good mother to triplets going through their terrible twos, AND you are grieving the loss of a baby you wanted very much. A baby you dreamed about and loved. Give yourself credit. You are dealing with things that so few can ever even imagine. I may not personally know you, but I do know you are doing the best possible you can do right now. Sometimes the “best possible” just has to be good enough, ya know?
Hugs (and sorry about the super long comment). XOXOX.
Okay, I don't have a living child, so you can take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt. You are being way too hard on yourself. There is no pain competition here, so you can't compare hurt/pain/loss, but I, when hearing of people with loss who already have living children, often wonder how they do it. See, i had none, I got to grieve, scream, not eat, stay in bed etc. I know those of you with living children don't get to do that as much. You need to totally forgive yourself. You are still early in grief. Quite frankly, if you get out of bed, and feed those triplets, I think you are doing pretty good. Maybe they do need to sit in front of the TV all day right now.
As for the longing for another baby, then questioning yourself, well, you want to know some thoughts I have? I always worry, because I never parented a living child, what if I do, and I find it isn't for me? What if I don't take to mothering? How could I ever live with myself or admit that? So, I guess what I'm trying to say is everything you typed sounds normal to me, especially the guilt.
Thinking of you.
oh lord, where to start? what a mess of shit you are dealing with. first of all, i had two kids when i lost my charlotte. i couldnt deal, i couldnt eat or sleep. ittook a while to return to the land of the living. i had people helping me care ofr my kids. i felt guilty that i abandoned them. i know that it wouldve hurt way worse to lose charlotte had she been my first but i certainly didnt want anybody to minimize my pain with that fact. fact is, its irrelevant. your baby is dead. that is what matters here. you dont need to justify your grief to us, maybe to epople in real life because they can be such insensitive assholes. nobody in deadbabyland has ever minimized my pain because i have two kids. actually me. I minimized my pain, like you are doing. you've been through a living hell and now you cant even fall apart properly because you are busy caring for three two year olds??!! sounds like hell on earth, really. maybe its good that they are keeping you up and about but still. whats my point? to have another baby? how could paige be your last now that youve been thru this? but i am here to tell you that you will still have immense grief for paige even after you have another baby. you will always be down one even if you have 100 more. perhaps you could have a corrective experience by having a single live baby. and you could maybe have some help so you can properly revel in your single baby. do you have help now? how on earth could anybody deal with triplets anyway especially while grieving as you are? keep venting and ranting and raving on your blog. nobody in real life understands like deadbabymoms do. and we are real people. i dont know what i've said here. i just wanted to say something.
charmedgirl, I have nothing to contribute to this one, due to my lack of...you know...living children (hey I tried!), but I think mg g. has a really good point. We do get to do whatever we need to do, to get through the day. No one is counting on us, for anything. And sometimes I wonder if never knowing what I missed *might* be slightly easier. I'm likely full of crap, but I don't know what it would be like to have kids--I can't even imagine. So I'm pretty removed from the whole thing, if that makes sense?
I can't pretend to know how you feel about your loss of P@ige as I am not a mother myself and have never been pregnant. I do know how hard it is to deal with 3 year old multiples as I have taken care of twins for 3 1/2 years (since birth) and I am with them more than their parents. Sometimes you want to scream, flip out because they have learned how to argue, lie, how to look you in the eyes and say "no, i will not (insert eat, go to the bathroom, stay in bed, stop biting, clean up...). It is infuriating at times, but when they are sweet it is sweetness times 2 or 3 or more.
It seems that when someone becomes a mother, they are implanted with a guilt chip and have this extreme capactiy to blame themselves or feel bad about their feelings. Being a mother is a hard job, harder than most other things out there. You are maid, chef, negotiater, punisher, nurturer. And you do it x3. Nobody likes their job all the time, everyday. Everybody b*tches about work. You can too.
They are all the same age so you have it especially tough. I feel ready to lose it on a daily basis with the twins, I honestley don't know how you are doing it, let alone after losing P@ige. Give yourself a pat on your back. You are doing a fantastic job under horrific circumstances.
I too have wanted to gently warn mothers who have finally had a living child after either infertility, loss, or both. I have wanted to hug them in advance and say that you will not be the Supermom you dreamed you would be. You will actually get angry at your baby. You will sob in the middle of the night and wish more than anything for just one good night's sleep. All while loving that little person beyond measure. It's a hard, hard calling... motherhood, that is.
Most of what I would say has already been said. Just know that grieving is hard work, and I remember my counselor sympathizing with my laments and telling me, "Children don't know how to be respectful of grief." They only know how to be themselves, and they want what they want when they want it. Whether or not Mommy is feeling sad today, or utterly exhausted, is of no consequence to them. It is hard to be a mother to both the living and the dead. I remember that first year well, and I didn't have triplets to cope with. Mine were 5 and 8 and in school most of the day. I think I might have drowned had it not been for those 8 hours they were gone everyday. And yes, I felt guilty for those thoughts then. But not now. I know that I did the best I could with very limited emotional resources. And you know what? My boys are just fine.
Hang in there. It's all you can do sometimes.
I can relate to the guilt about the living children thing. We're getting into a crappy, stressful, anxiety-filled time with our pregnancy and I'm hoping between my husband and I taking turns freaking out, that we dont permanently damage our one healthy, living child. These existing kids force you to continue on and it's hard not to just want to scream, 'Please go away and dont bother me until I've worked out all of my crap.' That sounds so horrible and I know that deep down somewhere inside of me I am grateful for being 'blessed' with any children at all - it's just that all the being appreciative stuff takes a backseat every now and then.
I identify with this post so much. I lost my first child, and a year and a half later had our son, and I still deal with a lot of the messed up, confusing stuff you talk about. I only have one almost-three year old, and many days I feel desperate; I can't imagine that your feelings are out of the ordinary at all. Doesn't make it any better though, does it?
I particularly identified with this sentence: "HAVING THE BABY IS GOING TO SUCK and you are going to feel like shit for being stressed, anxious, depressed...because you worked so hard for it."
I used to wonder about whether my son would be here if our daughter had survived, but then I decided that was a pointless question to ponder. I decided to just assume that he would and that if our daughter hadn't died we'd have two kids. And then I wonder if I would have killed myself from the stress of it all. But ultimately, you are allowed to feel all these things, and it doesn't make you a bad person. It would be nice if more people were honest like you, so that women wouldn't beat themselves up so badly for having normal feelings to stressful situations.
I'm sorry you're having such a tough time.
I feel guilty when I complain about my situation because I think of all the people (you included) who have suffered so much more than I have. And I've even managed to get a free pass out of ever having to go through another pregnancy.
I realize it's not a competition, but still.
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