This is the week of birthdays. My father-in-law, my own father and today – K’s dearly missed Uncle Dave and of course, Foster. Today is his second silent birthday. The fact that it’s distracted by a grinning, crawling baby helps and yet hurts too. All the things Kip is doing and we’re experiencing with him, we’ve missed with our sweet firstborn.
I find this year I’m experiencing more flashbacks of the labour and birth than I am of anything else. Maybe if Foster’s birth had been easier like Kip’s I wouldn’t be so traumatized, but I try hard not to think of his birth if I can help it. It’s like I relive it if I think too much about the whole thing.
As for Kipling and K – they’re doing pretty well. I’ll try & update properly in a separate post, but Kip is a dream and K is the best partner a girl could ask for.
There have been a couple of comments about where I’ve been and the status of this blog of late. Truth is, I have a baby who hates being alone which doesn’t leave me a lot of free time to update or do anything other than read.
So, let’s see. Kipling is almost 7 months old and just the loveliest baby. He’s EBF which is a personal victory since we didn’t know if I’d be able to nurse him at all due to my breast reduction, let alone without supplementing. We’re starting solids slowly and he cut his first tooth this week. We’re bedsharing as well which allows all of us to be pretty well rested, although doesn’t give me much alone time.
K is still off sick, but we’re working with a new diagnosis and medications with hopes that he’s able to get back to work this spring. While it sucks that he’s not better yet, it is nice that he’s spending a little extra time with Kip.
Finally, I’m still here, parenting Kipling and thinking about Foster. It’s surreal sometimes – that I’m missing a son but still parenting a living child. I choked up when it was our turn to visit Santa this week – all those dreams I had are happening now, just with a different baby at a different time. I don’t visit the bereavement boards as much anymore, partly because it’s so sad that we’re constantly welcoming new parents, new mourners. It doesn’t mean I ever stop thinking about them though.
Otherwise, I’m good. I’m trying to lose some weight I put on before having babies, and for the first time in several years I’m not pregnant or trying to conceive. It’s a nice place to be. I’ve started sewing and making soap again when I get the chance, but most often I’m baking stuff for K to try. I can strap a baby-carrier on and it gives me the half hour I need to create something.
I’m looking forward to this spring – hopefully we’ll get the food garden put in, and start on the laundry list of projects we have in mind. Everything from fixing up the barn doors to getting meat birds, cleaning up the pool and sprucing up that pet cemetery so we can get it operating once again.Oh – and the van. I can’t wait for the van to get on the road. Weekend camping trips, meandering around Ontario and Quebec – so exciting.
For the first time in many many years I’m optimistic that some sort of ‘normal’ is coming our way. Normal family, normal life, normal experiences.
I know I’ve written about K’s Crohn’s in the past – it dominated our lives in 2009 resulting in a bowel resection for K in late 2009 due to a stricture. It’s been a hard road since – K had a Crohn’s flare up last summer after Foster died and has been trying to get back to work for 2 years now.
In April 2011 K finally started back to work – slowly in order to adjust and build up tolerance. Kipling’s arrival delayed things a little, but K was able to get going, and start to build in some regularity to going back to work on an adjusted, and scaling schedule. Over the last month or so as he’s supposed to be going more often, he hasn’t been able to. Bouts of deep fatigue, nausea, vomiting and running to the bathroom have left him unable to go to work, but all the tests have come back clear – there’s no sign of active disease in his guts.
Last week K had a CT scan done (thank you Canadian health care), and K found out the results on Thursday. He is 80% blocked in his bowel at the stricture site. Imagine having a large drinking straw for your waste material to pass through. All that fiber you eat, blocking and clearing over and over in a day. No wonder he’s exhausted and in pain.
We don’t know what the treatment plan or prognosis will be this time. The body has a finite amount of intestine and you can’t cut forever. If there’s a mass like last time, there may not be many options other than to cut it out. There’s a possibility of a colostomy bag as an end result, but there’s also the fact that obstructions can be deadly, surgery is not always smooth sailing and there are drug-resistant bacteria in the hospitals. K is not in a risk-free situation here.
There is also the fact that at 34 his body is hamstringing a lifetime of dreams. There is something to be said about the frustration of a man who just wants to support his family, or share in the chores. K can do neither when he’s ill.
So here we go again. Hospitals, tests, procedures, bad news, insurance companies, tight-ass budgets, worry, stress and watching K struggle in pain physically and emotionally. Again. If you want to read his first hand account of what this life is like, head on over to his website.
Yes, I’ve been busy. The adjustment to mothering a living child has been wonderful – all encompassing, tedious, tiring, but great. Kip is an easy-going baby, he smiles quickly and I find I’m able to read what he needs pretty well most days. He’s 16 weeks tomorrow, and growing like a weed – already in 6 and 9 month sleepers.
I find my mourning is less. It’s more obvious what I’ve missed with the loss of Foster – there were no smiles or grins during nursing sessions. There is no toddler around here screeching or telling me about the dog or the chickens. There is a space where we are missing a son.
But there’s peace – Kipling is here, and we’re baby-wearing and on-demand nursing and cloth diapering and co-sleeping / bed-sharing and just loving each other. He beams when I smile at him and he grins at K, although not as much since he’s not-mom.
Life is good. We’re broke, tired, K is still sick, there are a million things that need to happen here in preparation for the winter, but life is good. There are three of us making noise in this house now, and while I can’t help to think it should be four, I’m still glad for what I do have, because man, he’s cute.
After posting Foster’s birth story in March 2010, I’m thrilled to post a happier birth story for Kipling.
Short: Born at home on May 25 at 9:52am after a short labour of just over 5 hours. 10.5lbs, 22” long and an estimated 39w4d gestation. A shoulder dystoscia and tight nuchal cord made delivery a little hairy, and after spending the day on the phone with CHEO we went in for an assessment for blood sugar levels the evening Kip was born. After transferring hospitals, and yelling at several medical professionals, we finally got home a long 48 hours later and started our ‘babymoon’.
Just a quick note to say that Kipling arrived May 25th at 9:52am at home, after a quick 4 hour labour and dramatic entrance. Weighing in at 10.5lbs and 22″ long, he’s a gorgeous, healthy boy. We spent a couple of days in the hospital as a precaution (everything was and is fine) but have been home since Saturday morning and we’re getting to know each other.
Birth story to come at some point, but here’s a photo to tide everyone over. Life is blissful.
Which is exactly how this feels. A long journey with no end in site. There’s a promise of an end, but not an actual end visible.
39w2d. Each day is an eternity and then I wake up dejected that I didn’t go into labour over night. And the next thing I do is see if the baby is moving and check to see if he’s still alive.
This is torture of another type. I wish I knew what the right thing to do was. Get him out? Induce? Liberate him from this body so he has a chance at living? Or do we wait for him? Wait for Little K to decide his birth date. There are no easy answers over here.
That’s right. Today is arbitrary 39w mark. The same one where Foster died. Yeah – it’s a bit tense over here.
Little K is head down thanks to an ECV on Tuesday morning. We decided to try the ECV because Monday’s assessment estimated the baby’s weight at 10lbs which clearly puts us over the SOGC’s Vaginal Breech Birth guidelines. Yes my pelvis could probably easily deliver a 10lb breech, but finding an OB who would trust it to happen is another issue all together. I don’t have the energy right now to fight for something that would fly in Frankfurt Germany but not here. Good science is good science wherever it may be, but I’m tired after the last 2 years. We had taken the latest possible scheduled c-section (I refuse to call it elective) for last week which was Tuesday at 1pm. After lots of discussion with our Midwives, Doula and each other, we were ok with the decision even if it wasn’t 100% the way we wanted things to go. That said, we walked into the ECV with lots of hope and the expectation that it would work.
Regarding the ECV, it was textbook. We took more time chatting with the Dr and Ultrasound tech then it did to turn him. It was kinda like this video in it’s ease.
I’ve been convinced since Little K became breech that he wanted to turn back and the ease (compared to Foster’s ECV attempts) really made the decision feel ok. We weren’t keen on doing an ECV, but we also weren’t keen on scheduling a c-section and the subsequent VBAC issues that could come later.
I get why people have c-sections, especially after loss. It’s scary to still be pregnant when the last time we got here, our child died. It’s taking a huge amount of faith – in my body and little K’s deep desire to live – to not run to the closest hospital, ask for drugs and induction / surgery. I want to feel birth naturally, to do what I’m supposed to do without meds or incisions. It’s terrifying. Little K is busy though, and just feels different than Foster did once he was turned. It’s a guilt-ridden feeling to say, ‘Maybe the first baby died because of something we just don’t know about’, but the difference in the boys is noticeable and it’s be dishonest to not say it too.
Regardless, both K and I are so very much looking forward to this little dude’s arrival. I feel huge, and tired and sore, which is the perfect time to give birth, no?
Finally, we’re not the only ones awaiting Little K’s arrival. The calls are slowly starting, and when I go silent (because we’re trying to manage our needs with hospital staff or now, mostly napping), the phone heats up. My friend Shannon over at ecochick.ca has this great mini-site. I feel that now is the time to use it: haveyouhadthatbabyyet.com
As soon as Little K is here, and we’re all settled I’ll update on the blog. In the meantime, this is what a 38w3d breech belly looks like (with an estimated 10lb baby no less):
The word “purgatory”, derived through Anglo-Norman and Old French from the Latin word purgatorium.[8] has come to refer also to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation,[1] and is used, in a non-specific sense, to mean any place or condition of suffering or torment, especially one that is temporary.[9]
I’ve always liked the theological concept of purgatory. As an Atheist the idea of a place in-between (life & death, here & later etc) has appealed because that is life. We wait for things, and waiting can be a torture in its own right. We work hard during the week so we can do what we want during the weekend. We work hard during the year so we can take a vacation; there is always waiting for something. We wait for holidays, long weekends, and yes, babies. In a heartbeat we’ve waited our life over. (That said, I’ve always hated the concept of limbo of infants. Or limbo in general – it’s a term I never use colloquially because I find it so offensive.)
And so here I am in Mother’s Day purgatory. Currently between giving birth to my first and second children; waiting for little K, mourning Foster and still not yet a mothering-mother. (Unless you count the pets, and then I suppose I guess I kind of count. But based on that I’m ‘owed’ 17 years of coffee in bed and bad drool and fur covered cards, and for that I’ll pass.) I’ve completed almost 2 full term pregnancies and all I have to show for it so far are some stretchmarks, backache and yes, heartache. The only parenting decisions I’ve made are for people in-utero, and like all parenting, it’s easy question and doubt them especially when one ended up dead.
Mother’s Day will probably never be my favourite hallmark holiday. I now know the pain of those who have lost children, and those who have lost the dreams of children. It’s a holiday loaded with potential landmines.
Perhaps instead of one over-blown marketing day, how about we focus on loving the women who have mothered us every day of the year? Life is short, and if we wait too long and never say the things we mean to, the chance will pass us by. Carpe diem.
