Betrayal

Somehow I stopped writing, I got busy despite the fact that I was still very much missing and grieving my baby. But I feel compelled to write on a specific event that happened recently so catching up on the blog will have to wait…or maybe never happen.

I also fear this post will not be as well-written or put together as in the past. I am clearly out of practice. I regret that I stopped writing but am amazed at how the time was filled and not only filled but FLEW by as I try to raise tiny humans (well they are not so tiny anymore-my oldest is turning TEN in a couple of weeks!)

It’s been SIX years since I last held my dead daughter. I’m still in awe most days that I continue to breathe. But I do, and in fact, have a 4-year-old blonde boy who wouldn’t exist had my daughter lived. It’s incredibly surreal. I’ve managed over the past six years to garner a support system- a virtual one of sorts. While there is an in-person baby loss support group in my local town, and I was involved briefly, it soon became apparent that it wasn’t a great fit for me. Sitting in the back room of a restaurant amongst women crying torrential tears over their loss of a 10-week or less embryo made me cynically and internally roll my eyes. And counseling- that was a joke for me- nobody could understand how I was feeling or what I was going through unless they’d had a similar experience. I even had one counselor say she really couldn’t help me. 

So I turned online (to Facebook of course, as reliable as any young Gen-x/Elder millennial).  I searched for stillbirth and infant loss groups and landed in several and somehow from one or some of them (I don’t even know), a new group formed, and then another sub-group, and these ladies who’d all experienced stillbirth in the 2nd to 3rd trimester-became my support, my tribe, my confidants. We who had older living children commiserated over parenting, we went through pregnancy after loss together and rejoiced when our healthy rainbow babies arrived earth-side. I even attended an in-person retreat when I was pregnant with my rainbow baby. To be together and talk about our babies and laugh-it was incredible, it was so healing.

Six days ago I started seeing Facebook posts of another retreat. No. Wait, was I invited? No, I wasn’t. Because I felt CERTAIN that I would have been there in a heartbeat, seeing as it was held a mere 4-hour drive from my home. Also, the retreat coincided with the days before my dead daughter’s sixth birth-date (which, of course, lines up perfectly with May 2017, thus making May 8, 2023, also a Monday).  

Over the weekend and over the past several days, more of these moms who attended the retreat are posting their happiness, joy, and celebration of getting to meet others like them in the “Club.” Each one is like a stab in the heart. I feel like the kid that didn’t get invited to the birthday party. Except it feels a tiny bit worse than that. I do feel betrayed, I have spent several days even CRYING over the fact that I was excluded (I mean not entire days, not like when my baby DIED, but like a few minutes on each day). One thing I’m trying to tell myself is that I wasn’t the only one left out. From what I’m reading TWELVE moms attended. There are fifty-nine bereaved moms in our Facebook group-I am Facebook friends with thirty-one. Four of these moms attended the retreat I met at the first retreat we had. I suspect this was a clique setup. That the twelve moms who are chummy with each other decided to have a retreat and not open it to anybody else. And while that’s their absolute right to do that, they called the retreat (Name of Facebook Group Retreat 2023). I have seen a couple of other moms comment about how they wish they’d known about the retreat, etc., but I seriously doubt anyone is as upset as I am. It does feel a little silly to be this upset. But it also does feel like I was betrayed. I thought these women were my friends and then to learn that’s not actually true, well, it stings a little bit.

I hate drama so while I have so many unanswered questions, I will probably never ask them. I’ll just post this anonymous blog instead. I’ll be like a 1950s bereaved mom-she never had social media. She probably just cried into her pillow at night, never speaking of her lost little one.

I’m curious to know, well, one, if anyone is still out there reading WordPress blogs. But also, if anyone has found true long-lasting support through their grief. Like an amazing grief counselor, virtual support group, or in-person group. What are the characteristics of high-quality support? What does it look like to give it and what does it look like to receive it?

May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor

In the dystopian trilogy, The Hunger Games, twenty-four children (two from each of 12 districts) are reaped into a televised war, in which only one survives–the victor. At age 16, Katniss Everdeen has 20 entries in the reaping bowl. At age 12, her sister, Primrose, has only one entry. Collins doesn’t tell us the number of children eligible for reaping in District 12, so we don’t know what Katniss’s or Prim’s odds of getting reaped are, only that Katniss has a higher chance than Prim. And yet, Prim is reaped

May the odds be ever in your favor.

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My daughter loves Candy Land. We have both the original and the Princess version. (Yes, there is a Princess Candy Land, which, has nothing to do with candy at all). I am continuously reminding her that there are no skills involved with Candy Land, it’s just “luck of the draw.” When it’s your turn, you choose a card and that’s the space you move your gingerbread guy (or princess) to. No, it’s not always fair–luck of the draw.

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When I was a kid, there were these books, Choose Your Own Adventure. My recollection of these books is there would be a scenario presented and then the reader would get to choose the next part of the story. I hated these books. Inevitably, I would choose one path, turn to page 11, only to find myself in some horrific mess. Quickly, I would turn back to page 6 and choose a different path, seeking a happy ending.  My brain replays, like a movie, scenes of my pregnancy as though I were living in one of these books.

You’re pregnant! If you opt to seek care through an ob-gyn, turn to page 22, if you opt to hire a homebirth midwife, continue reading.

At 37 weeks gestation, you wonder if your baby is moving enough. If you opt to go the hospital, turn to page 14, if you opt to stay home and hope for the best, continue reading.

As a non-smoking, non-drinking, non-drug using mother without diabetes or high blood pressure, the odds of delivering a living baby were good, we could even say the odds were ever in my favor.

But somehow, my name was drawn from the reaping bowl.

Support Groups

One of the first things I did after the birth and death of Corva, was seek out support. I wanted to know–no I needed to know–that there were others surviving this nightmare. The hospital had given me contact information for a local support group, but I actually knew of the group’s existence prior to my loss. As a WIC nutritionist,  I referred clients to the group, not frequently, but often enough considering the 1 in 4 statistic.  I didn’t really know what the group did though.

The support group in my area specific to baby loss welcomes bereaved parents who have lost a baby at any gestational age, and after birth up until age one.  They meet monthly. The first meeting post loss arrived ten days after Corva’s delivery. I went, though it was the same day that earlier, in my grief stricken state, I left my purse in a friend’s car and it was stolen (the purse, not the car). So it had been an exhausting day, complete with a panic attack and a police report. There was one person at the group that night–Elisha–and I found immediate comfort from her. She sat with me for over an hour and for that I am forever grateful.

After that initial meeting, I attended four more meetings. I also went with several other moms to get coffee, attended a butterfly release and a social dinner out.  In October I attended a remembrance walk for infant loss awareness month.

Then I started to feel angry and frustrated.

First there was the prayer. Now, I’m not a stranger to prayer; after all I pray everyday, to a God  I ambiguously believe in, that I will die before my eldest daughter. At this walk in October, a board member of the support group, we’ll call her Jenny, said some touching words then invited her husband to say a prayer before the walk. This fueled so much anger within me.

Then I started reflecting on the stories. I’m not saying that my loss is worse or greater or more painful than anyone else’s. I only say the following because I cannot relate to these losses. Each month at support group, we went around the circle, saying our name and “as much of your story as you wish to share.” I got so tired of hearing those stories. (All names have been changed). There was Ashley, one of the leaders, who portrays her loss as further along than it actually was. Jenny, who lost her daughter with congenital defects at 19 weeks. Shaina, who delivered prematurely due to complications of preeclampsia at 23 weeks but whose son lived for 10 days. Tara who experienced an ectopic pregnancy in the first trimester. And Elisha who lost her beautiful twins at 20 weeks due to an infection.

And then there is me. Me, who carried my beautiful wanted baby for 40 weeks. Me, who had no complications during that time. Me, whose baby was healthy and growing (until she wasn’t). Me, whose baby lived only inside me, who did not get any sort of acknowledgment of life.

Elisha was the mother who was present at my first meeting. She was the one who was there for me, the one I connected with by default. On that unusually hot day in May, she was the one who watched my tears fall, who listened without judgement. She was the one who demonstrated survival.

Elisha’s story is complex–and it’s not mine to share. And, although, I am thrilled that she is carrying a successful pregnancy, it hurts to no end that she is due May 5, 2018–almost exactly one year (May 8, 2017) after my due date for Corva. I just can’t bring myself to watch her growing belly each month at a support group for infant loss.

So I stopped going.

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Tell me about your in-person support groups.