her: "Oooo look, our baby's about the size of a lemon!"
me: *ugh*
her: "Today, baby has fingernails!"
me: *eye roll*
her: "Baby weighs about 12 ounces this week!"
me: *gah, who cares?!*
In that world, that pre-Kyla's-death bliss, daily, weekly, or even monthly updates just felt like repetitive nonsense. Of course our baby is that size, whoop-dee-doo. Of course it has fingernails, why wouldn't it? Let's just move on to the part after it's born, mkay?
(Excuse me while I travel back in time to viciously beat my pre-Kyla self to a pulp. Ahem. I feel better now, thanks.)
While Chelsea was pregnant with August, things were completely different. Every day gone by with a living baby was a hesitant victory. Each week that passed was a tense, glorious celebration. Thoughts and talk of meeting the baby were always, always tainted with "maybe" and "hopefully" ... even if we didn't say it, we thought it.
"We're so excited to hopefully meet this baby." (You should have seen some of the awkward looks this one earned us.)
"Things are going great!" then a whispered "maybe."
I wanted to know every update on the pregnancy. I wanted to know how Chelsea felt physically. I wanted to know how she felt mentally. I wanted to know how our baby was growing and developing. After every appointment, Chelsea would text or call me and I would get another tiny wave of temporary relief knowing that, for the moment, things were okay. And then I'd go to bed and wake up the next morning, hoping for good news again. Rinse and repeat. To my knowledge, I'd never before been under such a constant, underlying sense of dread and hope for so long. Pregnancy is a long wait, guys. It's even longer when there's no living baby at the end and you have to start over, making each day feel like the entire 40 weeks.
With the decision to induce at 39 weeks, we actually had a date and time when shit was gonna get real up in here. I mean, with Riley, I always knew at some level that things were eventually going to happen, but I found myself mostly unprepared when the time came. And with Kyla ... well, there was simply no preparing for that. So as August's birth day came closer, I got more and more nervous. It was weird to know exactly when a life-changing event was (hopefully) going to happen. And then, holy crap, it happened. And it was amazing. Again. And Chelsea was amazing. Again. And I cried. Again. But this time, our baby cried, too. This time, our decisions at the hospital included things like circumcision and breastfeeding instead of things like burial and cremation. This time, we have the privilege of changing diapers and soothing rashes and calming screams. This time, we know exactly how much each second of life means. This time, we can find ourselves equally happy and sad in the same moment and for the same reasons. I don't want to say we didn't appreciate Riley's birth or anything like that, because we most certainly did and do, but it's definitely different now.
There's nothing more reassuring than stopping all noise/activity/breathing/thinking and listening to your baby breathe ... and then doing the same thing a minute later ... and again ... and again ... and again and again and again until you feel crazy. Funny thing is, I know this is fairly normal for parents, but I wonder whether it's different somehow for us because of Kyla. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, she's a part of our story. She's a part of Riley's story. She's a part of August's story. She's a part of every decision we make now. She's a part of every thought process, every smile, every tear, every laugh, every hug. Her memory bubbles constantly under the surface of our lives, and it occasionally splashes out onto everything. Sometimes that happens purposefully, sometimes it happens through a trigger.
What's a trigger? In general, a trigger is anything that causes a situation/event/reaction. In this particular case, I use it to mean anything that makes me remember how much I miss Kyla. Like it or not, we live in a world of triggers. Certain songs make me think of Kyla. Tons of movies and tv shows have triggers (seriously, an absurd amount of the stuff we've watched in the last year has had triggers, some we were expecting and some we weren't). Being alone makes me think of Kyla. Thinking of what I think about when I'm alone makes me think of Kyla. Talking with Chelsea. Watching Riley play. Hearing August cry. Seeing anybody else's kids. Yes, often even being at work. The list goes on; hiding from her memory is impossible. And as I've said before (in case you missed it), I don't even want to avoid her. There's no point at which I start to feel that I am better off without her. So here's one suggestion: don't avoid Kyla around me. Maybe the conversation will only be two awkward sentences, but that's two more sentences that acknowledge her existence. Two more sentences that accept the loss as it is. Two more sentences that help me bring myself into this new reality. New? It still feels new, and it's been over a year. Maybe it will always feel new.
People talk about our situation as being "unimaginable". Ummmm, no. Fellow parents, don't lie to yourselves: you imagine this all day, every day. You imagine this when you tell your kids to look both ways before crossing the street. You imagine this when you buckle your kids into their car seats. You imagine this when you make vaccination decisions for them. You imagine this when you greet them after work or school each day. You imagine this when you wait until the "appropriate time" to tell everybody that you're pregnant. You imagine this when you give your kids swimming lessons. You imagine this when you check on them for the 297th time that night to make sure they're still breathing. You imagine this when you read things like this. No, this is not unimaginable - this is a horrible, dark part of every parent's imagination, because it's a horrible, dark place to be.
When Kyla died, I was shattered, like a pane of glass on concrete. At first, I just kinda sat there on the floor, looking around at all the pieces of me everywhere, confused. With the confusion came the pain, that exquisite pain. Amidst the pain, I tried to start picking up the pieces and keep going somewhere, anywhere. And it may look like I've got all the pieces put back together, but I don't. Sometimes, I still need to come back to that spot and pick up another piece and try to glue it back in place. It may seem like it's stopped hurting, but it hasn't. Sometimes all I can think about is how it felt to break apart like that. I probably sound like I've wrapped my head around this and the confusion is gone, but I haven't and it isn't. Sometimes I have to force myself to believe that it really happened, that there, in a lighted cabinet in my living room, is a little wooden box that holds my baby's ashes. Sometimes I just need to look for that one big piece that's forever lost. I know it's gone and I'll never find it, but I still want to keep looking for it. And somehow I know that this is the rest of my life ...
There she is, up on the picture wall along with her big sister and little brother and cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles and great grandparents. But as the other pictures change with time, as additions are made and group shots are updated, she will remain the same. The constant. The forever. Always my little baby girl, never aging a day.
