Happy Halloween!

Fall leaves

  

Riley had so much fun helping mommy clean up the yard and get ready for winter. She helped pick up branches and leaves and put away planters for the year.We managed to squeeze in a lot of play too.
    The below picture is Riley reading a book to her baby. so cute!
   The other day I asked Keenan to get a kleenex for Riley because her nose was running and she was licking at it.  She triumphantly says, I eat boogers!  It was so funny

Time with Papa

 Keenan and Jon have been doing a lot of work on the house so Riley has gotten lots of time with Papa.  Every time he enters the room she says Papa!!!

Happy Halloween

 Tonight was trick or treat night in Huxley so Riley joined Chip and Walter for some fun.  They all had fun running around the neighborhood in their costumes and getting candy.  Riley was so shy, she would get her one piece and quietly say thanks.  I made Riley an Olaf costume because that is the only character that I really hear her talk about.  She did pretty well, she didn't always want to keep the hood up.

Tomorrow I have another NST for the new baby. I will be having them weekly until further notice. Everything seems to be progressing well with this pregnancy.  I have been feeling the baby move regularly,  hopefully we can keep that up. Oh I passed the 28 week glucose test last week so that's good.  

Fall has arrived

   I can't believe it's fall already!  I feel as if I just bought my plants and started my garden and now it is all over. I love canning. It reminds me of my mom and grandma working in the kitchen. I was afraid of my pressure cooker at first, but once you get the hang of canning it's not hard at all. You just need to know the appropriate cook times and acid levels for all the items you make. I have a lot of my grandma's old canning jars. Most of them are quarts though. This year I canned lots of tomatoes, green beans, dill pickles, applesauce, grape jelly and green tomato salsa. The salsa turned out great, I got to use my green tomatoes at the end of the season and it tastes great.  The grapes, however, were in short supply this year and I only got 7 pints compared to last year's 22. Hopefully next year is a better grape year.

 Riley and the grandparents got some time to play on a weekend Keenan and Jon were getting some work done around the house. Riley learned how to use the pedals on her trike but she still finds just scooting to be easier for now.

    Weekend in Marion

 It was fun to spend a weekend just visiting with family and making food together.

We had fun going to the Cedar Rapids Farmers' Market. There were so many vendors with a variety of products, not just the usual produce. We tried many of the food vendors as well. The mini donuts were so fresh and amazing and I had the best crab rangoon. I even found someone a Christmas gift!

  

Riley just goofing around and playing dress up as a ladybug. You never know what she is going to end up wearing. I love to see what hat/cape combos that she comes up with. She also likes to pick her everyday clothes and sometimes we end up with some fun outfits!

We are as of today 26 weeks pregnant and as far as I know all is well. I can feel the baby move every day and have been recording the movement patterns to start doing kick counts. I am having trouble choosing a time of day.  You are supposed to do your counts at the same time every day and see how long it takes the baby to do 10 movements. For example if your baby does 10 kicks everyday at 7 am and it usually takes 10 to 20 minutes to get there, then it starts to take an hour or 2 that could be a sign of a problem.
      I had an appointment for the baby last week and I am right on track for growth and the heartbeat was good.  I go back at 28 weeks for the glucose test and a non stress test (NST).  The NST is just to check on the baby and make sure that there are no signs of fetal distress.  This appointment is going to take longer than a normal one so Sheryl is coming to watch Riley.

20 Week Ultrasound

       20 Week ultrasound. It doesn't sound daunting. Who wouldn't want to peek into their baby's world and see what's going on in there? Keenan and I got a little peek at 10 weeks and have really been looking forward to knowing how well our baby has been growing since.
       I have the knowledge and the experience that something can be very wrong even without the presence of pain or blood. That really bothered me when Kyla died. I felt like my body had betrayed me that day. I felt like her dying should have hurt physically.

                 My body should have told me.

      Because of this experience, when appointment dates draw near, along with my excitement my anxiety level builds. To my relief, our baby is right on track for growth, weighing in around 12 ounces. His/her heart rate was in the 140's-160's and he/she was very active inside the womb, sometimes making it difficult for the tech to get measurements.  All the measurements came out great and we could even count five fingers on each little hand.
      I can feel our baby moving every day and I look forward to when they become stronger. I really look forward to holding him/her in January. Oh yeah - I am sure you have noticed already but we again decided not to find out the gender. It will be a surprise! Guess you have to wait right along with us.

This time around Riley is old enough to tell that there is a baby. Although I know she doesn't really understand, it's still cute for her to say "baby" and point to my belly.

Here are some pictures of baby #3 and 1 of me

Riley likes to help in the real kitchen as well as her own. I usually just end up with flour or water all over the floor but it's still fun.

 

Peter and Dawn's Wedding

Our good friends Peter and Dawn had a beautiful outdoor ceremony amongst family and friends at the Brue farm. It was expected to rain but the day turned out beautiful and the kids had a blast playing together. Riley loves it when she gets a chance to run around.

I Don't Want To Be Comforted Like You Do

You seem to think that there's something positive to be found in all of this. You are clearly under the impression that there's a silver lining, that there's a happy moment that makes it better.

"It wasn't meant to be."
So apparently my pain was meant to be? Nice. 

"At least you didn't get too attached to her."
Yes, I know - that's the tragedy. I never had the chance to get to know my daughter.

"There must have been something wrong with her."
Well, we'll never know that, will we? Thanks for the reminder.

"She's in a better place now."
No, the best place is in my arms.

"Everything happens for a reason."
... What the hell ... ?

Don't you see? The words that you think make this easier or better are the very essence of what makes this painful. If you don't try to comfort me with what comforts you, then I won't try to make you grieve like I grieve. Do you really want to? Do you? Fine then, go ahead, take a look at Kyla's pictures again:

Hear her clinical silence.

Feel her arms droop on yours.

See a small chunk of skin missing from her finger and wonder if you did that or if it was already like that.

Hold her in your hands and accidentally let her head fall backwards and feel that shameful thought as you realize it doesn't matter if you support her neck or not.

Feel her beauty strangle the back of your throat and flood the inside of your chest and incinerate your eyes.

Feel it.

Embrace it.

Let it control you.

Let your mind lose track of where you are and who you are and what's being said and done around you.

Let it consume your weakest moments and darken your happiest thoughts.

Don't you see? You don't want that. Trust me, you really don't. You may wonder what it's like and you may wish you could understand it better, but you don't actually want it. You want to keep thinking that everything in your life will be pretty good. You want to be able to wake up and have the freedom to enjoy your life, unhaunted. You want to be able to look at a stranger's baby and smile, not nearly burst into tears and have a scraping desire to hold that baby and care for her. I know, because I used to be you. I used to trust in the healing power of nice words and positive thoughts and even prayer. I used to believe that time heals the pain. But perhaps now you'll understand me a little better when I say that I don't want to be comforted like you do. You want to tell yourself and me that everything is going to be okay. You want to reassure me that it's all for a reason. And it all sounds nice, but you just don't get it. I don't want to turn away. I don't want to shield my heart from the pain. I want to run towards it. I want to eat it. I want to dive straight into the middle of it and drown. I want to be tortured by it. I want to be buried in every ounce of my pain and my grief. Because at the end of the day, it's all I have left of her.

Family and Fun

 Painting Fun!
 Riley had so much fun painting pictures although she seemed uncertain about how messy her hands were at first. Then we had fun making hand prints for cards.

 Cousin Time
       I didn't take a lot of pictures from this trip. The first day I met Stacy in Coralville where we ate lunch then proceeded to the children's museum in the mall. This place is great. Its set up like a little town and there is a little for every age group.  I think Riley would have enjoyed it more if she was a little older but there was plenty she enjoyed.  She especially loved the farm room for younger kids and just ran around in there.  She also loved the nursery because there were lots of babies to take care of. Liam was running a pizza parlor down the street. He liked to keep a clean shop.
       The kids had a blast even though it was really hot and humid the whole time. They enjoyed playing in the kiddy pool together and throwing water balloons. Riley just liked to save hers though. Stacy also made a homemade bubble solution that they really enjoyed. We just grabbed things from around the house that looked like they would make great bubbles. I enjoyed the slotted spatula because it made really big bubbles. The solution had corn syrup in it so it was really sticky but the bubbles seemed to last for a while. A yellow kitten also showed up this weekend and was dubbed Jerry by Liam. He was really thin but I think he is fattening up now.

 

Olivia's 1st Birthday Party

Olivia had a lot of fun. Although like most 1 year olds she didn't know what the fuss was about or what she was supposed to do with a giant cupcake. Stacy and I worked and made all the cupcakes and the food. It was a taco bar with a lot of fun sides.  Liam helped Olivia unwrap all of her gifts

Kansas City

We had a lot of fun visiting Liberty and catching up with family.  Riley enjoyed the zoo, she didn't even mind when it rained on us. We didn't really visit a lot of the other attractions in the city but Uncle Steve gave us a tour and it seems there would be a number of things to choose to do with your weekend.  Riley took to Aunt Kris and Uncle Steve right away and we had fun getting to know each other again. We had a BBQ night where Sarah, Greg, Sue and Skip came over the food was great and we stayed up way too late talking.

 First corn of the season! Yum

 Baby News
  Baby Number 3 is due on January 14 which is an odd coincidence really because I think that is the night that Kyla died.  We are really excited and are just hoping for the best. Tomorrow we will be 15 weeks and i just get excited at every week that goes by and everything is still going well.  We had an appointment at the perinatal center at Mercy in Des moines at 10 weeks and they did an ultrasound to help with the timeline and it was fun to see him/her wiggling around in there. They also ran a bunch of labs checking for possible blood clotting disorders and all the results came back as normal. I am looking forward to our detailed scan at the perinatal center for our 20 week appointment that will be on Sept 2.  Until then my friend Kari gave me a doppler so if I am worried or having a bad day I can check for that heartbeat.  I feel like I have been feeling little flutters since 13 weeks, can't wait for the movements to get bigger. We are really excited but just with a whole different set of emotions than with previous pregnancies. We are grateful to have such a wonderful and supportive family. Thanks guys!

Pain Scale Unknown: The Grief of a Stillborn Father

Grief is a strange, enigmatic companion to have. 

"And each day I dreamed and planned for your future.
Your kindergarten class
Graduation
College
Your wedding day.
Even your own children. But I never planned for your death."
-Joanne Cacciatore, "The Traumatic Contradiction: When Birth and Death Collide", They Were Still Born 

Do you remember my story and thoughts about Riley's birth? How the pregnancy and childbirth books "invaded like the Huns"? After Kyla died, Chelsea went on a stillbirth reading rampage. She devoured story after story of other people's grief. At first, I thought that what she was doing was a bad idea, that she was making it worse. I mean, what could be worse when you're sad than to keep being sad, right? However, during that process, among many, many other great stories, she uncovered a beautiful, pull-no-punches book titled They Were Still Born. It's a collection of firsthand accounts of stillbirth loss and grief and (dare I say) recovery. Chelsea initially came across the description of the book during online searches and decided to borrow it from the library. Our library did not have it, but they were able to get a copy via the Interlibrary Loan system. It took her about 2 sentences to realize she had found the perfect book - she was already in tears. She walked over to me, pointed to the first paragraph of the introduction, and said, "This is perfect." And it was - since Kyla's death, we have written those words over and over again in our minds, basically word for word. After she was done reading it, I decided to try it out, too. What I found in those pages amazed me.

"Childbirth should be a time of joy, of excitement, of meeting a long-awaited infant and introducing him or her to the world."
-Janel C. Atlas, "Introduction", They Were Still Born

Reading other people's stories pierces the occasional shroud and confusion and dreamlike quality of my life, and I relive my experiences. I read their words but I see my voice, hear my thoughts. They tell me about their baby and all I see is our Kyla. Every story is the same yet different. Every grief is identical and yet completely new and unique. With each story that I read, something new connects with me. Of course, there is some level of deeper connection with stories that are more similar, more in tune with our own, but just when I think that there is nothing in this or that person's story with which I can relate, they drop a nuke on me with a few simple words, and now I know that person to their core. I know them, and they know me. They are my closest, dearest strangers. How else can I describe the connection we share? If any of them were to walk up to me and introduce themselves, I'd straight up hug them without hesitation. And that's quite a big deal for me.

Sometimes it seems so surreal that I find myself desperately trying to remember Kyla, willing myself to feel the raw emotion again - to convince myself that it actually did happen. 

"I could picture it all. It took time to build that picture but it didn't take long for it all to get ripped away."
-Chelsea Gehman, "Happy 2nd Birthday Riley and Other Stuff", Going Plural 

The stiff-upper-lip type of man: that's not me. I cried at the hospital (and since), shoulder-shaking, chest-throbbing, face-distorting sobs destroying me. And each time I read a story from one of my closest strangers, something - a phrase, an image, a feeling they convey - rocks me to the core, and I lose it all over again. Every time I cry, Riley must think I'm laughing because she lets out an amused fake laugh, probably to feel like she's a part of whatever's happening with me. Or maybe she's just trying to cheer me up - who knows? How can I tell her that all I want to do is pull her close and hold her? All she wants to do is play and laugh and run around. As she grows older, we'll introduce her to the sister she'll never know, but she won't understand the fullness of her loss. She'll probably never understand it. And I would give everything I have to keep her from understanding, because you never truly understand it until you've lived it, and I don't want her to ever have this pain.

"Allotted the 'appropriate' grieving time, you then have to get on with it, move on - live, goddamn it, live. And begrudgingly, most of us do. But it takes so much work."
-Kelley Krahling, "Living with (and without) Caleb", They Were Still Born 

The escape-into-work type of man: that's not me, either. If I had a real choice, I'd never go back to work again - I'd sit at home and hold Chelsea and Riley forever. I have worked for a small local company (around 20 full- and part-time employees, including the owners) for the last 8 years. I have grown close to my two bosses, an amazing couple who have practically become a second family for me. They have poured themselves into their business and into their employees. At one point in time or another during the last 8 years, I've worked side-by-side with each of their 3 kids, who are all around my age or a bit older. So, for the obvious reasons and then some, when we got back from the clinic, one of the first phone calls I made was to them. Looking back on it, the pain I heard in their voices on the phone was crushing - of course, at the time I was too in shock to really process it. They told me to "take as much time as you need." What exactly does that mean? I know what they wanted it to mean, and I truly, deeply appreciate the sincerity and passion behind it, but seriously - take a look at the actual words: "as much time as you need." This strikes me as an impractical approach - how am I supposed to know when I no longer need time off from work? Do I count the number of times per day I think of Kyla and when it's less than X amount, then I'm ready to go back? Because I think of her a lot. Leave me alone with my thoughts for about 5 minutes and it's pretty much a guarantee, not to mention all the times she pops into my head while I'm busy with other things. Can I just take as much time as I want instead? Can I just curl up in a corner and hold my dead daughter in my arms? Because that's what I feel like I need.

Sometimes I can be quite matter-of-fact about it all: "yes, our baby died, yes, that's sad." That can be somewhat unnerving, too, like I've lost all touch with my humanity. 

"We have lost a child, so any [parental] duty we get to perform is a privilege, not a burden; we know what the alternative could be."
-Marion T. Flores, "He Changed Our World", They Were Still Born

Kyla was not the prettiest baby to ever be born. Her body was very thin, weighing under 3 pounds. Some of her skin was peeling off. She still had lanugo, the full covering of fetal hair on her body - it was light, probably blond (go figure), but it was there. Her mouth had amniotic fluid and blood in it, which dried and darkened and looked more and more disturbing as the hours went on. Her skull hadn't finished fusing together - no baby, that i'm aware of, is ever born with a fully fused skull (thus the "soft spot" on top), but there was a clear separation between the major parts of Kyla's skull, and it was a little uncomfortable to look at. I was the one to stop the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep photography session because, at the time, it was weirding me out, sitting there holding a dead baby in my hands. Were it not for those few pictures we do have of her, my mind would most likely be trying to push the details of her incomplete beauty out of memory. And to be honest, if she were somebody else's child, I would consciously want to forget what she looked like. I really don't blame you if you do the same. I'm ashamed to admit that I used to view physically deformed or handicapped or Down Syndrome children, etc, as a burden, as something not quite right. But it's different for me now, so I can't help but step back and ask: how can we not see that life is so precious, so elusive, so fragile, that each and every manifestation of it is the single most beautiful thing we'll ever witness? I would trade every second I'll ever live, every penny I'll ever own, and every shred of my body to have kept Kyla alive. There's nothing, absolutely nothing, that can convince me otherwise - no physical deformation, no lifetime disease, no mental disability, no heartbreaking teenage antics - nothing is worse than having her yet never having her.

"I crossed over from my naive, oblivious, the-world-is-mostly-a-just-place land into a new horrible alternate dimension where my baby dies."
-Angie M. Yingst, "Mothering Grief", They Were Still Born

In my experience, love is a developing thing, something that starts slowly and builds and strengthens and all of a sudden you wake up one day and realize that you love a person and you're not entirely sure exactly when that happened. But to be a parent, to love a child, is to instantly love her with 100% of yourself. And in some ways, each 100% of yourself that you fill with love for somebody else is a different person, a different you. Part of our loss as parents isn't just the loss of our child - that much is obviously acknowledged - it's also losing the part of ourselves that would have protected Kyla from harm. It's losing the part of ourselves that would have laughed with her, changed her diapers, nursed her, and held her close. It's losing the part of ourselves that would have poured our love into her all day long, every single day. And that part of ourselves is all of ourselves. To lose her is to lose 100% of ourselves. It's not that we don't still love her with every fiber of our beings. It's not that we don't exist anymore. It's not that we don't still love each other completely, and it's definitely not that we don't still love Riley completely. But the loss is multiple layers - my love for Kyla, Chelsea's love for Kyla, my loss of Chelsea's love for Kyla, Chelsea's loss of my love for Kyla, Riley's love for Kyla, our loss of Riley's love for Kyla ... the width and breadth and depth of our loss is swelling, overlapping, staggering, overwhelming, and complete.

"I knew two things. He was perfect. And he was dead."
-Kelley Krahling, "Living with (and without) Caleb", They Were Still Born

I sometimes wonder how unique stillbirth grief is. I mean, how different can it really be from the loss of a child at any age? Stillbirth is often grouped with miscarriage and infant death. And to push that further - how different is it from any loss of any loved one? Can I now relate to those who have lost a father, a mother, a brother, or a sister? Exactly how big is this scarred community that I've joined? And if it is indeed bigger than stillbirth or even childloss, is it okay if I just stick to my little corner? Because I'm not sure I'm ready to hear my other worst nightmares through other people's words and other people's feelings. Yes, I suppose it's natural for me to fear, above all, losing Chelsea and Riley. And I suppose it's natural for that fear to seem even greater now, but it feels like worrying. It feels like hovering. It feels like weakness.

Sometimes I barely have to blink and I'm lost in tears. 

"I simply could not escape the dreadful silence the moment she was born, or the undeniable stillness of her body when she was handed to me wrapped in a little white blanket."
-Tim Nelson, "Invincible No More: What My Daughter's Stillbirth Taught Me about Life", They Were Still Born

Now we know another part of what is possible. Now we understand another layer of the complexity of having children, and now the blinders are off our eyes and we can see how blind our society is (or chooses to be) to this part of reality. We were watching Dexter, a Showtime series, and the main character (obviously Dexter) impregnates his girlfriend. The way the show handled this circumstance was to present it as: "Dexter will be a father - there's nothing he can do about it, it's inevitable." Chelsea and I just sat there, looked at each other, shook our heads, and quietly said, "Nothing's guaranteed." Yes, that's a harsh viewpoint. It's harsh, it's cynical, and it's agonizingly true.

"I knew the joyful sounds and bustle of a healthy birth. My first daughter had been born naturally at full term less than two years ago. With that experience to look back on, I simply had never considered stillbirth."
-Janel C. Atlas, "Standing in the Shadows of Grief", They Were Still Born

I'm used to money having some sort of meaning. I'm used to getting something in return for the money I spend. When we bought our house, we paid about $3,000 to have some updates done to our electrical. Clear results - the line was buried, the box was updated from fuses to breakers, and some difficult-to-reach lights were connected to a switch. Cut and dried. When our dog, Dante, tore his cranial cruciate ligament (doggy version of the ACL), we paid about $3,000 for him to have a surgery. Clear results - Dante has regained his strength and can walk and run on all four legs again. But after Kyla died, we got a $2,000+ bill in the mail from the hospital, and I just want to know why. What for? We didn't get anything in return. Of course, they took great care of Chelsea, and the last thing I want to do is diminish the wonderful people who attended to her, but since we knew what we were there for, that's not what I expected in return. After Riley, I expected that the next time Chelsea was in labor, we would have another living baby to bring home with us.

"Last night, as I do every year on Laura's birthday, I lit a candle to burn through the night. By the morning, however, it had gone out. I was glad, because the hardest thing about remembrance candles is having to blow them out."
-Rachel Graham, "In a Wild Place", They Were Still Born

While we were at the hospital, some of the staff sat down with us and told us that we needed to brace ourselves for the times when strangers, acquaintances, and even possibly family and friends would say things that would hurt. They told us that we needed to realize that these people are just trying to help, but they don't know what to say and/or how to say it. And they were right - it didn't happen very much, but it did happen. For me, the most aggravating thing that anybody has said to me is to ask how my wife is doing. Seems weird, right? After all, I care a lot about how Chelsea is doing, and it means a lot to me when other people care about her, too. But what bothered me about this question is that, by only being concerned with Chelsea's well-being, it stripped away my status as Kyla's father. It stole her away from me and put her solely in Chelsea's arms and Chelsea's heart. This question assumed that, as a father, my grief is somehow less important or less burdensome or just plain less than Chelsea's mothering grief. It assumed that I'm the strong one who's holding our family together and my wife is at home falling apart. That's heartbreaking, and it's frustrating, and it's just plain wrong. Chelsea is at least as strong as me - stronger, in my opinion. She held me that night in the hospital when we tried to go to sleep and I burst into sobs after about 15 seconds in the quiet dark, even though she couldn't keep her own eyes open due to the pain meds they had given her. She's holding her own at home as she raises Riley and encounters reminder after reminder of Kyla and yet still wants to know how my day was and how I'm doing. My grief is no less than hers - it's different in a lot of ways, but it's just as deep and just as dark and just as terrifying. And it sucks to feel like I have to validate my place in Kyla's short life.

"Standing in a hot shower I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry
I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry
I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry I'msorry
IamsosorryIamsosorryIamsosorryIamsosorryIamsosorryIamsosorry until the words
and tears and water feel as cold as the ache that sobs my body to sleep"
-Suzanne Pullen, "The Year of Angels", They Were Still Born

Chelsea occasionally feels an uncontrollable guilt about Kyla's death. She feels responsible, as if it were her fault - which isn't true - and it breaks my heart a little more every time she tells me she feels that way. Sometimes I feel a little guilty myself when I express my own grief because I feel like I'm somehow blaming her. We both know I'm not, and we both know it's not her fault at all, but these are the types of point-blank impulses that we can't immediately control. So how can I be a loving, supportive husband and a grieving father at the same time? Maybe those go hand-in-hand. Maybe I can be one simply by being the other. Maybe my love for Chelsea is another way to grieve for our daughter, and maybe mourning Kyla's death demonstrates my devotion to my wife. Either way, I sometimes feel like I fall short in both categories.

Yes, grief is a grating, temperamental, comforting companion to have. 

"It is not the life we wanted, it is not the life story we planned, but still, it is our life."
-Kelley Krahling, "Living with (and without) Caleb", They Were Still Born

There's no pain scale for this. There's no handy-dandy little chart that tells us how to answer the inevitable how-are-you-holding-up questions. There's no 1-to-10 rating that we can use as a reference for today's grief. If there were, the answers would be all over the place, all the time: "It's a 2 right now, it was an 8 about an hour ago and it's going to be a 17.5 in a couple of minutes" ... it can't be categorized like that and it shouldn't be categorized like that. It changes too often and it's too different for each of us. We just have to recognize those moments in each other and we have to be there, good and bad, every time.