It has been raining since yesterday morning. Right now it is pouring. And it perfectly matches how I feel right now. I am just in a hole of grief and sadness. And before any of you get too worried, THIS IS PERFECTLY NATURAL. I am allowed to feel this horrible pain and depression, and there is nothing wrong or unnatural about it. I started reading the book, "It's OK that you're not OK." If you have any doubts, or if you know someone going through deep grief, please pick it up. It's so good. Megan Devine is the author.
Yesterday I spent every minute reliving the last day Teddy was alive, just as I have for the other 3 month anniversaries. When it got to be 9:45pm, which was the same time that Paul and I went to bed that night, I entered my deep grief zone. The last time I heard his voice had been about an hour earlier, when he had gone to sleep. We don't know what time he died, or even what happened, and we might never know. Just imagine going to sleep one night, not knowing that the rest of your life was about to change. Sometime between 8:45pm and 7:00am, his little heart stopped beating and we lost him.
I went into the what if's. Why didn't I just pick him up when he was still awake and spend those last few hours with him? Would he still be alive? What if I had gone to California and Paul and the kids could have come to visit and we got to go to Disneyland, just like we had planned? What if we had gotten a new pack and play instead of using the one whose side had collapsed and we had to use a pool cue to keep it up? As a friend pointed out, and as I know from my AA program, getting caught in the "what if's" and "shoulda's" it's not a great place to be, but come on? How could I not think these things? I can't just be like, "Well, this was supposed to happen." NO! My brain goes there, and now you get to read about it!
I miss him. I miss him so much it's like my heart tries to leap out of my chest. There is this ache, this horrible longing. Now, when I think about the future, I can never, ever count on it. I was thinking about Logan going to college one day, and my immediate follow up thought was, well I hope he gets that far. It's fucking awful.
Paul and I have been thinking about surrogacy lately. A lot of you know that after Teddy was born, I had some complications - placenta accreta, which they did not catch before his birth. This means that my placenta attached too deeply into my uterine wall and could not fully detach after he was born. This caused a lot of bleeding and the need for several follow up procedures. I had a uterine embolism, which is when the snaked a tiny cable from my femoral artery all the way up through my heart and down to my uterus to insert these little balls that blocked the flow of blood to my uterus. I was awake the whole time, and it was fucking awful. This is typically performed to treat fibroids, but in my case they wanted to mitigate any life-threatening blood loss when they performed the D&C, or dilation and curettage. This procedure is where they dilate your cervix to go in with a little vacuum so they can get out the necessary tissues. In my case, they went in with a little pac man-like tool to eat away the placental tissue that was still in my uterus.
After these two procedures, I got a call from my OB, who asked me to come into her office so we could talk. This was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. My family had flown in from Oregon and Minnesota to spend the holiday with me and my family. It was their first time meeting Logan and Teddy, who was just 2 months old at the time. It was supposed to be a joyful time, but instead it was tainted by the fact that she told me that afternoon that she recommended a hysterectomy. The risks if I had kept my uterus were severe, life-threatening bleeding if my uterine wall ended up opening from some form of stress or pressure and infection or sepsis because of the foreign tissues in there. Doesn't really seem like a choice, when you look at that.
So on January 13, 2022, I went under the knife and they took out my uterus. The surgeon was a true asshole. For someone who changes many women's lives every day with such a personal and intimate procedure, he had absolutely no bedside manner. He sauntered in and said, "Okay, what are we doing today?" I think he meant it for me to be funny, but when you are looking at getting an ORGAN taken out, not to mention the organ that made me a mother, it's not so fucking funny. And then he proceeded to tell us that this operation was not technically necessary, but when you look at the risks, what the hell else choice did I really have? And honestly, we knew our family was complete, and if we ever wanted to have another child we could "just adopt."
Never in my worst nightmares could I have ever imagined what my life would be like today. We were SO happy. There were obviously really hard days. In fact, when Teddy was very young, I got myself put on anti-depressants for my PPD (postpartum depression) and anxiety. I was going through a very difficult time, but even still, I had so much happiness and joy every day. We also felt guilty for how easily we had gotten pregnant. It was like we decided to go for it, and I just knew exactly when I got pregnant. Now I don't feel guilty for one second about that. I thank god for that.
I guess the reason why I am saying all of this is because the thoughts of having another child have entered my mind. This is not to "replace" Teddy in any way, and when I imagine if I had a uterus and actually got pregnant, I would be so terrified every day. I just look at my little Logan and want to see him be a big brother to a living child again. He is a little angel on this earth. Today he was watching videos of Teddy and him playing, and it simultaneously broke my heart and made me so happy.
This was a wandering, meandering post, so if you've read the whole thing, congrats! I want to end on what Logan has been doing lately. We were at the dinner table and he was singing and doing his little dance to "You Are My Sunshine." He asked me and Paul to participate, and in the middle he loudly exclaimed, "Good job, guys!" It is so fun to watch this little man grow into a little boy. My heart just breaks when I think about who Teddy would be becoming. And watching the two of them grown together.
I miss you, my buddy, my Teddy Bear. Logan and Daddy and I are thinking about you every minute of every day. You are MY sunshine, and I miss your bright light. I am putting the last video we have of him below. Please enjoy his smile and his utter joy at watching his big brother...
December 29, 2022
Of course no one could ever replace Teddy. That said, I am deeply moved by the fact you have even considered to open your heart and home to a child without parents who is in need.