Visiting 'Myles'

As an atheist, I've begun to wonder why I go to my son's memorial. I've been a little short with my husband regarding the way he talks about Myles in front of DD. We are not, in fact, visiting Myles. We are visiting his memorial. It is a ritual, one of remembrance, one of bonding and sharing our loss. A ritual for us, not for him. I don't see it as more than that. and I don't want my daughter to think it is more. I don't want her to think we are visiting 'him', because I think she could get confused by the fact that his body is there but that he is not his body. I don't want her to think, for example, that he is cold, or lonely, or experiencing things there where he is buried. So I think language makes a big difference but DH isn't as delicate as me.

My husband is a deist, and I wish I could say our views haven't clashed over the years a little. In general, I'm disappointed completely with how Myles' death has been discussed with our daughter by most of my family. I was gone for five hours after he had died. When DD was around our family and they all had Myles' body and were telling her all sorts of things. I'm just worried she is confused. I've always told my family, by all means, share your beliefs with my daughter. But please, preface it with, "I believe . . . ". Don't treat your beliefs as fact. I don't think she should be under the impression that this is factual, that everyone agrees. Because we, as a world, considering all of our religions, don't agree. So I want her to hear the beliefs of many people, but I want her to first and foremost realize that belief is subjective.

So, it does kind of suck that I didn't get to help guide those discussions at the time. Because now she has all these set things in her mind, things that aren't 'weird' (that Myles is an angel, that he's in heaven) but that I wish she didn't believe on a physical level. She was looking at this beautiful sunset the other day, and she said that was heaven but noted she didn't see anyone there. Very astute. I don't tell her either way, mostly when we talk about these things, I ask her more questions than I tell her what to think.

I've always thought that if religion brings my daughter peace, I'm glad for her. It has never brought me peace. The idea of my son being somehow conscious and in some alternate reality is actually disturbing to me. I guess I could talk about it further, but I don't want to make moms like me, who do believe this, upset or offended by my misgivings. As I said, whatever brings you peace and happiness is what you should do. I find peace in knowing my son is at peace, and that he never learned the cruelties of this world, only the warmth and love of my womb. And I guess that's all I have to say about that right now.

Bad day, insomnia

I just have these days, stressful days. It seems like to get through work I have to put my emotions to the side. But when I get home from these days, I pay double for it. I had meetings all day and a terrible night tonight. The first time I felt like screaming. I've repressed it. Can you believe that? For three months. I've been in the abyss, but this is one of the first times that I've just moaned and groaned and cried on DH's shoulder. He said, "I can't believe it took you so long." He just doesn't know how much I grieve when I'm finally alone.

It's been three months, and I just have never put my son's clothes in storage (for many reasons). I was going to give them to my BF, but I couldn't bring myself to go through them then. Tonight, I thought I'd just get it over with, listen to my ipod as a distraction, but I couldn't resist looking at them one more time, and it was too much.

This low point began last night, when for the millionth time since losing sweet Myles that I couldn't sleep. I lay in my bed, heart racing, trying, grasping to think of something that will put me at rest, any happy thought to get lost in instead. But all thoughts lead back to one thing. sigh. And none of those things are conducive to sleeping, only anxiety and frustration and hurt. I know I'm not alone, many times I'm on the internet, grasping searching for answers. It's my time with Myles in a way, the only time the house is quiet and I'm really alone.

When I left the house today, I knew it would be a bad day, my DH asked me how I was feeling, and I said, 'does it matter?'. I've still have to do what I have to do. I'm just not ready for my life to speed up again; it's been in slow motion for so long. I don't know that I'm ready to pick it all back up again.

I've said it before. Everything is the same, but nothing is the same. It should be so very different. How can I move forward like this?

Why am I so pro Obama?

This is a good question one I've pondered since it was posed to me in the comments by vixenne (h/t) at Beyond the Pale. I've been pro Obama since before 2004 Democratic meeting, he just seemed like an open book and a dynamic figure with lots of charisma. I first heard of him on Dailykos, and I was pulled in by what limited I knew of his life, his experiences. He wasn't a calculating politician, he seemed like a regular person just like me and you. He captured many hearts in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention, and I've watched him closely since.

On the issues, I like that he is transparent. He wants transparency in government. He is transparent about his life, even when it's not adventageous (like discussing his past drug use), and in politics, even when it ticks off establishment dems and repubs alike. I like that he opposed the war from the beginning (as did I) and he took that position long before it was popular. He didn't do it to benefit himself, and it could have easily been to his own demise. He doesn't just take positions because of his ambitions.

I like that Obama thinks government is for the people, that it won't work unless all of us stand up and make it happen. He believes in the American People. As misanthropic as I've been sometimes, I do believe that if every child had an opportunity, they would flourish. Right now, so many kids don't. And we only care about them when they're kids (if you call our current foster system 'caring') once they're adults we expect them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps at age 19, childhood be damned.

I like Obama because he knows that when challenged by a major catastrophe, that we (the american people) want to DO something (besides shopping). The book, "Downsizing Democracy" I think paints beautifully the problem with our current 'democratic' system and disconnect gov't has (and wants to continue to have) from the people. Establishment politicians act as if they don't need us. They act as if it's all explained by apathy, the whole generation me thing. And it's bullshit. I'm 27. I always felt like I was born too late. I looked back at the civil rights movement and feminist movement and I felt like I missed 'it'.

My first year of graduate school, I had this wondeful social theory course, and it was exactly what you'd probably imagine. A room full of young idealistic (yet ironically misanthropic) grad students arguing Habermas and Schutz and trying to solve all of the worlds problems in our tiny little seminar room. One day, I walked up to the board, and I wrote, "We're the one's we've been waiting for". I had read the quote the day before, and it gave me chills. And it gave everyone in the class chills. This was right after the Dems lost the 2004 election, and in hindsight, I can't believe I was that optimistic. Today, that is an Obama campaign slogan.

So anyway, I don't think the American people are delusional to support Obama, that we're all mindless zombies. Obamamania. That's the current narrative they're pushing. Obama has tapped into a social movement, one many in my generation have been itching for for a very long time.

And on a personal front, for somebody as hopeless as I have been since I lost Myles, I think it really says something for Obama that he can still bring that sense of hope back for even me. From an atheistic standpoint, I can no longer account for what that feeling is, what drives it, what is at it's base (I don't think it's utilitarianism), but simply to have it well up inside of me again, it makes me believe that I can find it in me again someday down the road in my little world, when I'm ready for another baby, another great hope.

"The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone."

I think the sun might rise again for me, and I think it might rise again for our country. And, I hate to do it again, but I've got to post that Obama quote one more time:

"But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it."

3 months

What can I say? Today hurts, the finality of it all. Fuck.

Feminism and stillbirth

I posted this in the comments over at feministing on a story discussing the Missouri law that will give tax deductions to parents of stillborn children (http://feministing.com/archives/008638.html):

My son was stillborn a little over 2 months ago at 37 weeks gestation for no known reason. Needless to say, me, my DH, and my DD (4yo) were devastated including countless other family members and friends. We have suffered financially from this loss. The paying for the 'nursery' bit is not 'upper class'. I'm an attachment parent, I bought little, no conspicuous consumption here, I didn't even by a crib. What I did buy added up, a baby wrap, clothes, cloth diapers(what a cruel joke, I thought this would save me money in the long run). Hell, there are lost dollars for most women in pregnancy discrimination alone. I personally spent 9 weeks on bed rest, which is a similar financial burden. Then there is the burial, the memorial, the missed days of work grieving, lowered productivity and most importantly MEDICAL BILLS. These babes growing inside of us are 'dependents'. We pay for them from day one.

It might sound calculating, but in order to have my son, I was depending on my deduction to pay for my medical bills. If my son had been born, he would've been on S-CHIP (as a family of four, we would then qualify), I even planned for that in all of my planning (for his medical bills/hospital care, etc.). You might think that's crazy, but when you plan a baby for two years on a fixed income (DH is blue collar, I'm a grad student with crappy insurance) you do take into account those deductions. And there are many moms like me, living on the edge of poverty, who are underinsured like me, who do the same in order to be able to have a baby. I certainly don't need to tell any of you the financial burdens that accompany pregnancy, carried mostly on the shoulders of women. It is well established that the birth of a child throws many families into poverty. But it really does start with pregnancy.

Of course, with all that planning, I never did plan for this. As a proud outspoken feminist Soc grad student, I view this bill through a lens of giving women choices. I go to my sons memorial all the time. It cost over $500, $100 of it we had to fork over for a temp. marker on the day we planned his funeral (which I 'm required to do as his 'guardian' by State law). We didn't have the money, but we wrote the check anyway. We were lucky enough to have family and friends help us with the permanent memorial. When I went the other day, as the snow had temporarily melted, I saw unmarked grave after unmarked grave. So many dreams lay there in babyland. It breaks my heart, that some parents didn't even have the scant resources my family has. I felt sorry for myself that we were in such a bind, but there are so many more families worse off than I.

As far as those laws slipped into State legislatures designed to chip away at Roe v Wade and women's rights, I understand your suspicion and worry. My reaction 4 months ago would probably have been the same. I'm for reproductive justice to the core. I believe abortion should be safe and available to any woman, anytime, anywhere, for any reason.

What I can tell you is that bills aimed at giving birth certificates to stillborn babies, or tax deductions to families like mine do not fall into that category. These bills are about giving women choices. They are about recognizing the burdens of women. Stillbirths are still swept under the rug, much like pregnancies themselves were for decades. Nobody wants to talk about birthing dead babies. Even recently (within the last 50-60 years), many women never got to see their stillborn child, they were whisked away, dead, not worth seeing in the eyes of the men who delivered them. No funeral service, a quick burial, and everyone was told to 'move on'. I saw a recent story of this here (http://pubsys.pressofatlanticcity.com/185/story/45104.html). The woman never knew for 40 years where her dear stillborn daughter was buried, and decades later, her children found that baby and bought her a memorial. It is heartbreaking, the hurt this woman must endure, the hurt I must endure, for decades.

The fact is, birth is a process that by definition has two outcomes, live birth and still birth. I can tell you after experiencing both, they are the same excruciating physiological process. Today, many opportunities are given to mothers to help them grieve the loss of their child. Locks of hair, casts of hands and feet, crib cards, pictures (Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep: http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/). Why? Because their births are worth remembering. They are certainly worth tracking statistically given the atrocity that is stillbirth research.

My son's birth was transformative for me, it's one of the only positive pieces I turn to in my grief. My daughters birth was traumatic, it was birth rape, and I was looking forward to a natural water birth where I was treated like a human being. And you know what? I got my completely natural water birth, my son was dead, but I did give birth to him in a loving, supportive setting with my daughter, sister, husband, and midwife all there to support me. It was beautiful. And that is what birth certificates are for. They should be called 'birthed certificates', they are not about personhood, they are not about 'life' or loss, they are about the mother and her birth; whether it is live or still, it is equally harrowing, life threatening, breathtaking, healing, and, in some cases, devastating. Women deserve this respect, that States not only recognize only one type of birth. They deserve the respect of their dreams not being swept under the rug any longer.

As a feminist that has only recently experienced the stillbirth of my son, I've thought a lot about these issues. Obviously as I have a lot to say. And I think I understand feminism even more deeply after considering these issues from my new perspective. What women do is amazing, carrying children is a hardship but many gladly sacrifice, would risk their lives for it. Recognizing stillbirth is recognizing our work, our dreams, our sacrifices, and, through 'certificates of birth resulting in stillbirth', our births are recognized, for no surreptitious reason, only to give us closure, or just give us one more piece of paper with our beautiful child's name written on it that we can hold and remember for years to come. It might not seem like a lot, but to many women it is everything. They may never have another child again, are they a mother if their only child was stillborn? I say, yes, they birthed, they are mothers, only their children never lived. These bills are about recognizing motherhood, in all it's pain and all it's glory.

From atheism to what? Why do we hope?

I've posted about my previously unequivocal atheism, discussed my hope, read some Nietzche and Camus and I'm more confused than ever. What am I hoping for? Do animals hope? Is hope the same as anticipation? Like does a squirrel watch your food 'anticipating' or 'hoping' that you may drop it? When my dogs gather around my daughter when she eats, LOL, is it out of 'hope' or 'want', and what is the difference? I think I can safely say that 'want' and 'anticipation' are necessary for there to be hope, but they are certainly not sufficient.Is hope simply to sit back and yearn for something? Is hope a thought, or an action or both? I think, unlike 'want', that hope requires action, sacrifice. You have to play to win, in other words. As a PhD student, I'm obviously willing and able to withstand temporary short term discomfort (if you consider grad school short term and if 'discomfort' means a self inflicted torture) for a long term gain. So is hope just a simple account of economics? But not just economics, short term loss for long term gain? It's certainly not cause and effect, the long term gain is not certain. Not everyone who enters a PhD program will leave with their degree. We know that our actions to attain what we hope for merely increase the probability that we gain whatever it is. Is hope simply a gamble?

Do we only differentiate hope from want by the odds against us? When I buy a lottery ticket, there is a part of me that hopes I win, but I recognize it as a 'fools hope' because I know the odds. But as they say, if you don't play, you can't win. So hope requires you 'play'. It is an action, and it is a sacrifice, financial or other.

So far, I think I can say that hope requires want/desire, anticipation, action, sacrifice AND that the outcome is essentialliy probabilistic. But is that alone hope? I think we've found necessary components, but not yet sufficient components to describe hope.

Through the lens of pregnancy, all of this applies. Pregnancy is many instances of hope. But there is something more than just probablistic economics to it. First, with gambling, there are known odds, we know the likelihood of flipping heads 10 times in a row or getting a royal flush, they are easily calculable. We know that sometimes we'll win, and sometimes we'll lose, but we know in the aggregate exactly what proportion will win or lose with the same hand. Hope, in this scenario, is that one wins monetarily more than they invest. The difference between gambling and pregnancy, though is that the odds aren't as clear.

Basically, fertility, family planning, it is a gamble. As you ttc each month, you're playing to win, and the majority of couples are fertile, but that doesn't necessarily mean the month they 'try' they will get pregnant. We all know that part of it is up to chance. So many of us want to get pregnant, while some of us hope to get pregnant, depending on those odds. I've always 'wanted' to get pregnant by the way, I don't know if I ever hoped, mostly because I've never had infertility issues.
Once you have conceived, does it become a hope? Once again, I think it depends on the odds against you, are you 'high risk' etc. I think perhaps for everyone it becomes a hope because we don't know a lot about pregnancy and miscarriage. Many pregnancies end in miscarriage, the majority of those losses occur before 12 weeks. And then we make it to 23 or 24 weeks and we know that probability speaking, if we do have preterm labor, that our baby would have pretty favorable odds at survival. And as we near the end of pregnancy, as we make it to term, we've pretty much made it, but most of us know that there are no guarantees until our babies are safe in our arms. But still, as our odds of giving birth to a live healthy child increase to over 99% as we reach term, it's still essentially a hope. Why? Is it the unknown? Because when it's a card game and you're 99% likely to win, I don't think you 'hope' to win anymore. You expect it.

So perhaps, then, why I feel so betrayed and hopeless is because I was no longer hoping. I felt entitled, it was almost a certainty. And I did forget, especially that 37th week, that this was still a gamble that hadn't yet paid off. And now, perhaps I feel hopeless because I realize that essentially everything is a gamble. And to hope is to believe that you will win, even if the odds are against you.

So, back to the conundrum, can true atheists justify their hope at all?

"Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man." -- Nietzsche
to be continued . . .

'Earth Angels'

My four-year-old daughter is just amazing. I think everyone who saw Simone at Myles' funeral knows this. She is not intimidated by people at all (so opposite from me), which is why when the pastor asked if anyone had anything to say (and I expected nothing) she, of course, piped up with an 'I do' and went up and told Myles that she loved him and put a rose on his casket. It took everyone's breath away, but it was so 'Simone'. That's just her personality.

So, today, she did something along these exact same lines. Her and I had went to get the oil changed in the car, and we'd sat down in two chairs next to a man who was reading the newspaper. Simone sat in between us. This was a man in his 50's, built like most men in their fifties, barrel chested/skinny legs. He wore a black leather jacket, and he looked a little rough (like he'd worked in the sun his whole life)  He looked nice enough for just being a random stranger at Express Lube.

First of all, I did not get the vibe he wanted to chat. And I know it is true that there are people who just don't like kids, so I'm always conscientious of her friend-making because she just dives right in without regard.  I think I try to hold her back because I get embarrassed and then am forced to do the Mom smile-shrug, which in sign language somehow means, "Kids, what do you do?".  Also, I am kind of a loner and I'm not comfortable talking to strangers, and don't like people starting up conversations with me when I'm in my 'zone' (especially reading).  Simone has challenged me on this many times, much to my frustration, but perhaps for my own good, too.  Simone is simply the most outgoing child, she is an extrovert (how did this happen to me?) she thrives in group settings, gains energy from interacting with others.

So, of course, she whispers in my ear after we sit down and get comfortable, "Mom, I want to say 'hi' to that man."  Now I at first tried to dissuade her from this, but decided to give in and reluctantly tell her to try if she wants to (I was reading my own newspaper by then).  So she looks over and says 'hi' but he doesn't hear her.  Simone whispers to me, "Mom, I said 'hi' but he didn't say anything."  And I'm thinking to myself that this guy does not want to be bothered. She is determined so, with a sigh, I whisper back and tell her she has to get his attention, then say 'hi'.  At that point I readied myself for the embarrassment that will inevitably follow.

Simone looks at him, and louder this time, says  "Hi."

"Hi." the man turns, looks at me,  then looks at her with a smile and asks "How are you, today?"

"Good" she says, as cool as a cucumber.  The next part of their conversation I don't remember as well, they discussed this Christmas card she had made during Christmas time and found in the car, she showed it to him.  She told him she was going to send it to Santa next Christmas, she told him her name, and showed him how she spelled it out on the back of the card, "S-I-M-O-N-E" she says point to the letters.  The whole time he acted as interested as could be, and I felt relieved that he seemed nice and actually seemed to welcome the conversation.  Here is where it get's more interesting.

Simone says, out of the blue, and very matter of factly, "My mom is trying to have a baby."  I hear this, as I'm listening to their conversation, and immediately blush and sink down in my chair thinking to myself that I cannot believe she just said that.  First, it's not true, I am not trying to get pregnant right now, someday, but certainly not now.  In my embarrassment, I shake my head and silently vow that someday I am going to embarrass the hell out of her when she's a teenager for this single moment of embarrassment alone.  I won't feel the least bit bad, either.
The man said, "Oh" nicely enough, probably knowing my chagrin at her telling him such personal information. 

Simone continues, "Well," all of her sentences start with 'well' (she's so sassy), "she was already pregnant and had a baby. She had a water birth." She says with a sense of respect and excitement in her voice (she just loves water births I didn't mean to brainwash her).  Of course, I go a shade redder and slink a little lower even as I'm chuckling at her water birth bit. I am thinking, however, that this has definitely taken a turn for the worse as I know where she is going with all this. 

"Oh, she already had a baby, huh?" the man says still very polite although I think maybe he wondered, even if for only a split second, where that baby is.
"Yes. But he died." Simone pauses and then says, "My mom cries about it all the time."  Of course now I'm really uncomfortable, almost mortified, obviously being talked about in the third person does that anyway but to share something so personal. So now I get to be 'debbie downer' and I'm going to have to talk about Myles with this strange man who is probably regretting the conversation began at all. I felt bad for him just like I felt bad for my former student who asked about whether I had my baby. 

Then, something amazing happened.  Before I can begin to stutter out an apology and explanation he says, just as matter of factly, and to Simone, "My daughter died too.  She was almost an adult though."  I was speechless, awestruck, saddened, and surprised at his candidness. 

Simone says, "Oh." 

I expected him to look at  me, to have that moment of connection and understanding that accompanies child loss. But he never broke eye contact with her.  Their amazingly nonchalant conversation continued from then on (she told him about her Chistmas gifts, and talks about how we were going to buy her a valentines day dress, and he listens as if it's his own little daughter or grandchild). I'm sitting their stunned, my heart simultaneously soaring and sinking.
   
So, once again, my daughter does what she has done to me on many occasions, beginning the day she was born when I first held her in my arms.  She just left me awestruck.  She knows how to take my breath away.

So, now that I'm writing about this interaction, I'm crying, but I wasn't then. Mostly I was smiling, and when Simone needed help articulating, I would help interpret for her in their completely Simone led conversation (about their dogs and cats and their names, etc., etc.).

As we said goodbye to him (his car was done) I made the conscious effort to remember their every word. It really did touch me in a very profound way.

I am not religious, not one bit. But sometimes there are coincidences, chance encounters with people that happen at just the right moment. I think of these people as earth angels. My midwife is certainly one, this lady I met on the bus the other day was one, too. And I can count at least half a dozen people who are just like that, virtual strangers who have stepped into my life, sometimes only for a moment. They say exactly what we need to hear, or they do exactly what we need done at that moment. This kind and gentle man who talked to me and my daughter for those 10 minutes is one of them, and we never even got his name!