Ouch

Sometimes, it just hurts.

Have you ever put a puzzle together, only to discover that a piece was missing?  Sometimes, it's in a very inconspicuous place, and it's not really a huge deal if a piece is missing.  Sometimes, though, that missing piece just makes the puzzle obviously incomplete.  Today is one of the "obviously incomplete" type days.

So...I've mentioned before that at least one person has said something to the effect of "well, you had it easy because you hardly knew Gideon".  That is a load of crap, nobody should ever belittle anyone else's grief.  Despite the irritation I feel that someone actually said that: I can see some logic in that thought, and even through my own experience, I have noticed that because Gideon died so young, it is sometimes easy to carry on as if he were never there.  In fact, he never was at our house.  He never actually was here, his entire week was spent in hospitals.  So sometimes it's easy to carry on and keep going as if my 5th baby was all a dream.

In both of these family pictures, if you took Gideon out like a puzzle piece, you'd take away mine or Scott's chest/stomach as well.  Sometimes, that's about what it feels like.

Sometimes, though, the reality of missing him is very painful, and so present I feel like I could bite down on it. Today, I just miss him.  And it's horrible because I don't even know what I'm missing.  I have no idea if he would have been cuddly or busy, if he'd have had brown eyes or green eyes, or blue, if he would have been left handed or right handed.  He was born almost 6 months ago, though he was only due 3 months ago, he would have been changing and growing, we would be interacting.  It hurts to know that I don't get to have this with him for a very, very long time.

I am truly grateful for a testimony that I will see him again, that makes it all much more bearable, but it's still hard when it feels like forever away.

Yesterday, I was reading and listening to one of the apostles talk about when the Savior prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.  He was quoting Mark 14, "Father, all things are possible unto thee. take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt."

Hearing this triggered a memory of the prayer I uttered when I first learned that they were having difficulty getting Gideon breathing and getting his heart going.

A little history: we went to the U of U hospital for an ultrasound.  I had no idea they'd be keeping me to deliver my baby, or I'd have had my house cleaned and a bag packed, and babysitters lined up.  I just thought we were going to meet with specialists and see the baby on their ultrasound equipment.  After the ultrasound, they had us meet with some genetic counselors (if you are ever told you are meeting with them, beware--they are like the gloom and doom bearers of the "having a baby" world) and they told us that Gideon's condition might be lethal.  WHAT?!  That was the first time anyone had ever let us know it could be that bad. My doctor (who I had just met) recommended that we get ready to deliver him in a few days, after I had the steroid shots to give his lungs a developmental burst, and that they would try to do what they could to drain his kidneys and save him if he had any kidney function left.

So I stayed, they checked me in, did blood work, monitored Gideon, we had to meet with people from the NICU and learn about all the possible things they would be doing to help him, sign waivers, get shots, etc.  Fast forward a few days, to after the shots were in my system and Gideon was being delivered.  They put us in a delivery room that connected directly with the NICU through a window, so I could pop him out and they could hand him off to their NICU docs.  I saw him for about 1.5 seconds (literally, they held him up and whisked him away) before they handed him through that window.  20 minutes later and a doctor comes in wringing his hands.  (NOT a good thing...we knew it was bad before he said anything.)  Scott and I nicknamed this doctor Dr. Doom, because he wasn't very positive in the way he told us that they were having a hard time getting Gideon's heart started and getting him breathing.  Thus far, they'd been doing compressions and he wasn't responding.  The doctor told us that we should prepare to say goodbye.

After Dr Doom left our room, and I stopped bleeding so much, everyone gave us a few minutes to be alone, except my nurse was there.  I'd just hemorrhaged, so she was keeping an eye on my stats.  Scott and I prayed, and my prayer sounded a little bit like Jesus' did.  I am NOT even trying to pretend that my experience is close to the agony he went through, but I feel like I can relate a little bit more with: "I REALLY don't want to go through this, is there any way that I can avoid it?  Please, please, pretty please?  But if that's what's required of me, then I will do my best."  My prayer was pretty simple, I begged for a miracle.  I know God could have healed him miraculously--"All things are possible unto thee", and I asked that we wouldn't have to suffer losing this child, but I also turned it over to the Lord and asked him for strength to deal with whatever we were called to endure.  I also plead that if he couldn't live, if he couldn't stay, could we at least have a little time with him, for his brothers and sister to get to see him.  I wanted them to have ANY memory with him.

It took a LONG time for the next update to come, and we waited quietly, and cried.  I was shaking and couldn't get warm.  (Pretty sure I had gone into shock.)  When they told us they had him stabilized enough for us to go see him, I couldn't sit up enough to be taken in a wheelchair, so they wheeled my entire hospital bed into the NICU so that I could see him.  A little embarrassing, but I was so glad to have that moment, where I could see my little guy.

And we were blessed to have that week, the kids were able to come to the NICU and see him and hold him, and give him kisses, and we got to have our picture taken, our WHOLE family, even though our hearts were broken, we smiled because we got that week.  We smiled because we were all together for that picture, which was a miracle in and of itself.  I'd have loved to have held him up more, but he had monitors and tubes connected to him, and we were trying not to tip him or jostle him much, in case it disturbed any of those tubes/wires, or his fragile state.

Family pictures won't be the same, he won't be there from here on out.

And today, I just miss him.  I miss all the things I want to know about him, when will he crawl?  When will he walk?  What will his first word be?  What will make him smile?  I miss that I don't know those things.  And sometimes, its easy to carry on like he was never here, because we have so few memories with him and he was almost a stranger to us, but sometimes it's harder because I never got the chance to get to know him, and I wanted to so badly.

I've tried to quantify this, especially if people say "Well, it's not as bad as if I lost my son, because you hardly knew him."  (DON'T ever say that to me, by the way.  All respect will be lost, we will not be such good friends any more.)  So what?  That generalizes that it's easier to lose a child the younger they are.  It's easier to lose a 2 year old than a 7 year old, because you didn't know them as well?  It's easier to lose a 17 year old than if they'd been 38?  That's ridiculous.  Part of what is so sad is the things we want to do with them, the hugs we miss, the things they'd say, the learning and growth that we wish we could share with them.  And while I agree that the memories and imprint someone makes in our lives are able to be missed once they have truly become an integrated part of our lives, there is no "it's easy" age to lose a child.  No amount of time is enough.  We want to be with the people we love, we don't want to say goodbye, whether they're 2 or 92.

The "no amount of time is enough" realization has resonated in my soul, and rung a chord with the doctrine of "families are forever."  God loves us, he knows we want to have forever with our loved ones, and that's why families have an eternal nature.  God is great!  Yep, I still think he's great, even with the loss of my baby.  I do feel strongly that the loss is only temporary, and that because of God's plan of happiness for us, which includes forever families, and a Savior who makes it possible for us to get back to Heaven.

Also...a common mistake is that people ask or wonder if we're "over it".  So...if you lost an arm would you ever get over it?  All of a sudden, one day, you are over it, and don't wish you had your arm back?  A common misconception we all make about grieving is that there ever is a "get over it" time/place.  You don't get over it.  We get on with it.  We keep going, just like people who lose limbs keep going.  They learn how to open a jar of peanut butter a different way, they probably even get good at it, and are able to compensate for that loss, but they probably don't ever think to themselves, "Whew, glad I got over it."  I don't know this from my own personal experience, and I am grateful to have not lost a limb.  I have known people though who have, and they usually continue to enjoy things they used to in life, and they learn to do things differently and they make life work, and they still find joy.  They are OK with their new normal, they have learned and grown from the experience, and they may even be grateful for the loss of their limb because of what they learned and how they grew, for the push it gave them and the progress they made.  Sometimes, though, it hurts, and it is still harder for people to do what needs to be done, even with their compensations.  Many people would probably take the limb back if they could, as long as they didn't have to abandon the learning and growth they made without it.  However, if the choice meant forgetting all you had learned/experienced because of the loss when you got the limb back, most people would choose to deal with their loss.  That is how I feel.  I have grown and learned from this loss.  I can sympathize on a whole new level, my perspective has deepened and broadened, and I will take the learning with the loss, and continue to compensate for the pain.  I am not "over it", though.

I miss my Gideon.  It hurts, today is one of those "hard to breathe" days, because it feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest.  I want to hold him and read to him and sing to him and see what makes him smile and what foods he likes and watch him explore and discover who he is.  I want all 5 of my kids to be with me, and one is missing, and it's very obvious in my heart today.