waiting for a rainbow

In the vernacular of the pregnancy and baby loss community, a baby born after a loss is called a rainbow baby. The idea is that this child is the rainbow after the storm that was previously endured, the culmination of a hard-fought battle against despair and grief. Some women go on to have two, three, or even more rainbow babies; others struggle to have one. For those still trying, they are living, breathing gifts of hope, a promise that not everything is lost.

Even so, it's a long, difficult road for those hoping for or carrying a rainbow baby. I'm terrifed at the prospect of getting pregnant again, even though it's something that I want very much now. From the first day we went into the hospital, Geordie and I knew that we wanted to try again. Lauren was an unplanned pregnancy, but she brought so much love into our lives, so much hope. As frightened as we were of becoming parents, we also knew that we wanted her. We wanted the family that she made us into. We wanted to love her and each other, and we wanted to raise her together. Nothing felt more natural. And as soon as we knew she was gone, we knew we wanted that for ourselves and for Lauren's memory.

It's not that a rainbow baby is a replacement. Lauren - or any other lost child - cannot simply be replaced. There will never be another baby like Lauren. What there will be is Lauren's younger brother or sister, someone just as unique as Lauren was and just as special. Another baby won't be Lauren, and that's as it should be. People don't have more than child because the first one is faulty, after all. No child is a replacement for another.

I hope it will happen for us. Someday. Not yet. We're not ready for it yet, in so many ways. Some people try again as soon as they get the all-clear from their doctors; we won't be doing that. Our first few months back in the States are not certain ones - we don't know where we'll end up or what we'll be doing or what our living situation will be like. We want to be settled before trying again; we want to avoid the stress of uncertainty and moving that we went through this year. Being pregnant again will be stressful enough; we want to make it as easy on us as possible.

Also, emotionally, we aren't ready, and it will probably be a while. I've read a lot of stories of women who try again two or three months afterwards and have their babies around the due date of their lost child. I don't think that's something I could do. It's not just the closeness to Lauren's due date, even though there are so many reasons why that would make me uncomfortable (I can't bear the thought of sharing Lauren's day with a rainbow baby, who should have a day of his/her own). I don't know that I could be pregnant again as I was pregnant this year, experiencing all the same things as I experienced them with Lauren. My rainbow baby will be a new baby, and I want new experiences. I don't want to relive everything. And three months is not enough time for me. I don't have the strength to try again so soon. I want to, more than anything, but I know it won't be right for me.

And, one more thing - probably the most important thing. I'm scared. Not of being pregnant again; I've found that I can survive that. Likewise, I'm not afraid of labor and delivery, as I know I can also survive that. I'm afraid of what all baby-loss mothers are afraid of: losing another child. The odds of that happening are small. But it can still happen. I won't be fooled by the innocent naivete of the pregnant woman who has never felt a loss. I see life now through the eyes of experience, and I wonder that it might not be possible for me to simply enjoy being pregnant now. I want to enjoy it next time, appreciate it for everything it is. But how can I? From the moment I feel my baby moving, how will I be able to think of anything else? How many minutes - hours - will I spend lying on my side, waiting to feel that life is still nestled within me? I don't want to be scared my entire pregnancy, but I doubt I can trust myself not to be.

It's really for this reason that I will need time before trying for our rainbow. I need to know that I can trust myself and my body to have a healthy pregnancy; I need to have confidence that I can give birth to a live, breathing baby. But I do know this - I'm waiting for the day when I can hold my rainbow baby and look into his or her eyes and know that things are alright. A rainbow baby won't bring Lauren back to me, but it will still bring something wonderful into my life, and I want that. I want to bring another child into our little family, a child I never thought I would want to have, a child I never would have thought to expect. I want more than anything to meet Lauren's younger brother or sister.

just a quote (II)

Today was a long day. It was mostly a good day, but it was a long one.

We went up to Gotemba to the Premium Outlet mall to see if we could find a new suitcase and met with mild success. Not sure if it'll work for our needs, but it might. It wasn't the easiest of tasks because of the "family-friendly" atmosphere, but we managed to get through the day. And then we rewarded ourselves with a delicious French dinner at a hotel in the area. A good start to our last week in Japan. It's hard to believe that we'll be flying away on Sunday.

Because it's been such a busy day, I haven't had time to work on a blog post. Also, a lot of my extra time lately has gone to preparing for Nanowrimo - plotting and gathering notes and such. Even writing a memoir takes preparation, and I have a lot of ideas to get down, so organization is important. My posting schedule will probably change some for November. For now, I'll leave you with another quote, this one by C. S. Lewis, who has long been a favorite author of mine, not just for the Chronicles of Narnia (some of which are still some of my favorite stories) but also for his other works. Here is a quote about love and loss and the importance of leaving ourselves open to love - and therefore open also to the possibility of losing what we love. Enjoy.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."
     - C. S. Lewis, "The Four Loves"

what I see when I close my eyes

I’ve been reading a lot of pregnancy and baby loss blogs lately, and it’s both heartbreaking and inspiring to read the stories of families who have lost their precious little ones. Hardest of all, though, is seeing the images of their children. Over and over again, at nearly every blog I visit, there are the pictures of infants loved and lost, dressed in clothes that were supposed to be their going-home outfits and cuddled by their mourning families.

I used to think this was on the morbid side of things, but that was before I knew better. That was before I had a reason to think about why those pictures would be so important to a family and why one might come to regret not having them done.

Because my wish right now – besides actually having my daughter with me, which will always be my greatest wish that will never come true - is to have a picture of her. Immediately after the delivery, I did not have the presence of mind to think about asking for pictures. I’m not even sure if that’s something Japanese hospitals do or even allow. It wasn’t until later that night, when I closed my eyes to go to sleep and all I could see was Lauren, that I realized that was the only way I was ever going to see her. I would not be able to see her again, not as she was when she was born, not as she was when she was new and whole and belonging to us, to Geordie and me.

Worse still, I will never have anything tangible to hold and cherish, nothing to remind me of her face. I will never have anything to show to her grandparents; they will never know how beautiful and peaceful she looked. They will never see the slight curl of dark and still damp hair over her little ear, the soft patch of eyebrows over her closed eyes, or the gentle roundness of her cheeks. I will have nothing to show people when I tell them about Lauren; I will have only my memory, and that’s not something I can just hand over to people to help them see that she was real and beautiful.

Greatest of all is the fear that I will forget what she looked like, the curve of her chin and her little button nose. It was so brief, that moment with her – how can I make those few minutes stretch into a lifetime? As much as it hurts to see her sweet, sleeping face in my mind, it would be worse still to forget her. Right now, I can close my eyes and see her, but how long will that last? How long will it be before the image starts to fade and all I can do is guess at what I once saw every time I closed my eyes? I don’t want an idealized image of Lauren – I want her. I want to remember the small patches of red on her forehead and chin where she had lost skin during the delivery. I want to remember her tiny ears flattened down, her nearly lipless mouth opened in a perpetual yawn. She was beautiful to me as she was; she would have been beautiful to me no matter what she looked like.

But physical representation of Lauren has been lost to me now, and all I can do is cling to the memory I have of her. I cannot go back and tell myself that pictures are necessary, a comfort rather than a cruel reminder; I wasn’t ready to know that then. I wasn’t ready to think about it then. And now it's too late.

Too late to help her, too late to save her, too late to take pictures of her, too late to hold her, too late to kiss her goodbye. It will always be too late.

him and me and her

I lived alone for several years, and I lived far from my family for a number of those years. While in Florida, I had my cat Sarge to keep me company, but most of my time in Japan was as a solitaire. After my last roommate and I parted ways, I decided that the only way I would ever live with anybody again was to be married to them.

Marriage was never something I completely ruled out of my life. I didn't want to not get married. I didn't want marry just any man; I wanted to marry the right man. I also would have been okay with cohabitation, but I had the feeling that marriage would make things easier from a legal standpoint, not to mention just for the sake of convenience. But that was really a distraction from the main point, which was that I wanted to be in love with someone before I considered living with them.

Geordie moved in with me at the beginning of February, 2011. Though, really, "moved in" is just a convenient way to put it. It was possible that it was going to be a temporary thing, a place for him to live while he looked for a permanent job and while I looked for a new one. He was temporarily assigned a position in Hitachi, which was far enough away from Moriya for him to be unable to make a daily commute. So, really, he lived with me on the weekends. The rest of the week, I was still alone. We'd seen more of each other when we weren't living together.

Two weeks after he moved in, we found out I was pregnant. We saw no way for him to be able to leave the job he had, so for a month, he was home only on the weekends. I was pregnant alone, and it was tough going. It felt to me that I was becoming more adjusted to the pregnancy than he was, and to be fair, that was probably true. I lived with the pregnancy constantly; for him, it was a weekend thing. He didn't go through the many bodily changes that reminded me of what was happening or the mood swings that shook me into sudden bouts of crying. Or the tiredness - that sheer exhaustion that knocked me out cold. These were oddities to him, things I had to explain again every weekend. That ended with the Tohoku earthquake, the story of which is far too long to tell here and shall be written about at length in November.

Things changed after the earthquake. Geordie came back from Hitachi, and his company sent him to work in Tokyo, which was an unpleasant commute but one that allowed him to come home every day. From then on, I had him every day and every night. We became a daily occurence for each other, and it was during this time, I think, that the pregnancy became a very real thing for him. It was at that point that we became not a unit of two but a unit of three.

It happened faster than I had expected. One month, I was living alone happily enough; the next, I was living with a family - my family. I had thought that would take longer to adjust to, but by the time we moved to Susono, it was done. I was a wife and a mother, carrying a child that would make our little family complete. I was carrying our child, and nothing could have been more right. Everything was as it should be, and I would not have gone back to living alone for anything. I still wouldn't.

Geordie and Lauren and me. We're a family. We always will be. Lauren is a part of us, still loved and cared for. It doesn't matter that she's not physically here with us; she's here in other ways, and we'll carry her with us for the rest of our lives.

bye-bye, Juntendo

When most people think about hospitals, what usually comes to mind is not pleasant: injury, illness, death. Going to the hospital is a bad thing; it means something is wrong with you. It also means money is going to probably come out of your pocket, which would be another reason people don't like hospitals so much.

Aside from my personal experience, my observation of hospital activity has been punctuated by the creation of new life. I spent more than half of the last year in birth clinics or ob/gyn wards, surrounded by women nurturing babies, their growing bellies testament to the life brewing inside them. Or else there were women coming in for their post-partum check-ups, carrying their newborns with them, cradled close to their hearts, and looking tired but happy. From February to September, I watched them and felt a kinship with them. We were mothers in the making, carrying new life within us. We had nothing to be afraid of.

But I know better now. I knew then too; I was just too afraid to let those terrible whispers take hold of me and force me to face the stark truth of existence, that life is often tenuous, and it can go as quickly as it comes. Those tendrils of fear come creeping in all through pregnancy, and we push them away in our certainty that everything will be alright. And for the most part, that's true. The majority of pregnancies go without a hitch, and life comes screaming to meet the world.

And for the rest of us, we have lost that innocence. We know that life can be silenced in a moment, even before it's had a chance to draw its first breath.

Geordie and I went in for my post-partum check-up today. We knew it would not be easy; it's been hard enough seeing families just while we're out and about. Now, we would have to sit in the ob/gyn waiting area, just as we had four weeks earlier when our daughter still had a heartbeat. Only, this time, we would be alone, just the two of us, surrounded by lives still growing and lives newly born.

I would not wish the loss of a child upon any woman, but it's so hard to watch a mother with her baby and think, Why me and not her? Why my baby and not that one? Why couldn't I keep my daughter alive? What's wrong with me? It's not malevolence that makes me think such things, it's just the sheer unfairness of it all. For 38 weeks, our daughter was healthy. I had a relatively easy pregnancy with no complications. How can all these women have strong, healthy babies while mine is lost to me forever? How could something like this happen?

The sad thing is that there are no answers to that question. We spoke to the doctor about what test results they had, and it's all the same. Lauren was healthy, her cord and placenta were healthy, I was healthy. There is no explanation. Unfortunately, that's the way life goes sometimes. I will always wonder if there was something I could have done to save, just as I will wonder if there wasn't, if it was out of my hands from the beginning. Life is funny that way.

As for the check-up itself, that went well. My body has made a full recovery from pregnancy and delivery. While this is good news, I can't help but feel a little betrayed by my body. My heart is broken, and my mind is hardly at peace - how is it that my body can feel so normal? I feel so thoroughly shattered that it's hard to believe my body is still in one piece. How could it go back to normal so quickly? I'm glad I'm healthy and everything is alright, but immediately after leaving the hospital, I felt that it was like I had never been pregnant at all. That all traces of Lauren had been erased from me and I had nothing to show that I had carried her.

But upon further reflection, I know that's not true. It may not be obvious from looking at me, but the wear shows on me in places that cannot be seen. In my heart, for example, where there will always be a place for Lauren. In my thoughts, daily. And should I need a more physical example, the memory of pregnancy in imprinted upon my bones. For as long as my pelvic bone exists, it will carry the marks of pregnancy upon it and be physical proof that I am a mother. For some reason, I find comfort in this, proof that my body will not forget what has come to be one of the most defining moments of my life.

In the end, it's a relief to be finished with Juntendo University Hospital. It was not my initial choice for Lauren's birth, but I don't regret going there. The staff treated us well, and they did all that they could for us. It's not a place I ever want to return to, but I will keep it in my memory for a long time to come, as long as I have a memory to hold on to. It is, after all, the place my daughter was born. They couldn't save her, and they can't piece me back together again, but it's where I saw Lauren for the first and only time, and that is an image I will carry in my heart for the rest of my days.

a place for lost children

The first overnight trip I made in Japan was to Kamakura. I met up with two of the teachers who had done GEOS training with me in Vancouver, and we spent a night in Kamakura and a night in Tokyo. Kamakura had been my idea. I was three months in Japan, and I hadn't yet had a chance to do any sight-seeing, though I had wanted to do some for a while. I discovered Kamakura through some online research and decided it wouldn't be too far for the three of us to get to, spread out across the main island as we were.


the view of the bay from Hasedera



I wrote about that first trip in a blog post or two about three years ago. At the time, I did not know the significance of the Jizou-do, which is a small area set one level up from the main garden. Hasedera was built upon a hillside, with stone steps leading from one level to another. The level above the Jizou-do could probably be considered the main level, as it has two temple buildings (one to house a gilt statue of buddha, the other for a large eleven-headed statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy and compassion). There's also a lovely view of the bay from that level. A pathway continues up the hill, twisting around and providing some wonderful overlooks of the area. It's an old temple, founded in 736. I generally prefer shrines over temples, but I've always loved Hasedera. It can be a very relaxing place at times.

On October 10th, the day Lauren was due, we made a trip to Kamakura specifically to go to Hasedera. During my second trip to the temple, I had learned that the Jizou-do was a special place for remembering "mizuko" - literally, "water children." The word typically refers to babies lost to miscarriage, but it can also be expanded to include stillbirths and abortions. When I was still in the hospital, Geordie and I had talked about the possibility of visiting a few places before leaving Japan. A while ago, I had promised to take him to Kamakura, and he mentioned that he'd still like to go. I remembered then the Jizou-do, the small area that before had meant so little to me but now meant everything. We agreed to go and pay our respects there and perhaps find some comfort.

Jizou is a Buddhist patron of children, a bodhisattava, a term which often translates to English as "an enlightened being." It's usually applied to persons who become enlightened and, motivated by compassion, continue to seek enlightenment for everyone. Bodhisattvas are therefore considered to be among the most merciful and loving of beings, as they have chosen not to enter a state of nirvana but to remain as they are to help others. Jizou's special realm is children, particularly those unborn or who died very young. He is a protector and a guide, and he is one of the most famous Buddhist figures in Japan. His statue can be seen along roadsides and innumerable small shrines; he is also considered a patron of travelers.



Hasedera in Aprl



Hasedera is most beautiful in the spring, when the flowers of the garden are in bloom. In early spring, azaleas brighten the area with their vibrant colors, and April brings the pillowy softness of the sakura with it. But Hasedera is most famous for its hydrangeas, which I have sadly not been able to see. Winter can be a haunting experience at Hasedera, the trees bare but still beautiful, an atmosphere of patience and serenity coming over the place as it waits for the return of spring. It's a temple that is very much grounded in the natural aspects of Kamakura, and it's for that reason that I've always been fond of it.



Jizou statue surrounded by
the memorial statues



The Jizou-do can be one of the most peaceful areas of the temple. The small structure housing the statue of the Happy Jizou is surrounded by hundreds of smaller Jizou statues, each one of them representing a baby lost too early. Several statues of Jizou are placed about the area as though to show the completeness of his role as warden over these souls. Geordie and I had come to this place to leave a piece of Lauren and her memory to be watched over by Jizou.



We went up to the main hall - where stands the benevolent Kannon carved from a single piece of camphor wood - and arranged to have a Jizou statue blessed and placed for Lauren. We could not place the statue ourselves, nor would we be able to search for it amongst the many others at the Jizou-do. This suited us. Lauren's statue will remain at the Jizou-do for two years, at which point it will be given in offering to Jizou and Kannon. Also, the sutras will continue to be said in memory of her, which is something that does give me some peace of mind. Lauren's little statue was also a comfort, though a far more difficult one to deal with. I burst into tears as soon as I touched the statue; it was another goodbye, another parting with my baby. But it was something I needed. I had not been able to touch Lauren, but the statue was a stand-in for her, and as I brushed my fingers along it, I was reaching for her too. As much as it hurt, it felt good to feel something solid and to imagine it was her. I needed that contact - that connection - more than I'd realized.



Geordie placing the flowers before Jizou

Afterwards, we went and prayed before Kannon and saw some of the rest of the temple grounds. Then we went back to the Jizou-do and paid our respects. We lit incense and cleansed ourselves, and we bought flowers to place before the large outdoor statue of Jizou. I had seen pictures of the smaller Jizou statues dressed in infant's clothing, but we found only one and did not feel comfortable adorning one with Lauren's things. Geordie took Rabbit-sensei's bow and put it over a statue's head, and that was sweet. We had brought with us a bib we had bought for Lauren, a cap Geordie's mother had sent for her, and a pacifier; we left these with the statue of the Happy Jizou amid the other offerings that had been left.
 

Geordie putting Rabbit's bow
on a memorial statue

Then we went on our way, leaving behind a bit of our grief along with Lauren's memory. There is nothing we can do that will completely relieve of us our grief, but each step we take, each action we take, eases it little by little. I know that I will never forget Lauren, just as I know I will always feel the loss of her in my heart and in my life. Perhaps in the future, the sharp sting of her absence will dull into something softer and gentler, and comfort will be easier to find. For now, we must only do what we can.

just a quote (I)

We're going off to Tokyo today, so I haven't much time to dedicate to a long post, though I have plenty circulating in my brain. But to make sure that I stick to my goal of posting every day, I present to you one of my favorite quotes. It's from a short story by Ray Bradbury, from probably my favorite short story by him. I've liked Bradbury's novels, but for me, his short stories are often like little masterpieces. So, here you go.

"I'll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long and like an empty house when you open the door, and like trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I'll make a sound that's so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and hearths will seem warmer, and being inside will seem better to all who hear it in the distant towns. I'll make me a sound and an apparatus and they'll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life."

≫ Ray Bradbury, "The Fog Horn"