Gone

So this post is going to be REALLY hard to write. Please know that and be generous with me. It may also be hard to read, as it is the long-overdue story of Puff's birthday. Puff's first birthday was 12/10/15. I wrote a post on 12/8, which was the one year anniversary of finding out he had died, but 12/10 was the day he was born. I will never forget that day.

J and I drove up to the hospital with my mom. J's mom stayed with M all day, until my mom came back to get her ready for bed. We checked in on the exact same floor in the same hospital where M was born. We were just a few rooms down, at the end of the hall in a corner. We later learned that the nurses often put loss families there because it is quieter and more secluded. A paper with a purple heart and a tear was placed on our door so everyone who came in would know what was going on. We had two nurses on day shift. They were wonderful. We couldn't have asked for better care. They loved us and Puff so well that day. They administered the first round induction meds at 9:00 am. J read to Mom and me throughout the day from a Jim Gaffigan book to help keep our minds occupied and bring some much needed laughter to a horrible day. Our nurses came in and out, giving us pieces of information in small doses so we could process, think, and (when needed) decide at our own pace. They brought us choices of clothing for our baby, choosing more gender neutral items, since we didn't know the sex. They told us what the hospital had to offer us, which was so much more than most families get. They laughed and even cried with us throughout the day.

At around 3:30, we thought labor was starting. My ob/gyn's office is attached to the hospital, so he rushed down to deliver our baby. Turns out, it was a false start. I remember getting two rounds of pain meds throughout the process, though I had a drug-free labor and delivery with M. As the nurses, J, and my mom kept telling me, there was no need to be a hero. I still wonder about that. He was gone, yes, but I pushed through the pain with M and not with him. No sense dwelling on it, though. I made the best choice at the time and I think I would do the same thing again. As the day wore on, we began discussing when Mom should head home to put M to bed. She was going to take my car, which had been sitting in a parking garage on the other side of the hospital complex since J took me home from the doctor's after finding out Puff had died. She didn't know how to get to the other garage, though. We asked the nurses, who volunteered to come back after they got off shift at 7pm and changed to pick Mom up and walk her to my car. It was close to where they parked, but still...this extra level of care meant the world to us. After Mom and our nurses left, we got another extraordinary nurse. She hadn't been with us long when I felt Puff coming. After all day of nothing, once he was coming, there was no stopping it. There wasn't even time for the on-call doctor to make it to the hospital, so the doctor in-residence delivered our firstborn son. He told us it was a boy, then looked me in the eyes and said,"I want you to know...I truly believe your son is in Heaven right now." Then, he called J down. "You need to see this," he said as he showed J the tight nuchal cord that likely took our son from us. We will probably never know exactly why Puff died, but that is the most likely culprit at this point.

Our nurse gave him to us. I'll be honest, it was hard. He'd been gone for a few days, so deterioration had started. But he was my baby and I held him as long as I was allowed. I was and am so proud of him. I'll never forget his perfect fingers, his tiny feet and toes, his eyes, his mouth. We weren't sure if we wanted pictures, but our nurse insisted. "You can always put them away and never look at them, but if we don't take them now, you'll never get this chance again." God bless her...she was so right. She worked so hard, making sure we had pictures, a beautiful outfit, a memory box, a teddy bear, a duplicate of the blanket they gave him, and even handprints and footprints. She let J give him a bath, which has been his job with M until recently. Our priest came and prayed a blessing over us and Puff. We had a few more moments with him before the hospital staff had to take him away. I cherish the memory of those moments with him and the pictures we have. My love for him is every bit as all-encompassing as my love for M.

That is a big reason why walking this road has been so hard. Every step is a step closer to seeing him again, but every step is a step away from him also. Every step feels wrong because it is without him. My sweet baby should be 8 months old. Cutting teeth, sitting up, crawling, working on walking and talking. We should be introducing new solid food and having bedtime nursing snuggles. Instead, we are still waiting for a baby who will come home, waiting for testing, for the unlikely possibility of answers. As I said to a friend earlier today, it is a tough place to be, but it is the only place I have. So sometimes, I stop, stand still for a moment, and remember with joy and pain. And sometimes, I walk, slowly, down the path. Time moves inexorably onward, and so we move ever farther down the road.

Fitting In

I know I've been absent for a while. I wanted to take a bit of time today to write about something seasonal, sort of. I've always thought "We Three Kings" was an odd song. The strangely haunting melody seems somewhat out of place with the rest of the Christmas carols we sing. Plus, you often only sing the first and last, sometimes second, verses. However, in the year plus since Puff died, I've come to really appreciate this song and how little I understood about it growing up.

I think the true power in this song is only revealed when you sing all the verses. So why don't we? Let's be honest, that fourth verse is kinda creepy.

Myrrh is mine: it's bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom.
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying
Sealed in a stone-cold tomb.

Not exactly what we like to think about at Christmas. Call me morbid, but having lost three children, I have a much greater appreciation for this verse. It calls us to remember that this baby isn't just a cute, cuddly baby. This baby is the King of kings. But that doesn't mean He won't face hardship. This baby brings about our "happily ever after," but the story certainly has it's dark plot points. We can't look at this baby and forget the cross. This verse speaks to me in a way it didn't before. I feel like I can relate to the "sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying" bits...it resonates strongly with how I felt after the deaths of Puff, Luke, and Bunny. I've felt the "gathering gloom" waiting for the doctor to confirm the losses of Luke and Bunny. I've stood graveside and lowered an urn with Puff's ashes and his and Luke's memorial blankets. There is a stone-cold marker commemorating my babies in a grave in Georgia. I still have days that seem scented with a bitter perfume.

The fifth verse soars into a glorious statement of the "happily ever after," but it means so much more coming after the third verse.

Glorious now behold Him arise,
King and God and Sacrifice
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Sounds through the earth and skies.

Even this verse speaks to the fact that this baby is a King, this baby is God...but this baby is a Sacrifice, born to die. This baby, though, rises. This King gives Himself on behalf of His beloved. This sacrifice fully atones for the sins of the whole world. Because of the truths in these two verses, I remember that I have a God who truly understands the fourth verse. I remember that He sees me and loves me as I am, enough to send His Son so that pain of sin and loss may be temporary, so that I can have hope to see all of my children again.

The holidays have been hard, I won't lie. This Christmas was easier than last year, but not by much. I am so grateful to the friends who took time out to ask me how I was and wanted an honest answer. I am grateful to the people who didn't ignore, didn't forget, didn't give platitudes or gloss over how much this season hurts. I am grateful to those who saw me going ever so slightly insane this year and rode it out. "We Three Kings" may not seem to quite fit in with the other, often more popular, kids on the Christmas Carol playground. This year, I didn't feel like I quite fit in during the holidays either. But there is hope.

And so we move down the path, remembering our babies who died, remembering a baby born to die and live again. One step at a time.