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Brielle’s First Concert

~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

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I love Billy Joel. In 2009 he was on his Face to Face tour with Elton John and I flew out to Atlanta to see the concert. David got us great floor seats and we had an awesome time. It was an amazing concert. Fast forward to February of 2015 and I found out he’ll be in town again. By the time I decided I wanted to go, there were only a few seats left in the back row. Serious nosebleed seats. I was still excited.

That evening I was a complete mess. I was an oil monster, angry as could be, and just all out miserable. I felt awful and no matter how hard I tried I could not get excited about the concert. I kept thinking, “What’s wrong with me?!” David was on pins and needles around me and I was dying for the concert to be over already.

Half way through the concert I started thinking, “Could I be? No, we just started trying. Maybe? No way, it’s too early to start feeling symptoms yet.” And then, “Maybe I should just take a pregnancy test to be sure.”

I voiced my thoughts to David on the way home. He was kind of bewildered, “But we just started trying.” I let out a sigh, “I know.” I was such a cranky pants. The more I thought about it though, the more I started to get that excited butterfly feeling in my stomach.

The next day David and I went to Kroger’s and picked up a pregnancy test. I was so nervous. The test said it was most likely too early to tell, but I took it anyways. A few minutes later (it felt like hours), I checked the test. And sure enough, two very faint lines appeared. I was pregnant.

I was confused, “Why was it so faint? Is it like a kind of pregnant? That’s ridiculous Caitrin, you can’t be kind of pregnant. Maybe it’s so faint because it’s so early.” I came out of the bathroom and told David I was pregnant. “Already?” We were both shocked. Complete and utter shock.

We were excited, but shocked. We thought it would take longer. It hadn’t even been close to a month since we started trying. We decided to wait a week and take another test. By the following week I was excited, we were both extremely excited. The news had finally sunk in and I was very happy to finally be a mommy. And David had wrapped his head around being a dad and was also happy. He’d already been talking to my tummy and we had mentally adjusted to the news. We were ready.

I took the second test first thing in the morning. I was exhausted, so I went back to bed while it did it’s magic. David told me he would check it when he got up for the morning. I woke up to him saying my name, “Caitrin, there is only one line.” My eyes shot open. I’d lost the baby. It’d only been a week and I’d lost the baby. I sobbed and sobbed. I wrapped my arms around my tummy and kept apologizing to my dead baby. I was completely and utterly heartbroken.

A couple of hours later I got up for the day. I went into the bathroom and looked at the pregnancy test. There were two lines, they were just super faint. I came out of the bathroom, pregnancy test in hand, and said, “David, I’m still pregnant. You read the test wrong. You read the freaking test wrong David.” I’m shaking my head, rolling my eyes, and he’s looking at me with his confused, “What?” eyes. I’d gone through all of that heartbreak for no reason. I wasn’t even mad, just, “Really David, really? Thanks a lot.”

Lesson for all you ladies who want to have kids, don’t let your husband interpret the test. And if you start hating something you’ve always loved, take a pregnancy test.

And the good news? Brielle’s first concert was to see Billy Joel.

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Christmas

~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

This Christmas was hard in so many ways. It seemed that my grief period occurred during the first few weeks after Brielle was born. Then I was doing pretty good and it was David who was struggling. Then a few days before Christmas, it suddenly became my turn to grieve and David was doing better. I wish grief would have given me some warning. Really, it just came out of no where. Thanks a lot grief, great timing.

I managed to make it through the second half of Christmas day with a smile on my face. But I spent the morning hiding in my bedroom crying because Christmas music was playing through the house. I don’t think people realize how difficult music is for me. Brielle loved music and I never played her anything Christmas related. I will never know what she would have liked. Then you add the newborn babe stuff on top and it’s like pouring acid on an open wound.

I had envisioned that we’d start a new tradition with Brielle. I wasn’t sure what, but I wanted to talk about it. I wanted ideas. Most days I’m mentally foggy. Grief seems to make me move and think slower than I used to. But whenever David and I would bring up Brielle, the room would get silent and the subject would change. So David and I just kept quiet. I felt like the room was closing in on me and I was carrying the whole world on my shoulders.

After my family left, I felt as if I had been emotionally battered and bruised. David and I spent the following days bingeing out on Psych (the comedic tv show) and eating obscene amounts of popcorn and Christmas desserts. Don’t judge us. And we decided that perhaps Christmas really isn’t for us anymore. So next year we plan on escaping some place else and just not celebrating. I’ll put up a small tree just for Brielle. And we’ll probably do something small for his family. David’s mom has Alzheimer’s (although she doesn’t realize it) and next year may be the last year she remembers us. To be fair, this may have been the last year. But all that is left of David’s family is his nephew and his mom, (his only living brother lives in Germany). So we don’t generally have a large Gentry Christmas. We’ll just have to make our own Wolford-Gentry family Christmas.

For those that don’t know I kept my last name, David kept his, and we are giving our children the last name Wolford-Gentry. Funny thing about David, he respects me more for keeping my name. He likes that I’m independent and didn’t want to follow tradition. I kept my name for quite a few reasons, but one of them being I’m the eldest grandchild and the Wolford name dies out with my generation. Also I’m ornery and didn’t want to change my name. And do you know how annoying it is to redo all of that paperwork? Ain’t nobody got time for that.

So after a really horrible week David and I think we’ll just go someplace tropical or really snowy next year. We’ll hole up on the beach or in a cabin and just forget Christmas. Maybe next year I’ll be pregnant and we can do something special for that baby and in honor of Brielle. But the way Christmas was, will never be what David and I can continue. Maybe we’ll take an annual cruise! Or a trip back to Paris or Dover! Who knows? We’re also thinking no presents. I don’t know. Taking a trip and disappearing from the world sounds a lot more fun. But assimilating back into a family Christmas will take time for us. I’m not sure if we’ll ever be okay with a family Christmas again. We may endure another, but I don’t know if we’ll ever be okay with it again.

Happy New Year

~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

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There is another anencephaly mother who makes awareness images in honor of her daughter Makenna. They are beautiful and a wonderful way to honor other babies lost to anencephaly. She has made pictures of other anen babies with Santa, on virtual ornaments, and more. I can’t even begin to explain what a wonderful service it is to those of us who will never be able to watch our babies grow up. She gives us all a bit of normalcy. This is the Happy New Year image she made for Brielle.

Strength

~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

Strongest

I think what most people say to me is that I am strong, “The strongest person they know.” And I don’t understand this. I don’t feel exceptionally strong. I feel quite average.

I feel like my “strength” is easily explained. I’m strong because I have no choice. We all face difficult times as we raise our children, each person has a different circumstance that calls them to do what they have to for their baby (no matter how old). My challenge didn’t happen in Brielle’s teens. It didn’t happen as a child. As an adult after a crisis. My time to step up as a parent and mother happened in Brielle’s earliest days. And maybe this is what people find admirable. But really, it is no different.

Brielle needed me to love her. She needed me to protect her and give her the best life she could have. What else was I to do? I could have aborted her, but would you abort your teenage daughter struggling with depression? Your child recently diagnosed with autism? Your grown son who was just diagnosed with cancer? No, you wouldn’t. You may get frustrated. You may not know what to do, but you would do your best for your baby. All I did was the best I could for Brielle. And so I don’t feel exceptionally strong, I just feel like a mother. A mother that was faced with difficult circumstances. And I did my job. I did my best.

Maybe it was that I had the choice. I could have aborted Brielle. Maybe not taking the option is what people find so amazing. As if it was an out, an easy solution to a horrific tragedy. But it’s not an out. It’s not any easier. There’s an entire support group filled with bitter mothers who aborted their babies with anencephaly, hoping it would be an easy out, only to find it wasn’t. There’s no taking back an abortion. There’s nothing you can tell yourself to fill that void. The void of regret.

I am future oriented. What I mean by that, is that I spend most of my time in the future. I plan, think, and dream of tomorrow and the days to come. And I know myself very well. I knew who I would be if I aborted Brielle. The draw of a new healthy baby a few months after Brielle was aborted was appealing. But looking down that road I knew it would tear me to pieces. I’d destroy myself with regret and agony. I would live a life violating my conscious with no way to correct the hole in my heart.

I’m not here to start an anti abortion campaign. That’s too political and I don’t want to mar Brielle’s legacy with politics. But I do want people to understand that I did take the easy out. I knew which of the two options would be the most difficult to live with and I chose the easiest one. I chose to love Brielle. And it wasn’t hard. It’s not hard. I miss Brielle so much. But I get to miss her. I have memories of her. I met her, held her, told her I loved her. None of those things are hard. They don’t require strength. They just require a heart and we all have one of those.

When I go to bed at night, I’ll hold Brielle, sob through “I’ll Love you Forever,” tell her goodnight and go to sleep. And I sleep peacefully. I ache. But my dreams aren’t sad. I am not haunted by worry. By the fear that I made a mistake. By guilt over a new pregnancy that I chose to replace the anencephalic baby I had.

If I had chosen the “easy” option everyone thinks abortion is, I would spend the rest of my life filled with a horrific ache. And a guilt that no one could imagine. I would never have forgiven myself. That kind of pain requires super human strength. And it is not something I am strong enough to endure. I am in awe of those that carry on, silently grieving their loss. A loss that they cannot speak to anyone about. A loss that haunts them. The mother’s who chose the path that I did not deserve our love, support, mercy, and encouragement. They carry a burden that is unimaginable.