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Text of the page (random words):
zen milk zen milk spilt milk life after the stillbirth of my first child zen milk zen milk spilt milk life after the stillbirth of my first child home about subscribe to feed when you get mothers together august 28 2011 in uncategorized leave a comment why is it when you get a handful of moms together that the conversation so often turns to birth experience why does this have to be if i hadn t lost my baby i would love talking about birth but among new friends i cannot talk about my first birth and my second birth when they see me there with only one child i do not want to tell them that my baby died i just want to talk about his birth because that is a very big piece of what little i have of him and i want to talk about his birth and share my experiences too and women are compelled even among good friends who all know how i lost river the conversation passionately turns to birthing experience and then i wish and i feel like they should know better i mean how insensitive is that one of your best friends gushing over the new birth of another friend s baby and pressing about how wonderful birth is i mean isn t that over the top and am i really here right now being subjected to this conversation when you all know that birth is not wonderful for me i have felt that i must be silent forever every time the subject of birth arises among women both among women i know and women i don t alike i will have to stand in silence holding back my thoughts and feelings i know because i have tried to talk about his birth among friends as if there was no elephant in the room but it doesn t work i will never be able to share my birth stories without something missing and not just something but the love of my life my baby my son i will never be able to share like one of these other women to share fully of my birth experience without the filter of loss i will never be able to just share my birth experiences and why does it have to be that way when you get mothers together because birthing is profound a profound and singular experience birth and that those midwives took that away from me and my son took away my profound happiness my profound motherhood and left me instead a profound loss beyond imagine i must somehow communicate the magnitude of the profundity somehow communicate the magnitude of profound loss birth is profound and to lose your child and have to birth him into the world and not have him not be able to keep him is unspeakable you cannot imagine everyday july 22 2010 in uncategorized leave a comment i think there s something every day issues issues ah the issues i have this morning when sweetie woke up she pointed to my son s ashes in the bedroom high up on a shelf i squinted at her and told her river s ashes but today i didn t know what else to say yesterday pushing sweetie in the stroller we had to circumnavigate the abortion activists with their horrible signs and the life is a beautiful choice thing life it kills me every time they re out there and i see them they protest a lot don t they know how many babies are stillborn in this country one in every one hundred and fifteen why aren t they out there protesting that don t they know that midwives killed my baby why aren t they out there protesting that don t they know that those signs just cut into our hearts those of us who have lost babies those of us who wanted our babies so badly and they were ripped away from us why do they have to stand out there with those heart wrenching signs don t they know how they are pouring searing acid in our eyes and noses and hearts and mouths and gaping wounds after we avoided the lifers as i call them sweetie played with mila river would be the same age as mila mila and river resided within pregnant bellies side by side in prenatal yoga at breathing room mila in winter s belly river in mine mila was born and river died then as mila grew i was pregnant again for another year with sweetie it has been hard for me to see winter and mila but mila was with her daddy yesterday and somehow that was easier winter is pregnant jennie is pregnant too my daughter and jennie s son were born a few days apart six weeks and a year after river died jennie had a son that is hard for me jennie is pregnant again that is hard for me too i know i should be happy for these people but these things just push my loss into my face i do not have my son i am not pregnant again i am a mother of two who is mothering one everyday it s something something that tears at me every day i don t have my son i don t have my son i don t have my son everyday i see sweetie grow and learn and change and i wonder and wonder and learn what i am missing with my son we see other boys out in the world and i learn and i wonder what i am missing i see what was taken away from me from my husband from us our family our family was taken from us and from my daughter everyday we learn we see a two year old and learn what we may be doing in a parallel universe fear can t sleep july 14 2010 in uncategorized leave a comment many nights i can t sleep ever since my son died i fear that my loved ones will die in their sleep night time is scary i lay awake stiff listening to my husband breathe i put my hand on him and feel him breathing i shake him when the terror clutches me and i think he has stopped breathing i get up and check on the dog i shake him too sometimes once when i was pregnant with my daughter my poor dog he was so sound asleep and not moving that he scared the dickens out of me i shook him and shook him in utter fear and crying but he was fine just asleep very very soundly and my daughter i usually hold her while she naps in fact she is napping in my lap right now and all night i listen to her breathe or have her close so that i can feel her moving will i ever be able to let her sleep on her own i want to be there for her when she stirs if she needs me if she wants me i don t want her to be afraid can t let her go july 14 2010 in uncategorized leave a comment this summer i have been offered a job at a private school my daughter who is now one would have the opportunity to play and learn with the children at the school as part of the new infant program while i put some time in the logs in house it sounds wonderful a wonderful opportunity but i just can t seem to let her go even for a minute while i go next door and log onto the computer the position was supposed to be flexible over the summer and then this fall they would need me at least one full day each week maybe two but i don t know if i am going to be able to do it we tried kindof one day but i just couldn t trust and i couldn t leave her i couldn t bear the separation the anxiety i couldn t bear to let her cry i couldn t bear to sneak away or be without her for even a minute i couldn t trust the teachers to not feed her wheat my heart holds and clutches i just can t let her go i mean i lost him so how could i possibly let her out of my sight in the wake of his birthday april 16 2010 in uncategorized leave a comment river s birthday was bright and beautiful but days were so dark until then a terrible smooshup of hard times and dark days piled up before river s birthday six weeks of pain and misery lead up to the anniversary of his death depression and heartache coping and dealing but his birthday was bright and beautiful windy and melancholy river would be two years old now a blue glow down abbey road february 6 2010 in uncategorized leave a comment i learned last week of a friend of a friend who lost a baby this month we were supposed to have tea today but a storm and icy roads will keep us apart she is in the throws of it like drowning first you are underwater inhaling but this is not right this is not natural then emerging choking and sputtering and sinus stinging throat stinging then on the surface tossed in the waves unable to see anything but peak and trough eventually you are washed ashore weak and waterlogged or you pretend everything is ok by swimming but land looks different now because you understand water speak your limbs won t walk you are used to thrashing the world is deafeningly quiet and still you have a black hole in your chest where your heart used to be and you may implode at any moment into the cosmos within where your child is in some world maybe we have a faint blue glow those of us who know so that we can identify each another those of us who have lost a child this post is dedicated to those of whom their loss is fresh you who are choking and being tossed at sea that you may see us with our soft blue glow mothers of lost children our love is deep and endless i am so sorry for your loss i am so sorry that you must feel these things and feel this pain but i do hope that you will just feel it be there in the moment and feel be be and become with it my babies hair january 31 2010 in uncategorized leave a comment my daughter s hair is growing and it makes me miss my son her hair feels like his so soft and course at the same time we have a tiny snip of his hair i don t think they took one of hers there is so little to compare dead newborn baby with live sister growing if we did her hand prints and foot prints now they would be bigger and she wouldn t cooperate anyhow i imagine how many times can i realize that he will never grow his ashes remain on a shelf where i can see them when i sleep his picture where i can see it when i get dressed in the morning when i look into my daughter s eyes i see and wonder what his would be would they be blue grey like hers like mine maybe they would be brown or green or hazel why do we wonder what color our dead babies eyes would be i wonder what he would be saying i wonder whether he would be hitting his sister or petting her or playing with her or trying to teach her something he has learned all children are so different they all have different personalities they are different people who was he who was my son who would he have become by now who would he be who would we be together how would we be speaking what silly things would he say and do how would he amaze me how would he make me fall in love would daddy be happy would daddy play with him and take him places i love my son even though he is dead how can that be it just is an angel bear january 7 2010 in uncategorized leave a comment yesterday i found my daughter an angel bear brand new exactly like my son s for fifty cents this bear he just came to me i don t know how i will save him i think for awhile until the time is right maybe that time will be tomorrow maybe for river s birthday this year maybe it will be longer until my daughter will understand more about this angel bear and i can tell her the story of the salty port where river s bear was found i have seen my daughter fix her gaze on river s angel bear next to his ashes although she hasn t said a word but i want river to have his own angel bear and i want her to have her own angel bear for river too big brother older brother january 6 2010 in uncategorized 2 comments big brother or older brother or what as a writer a lover of words and a stickler for semantics this is the most heart wrenching word problem what oh what do i tell my little girl is river her big brother he is not bigger and will never be bigger is river her older brother he is not older or is he he will never be older than she please if you love words and you care to chime in on this most heart wrenching of puzzles let me know what you think because i really don t know new snags november 30 2009 in uncategorized leave a comment we went to some friends for thanksgiving my husband and i and our new little daughter rhythm grey she is six months now i guess i thought they knew i know joe knows maybe his wife doesn t know i don t know but i know that people can know and not know sometimes people don t realize when things hurt people don t know all of the little things that make us feel devastated all over again and i imagine those things are different for every one of us and that those things are different over time as well we were in the kitchen the kitchen was too small she and her sister began talking about breasts breastfeeding and breast size following children i don t know how it came up there was champagne then she warned me and this is when i thought to myself ohmygod she doesn t know she warned me never to leave my daughter alone for a day lest she refuse the breast and wean all of a sudden cold turkey if you will and i thought ohmygod she must not know i froze my heart was in my throat i wanted to die please no not now don t do this my zen milk you have no idea pain and engorgement no idea i know you want to share but the kitchen was too small i couldn t run away i found some other people to talk to for awhile in another room until that got weird too and i went back to the kitchen and then there was turkey i was supposed to call her today we were supposed to get together but then there is this sensitive boundary i put up in defense in those moments i needed to protect myself from that conversation and i don t know when i will call her i m sorry but it is easier to hide it is like a snag in a sweater but this time it is in the fabric of my being i can feel it when i run my hand over recent posts when you get mothers together everyday fear can t sleep can t let her go in the wake of his birthday meta create account log in entries feed comments feed wordpress com email subscription enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email email address sign me up previous entries blog at wordpress com ben eastaugh and chris sternal johnson subscribe to feed subscribe subscribed zen milk sign me up have a wordpress com account log in now privacy zen milk view site in reader manage subscriptions sign up log in report this content collapse this bar loading comments write a comment email required name required website design a site like this with wordpress com 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