One thing that I am very thankful for are all of the amazing people who have become a part of my life since Naya died. Many were complete strangers or acquaintances who have since become a surprising and amazing support system. It’s one of the beautiful parts of life when other people’s kindness has the ability to amaze. Thank you to each and every one of you – you are amazing people and I hope you realize that.

Another group that has become an important part of my life are the other bereaved parents that I’ve found via online and personal support groups. It sucks that there are so many of us out there but, at least for me, the kinship and support I feel from you is incredible and has really gotten me through some tough times. I seriously don’t know what I would do without you all. Who else would go sit with me and have coffee and conversation by Naya’s grave and not think anything of it? Amazing women and I love you.

I guess that’s why it was so shocking and felt like such a stab to be attacked by a fellow baby loss mom recently. To be quite honest, I was very hurt by this and it sent me into a bit of a depression. After some contemplation though, I realized that I shouldn't let this person's words get to me - it wasn't worth it. (I am not usually this sensitive but your skin becomes a bit thinner while grieving.) While it is perfectly valid to have differing opinions and even debate them, it is not okay to attack someone for the way they're grieving and their interior thoughts. My blog is just that - my interior thoughts and not an editorial. I talk about how I feel about losing MY daughter. It is how I am dealing with it and that is perfectly okay. I may add some personal aspects of my life but I don’t want to lay every detail out there. Half the reason I write is to get my grief out there so it doesn't affect my day-to-day life. If you don't like it, don't read it. But please don't attack me personally (or anonymously for that matter. If you are going to criticize me, have the courage and decency not to hide behind the veil of the internet and put your name to your words). I would have assumed another bereaved parent would have understood the vulnerability one feels during the grief process and how much attacks can hurt but I’ve also learned not to assume anything these days.

Name Gallery

As some of you may know, Naya's first Birthday is rapidly approaching. Although we are planning a small, quiet, family celebration in order to remember the birth of our precious little girl, I wanted to do something else to help us celebrate our little princess. A few other BLM's have done a name gallery for their babies on their birthdays and I think I would like to do one as well.

A name gallery is essentially word art - creative, fun, or artistic ways of “writing” out Naya's name. For example, spelling NAYA out in M&M’s, Scrabble tiles, or even a photograph collage. Then you take a digital picture of your creation and send it back to us. You can be as crazy or creative as you want - as long as her name is in the photo it works. You can submit one or several photos including Naya's name. Anything goes as long as it says NAYA.

 

As much as it hurts, we do love talking about and remember our daughter and we are finding that as the time goes on, we are able to talk of her less and less. Seeing her name constructed with love by others will be a very special thing that we will cherish forever. We are planning on putting the photos together into a bound book, depending on how many we receive, as well as a public Facebook album. I am not sure how this is going to turn out but I am very excited to try.

Please send your creations (high-resolution photo, or link to photo) in an email to myty87@gmail.com or tag me on Facebook.

If you need examples here is a fellow baby loss mom's name gallery for her son Jason.

http://www.mycanvas.com/Flash/Viewer.aspx?fp=9827727&preview=1

Another baby loss mom's name gallery for her daughter Hadley.
http://bufefamily.blogspot.com/2011/10/name-gallery-6.html

 

Thank you all in advance for helping us celebrate and remember our Naya. We have already gotten some great ones in. Here is a link to the Name Gallery album on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100503210953075.2563996.6408804&type=1&l=b803bf367a

 

 

Deleted

Just to clear things up, I am not going to accept any comments on the deleted posts. This is due to nothing but the fact that I just don't have the strength and am having a bit of a breakdown today. Thank you for all of the support and criticism - I really do welcome it but I am still am not in a strong enough place to deal, especially not right now. I hope you all understand.

Buena

Another thing that is changed since Naya died is my energy to argue and fight. I just can't do it, which is why the last two posts have been deleted. I don't have it in me to submit into any drama right now. I'm sorry but I just have to move on.

I haven't really talked about it yet but Dan and I decided to get a puppy about a week ago.

We've been talking about it doing this for awhile now but, like most of the best things in life, the opportunity kind of fell into our laps. We named her Buena and she is a fawn pug (our other dog, Feo, is a 4 year old black pug). She is just too freaking adorable. Her and her brother seem to be getting along for the most part but we are keeping them separated for the time being while they are home alone.

What is actually hard for me to believe is how much joy she's already bringing into our lives. We are spending more time together in our living room (rather than holed up in our separate areas of the house), playing with her and Feo, laughing and genuinely enjoying life. Granted, I've been cleaning up vast quantities of pee, not only from the little one since the big one has decided to regress a bit in the potty training department. If anyone has any advice on how to handle this, I would love to hear it! Despite the pee, this new little one is bringing us so much joy and I am so utterly thankful for her - I am actually wondering why we didn't do this sooner.

With bringing this new puppy into our home, something else unexpected has happened though. For those of you unaware of the breed, pugs tend to have some respiratory problems. Buena is no exception. She came to us with a cold and when we brought her to the vet, he put her on antibiotics and said that she will most likely need surgery on her nasal passages when she is a bit older (probably at the same time we have her spayed). While it is nothing serious and actually quite a common condition with pugs, this terrified me. I had a very hard time sleeping those next few days because I had myself convinced that she was going to stop breathing in her sleep. I kept getting up to check that she was still alive. I know it sounds crazy but I was just so scared that she was going to die because that's what happens when we bring a new living creature into this house. The fact that she was sick and needs this surgery did not help.

I've calmed down somewhat since those first few nights though. It helps that she is a completely rambunctious puppy with a ton of energy and a healthy appetite. She just breathes hard because she has to do it through her mouth rather than her nose. I feel so bad for her because I hate that feeling of not being able to breathe through your nose (I have allergies and have been mouth-breathing for the past two months - it sucks!).

The thing that scares me though is if I freaked out as much as I did over a puppy, how the hell am I going to react when this baby comes? The reality of that hit me - I am so scared of overreacting over everything but at the same time, I am so scared of missing something and having my baby die. This is going to be hard.

Mailing Lists

We all get them - random postcards, catalogs or coupons in the mail when we know we haven't signed up for any such list. Most of the time you glance at them, if it's interesting you may read them or keep the coupon, but they really don't have any affect on your life. Hell, they may even come in handy. (Gotta love those big blue Bed, Bath & Beyond postcards for 20% off! I have like 5 of them sitting on the desk in my office at home right now, just waiting to get spent.

When you have a baby, you get added to a bunch of additional mailing lists. You starts seeing coupons for Huggies and Pampers and samples of Similac and Infamil. Babys R Us sends you their little "catalog" and books of coupons. You get offers for life insurance policies from Gerber and information about college savings plans. Many of these come in handy right after you have the baby - those coupons sure don't got to waste. But when your baby dies, these coupons and samples are a giant slap in the face every time you open the mailbox. Something I bet none of these companies ever think about while they are sending them out.

So what do you do then? Up until recently (more on that in a moment), I've just ignored them all and thrown them directly from the mailbox into the recycling bin. Some people I know have tried to call the various companies and gotten their names taken off the mailing lists. From what I've heard, that is a painful experience because they always want to know why. It's a lot of fun telling customer service workers that you don't want to get their Huggies coupons anymore because your baby is dead. Another bonus of being a BLM (baby loss mom).

So far, because of my technique above, the mailing haven't really done much damage to my psyche. That has changed in the last couple of weeks. Why, you might ask? Because now the mailings are focusing on someone's upcoming birthday and it really, really hurts.

Naya would be 1 next month. Yes, I know that. And apparently, so do the various direct mail campaigns that companies launch. Last week, I received this postcard from our local grocery store.

Yes, it's a nice offer. Hell, if circumstances were different, I might actually take them up on it. But in reality, all this did was send me into a crying fit that led to a depression. Thank you so much for the reminder that my daughter should be celebrating a birthday next month but she's not because she is dead. Awesome. How the hell Vons got my information (I am assuming from the hospital birth records) is beyond me but they did.

Whatever. As a BLM, you are used to having your cry and then putting your mask right back on to face another day until you get ripped down again. And that happened today, when the mail decided to rape me again. Here's what we got today.

Wow. Thanks Toys R Us! Way to rip me down. Again. So I called them. That was fun. Here's a little "transcript" of the convo:

Me - I would like to be removed from all of your mailing lists. (Give info....blah, blah, blah)

Them - Which ones are you on.

Me - I don't freaking know but I don't want to be on any.

Them - Well I need to know so I can get you off them

Me - I never signed up for any. Can't you just get rid of them all on my account?

Them - No.

Me - great. Well, I had a registry with Babys R Us. Maybe from there?

Them - What was your registry number?

Me - I have no idea.

Them - Well, I guess I could find it some other way.

Me - Great.

Them - okay I found it. Do you really want me to delete all of the lists. You can get some great deals and even have help planning birthday parties.

Me - Yes.

Them - But you are going to stop receiving coupons. Why would you want to miss out on that?

Me - Because my baby died and I am sick of seeing this shit.

Them - Oh.

And that is my life my friends. Yes, I am a freak of nature and the unthinkable happened to me. I'm just so sick of life always having to shove it in my face.

A Different World

I really should start writing when I have better days because it feels like the only times I update is when I've had a bad day. Perhaps it's because on the bad days, I feel the need to sit and sort my feelings out.

I had a bad day. I was able to keep myself together and keep the "I'm normal" mask on all day but whenever I stole a moment alone, I cried. There's really no reason why it should have been a bad day - it wasn't a trigger day or anything - but I felt like shit.

I think a lot of it has to do with the weekend. For Dan's birthday, I got him tickets to go see the Giants/Cubs play up in San Francisco. We took Ty up there and had a wonderful time. It was great to see my husband so happy and actually enjoying life. But that's kind of where our trouble started (he's feeling like shit too). While we were at the game, we noticed people with their kids (specifically toddlers and babies) everywhere. They all looked so happy - many probably sharing their first ball game with their kids. This may sound completely innocuous to anyone who hasn't lost a child but if you have, you probably get where I'm going with this. It sucks to see other people with their children when your child is dead. All it does is show you what you are missing out on and what you don't have and never will again. Because yes, we will have more children (if we are lucky enough to do so) but we will NEVER get HER back. She will always be dead and there will always be a huge chunk missing from my heart.

And then we come home. It sucks coming home. It's really hard to ignore what has happened in our lives when we come home - after all, you walk into our house and the first thing in your line of sight is the closed door to the room that used to be hers but is now the room where all the baby stuff sits until I am ready to deal with it.

Sometimes I feel like we live in a different world than everyone else. While everyone else is going about their normal lives, doing everyday things like taking their kids to ball games, we are just sitting there looking in with jealousy and sadness. Whether we like it or not, we are forever changed - we just don't see the world in the same way as everyone else anymore. We know that no matter what we do, tragedy can happen. We realize that we are helpless and don't have as much control over ourselves and our lives as we thought we did. We know that we can wake up one day and our lives can change forever. We realize the meaning of mortality and have lost our innocence forever. We are different and we aren't going to change back, no matter how much other people wish we could. We are not going to ever be considered "normal" again.

I read an article today that a woman in one of my online grief groups posted that I wanted to share about this very subject. I think it's very well written and completely describes what I am feeling. Hopefully, it can help others either understand our grief as a bereaved parent or help the bereaved parents realize that we are not alone. http://missinglarry.com/2012/05/30/for-those-of-you-who-believe-you-could-lose-your-child-tomorrow-and-still-be-who-you-are-today-2/