In Living Colour

I had forgotten about these clips, mostly because I didn't really realize we had video images of the twins when they were born, I had always just skipped through them as pictures until the other night when I found Shane watching the videos of our babies. When I saw the clip of Calvin, living and breathing, my heart skipped a beat. Sometimes it's hard to believe it's real, that he existed somewhere other than in my heart. Seeing him again in motion, living, flooded me with feelings I can't describe. I'm so grateful for my time with him and I will never forget him. That day, the day my twins were born, was one of the best days of my life. I will always remember the love and hope and joy we experienced, how full of anticipation Shane and I were, to start our lives as a family of five. If we only knew Calvin would soon die, I'm sure we would have filmed hours of video of him, instead of one short clip. Hindsight they say is 20/20. I wish I had more of him, more video, more pictures, more of his hair, more clothes that he had worn. I wish I had more time. I wish I still had him. I also wish I could believe without a doubt in my mind that God exists and that I will see him again, because I want so badly to believe, but in light of everything that's happened, I'm struggling. Can you blame me?

Oliver

I just read my friend Jesse's blog. Jesse's son Oliver was also born with Truncus Arteriosus exactly one month to the day after my Calvin passed away. I have been following Jesse's family's story since stumbling across her blog one day while I was searching for information on Truncus. We've emailed, shared hopes and fears, offered encouragement to each other when we've been down and although we've never met, I love her and think of her and Oliver daily. I stole this picture from Jesse's blog, hope you don't mind Jesse, but it's a picture of Oliver in an outfit I had originally bought for Calvin. Doesn't he look handsome??? Thank you Jesse for honoring my baby and for giving me the gift of being able to share in your journey.

Unhealthy Diversions

I'm not very good at grief. I don't know how people get on with their lives after going through something like this. Just the very thought of the day Calvin died has me gasping for air, trying to swallow the huge lump in my throat before it threatens to choke me and make me cry out. It happens alot, in odd places where my thoughts should be elsewhere. Rather than feel the pain, in the beginning I sought diversions, things that would keep my mind occupied or dull the pain enough for me to get through the day. I admit, I take too much pain medication most days and have since Calvin died. I shop online. I read blogs obsessively or bury my face in a book or keep myself busy most days so that I don't have to think about it, don't have to cry.

In the month following Calvin's death, I logged on to ebay. How long I stayed logged on, I don't really know. After ten boxes of children's clothing had shown up, my husband gently asked me one day how many more boxes were coming. I had no idea. When I checked, I realized I had bought twenty-seven boxes of clothing for the girls, far more than they could ever wear. I was deeply ashamed, not only at the excess, but at the fact that I didn't recall doing it. The very fact that Shane didn't absolutely freak out on me for doing it is a complete miracle. I promised to stop and I did. For about a week, when I found myself online buying purses. Five purses later, I miserably shut off the computer and agreed to grief counseling.

So now, my diversion in a sense is blogging, but it's not really a diversion because I'm talking about Calvin, I'm feeling the pain of losing him. I'm crying everyday again, something I thought I was over long ago but apparently still need to do. I'm trying to channel my grief into more positive things, no more online shopping. As for the meds, I'm trying to cut down little by little. It's been complicated trying to get off them because of pelvic issues I'm having and have had since the births of the twins. Maybe it sounds excuse-ish but I don't deal very well with physical pain any more than emotional pain. I know I can't continue to numb myself out all the time, although the respite is nice. I suppose if I was a drinker I would have probably drank myself to death by now, thank God I can't handle more than a drink or two without feeling like complete shit for the next two days. I can't believe how much I still hurt over this, I guess it's only really been four months or so but it seems like forever....

Quiet Moments

My life feels extremely disordered some days. Just when I feel like things are settling down in my heart, in a quiet moment alone with my thoughts, my grief creeps to the surface and all of a sudden I'm back in the sorrow of it all. I try to keep busy, at what I'm not sure, I feel busy most days changing bums, feeding, playing, singing with the girls, doing laundry but upon crawling out of bed this morning I looked around and thought, man my house needs a good cleaning. My dishwasher broke a couple of weeks ago and I've been doing extremely well at staying on top of the dishes until the day before yesterday when I used the last of the dishsoap to wash baby bottles. Do you think I can remember to pick up dishsoap? My brain feels so foggy sometimes, like I have trouble focusing on even the basic things that need to be done.

I've never been like this before, usually I'm able to remember all the tiny details of my life, things that need attention right down to the insignificant. Now even the everyday things seem overwhelming most days, seemingly because I tend to lose myself in the quiet moments, the times where the girls are sleeping and Shane is out. These are the times I take for myself to restore order into my life, clean up after people, put stuff away, do the stuff that matters to me so that I can enjoy my personal space and not feel guilty about lounging on the couch. Now, in my quiet moments, thoughts of Calvin sneak in and I lose myself in remembering. I love the memories I have of him, well, most of them anyways, but the feeling of sadness that accompanies the memories is so hard to deal with. I hate the ever-present ache in my heart. I hate not being able to turn off my head, to put Calvin away for awhile so that I don't feel sad and that I can concentrate on things in my life that need doing. I told Shane that I hate feeling sad all the time, it seems that most of our conversations at night gravitate towards Calvin and I end up crying. Damnit, I miss him so fucking much. I hate the repetitive nature of the memories, the same moments over and over and over in my mind's eye, the same feelings of sorrow, of emptiness. I hate that my motherly duties to Lorelei and Georgia feel merely like an escape at times, something to occupy myself so that I don't feel swallowed whole by the grief of losing my beautiful baby. My Calvin. It horrifies me to even say the words, "My baby died...". Babies are NOT supposed to die, not when as a mother I did everything I could to give him the best chance. I stopped smoking, didn't drink, no drugs, took vitamins and ate healthier than I usually do, rested every day, went to every fucking doctor's appointment...Damnit, it's not fair. It's not fair that my life will never be the same again, that everything feels chaotic some days, that my children no longer have a mother who is "whole" because part of her died with Calvin. I don't know how to fix myself because it feels like everything I do is simply a diversion, that in my quiet moments it all comes flooding back. I can't stop crying. And I hate it.

The Shack

I had a visit today with Betty and Amanda, two people who go waaaaaaaay back in my life. Amanda was just a tiny girl when I started babysitting her, Ashley was even tinier. Now they're both beautiful women, something I find hard to reconcile with my emotional memories of them as cute little girls. Anyhow, not to wax on sentimental journies but today was amazing. I had the most uplifting and relaxing afternoon drinking lattes and eating sinfully delicious gourmet cupcakes (thank you for the deliciously decadent extra calories Amanda, LOL), and talking about life and my children. They continue to spoil my girls rotten with treats and love and it makes me feel so grateful to have such wonderful women in my life. As they had brought treats for the girls, I also got a gift from Betty. She gave me a book called "The Shack". I won't go into too much detail about it because it's an absolute must read but I literally couldn't put it down. I swear anyone who has lost a child should read this book, it truly spoke to my heart and I found myself sobbing during several parts that I could honestly identify with. It was a beautiful gift and one that I intend to pass on. I have already told Shane he needs to read it because I need to talk to him about the book and I can't do it until he reads it because I absolutely don't want to spoil it for him. I especially feel the need to send a copy to my son's surgeon, Dr. C, because so much of the story spoke to me, my heart and my feelings about Calvin's death and the people who were in his short life. After reading only a few short chapters, I felt that there was someone in this world who understood my struggle to maintain a relationship with God following the death of my son, someone who put my inner conflict into words and then shared them with honesty and emotion. I loved it. I may read it again tomorrow, and possibly the day after that. Thank you Betty for such a wonderful day and such a thoughtful and perfect gift, one that I know I can't keep to myself now that I've read it.

Children's Hospital

I wanted to write about my feelings regarding our stay and treatment at Children's Hospital. It's been on my mind so much lately and I just have to share about our experience there. When Calvin's heart defect was discovered at my twenty week fetal anatomy scan, I was told, because of the complexity of his defect, that we would need to have our twins born at Women and Children's. I was scared but confident that the help we needed was at Children's, so Shane, Lorelei and I packed up and moved to Vancouver. It's something I'll always be grateful we did. When my water broke (Georgia's amniotic sac) on November 10, I remember an unusual calm feeling overcoming me. This was it. I had been frightened of the birth for basically my whole pregnancy, knowing that once Calvin was outside my body, his little heart would need mending right away. However, that day I was granted a sort of serenity, a feeling of inner peace and I was absolutely looking forward to meeting my babies at last. My c-section went smoothly, I had absolutely no pain and within a minute of each other my babies were born. Georgia was being assessed and because Calvin was being taken immediately to the NICU, I got to hold him first. He was beautiful, I couldn't stop looking at his little face and his tiny fingers. All too quickly he was gone, taken to be checked out and to have his heart defect diagnosed. I met Dr. S, the cardiologist in the recovery room while I was nursing Georgia for the first time and he explained to me what we were up against. Shane felt an immediate trust for him and we were confident we were in the best possible hands for our care.

Despite the fact that Calvin suffered complications and died, I can't say enough about the level of care we received while we were there. All the nurses were wonderful, and our two doctors, Dr. S and Dr. C were terrific about explaining in a compassionate, kind manner what was happening with our son and what we were facing. I have never received medical treatment of this kind before, their approach was personable, far from clinical, and we knew they truly cared what happened to our child and our family. Not only was Calvin's well-being important to our doctors, but so was ours. I can't even begin to explain how many of the doctors, nurses and other staff that had worked with our family stopped by to speak to us, hug us, and offer condolences when our son died. They made us feel that we were more than just a medical number or file, we were people who had faced a terrible heartbreaking loss and we were treated so compassionately and kindly, I will never forget them. I guess that's why I feel so strongly about needing to give back. My son's whole life was spent inside the walls of Children's Hospital and we would have likely been there a good while longer had Calvin not died. Right now, a big part of my healing is focusing on raising money to give to Children's Hospital in Calvin's honour. I'm so excited about being able to give them something to show how grateful we are for the way our child and our family was treated while we were there. Giving back for the sake of Calvin is what's keeping me together these days, it gives me something to focus on, making something beautiful come out of something that hurt so much. If I could just make people understand how important it is having Children's Hospital there for families like us who have had sick children, it wouldn't be an issue trying to fundraise. In a way, I think everyone should experience what a wonderful place it is for sick children, but I also would love to see the day where nobody needed to experience it as well. It's so hard to put my feelings of gratitude into words, there are none adequate enough to express how I truly feel, only that I'm glad they were there when we needed them and I can't wait to go back with a cheque.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

It's odd to me that life is starting to resemble "normal" again. In the days and weeks that followed Calvin's death, everything "normal" in my life ceased to be. My sleeping patterns were completely disrupted, I often slept for maybe an hour or two maximum yet continued to function somewhat coherently oddly enough. However, everyday stuff like cooking and cleaning became something that didn't matter to me anymore. I realized at Christmas dinner at my in-law's house that I hadn't cooked since Calvin had died, and I didn't care. In fact I think it was the end of January before I started cooking again and in those early days, it was sporadic at best. It was also towards the end of January that I realized the wrapping paper from Christmas morning was still on the floor and that I had been walking around it for over a month. It was an eye-opening revelation of sorts for me, because at that time I also realized that although we had been home from the coast for two months, we hadn't unpacked. So, I picked up the Christmas wrap, took down the tree and started the task of unpacking our other life. When I got to the suitcase of Calvin's things, I realized why I hadn't started as soon as we got home.

Unpacking Calvin's clothes and toys and blankets was so hard. So many things purchased with love and hope, now lay unused, unworn in my old suitcase. Each item held a memory, of a time where I was pregnant and shopping for my unborn son, or as a gift given from the heart of a friend or family member. He was to be such a vital part of our lives, the only son, so longed for and loved by his daddy and me. It broke my heart to see all of his things unused, unloved, so at that moment in time, I shut the suitcase and took it upstairs where his clothes and toys didn't call out to me to hold them and smell them and think of him. As I began to get back into the routine of cooking and cleaning and daily chores, the suitcase sat upstairs, patiently waiting. I had thought about going through Calvin's things and donating them to the swap meet we did to raise money for Children's, but part of me couldn't let go. They were his things, and he wouldn't be getting any more. In fact I had to fight to get some of the things that had been purchased for him by family who thought it best not to "upset" me by giving me his gifts once he had died. I wanted everything. I wanted all the symbols of love and reminders that Calvin existed. So, unable to bring myself to donate any of his stuff to the swap meet, the suitcase was again closed and put away.

Since then, although I still hurt, although I miss my son every day, my life is starting to resemble "normal" again. I am able to appreciate little things that bring me joy once more. One of those things has been following Oliver's progress with his battle with Truncus Arteriosus, the congenital heart defect that Calvin had. When Oliver was finally discharged from the hospital, I celebrated his success, a feeling of pride and love for this little baby boy I had never met. It felt fitting that something I bought for Calvin with love and hope be given to this little fighter who is winning his battle with congenital heart disease. I am so grateful Jesse said yes when I asked her if I could send her something of Calvin's for Oliver. The suitcase didn't seem so formidable anymore when I went upstairs to get an outfit to send, in fact it felt right and good and I think Calvin would have approved. I feel so connected to Jesse and Oliver, although we've never met, we understand each other, know what it's like to be facing fear and uncertainty and to cry with love and hope for our children. It's nice that my life is starting to get back to some sort of reality again, even though that reality means a life without my son. It hurts, but it will get better.