I re-activated my Face.book account yesterday to have a snoop around. I could not help myself. I'm a friggen glutton for punishment. And an idiot.
So many babies born, so many bellies gotten so much bigger. So many new pregnancies I didn't even know about. So much has happened and changed in five months, while I have remained stuck in Hell. In fact, I believe I am now the Mayor of Helltown.
I had a quick poke around, the got the fuck back out of there as quick as I could. Not yet, not ready. And probably wont ever be. That sickly happy place is just not for me anymore.
That is a place where nine months ALWAYS ends in happily ever after. Belly profile photos turn in to newborn profile photos then they turn in to photos of smiling three month olds, then smiling four month olds in Santa's lap. Then happy smiling photos of families on summer holidays.
Comments and messages between "friends" are all like: "Oooh, how exciting. Only a few weeks to go now. Can't wait to hear the news of your arrival". "Do you know what you're having? Guess it doesn't matter anyway, as long as bubs is happy and healthy". "Oh my goodness, look at that belly. You are simply radiant. Pregnancy just suits you". "Have you got the nursery ready yet? Soon you wont have time when your life is consumed with the wonder of your precious newborn. Enjoy the peace while it lasts!!"
I WANT BACK IN THAT HAPPY PLACE WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE!
Five months ago, I was smack bang in the middle of it. The last "activity" on my Face.book page was the day of my due date, when I got about four bazillion posts on my wall wishing me luck for all that lay ahead. CLEARLY I NEEDED MORE LUCK! LOTS, LOTS MORE!
Some might say my shitty new attitude is begruding others their happiness. I think not. Good luck to them. They got their happy endings. They got to take their babies home. That's why I removed myself from Face.book. So I did not smear my sad shit in their happy faces. So they could be happy away from my sad eyes. Deep down, I am happy for them as I really don't need any more pals in this shitty community but I'm just jealous, bitter and twisted. Why did their babies get to live and not mine? How were theirs more worthy than mine? Who out there is making these decisions anyway about which ones get to stay and which ones don't?
I looked at friends' pages from back in August, looking for evidence of people being sad for me. There wasn't much. My sister's status updates seem to have been angry, sad, angry, sad. She's doing a lot of the angry stuff for me. But for everyone else, life just carried right on. I was barely a blip on their radar. It was bad, yes. But bad for me, not for them. They were sad yes, but that passed. They think about me for a few seconds in their busy weeks, but I'm thinking about what happened to me 25 hours a day, if you believe that is possible. But that's life isn't it? This happened to me. To Simon. To Hope. I can't expect anyone else, apart from my family, to care the way I do. And be sad the way I am. Only I am sad the way I am. Even Simon is a different type of sad.
I just don't think it is fair that I should have all the misery. I really would like to share it around a bit. Lessen the load on me. But no. That's not the done thing. Best I stay cooped up away from smiling happy people a while longer as I would not want to uncessarily upset anyone.
And I know the majority of my friends do really, really care and were really, really sorry but they just don't get it. And I hope never, ever will. Even if they try REALLY hard, they just will never understand how bad this really is. How impossible the ache is. How dreadful it feels to go to bed each night and wake up again in the morning without my baby. The baby I grew and carried and loved with all of my being for nine long months. And still love. And will always love. The little baby who just because she is not here, does not mean I don't love her the same as all those other little happy, alive babies plastered all over fucking Face.book.
You know what? I might even love her MORE! Appreciate her MORE! Marvel at her beauty, her innocence and perfection MORE! My eyes have been forced wide open and will never, ever close. I truly know how precious she is and I see how quickly things can change. All of those happy smug types could find themselves on the other side of the fence at any given moment. No one knows when the shitstorm is going to blow through and destroy their lives.
Seriously, I've just had enough of it. I'm part of some god damn email group called SPALS (Subsequent Pregnancy After Loss) and all the emails have been about for the last three days is Face.book! Members keep replying-all with their full names and home towns so others can add them as "friends". I'm so sick of hearing about it!
I'm not going to re-activate my account. I just don't feel I belong in that happy, shiny world anymore. You know, I can just imagine being pregnant again and jumping back on there. "Hey guys, I'm back. Some bad shit went down, as you well know but my life is back on track now and there is another baby on the way". And the comments I'd get! "Oh Sally, so great to see you back. Don't worry, it wont happen again and in a few months you'll be holding your beautiful baby in your arms! Can't wait to hear your news. I will look forward to keeping up to date with all of your pregnancy news now that you're finally back!"
So for now I come back here. To a place I'd rather not be, but a place I have no other choice but to be in. Griefsville, where the outlook is more grief on the way. More sadness and downpours of misery on the horizon. Where the sun wont ever fully come out again. It may poke out from behind the grief cloud from time to time, but it will always be partly cloudy. Partly horrible and terrible and sad. Yup, really am a glass half empty kinda girl these days.
At least here, even with all the pregnancy/birth annoucements, I'm amongst other people, who through no fault of their own, just "get it".
#MicroblogMondays: Olympic hangover
7 hours ago
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Yes, once you get your membership card to the deadbaby club, you can't ever leave. But, we do get it, and we never leave either.
ReplyDeletexxoo
P.S. (I hate fa.c.eb.ook anyway...)
Well, FB has it's place.
ReplyDeleteMy profile mentions Serenity, and that she is missed. Sometimes, new contacts do surprise me, and email me about it.
The other thing I did was join the cause Stillbirth Awareness - and sent it out. I was surprised by how many of my old HS friends (whom I had lost contact with until FB - and after Serenity died) joined the cause.
I guess my point is, I just keep reminding people that I am hurting, otherwise they just don't get it. And I have always liked seeing that most everyone else's life is still ok. The kids are happy, they are happy. And I know that some have had a tough time, but they are still keeping on.
Anyway for me, it has been a way to be 'social' without having to get out of my house and talk to people. It's a safe distance and all that.
And I never shy away from status updates that indicate I am having an extremely bad day. In their FACE.
here's that cause
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/107835?m=8c3a5226&recruiter_id=20465482 (i don't know if the link will work or not)
The day after we got home from the hospital, the OB who supervised our delivery put pictures of his son-to-be's ultrasounds on his fa.ce.book page. I could not believe the hubris- at that point, didn't he know better? I find myself wincing every time someone posts "is waiting for her baby"- does nobody get that it doesn't always turn out happily ever after?
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, I agree with Ya Chun- we may keep having to tell people we're sad and scared and furious before it actually sinks in. This is not the time to be doing anyone else any favors by pretending to be happy.
It can be hard, even here, to hear about new pregnancies, new babies, new happiness. And yet the simple fact is that life goes on, with or without us. It goes on, and on, and on. And no place is this more true than in the happy land of FB. Unlike you, I stayed on there, even posted a pic of my dead baby just so I could show all those happy fucks: LOOK! THIS IS MY SON! HE WAS REAL! HE EXISTED! AND I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK IF HE MAKES YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE!
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, I'm not really that active on FB. I go back every once in a while, dip my big toe in it, and then decide the water there is much too warm. I'd rather be left out in the cold, with the grief-stricken, because even if they go on to have more babies, these strangers understand me more than anybody in my real life could.
Hugs to you, Sally. XO.
I definitely have a love-hate relationship with FB. Perhaps out of boredom and a tad of curiosity, I joined probably about 2 months after Ezra died. I included a note about Ezra in my profile & even the link to my blog. For the most part people have ignored that information, but I've also gotten some surprisingly sweet messages from distant friends, and even rekindled some friendships as a result. But I do exist on the margins...I imagine in my head what my "status updates" would read..."Sarah hates the world and everyone in it"...."Sarah is bitter and miserable and just fine with that..." but I don't ever write anything. Its almost like a metaphor for everything being a deadbabymama is about...on the outside looking in.
ReplyDeleteYes, we get it, we get you and we're sad right alongside you.
ReplyDeleteAnd one day it will get better for all of us.
And there's nothing unnecessary about your grief. Don't ever hide it for fear of upsetting someone: they'll get over it but you'll choke on it if you don't let it out.
And you know what? When you have your second baby, he or she will be so lucky to have a mother who knows what you know because he or she will be so loved and so appreciated and one day so grateful to their sister Hope for teaching you that.
Hope some of this makes sense, I'm rather emotional for you at the moment!
xxx
I am on that SPALs list too and I just had 52 emails about it after not checking my account for 2 days. I deleted every single one of them without reading.
ReplyDeleteI look every now and then. I don't post about Hannah though. She is too special to share with my 150+ "friends". It's not real happiness out there, it's perceieved. Everyone has their bag of shit to deal with, ours just happens to be 1000x heavier than most. If it pisses you off, avoid it. You might find that one day you will be well enough to go back on.
NO ONE will ever get what you are going through unless they have walked down the same path as you. They wont understand, they cant understand. The feelings you feel when your baby dies are so much worse than ANYTHING you could ever imagine that its just not possible for others to know how it feels.
ReplyDeleteI have often said that i think 12 months after your babies dies is really when you hit rock bottom. I know for me I felt i was doing ok but come that 12 months my world just turned to shit. I thought I had delt with everything only to find out that my brain had been protecting me for as long as it could but that the buildup was bigger than me. Sooner or later that anger, sadness, sinking drowning feeling cant be kept under control any longer.
Im not a FB user myself, but it sounds like a place you need to stay right away from. Sure your happy for others who get to bring their babies home but that doesnt mean you need it in your face.
Huge hugs to you
xxx
I hate the Status updates, I call it the glee status update, the I am having a healthy baby and my baby is keeping me awake and my baby smiles so much and I am having a boy I don't know what to do with boys are some of my all time favourite status updates, my stomach plummets and I feel like I am being like one of the characters from Absolutely Fabulous all bitter and I don't mean to be I am just sad very very sad....I just want to go to that place where everything is rosy now I am TERRIFIED and SCARED...by the way Sally can I friend request you, you will get my status updates, I also see it as a challenge for people to understand that grief is ongoing it's not an off button...we never move on, we live with in...
ReplyDeleteLoux