See Me

notes for the everlost

That he was here at all made more love in the world. With him, there would have been more. 

But without him, there would be less. I ache with this surplus. The ache is how I know it

exists. 

—kate inglis (notes for the everlost)

three.

Every day I long to hold him.


He should be here.


He should be three.


/some photos from his birthday

\\\

We are at 26 weeks. He has an 80% chance of survival now.

Of course I know it isn't just a matter of being at a certain gestation. I know there are so many factors that play into whether a baby will survive.

Here in Montréal, doctors typically start using intensive medical intervention to try to save a preemie at 24 weeks. Last year, we missed the cutoff point by just a few days. The morning before I went into labor, the doctor told us that we would be transferred to a hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit in two days time. I developed a fever that evening and the contractions started. Liam was born the next afternoon. He was perfectly healthy and stronger than the doctors thought, but they didn't have the necessary equipment to help him. Liam never got his chance. My beautiful, brave little boy never got his 30%.

I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, and really, neither do you. Nobody knows what will happen even in the next moment.

But here I am 26 weeks pregnant. This is huge for us. Every week is a milestone, and after 19+ weeks of bedrest, i'll take the statistic. I'll take the 80% and whatever else is next.

\\\

People ask about the bedrest and how i'm feeling.

I do everything lying on my side. I'm not allowed to sit up. I get up only to use the bathroom. I take one seated shower per week for a maximum of 10 minutes. I take progesterone hormones to help prevent premature labor. I take medication to help prevent blood clots. I take stool softeners and suppositories. I take 7 different vitamins. I call my doctor every week to update her on how i'm doing. For appointments, J carries me to the car and lies me down on the backseat to transport me.

There isn't anything fun about this pregnancy. I depend on others to care for me. I worry all the time. I'm brittle. Tired. This living week-to-week and counting down and watching my every move in this bed is exhausting. Physically, mentally and emotionally, i'm drained.

But I know why I need to stay very still in this bed. I know who i'm doing this for, and i'm beyond grateful for him every day.

\Giving him every chance

\Handmade dream catcher by Séverine, a lovely Montréal artist. She weaved two crystals into the web, one for me and one for my baby

love.

These are some shots from an afternoon spent in Old Montreal. We walked on old cobblestone streets. We explored. Reflected. Photographed.

The last time we visited this part of the city I was 3 months pregnant and we were celebrating J's birthday. We went out for dinner and then we walked to the Old Port. We stopped to look at the boats and circus tents and talked about how awesome it was going to be to do all these things with our baby. Now we walk the same streets and talk about how awesome things would, could and should have been.

Losing Liam has changed everything in my life. I've talked about how everything is different, but there is one thing that has remained the same and that's my love for Liam. I loved him every minute of every one of the 163 days he lived inside me. I loved him the day he was born and died. And I continue to love him 9 1/2 months later.

I'm still pushing for the life that I want. I hope to conceive again and bring a baby home to nurture and love and raise. But no matter what the future holds, Liam will always be interwoven in my life. I know that every moment would, could and should be so different. I know that I will always wonder. And I know that as long as i'm still here, I will always love him.

***

I come here and share bits and pieces of my life. Snippets. In words and photographs.

I wanted to tell you about our weekend in Vermont. About how Winter is still transforming into Spring up in the mountains. About the white peeks and the raw earth and the damp mountain air. I wanted to tell you that like the seasons, i'm also transforming. Adjusting. Accepting. I wanted to share photos that we took along the trail we hiked up into the hills. I wanted to tell you about the twisting stream we followed and the old wooden bridges we crossed. But our weekend was also full of painful reminders and tears. The couple walking towards us on the trail, pushing their baby in a stroller. Justin taking my hand. Us bowing our heads as we pass them by. Tears hidden behind my sunglasses.

You see, every moment of every day I miss him. And I wonder. What would life be like with Liam in it? What would this moment be like if he were here? I stand on a mountain top and I see a world of browns and yellows and splashes of green, and it's beautiful beyond words, and what am I thinking? This is Springtime my love. I wish you were here to see your first Spring. I wish you were slung across my chest right now. Bouncing. Giggling. Breathing in the fresh mountain air with me.

The reminders are everywhere. Everyday. Families. Babies. Pregnant mothers with beautiful blooming bellies. And I think of my Liam. I think about all the things he's missing out on. I think about all the things i'm missing out on as his mama. I reach out to him every day with the hope that he can somehow feel how much I miss and love him. I can't carry Liam the way I so desperately want to, but he is always with me. You can't see my baby, but I carry him in my heart. And I hope that my love for him comes through in my words and photographs.

one.

Last week ended on a hopeful note and we made it to a transfer. Of nine eggs that were collected, six were abnormal. Three eggs went on to fertilize but two of them were developing abnormally and had to be destroyed. That left us with one. One chance for this cycle. The embryologist told us that our egg was developing "correctly" and so it was transferred into my body on Friday morning.

The transfer itself was quick but overwhelming. As the doctor implanted and we watched the procedure on the flat screen TV above our heads, J and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes. Our thoughts were with Liam. He will always be our son. We will always live and breathe his absence. I held my necklace with one hand and J's hand with the other, and through our tears we smiled. We smiled for this chance.

Now we wait. Time will tell.

I'm at home for two weeks, slowing down, resting and yes, i'm even preparing my body for the possibility of another child. If this turns into a pregnancy then we'll have to prepare for a long and hard road ahead. My high risk doctor is waiting for my call with a positive and then i'm in her hands. But for now that's looking too far ahead. For now I need to catch my breath, breathe and try to relax into whatever will happen next.

Thank you for your touching comments, for your thoughts and hopes and wishes! I really can't tell you how much it's meant to be able to come here and share and connect with such amazing people like you.

6 months.

It's been 6 months since Liam died, the same amount of time that he was alive.

I'm especially reflective around significant dates. I go through the series of events that have led me to this moment in my life and it always leaves me stunned in disbelief. How Liam came to be after the doctors gave us a 2% chance at conceiving naturally. How he died after I ruptured PPROM (pre-term premature rupture of the membrane), something that happens in less than 3% of pregnancies. Those are some odds. How my son and I spent 26 days in a hospital bed holding on as tightly as we could to each other while the doctors monitored survival rates, chances of risks and amniotic fluid levels. How one day my baby was safe in my belly and the next I was helplessly birthing him into the world only to die. It's been so much to process, so much to absorb and accept. 6 months after my son's death and I still go about my days wondering what happened? What on earth happened?

Next week I start my second cycle of IVF. My new IVF protocol is more aggressive since the first cycle failed miserably, and yes, the doctor gave us our chances for success. But I know better now. I know that it will either work or it won't. I know that while I put my faith in doctors and technology, some things are just out of our control. There are no guarantees in science, just as there are no guarantees in life.

So we take everything we know, and everything we will never know, we hold each others hand and we take the next step.

***

Have I told you that the flakes are falling here?

We snowshoe in the winter. There's something special about snowy walks in the woods when all you can hear is your breath and your feet shuffling underneath you. J and I have shared magical walks under the stars in the backcountry of Vermont, somewhere i'd like to go again this year.

I'm not one for new year's resolutions, especially after last year. Losing a child puts your life into perspective. This year I take the time to reflect on a year that has forever changed me. On Liam, my son who died before he had the chance to really live. On finding a balance between the two worlds I live in. My world of Liam and my world without him.

One breath at a time. One step at a time.

***

I don't get to talk about Liam very much anymore. Usually, i'm the one who brings him up, and I do, not all the time but I need to talk about my son. I carried him for 6 months, I spent a month in the hospital fighting to save him, and now I'm missing him with all my heart. He's my son. How could I not talk about him? But I realize that most people would rather ignore the truth when the truth is hard. It's easier to ignore Liam's life or try to sugar coat his death by saying something {so completely awful} like "it just wasn't meant to be". Someone told me that during the holidays. As she hugged me she whispered those words in my ear. I'd like to mention that she's a mother of two. A part of me wanted to tell her that she should be careful about what she says, that we're talking about my child here, his name is Liam and he most definitely was meant to be and did in fact be. But I just didn't have the energy to get into it. Especially a few days before Christmas.

That same evening, I went to my support group meeting where I join four other babylost mothers every month in a church basement. In this place our children are safe and they're always acknowledged as they should be. Our group leader asked us about the gifts our babies brought us and when it was my turn to talk about Liam's gifts, my list was longer than I had expected. I kind of surprised myself as I was speaking, it took someone asking me to say aloud all his gifts for me to realize that to this day Liam continues to bring me gifts. He's changed me in so many ways, he's opened up my eyes and even my broken heart to this cruel world. Liam has taught me what's really important in life and how we really don't know what tomorrow will bring. He's taught me not to sweat the small stuff, life is really too short for that. He's taught me that i'm a strong woman but I have my limits and I don't have to be strong or "better" for other people. And Liam continues to teach me about the type of person I want to be and the open, honest and meaningful life I want to lead. In so many ways, my son is teaching me how to really live. I left my meeting with new thoughts to take into the new year. Good thoughts.

It was a hard year. The worst. But i've promised myself to make more of an effort to remember the hope and love and harmony that my son brought me. I won't pretend or deny the pain and guilt and anger that surrounds Liam's death, but I will try to find a balance. I know that people will continue to say hurtful things but I also know that it's my job to protect my son's life and memory. What type of a mother would I be if I didn't want to protect my child?

I want to thank each of you who continues to join me here. I really can't express my gratitude enough for listening, being there and for sharing with me. This blog has been a healing place, i'd even add it to my list of therapies right along with my psychologist and support group. It's a place where i've been able to set my heart free and keep Liam's memory alive. And that feels so good.

Wishing you peace, love and light for the new year friends.

sunday.

At the end of an afternoon that included lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant, take away samosas for later, holding hands, random street art and hot cocoa, we plopped down on the sofa with our cat Ziggy. Me on my iPad, J on his laptop and Ziggy happily tucked between us. Me surfing the blogs, J on Fstoppers and Ziggy purrs filling every corner of our little living room. This is more or less what our Sundays looks like. Us. Living quietly. Missing terribly.

The night ended with a lit fire, wine, those samosas and the season finale of Dexter.

Then I touched my son's urn and went to sleep.


** I found these angels in a little shop last month, they're Christmas presents for Liam's great grandparents, grand parents and aunt and uncle.


*** This is Ziggy. We adopted him last month. 

i am.

I am a woman
I have a deformed womb
I have an incompetent cervix
I have a minuscule number of eggs
I'm 37 years old

In 2009 the doctor said we had a 2% chance of conceiving naturally
In 2010 our son proved the statistics wrong
The doctor said our baby was a blessing
Liam was a blessing yes

At 19 weeks I ruptured
I was rushed to the hospital and had emergency cerclage
My water broke the next day
Amniotic fluids trickled down my leg from that day on
The doctors said it was a "slow leak"
Baby Liam needed to be monitored closely

I had to stay very still in bed
I could move from side to side
I could lift my head to eat
I could lift my bottom onto the bed pan (but no pushing!)

Liam liked icy water, orange juice and listening to Bob Marley tunes which I played straight into my belly every night
Liam and his daddy liked to poke at each other through my belly which melted my heart every single time
Liam always stayed put for the nurses when it was time to listen to his heart beat (3 times per day)
Liam didn't like the Trendelenburg position

For 26 days there were doctors, nurses, orderlies, a hematologist, a physiotherapist, a dietician, ultrasounds, heart monitoring, blood tests and anticoagulant injections
For 26 days there was guilt, fear, tears, disbelief and helplessness
For 26 days I prayed to God to help us
For 26 days I never once prepared myself for his death

Trickles suddenly turned into big gushes of fluids
Every 15 minutes I braced myself
Stay with me Liam, not yet my love
Please someone help us!
The doctor said there wasn't anything they could do
They put me back into Trendelenburg position
I developed a fever of 40.9
The contractions started

The doctor told us that an ambulance would take me to a high risk hospital for delivery
30 minutes later he came back to tell us that no hospital would take us
I had a fever, Liam might have a fever, it was too risky
Nobody wanted to try
Nobody wants to even try?
I would stay and deliver Liam
The doctor said that they wouldn't resuscitate him after he died
After all of this nobody wants to try?
Justin pushed a chair across the room
I went into shock
The next 15 hours were a blur

In the OR they gave me a spinal and removed the cerclage
I went back to my room in the maternity ward to wait
The spinal wore off in the morning and the contractions became unbearable
An anesthesiologist came to give me an injection for the pain
My mom held my hand, Justin fed me ice chips and my dad paced the room

If you passed by our room you just might have thought that we were having a take home baby
But then our tears and sad faces would give us all away

Liam was born on August 6, 2011
He was 23 weeks and 3 days
He was perfectly healthy
He grew big and strong
He had Justin's eyes and nose
He had my lips and chin
He had chubby cheeks
He was so beautiful

He breathed on his own for one hour and 29 minutes
I asked the doctor if they could transfer him to a high risk hospital now
The doctor said that the transfer would kill him
So he dies if he stays and he dies if he goes...

I am a mother
My son died
Last week a stranger asked me if I had children
No. I mean yes. YES I do… but he died.

We are back at the fertility centre now
Our IVF journey has officially begun

We didn't get very far on our first round
Two weeks of hormone injections
Twice the dosages increased
My body wasn't responding
The doctors expected much more

I produced four follicles
One of them matured
But it ended up being abnormal
We didn't make it to the transfer stage

Our Liam, he was a blessing yes

** I time travel back into that hospital bed every so often. Those are the last 27 days that I had with my son so I hold on to the memory of them as tightly as I can. When you lose a baby you aren't left with much, an urn, a few photos, an outfit, and the memory of what little time you had together. Such excruciatingly little time. My son blessed me with 163 beautiful days, and 27 of them happen to be spent in a hospital bed. Nobody knows what might happen even the next minute, one day you are in the lavender fields, the next you're in the hospital. Life. is. fragile.

I share my journey because it helps me. Thank you for listening.

I've been at a loss for words lately. Well maybe not entirely, there is one beautiful word that plays over and over in my head… Liam.

Sometimes it's LIAM, i'm yelling his name at the top of my lungs, and other times it's an aching whisper flowing straight from my heart… Liam.

I miss him so much.

After I hit "publish" on my last post, I cried and cried. I cried for my son who's in an urn on our fireplace mantle. I cried for how absurd and unnatural that is. I cried because this is my reality now, i'm the mother to a dead baby, I cried for only being able to give my son such a brief life. I cried for the future I had envisioned for him, the future I had envisioned for us. And I cried because i'm so lost without him.

It's been difficult to come up with the words that describe how i'm feeling and what my world is like now. I thought that I could share photos on my blog until the words came to me but I haven't picked up my camera in a month now. The last photo I took was of our pumpkin. Our backyard was aglow with beautiful afternoon sunlight so I placed the pumpkin in the grass and snapped away. I was pretty happy with my shots and I uploaded them to the computer. While I was looking them over I got angry, what the heck was I doing taking photos of a pumpkin when my son just died?? I was so ashamed of myself. Within a few days I stopped doing everything that I enjoyed, writing, taking photos, yoga, cooking. Some days I even stayed in bed all day long feeling sorry for myself. It was a real pity fiesta. So I didn't feel much like writing here and if I did i'm not sure how much sense I would have made, not to mention i'd probably scare everyone away.

I had a session with my grief counselor last week who told me that I wasn't going crazy {hallelujah}, that I was entitled to a pity party now and then, and she said something that stuck, "you can only heal what you're willing to reveal". When I got home from our session I started to write, and then I logged into my blog and I wrote some more. The feelings and words are pouring out of me like a river and i'm thankful for this place to let them go.

This is my life now. Sometimes i'm happy and sometimes i'm sad. And right now i'm mostly sad. But i'm trying to work on things and trying to learn how to be a good mama to Liam because right now i'm doing everything for him, including getting out of bed in the morning.

hope.

Thank you to those who left us such thoughtful comments, Justin and I are feeling everyone's support during this difficult time and it means a lot.

It's incredibly touching to know that i'm being thought of by such kind people across the miles, most of whom i've never even met but who care enough to send comforting emails and the most genuine and loving telephone message. Ladies whom i've connected and created beautiful bonds with through our blogs and whom i'm sincerely grateful to have in my life.

I started this blog a year ago for an escape and for fun, a place where I could share my husband's beautiful photos, my own photos and where I could write about things that make me happy. It didn't take very long for my blog to get personal. Very personal. That wasn't what my blog was about in the beginning but things change, life changes, and I have to say that spilling my guts here feels good.

This past year and a half, J and I have been dealt a certain infertility card, which until recently our baby boy proved the doctors wrong. I had 6 of the absolute happiest months of my entire life carrying Liam inside of me and I shared every moment of it here on my blog. Now, i'm faced with the most painful thing in the world and i'm sharing the loss of our child. I've read all about the stages of dealing with the loss of a baby. Sadness. Anger. Guilt. Acceptance. Right now i'm feeling the deepest sadness that i've ever known, i'm feeling guilty, angry and i'm trying to understand my incompetent cervix. But while i'm feeling all of these things, I haven't lost hope. Hope is my light, it keeps me going and keeps me dreaming that I will one day carry a baby again and bring him or her into this world safely. The doctors are giving me hope too, they say that we could do things differently next time and that we'd have a better chance of getting me further along in my pregnancy now that we know everything there is to know... that has been really hard to hear, losing our Liam in order to bring another child into the world is cruel and unfair.

My time in the hospital wasn't easy, everyday had it's ups and downs, but so many people filled up my heart with hope and support. My parents visited me every day, twice a day, and they were like rays of sunshine every time they stepped through my door. My mom helped me wash myself every morning and helped me keep a fresh mind for the day ahead with her pep talks and readings of inspirational passages from her books. My dad gave me wonderful leg and foot massages and just having him sit next to me reading the newspaper made my hospital room feel a little more like home. Justin was with me every night, traveling from his work downtown to the hospital to comfort me while I know that he needed comforting himself. My girlfriends visited and called me every day, and every time we said our goodbye's or hung up the phone, I felt as though a weight was lifted. I know that my pain is shared by many, there are so many people who were hoping and praying for Liam. Just knowing that I have all these supportive and amazing people in my life, who are there no matter what, to talk or to listen, day or night, is a huge comfort to me. I'm finding comfort in writing too, my girlfriend brought me a journal while I was in the hospital and writing has helped me release some of the pain. And I cry a lot, the tears just come but I let them out no matter where I am and nobody makes me feel embarrassed about it.

Baby loss and infertility are a part of my life now. These are my truths, and using this place to let go of some of the weight feels good. Thank you for reading, sharing your own experiences with me and for caring.

Liam.

I've been staring at my computer screen for awhile now, not knowing how to write this post. So i'll just tell you what's happened in my world this past month.

On July 11, I ruptured and was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery. My amniotic sac was ballooning out of my cervix so the doctor gently pushed it back in and inserted two cerclage sutures. Two days later my water broke in the middle of the night. I reopened but it was what they called a "slow leak" so enough amniotic fluids would remain for Liam to continue to grow. The doctors discovered that I have a deformed uterus, it's the shape of a heart they said, and what is called a bicornuate uterus. Because of the lack of space, Liam stayed on my right side but this caused too much pressure on my weak cervix and is why I ruptured when he became heavier at 5 months. Unfortunately, my incompetent cervix was detected later in my pregnancy, had the doctors known about it sooner they would have performed the surgery earlier on and put me on bed rest as soon as I became pregnant. Because my cervix would now remain open until I delivered, the doctors kept me on strict bed rest in the hospital for the rest of my pregnancy. Every day, three times per day, the nurses monitored Liam's heart and these were my favorite times of the day... getting to hear his strong heart beat was music to my ears and heart. I also had a few ultrasounds every week to monitor the level of fluids which was another favorite time because I got to see Liam do things like drink, stretch, kick, turn, wave and once he sucked on his thumb during the entire examination.

On August 4, the leaking became steady, every 15 minutes I felt a trickle down my leg, but the doctors said that there wasn't anything that they could do. I continued to drink 4 litres of water a day to replenish the fluids and hope that the leak would seal itself. The ultrasounds showed that enough fluids remained and that Liam was still safe. My doctor told me that the paperwork was being finalized to have us transferred to a high risk hospital downtown where they had an NICU and a high risk unit to properly care for Liam. We would be leaving in two days time.

The following day the leaking continued and that evening I developed a high fever. At 9pm I woke up to my first contraction. I was going into preterm labour. The doctor said that the sutures needed to be removed, that I had an infection and both Liam and I were no longer safe. At 23 weeks and 3 days (we found out 2 months later that my ultrasounds showed him +3 days, so he was really 23 weeks and 6 days) they told J and I that they couldn't save our baby and that they wouldn't resuscitate him after he died. I delivered Liam the following afternoon at 1:36pm. Liam breathed on his own for an hour and 29 minutes. And then he was gone.

My heart is broken in a million pieces. I miss my son. I miss feeling him move inside me. His movements filled me up with so much love and hope. I miss his kicks, his gentle nudges, us taking turns poking at each other. We were together in that hospital bed for 27 days, Liam growing and developing perfectly and me fighting to hold onto him and keep him safe inside... I have no idea what happened?? We needed a little more time, every day, hour, minute, second counted. Liam would have a chance at 24 weeks they said...

Rest in peace my son, Liam Lucarelli. August 6, 2011 - August 6, 2011.