What If

Lately I've been feeling a little more sad. Of course, I'm sure that is a "duh" statement. Of course I'm sad. But, just weeks ago I was able to go through a whole day without crying. Which, if you know me, is huge. However, the tears haven't stayed away lately. I find myself tearing up at the mention of Graham's name. Or if someone asks how I'm doing. And they really mean it, and want to know the truthful answer. Because the truth is not so easy to put into words. I was telling someone just yesterday when they asked me how I was that I was OK, but it's definitely a moment by moment thing.  Because it's so true. I feel like I go back and forth between being OK and not being able to handle it all so very quickly.

I was on the way home for lunch from work today when I got a call from the hospital where we delivered Graham. The man was inquiring about my account balance and asking, very nicely, if we would like to set-up a payment plan. We discussed those matters, and then I asked about Graham's account as well. I told him I had a couple of questions about the things we were billed for because my son passed away. He was very kind to me, and the issues we talked about were very medical and matter of fact. But as soon as I hung up the phone, I completely lost it.  Big, ugly cry.  The feelings of loss and sadness can be so overwhelming.

I am also struggling because I have a whole bunch of friends who have either just had babies, or are getting close.  And, honestly, I am so very happy for them.  I am so happy to see that there are healthy pregnancies and babies.  And that hope is not gone.  However, when I am looking at the pictures, I can't help but long for my sweet Graham.  To wonder what he would be doing right now.  I'm sure at 6 weeks, he would be showing us a toothless grin.  I wonder how his looks would be changing already.  I wonder if he would be a good sleeper like his big brother, Parker, already was at 6 weeks.

But, the "what if" game can be so silly.  Because if we really want to play that game, I have to be wondering if we would still be in the hospital.  How Graham's kidneys would be working.  If we were able to have the surgery on his bladder yet or not.  Whenever I get too deep into asking the "what if" questions, I really start to see how very merciful God was in that hospital room on February 3rd.  Graham was so sick.  He needed more help than any human could offer.  And God saw it best to take Graham then.  To not let him suffer through the life of "living" at the hospital, through multiple surgeries, procedures, pricks and pokes.  He showed mercy to my son, and for that I am so grateful.  Graham knew nothing but love during his short life. 

Please don't hear me say that I wouldn't have been OK with all of the issues we would have had to dealt with if Graham would have survived.  I would have stood by Graham's side for every medical issue for as long as he needed.  I would have done it all and would have been so very thankful to be able to spend that time with him and take care of him in that way.  But, I can't help but see God's graciousness to our family.  To give Graham a much better life than he would have had here.  The "what if" game is pointless when compared to the glory and majesty that Graham is experiencing in Heaven.  I just can't wait until we can all experience it together.

Oh, Normalcy

Tomorrow I start back to work from my six-week maternity leave.  The most popular question people have been asking me lately is if I'm ready to go back.  And the answer?  I'm not really sure.

I have been thinking about normalcy a lot lately.  What is normal?  And do we even want to go back to normal? 

Because going back to work is just another step to normalcy.  Which is good - normalcy is comfortable.  I know how our little family of three works, what our schedule looks like, how to handle working full-time while raising a three year old and being married to a seminary student.  But, we so longed to NOT be in familiar territory.  At this point, we were expecting for our life to look different.  We were at the zoo the other day and when we got home I told Matt that it just didn't feel right.  Of course, we have been to the zoo with Parker tons of times (woohoo for our zoo membership!).  But we should have been pushing around a baby in the stroller.  Or one of us should have been there with Parker while the other was in the hospital with Graham.  Either way, it shouldn't have been us three there "just like normal."

I think it is bugging me that everything feels "just like normal."  Because even though we are doing the same things before Graham was born and it looks exactly the same from the outside, we are so very far from normal.  No one can tell just by looking at us, but we are walking around with a member of our family missing.  There is nothing normal about your baby dying at birth. 

So, tomorrow I will go into work - probably late because of being off for the past 6 weeks.  And it will be so good to see my sweet work friends.  And it will be nice to have something to keep me busy and focused during the day.  But I will also be ever mindful of all that has happened in my life and what I can do to figure out my "new normal."  How I can go through the motions of my life before Graham, while at the same time making sure there is a distinct difference.  I feel as though Graham deserves that.  He deserves to have enough weight and importance to change my life.  To change my normalcy.

 

Video

This morning I was on the computer ordering some birth announcements/thank you notes for Graham.  I was looking through the pictures of Graham trying to decide the right one when Parker walked over and asked what I was doing.  He sat down with me and looked at the pictures of Graham and was especially interested in the video we have of Graham's bathtime.  Parker was in the video "helping" Kimberly give Graham his bath.  Parker asked to watch it a couple of times because he loves to watch himself and then asked to watch another one.  It hit me then - we don't have another one.  We don't get to watch anything else with Graham in it.  That's the only one we have.  Of course, Parker doesn't quite understand that and was growing impatient.  I found another video on the computer that had Parker in it, but then he asked for another Graham video.  The only other one I had was the picture montage that our good friend, Casey, created for the memorial service.  After we watched that Parker, like any other 3 year old, lost interest and moved onto something else.  Me?  I sat there with tears in my eyes wishing I had more.  More pictures.  More time.  More memories.  Just more of it all.

I wanted to share what we do have, though, so please enjoy the memorial service video:

One Month

I've been thinking about writing this post for the past week or so, knowing that Graham's one month "birthday" was coming up.  It has been a bit of a hard week passing and coming up to some milestones.  First off, if we would have had our way and Graham would have been completely healthy, we were planning on delivering Graham on leap day.  There were a lot of people who thought it was fun, and there were also a lot of people who thought it was a silly idea.  However, we really liked the idea of having a "special" birthday for this baby.  Little did we know that he was already special in his own way.  Also, today is not only one month since Graham was born and passed away, but it is also his original due date.

I've decided that I want to blog through this journey - the journey of finding out our new normal without a member of our family.  I posted on Caring Bridge (www.caringbridge.com/visit/grahamdugan) before Graham was born, but I mostly tried to keep it as impersonal as possible.  I tried to just give updates in the form of medical information and specific prayer requests.  Now, though, I want to have an outlet to be honest about how I'm feeling and how this grief journey is the hardest and strangest thing I have been on.

There are, of course, a ton of things that have been floating around in my mind since Graham passed away.  The thing that sticks out the most to me is how absolutely shocked I was about Graham's death.  We knew for four months how sick Graham was and what all the percentages were on his survival rate.  I knew it.  I thought about it constantly.  I cried so very hard about it.  And honestly, I had spent a good amount of time thinking about what life would look like if Graham passed away, how the memorial service would go, what we would do with his body.  Yet, when the NICU doctors walked into the room with the look in their eyes that said he wasn't going to make it, I was in an absolute state of shock.  How in the world was this really happening to me?  This happens to other people.  I read about it on other people's blogs and am so touched and sad about it, but this cannot be my life.  I really thought that I had no hope for Graham's survival, but looking back now, I realize that I did.  I didn't set up Graham's room and I didn't pull out clothes for him.  But when they pulled Graham out of me and rushed him to the resucitation room, I could only have hope.  Looking back now, I am glad that I did.  I am glad that, in the end, I believed that God could perform a miracle.  Many people, including myself, say that He still did.  And I believe that.  But I knew that my God was big enough to make Graham healthy enough to survive in this world.  And for that I am thankful.

After my initial shock and denial wore off (and that lasted at least a week), I am finding myself turn more towards anger.  I am angry about the whole situation.  I am angry that one blocked ureter can cause so many problems.  It's just peeing, for goodness sakes!  How in the world can the inability to pee take an innocent baby's life?  I'm angry that I didn't get to hear Graham's cry, that I didn't get to go upstairs in the NICU and see Graham moving around, that I didn't get to hold him and look into his eyes at the same time.  I'm angry that I had to deal with the physical pain of my milk coming in.  I was taking pain medicine for that more than the pain of the incision.  I'm angry that we received his death certificate before we recieved his birth certificate.  I'm angry that I now have an insurance card with his name on it in my wallet.  I'm angry that we paid a lot of money in medical bills for surgeries, procedures, and doctor appointments that, in the end, were unable to save my son's life.  I'm angry that Parker doesn't get to be a big brother in the "normal" sense.  He absolutely loves babies, and yet only got to hold Graham for a couple of minutes.  I'm angry that I've seen several people who know what happened to us, yet choose to say nothing.  It's like Graham's death is the big elephant in the room and no one wants to mention it.  But I do!  I want to talk about Graham so badly. 

I'm sure the previous paragraph just scared some of you.  Please don't think I've jumped off the deep end, or that I'm now a constantly angry and bitter person.  I just realize even more how very unfair this world is.  And it makes me long for heaven so much more.  

OK, I've shared a lot more than I thought I would, yet there is so much more to say.  But this is probably a good snapshot of where we are at in our grief journey right now.  I've been told by people who have walked a similar path that our journey will be long.  We will see so many stages of grief that we can't even keep up.  And it will seem like we are doing better, and then be set off by something else.  I can already see a small snapshot of that in this past month - there are days when I'm OK and days that I am far from it.  But the best part is that, not for one day, have I felt alone.  Even when I feel like no one else here on this earth understands, I have received much comfort from my heavenly Father who I know understands completely, and is beside me grieving as well.