My mom has been staying at our house for the past 4 1/2 weeks. She and my dad came the day I was admitted to the hospital and took care of the kids for the entire week I was there. And my mom has been staying with us since I came home from the hospital. She went home a few weekends, but has been the 'resident Mimi' for a solid month.
When you leave the hospital after a c-section, one of the rules is: Don't pick up anything heavier than your baby.
After Levi was born in January of 2008, we had our 20-pound, 5-month-old foster son, Matthew, with us. He still needed to be picked up LOTS, so my mom came for a few weeks - to help with Matthew and to enjoy her new, fuzzy-headed, completely adorable grandson, Levi. One of my sisters also came to help for a week.
After Seth was born in August of 2010, Levi was a clingy 2 1/2-year-old and Missy was a not-yet-walking, teeny tiny, please-hold-me-all-the-time, almost 2 1/2-year-old. So my mom came again and stayed for several weeks, holding toddlers and enjoying this newest sweet little grandson.
This time. This time has been so different. I had a c-section almost 4 weeks ago. This recovery has felt harder physically - maybe it actually has been harder, or maybe it's all in my head. I've said several times, 'I don't know how to recover from a c-section without a newborn.' A new baby forces you to slow down. An infant forces you to be still, feed them, change them, hold them.
I don't have my newborn.
But I do have a clingy 2-year-old (Seth) who wants to be picked up and held. I've broken the rules of abdominal surgery recovery several times, with 'permission' (sort of) from a doctor. I've picked him up and carried him around. My mom has been here to help. She's been taking care of kids, keeping the house clean, preparing meals, and being a companion for me. She's done an amazing job, keeping up with the kids' schedules and routines, tolerating lots of noise and tantrums, and loving all of us really, really well. (Thanks, Mom.)
My mom left today.
This wasn't a surprise. I knew it would be today. I thought I was prepared for it. Sort of. I knew it would be difficult to be 'on my own' in this survival mode I'm living in. But I've lived in a similar sort of survival mode - between the 18th and 31st weeks of my pregnancy. I thought that this - the period of time after my mom left - would resemble what the last 3 months of my pregnancy looked like. And maybe it will.
But her leaving today was a lot more difficult than I anticipated it would be. Reality hit again when I said goodbye to my mom.
My mom leaving today meant another ending to another chapter of Elliana's life. Even though there has been nothing normal about the past 4 weeks, having my mom here made this part of recovery just like the recovery from Levi's and Seth's births. I didn't realize it until today, but my mom being here made Elliana's 'life' last just a little bit longer, if that makes ANY sense at all.
Standing there saying goodbye to my mom, I was so incredibly aware of how physically alone I was about to be. For the first time, I was very conscious of the fact that I don't have Elliana with me anymore. She was physically a part of me for months. She was with me all the time. My mom has been here, with me, or at least in the same house with me, for almost the entire time that Elliana has been gone. And if my mom wasn't here, Jason was. My mom leaving means that I'll be spending significantly more time alone. Well, without another adult in the house.
I feel like this makes no sense at all.
What now? My mom has gone home. This chapter of life - the postpartum recovery - is basically over. I have no newborn to take care of. No sibling adjustment to make. No waking-up-every-2-hours-to-feed-a-baby, sleep-deprived nights. Life, the physical demand and routine of life, is back to normal. Or... what normal was before the 2 pink lines appeared on the pregnancy test on March 26.
But life is not normal. I'm not normal. I'm a grieving mother. I buried my daughter 22 days ago.
It scares me - not knowing what's next. I know what to expect (as much as anyone can) when you add a new baby to the family. But I don't know what this looks like. I don't know what life looks like without Elliana.
Oh Shannon, I hate what you're going through! That feeling that life is back to normal but also that is will never be normal again... it's terrible. You should be sleep-deprived from midnight feedings, you should be showing your little girl off at church and the grocery store, you should be watching your kids love on their new sister! Instead, you look like you just had a baby and you feel like you just had a baby, but there's no baby to show off.
ReplyDeleteI remember just being mad at the world at this stage. I was so angry that life was going on like normal when I was hurting so much inside. I wanted time to stand still and acknowledge what I was going through, but at the same time I wanted to fast forward to the part where it got easier.
And that's the hard part. Right now the memories are fresh, but so is the pain. In a year the pain will be dimmer, but then so will the memories. All I can say is that you just push thru each season of this grief, asking God to give you the strength to deal with whatever emotion you're feeling. Life will never be 'normal' again and you will feel that hole in your heart until the day you're called Home, but it will get easier. It will!
Praying for you always!
~Julia