No, it hasn’t been that long since I’ve written. Aleck is no where near his 24 months though we are getting ready to hit his 8 month milestone. I can’t believe how quickly this is going and I’m already blue about the idea that sooner than later he won’t be a baby anymore. He really is such a good little baby that I’ve been able to enjoy him so much despite all the feeding issues. Even with all the therapies, all the excersizing and all the splinting, he keeps smiling throughout all of it making my job incredibly easy. When I go to put his elbow splints on before feeds, he puts his arms in front of him making them more accessible and easier to strap in, he does the same thing when I put his napping splints on, hands me his hands one at a time, trying to help me place them in the purple plastic contraptions. I can’t imagine that every child is this easy and this willing to have their limbs velcroed into place multiple times a day. I guess many children don’t progress as well as Aleck has been progressing and the therapists attribute that to the parents, not putting on the braces, not using the splints, and not working on the theraputic activities and stretching outside of the scheduled appointments. A therapeutic non-compliance if you will.
Last week we had Aleck’s 6 month evaluation, 6 months since his initial evaluation from Early Intervention and it was time to check up on how we’ve all been doing, gage what we need to be doing differently, basically it’s like live action report card. I was very nervous for the team meeting, but also really excited to have all of my EI team in one room with Craig so he could meet everyone who’s been so intregal in this journey so far. Would Aleck perform well for them? Would the bends in his knees and elbow measure up to where he should be? How would he be at handling the little blocks, picking up the toys he wants to pick up? Where would he fall in comparison to his peers? Well, that’s not how this evaluation went at all. It was much more of an evaluation on how Craig and I are doing with Aleck, his progress being a direct result of our hard work, and we got gold stars all around!! I found myself getting quite emotional as we all sat in our living room, my team members remembering what life in our house was like when they first arrived. My PT, Ali, was part of the initial team evaluation, and told me how badly she felt leaving me alone with Aleck. He cried and screamed for the entire evaluation. I nursed him right before they got there, I nursed him twice while he was there, but no matter what I did he wouldn’t stop crying. Ali, who is used to evaluating new babies, tried her soothing voodoo magic on him and he was immune to her powers. When we first began Occupation Therapy I had to nurse him during the entire sessions just so Kate could stretch him without the constant screaming and crying. And when my nutritionist first came she saw me struggling with a very unhappy baby, throwing himself backwards in pain during feedings, nursing for an hour without coming close to being satiated, and now to have them all together talking about how Aleck is such a different baby than he was when they met him and wondering how we managed to survive the beginning, I felt proud of my little man and relieved that those first 4 months were now behind us. Whew.
Currently we are in the middle of our first round of a full birthday party season and everyone is turning 2. Over the course of 6 months 7 of our close friends and family had babies and this year we are making an effort to get to the celebrations of the first 24 months of life for these little tykes. Last summer we missed most of the parties since I was working the Groupon portraits every weekend, but this weekend we are active participants with Aleck in tow to these various gatherings. Craig so far, seems to have a good time at these events. He simply loves showing off Aleck, pulling out his favorite toys to play with, and even showing Aleck’s prize possessions to other little kids who all love our collection of spinning light up Easter toys (seriously, parents our there, you need to hit Target and Walgreens during Easter season, these light up toys are amazing tools to soothe and distract your tyke). I find I’m having a harder time with these soirees. Very unlike me, I have trouble making conversation, even with friends I’ve known for over 10 years, which is most of these friends. I don’t know where to put myself finding solace in a quiet area using Aleck as a great excuse, “I need to give him a bottle, he gets easily distracted.” Upon leaving these parties I can feel my entire body getting swept away in a dark cloud, even on the sunniest day. Weepy in the car, I express to Craig how I can’t understand what’s bothering me. Why do I suddenly feel like an outsider among our friends? The party is over, we are on our way home, and all I feel like doing is pulling the covers over my head. Aleck is doing well, he’s a super cutie and I really am so proud of who he’s becoming, how hard he’s working, and even excited though very nervous about his future. So why are these parties overtaking me with such a heaviness, such an extreme sadness that I have trouble functioning?
Two. They are turning two. She would have been two. That’s got to be it, right? As I try to celebrate these milestones of my close circles I’m constantly coming face to face with our own loss, a tangible reminder of who’s missing and how she’d also be turning two this summer. We would be part of this party circuit celebrating the first 24 months like all of our friends. We should be part of this circle, we should be celebrating two years. As much as I try to keep a lot of these feelings at bay, it’s beyond my control. Almost two years ago we were robbed of our little girl, 5 lbs, 4 oz (Aleck was 5 lbs, 15 oz), on a hot June night in the middle of a tornado, I was induced to labor and deliver my little girl. There’s nothing to regret. There’s nothing that could have been done differently. I’ve just about stopped blaming myself for what happened, and I don’t look at Aleck thinking what if. But being surrounded by such a vibrant and celebratory reminder of our loss is difficult.
This weekend we will be celebrating two of those birthdays. One, a friend of mine who was actually still in the hospital, the same hospital I was in, recovering from an infection from her C-Section when I was recovering from the still birth. I was trying to reach out to her with congratulations, hoping she’d be home since it was weeks after her delivery, and finding myself on the phone with someone only two floors away from me. The other celebration is for the son of Craig’s best friend. We took baby safety classes with them, the boys took Daddy bootcamp classes together, and we imagined them in matching baby Bjorns carrying their respective babies who were to be born only months apart. As couples we certainly had trouble as one was celebrating their new life, struggling with the challenges of parenthood while the other was mourning, wishing we had those struggles and challenges, unable to be a sympathetic ear to a new parent’s frustrations, only offering up the impossible idea, “Want to trade?”
Will this year be the hardest year for us facing our own ghost amongst these toddlers? In the face of our own baby with what feels sometimes like insurmountable challenges, does it make her spirit stronger during this difficult time? My hope is that this summer will be unique in our healing process, pulling hard on the stitches of our wounds, giving us an acute reminder that nothing is completely behind us, not yet. People say time and time again, “Time heals all wounds,” and it’s true. There is nothing like time to make grieving easier, less painful, more manageable. When meeting other people who’ve been through similar situations they all seem to agree that the passing of time is truly the only thing that can make you feel better. You’ll never forget, you may never be exactly the same, but you will feel better. But this summer, I think we are closer to John Lennon’s quote, “Time wounds all heals.”