your due date

Dear Asher,
It's August 21st!  Today, according to medical science, you are "due" to come.  Since I lost you, this date has been in my head.  Constantly counting time until the newly dreaded day.  Truly, for many reasons, this date shouldn't mean much.  After all, all of your siblings were late if given the chance so I suspect had you been given more of a chance you wouldn't have been making your appearance.  But it does stand for something.  AND as it is, this was also your sister andie's due date!  She was evicted a day early though. 
I have been thinking about this day for so long that it seems that the earth should erupt in fire, or some sort of  major thing should be taking place, but instead it's just another ordinary day.  This day has a lot of pressure though, because in my mind if I could JUST make it past the due date then certainly mentally I would have some relief because then I shouldn't be pregnant anymore.  I have felt in a state of limbo as my body is one way, but it doesn't feel like it should be.  I'm realizing though, that this is more complicated than dates.  Now it won't be " I should still be pregnant" but rather "Asher should be here". 
You should be in our next family portraits, you should be waking me at night by crying to eat, I should be holding you for hours staring into your eyes.  But, this isn't the case.  I instead am constantly trying to figure out how to represent you more in our family, and I'm being woken up at night by thoughts of you, and I look at your pictures to get a sense of you.
In an effort to try and make something positive of the day, I went to the bakery and paid for a little boys birthday cake that was ordered for today (as suggested by other mothers in the same position).  Now, she showed me several slips so I could choose which one.  there were only a couple little boy birthday options...a Christian, and a Michael.  I thought both were highly appropriate but decided upon Michael's 2nd birthday cake...a mickey mouse cake.  Of course, because it couldn't be straight forward, it turns out that this 20 dollar cake was actually a 34 dollar cake because they ordered it with ganache in it.  What a fancy little 2 year old.  I wavered, as I wanted to do something kind, but maybe not that kind. :)  I went with it anyway.  Hoping that it's a nice little surprise when they go to pick it up that it's already paid for. 
Thinking of you baby boy, today and always.
Love,
mom

Dear Asher, it has been one month.

Dear Asher,

It has been one month since your were born, one month since I last held you, one month since my very being changed.  It has been a very difficult month.  My days have been filled by  persistent thoughts about you, what happened to you, and what's to come.  I have refused to undo anything about your nursery.  Your clothes I bought, the clothes I washed for you from your big brothers, swing, seats, carriers, blankets, the punk hats, even the bouncer that arrived after you were born, everything is just as it was.

The night after you were born I woke up with "you raise me up" playing in my dreams.   I don't think I ever listened to that song the whole way through, so I made a point to do that after that night.  Did you send that song to me?  The night after that I found myself as a deer in my dream.  I was running through the forest and turned around to see one of my fawns shot as it was running toward me.  The  early days, everything was so raw I wasn't sure how I was going to put both feet on the ground and proceed with my days as "normal".  Now still, just when I think I've got a handle on my grief for you, for what has happened, and that I'm doing "ok" I'll have waves where I just can't anymore.  I can't do "normal" for one more second, when there is nothing normal about how I'm feeling.   A few nights ago we drove through taco bell.  After a particularly rough day inside my head, apparently the last straw was that they didn't include my meal in the bag.  I stormed off.  I was angry, I was crying, but about a burrito?  No, it's about you.  Everything lately has been about you.  I was angry about the sun, when all I wanted was thunderstorms and rain, a reflection of my being.

Colin asks about you every.single.night.  He kisses your picture, he prays to you and for you, he asks you to show him a sign.  I wonder, do you hear him?  Colin signs all of his emails to your nonna, "Love, Colin and Asher".  Parker puts his hands on my now very soft squishy stomach and says "the baby isn't in there anymore...I really wanted a baby not an angel".  We all miss you.  So much.

This past month has been filled with reading others stories about other babies that have gone like you.  Reading blogs, articles, something to find a connection.  I also believe God put certain people into my life for a reason because I have just the perfect support system built in for me.  Mothers that have lost unborn children, mothers that lost young neonatal children, and some just as I lost you, by a cord accident.  Friends that I have had since childhood, some I gained recently in the past few years, and former clients that I worked with in Colorado.  I can't help but think they were meticulously placed in my life for a reason.  I remember my one client telling everyone when they asked her how many kids she had "I had six, raised five" with a smile on her face.  Every single time. She was so proud, and such a wonderful mother, wife, friend, person.  I wish my younger me would have known to ask her about that one child.  It must have been sad for her to have no one ask about that child as I witnessed no one ever did.

I was in Colorado just a week before you passed and visited with a couple I used to train there.  She gave me gifts for you, and was looking forward to my email about your arrival.  I emailed her a couple weeks ago to tell her that you had passed away unexpectedly.  What I got in response was not something I expected.  She too had lost a baby, a girl, at 25 weeks pregnant.  Her first daughter. She had the most sincere, helpful, and kind words for me.  I have learned over the past 4 weeks that a mother never forgets, and the pain never fully goes away even 30-40 years later.  But if in the end, in my older years, I turn out to be as beautiful as a person as those two ladies did, then I have been blessed.

My milk came in to feed you.  So much that I was engorged for ten full days.  Oh how I would give anything to have had you waking me up every hour to eat at night, that little whimper to wake me that before you, I cringed at the thought of.  I would take a million sleepless nights if that meant you were here.  Now, the milk isn't so much, it just leaks when I cry.  When I cry.  Someone wrote in an article that it was like their breasts were weeping.  I thought how silly, it's just milk.  But now I know why, and what that meant.  Every part of my being weeps for you, Asher.

This week we are at the beach for a summer vacation, a vacation that was planned at this precise time so that we could come before you were born.  You were supposed to be here in my belly with us, and I in my cute maternity suit to show you off, that I bought just for this occasion.  "Supposed to be"...something I have been struggling with.  I guess you really weren't "supposed to be" here right now...it's just what I thought was supposed to be.

Your cousin Olivia said she was playing with you a couple weeks ago and appeared to be interacting with someone.  Was that you Asher?  I look for you everywhere.  In the trees, the clouds, on my runs, in my dreams.  I see you in every other mothers pregnant bellies, and every little infant boy i see.  I do see you.  I see you in the faces of your brothers.  Your wonderful siblings whom now are a beautiful and bittersweet reminder of you and what I won't have with you.  Your big brother Parker fell asleep on me this afternoon during a break from the pool.  When I looked down, it was like I was staring at you.  Even the way his hand was laying was how you were laying on my chest just 4 weeks ago.

It's a known fact that maternal cells cross over the placenta and to the baby.  But it has also been found that fetal cells cross into the mother and forever change her DNA.  So while a part of me most certainly died with you, you will live on with me.

Love,
Mom

My Asher

HANDPRINT ON MY HEART

Although you are not here with me,
Your handprint is on my heart.
You were a precious gift to me,
I loved you from the start.
You left this earth too early,
And landed on heaven's shore.
I snuggle in the memory of you.
Oh how I love you even more.
You are never far away from us
For your memory's a steady stream.
I will never say good bye to you,
So I am wishing you sweet dreams.
Someday we'll be together again
But until that one fine day.
Your are the handprint on my heart
Where forever you shall stay.
©2010 Deborah J. Birdoesnches

 

 

Romans 5: 1-5

"Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope"

If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that I was meant to be a mother.  I knew from a very young age, that what I wanted to be most in life, was a mother.  I have been blessed and lucky enough to have 4 wonderful, healthy children that I have the privilege of raising.  Something I don't take for granted...and even more so now.   Now I have a 5th child who I was blessed enough to know for only a short while, whom I will forever carry with me in my heart, but will not get the chance to raise. 

We found out I was pregnant just after our 10th wedding anniversary.  I thought, wow, that certainly is a great anniversary present.  While it took a few short weeks to adjust to the thought of being pregnant again, it didn't take long for me to become in love with this little human.  I often thought to myself, how did I get so lucky.  God has blessed me over and over.  The weeks ticked by quickly...my 8 week ultrasound was perfect.  A perfect little "gummy bear" inside.  I am always so happy, awed, and amazed with how little the tiny person is with a beating heart in there.  I got to see him again at my 12 week ultrasound, a perfect little baby.  Matt and I took parker and Presley with us to go get an elective ultrasound at 16 weeks to see the baby and find out if it was a boy or a girl.  I was overwhelmed with joy to find out we had a healthy baby boy in there.  He was beautiful already.  And as Parker put it "YAY!  we get another Olsen boy!!"   We immediately started playing around with names, and me being me, immediately started planning his nursery and buying things to prepare for him.  20 weeks came, and the anatomy scan was perfect.  Everything was as it should be, and he was amazing.  Time to kick it into high gear.  I'm a planner.  I started immediately planning how to switch Presley over to Andie's room, and started organizing, cleaning out, painting, decorating.  I spent the next few weeks in the zone enjoying life with the kids.  We all talked to the baby often,  and I played the piano for him, and especially enjoyed the quiet evenings in bed where I'd put my hand on my belly and feel him flipping around.  24 week appt was perfect.  He was active, heartbeat was 154.  Everything was going great, until it wasn't. 

Right at 27 weeks, Friday the22nd I noticed that I hadn't felt him moving much that day.  But, with my busy schedule it could just be that I wasn't paying close attention.  So that night, I laid down and really paid attention at bedtime, certainly I'd feel him flipping around.  But no, I thought I may have felt a couple soft nudges, but nothing like he usually was doing.  Saturday morning I got the kids up and we went to duncan donuts first thing.  I thought I'll eat a donut, and that will get him going.  Once that didn't make a difference I became very concerned.  Somewhere deep down, I just knew.  I called the on call doctor who reassured me that this type of thing happens all the time, but go ahead and go to L&D and they will check for the heartbeat.  That at 27 weeks babies aren't even usually in a particular movement pattern and he's probably just fine.   But I knew that Asher moved, and he moved all the time.  I took my kids to the gym, as it was the only place I could think to bring them last minute on an early Saturday morning.  The kidz klub was nice enough to agree to watch them while I went over to the hospital.  Matt was in the air flying back from a work trip in Colorado.  I assured them however that I would be back, 30 minutes max.  That was not the case however.  I walk in, and they were expecting me so they sent me right into a room and the nurse said she was just going to hook me up to the monitors for a little.  She felt my belly, and it was "nice and soft" a good sign she said.  But it was clear, very quickly as she placed the heart rate monitor on my stomach over and over and in every which spot and no baby heart beat.  My heart sank.  She said "maybe he flipped over, we are going to get an ultrasound ordered".  I knew.  The tech came in and his sweet little perfect body was completely still, and the heart wasn't beating.  I felt like I was in a nightmare.  Certainly this couldn't really be happening?  My perfectly healthy pregnancy, my perfectly healthy baby, how could this happen?  I kept getting words from the nurses and doctors like "you would be surprised how often this does happen"...and then "it is very rare at this stage for this to happen".  Completely conflicting.  "we probably won't know what happened, but usually it's just a random cord accident".  The very next thing was discussing how they would induce, and that they would make sure I was comfortable.  I don't do iv pain killers, and epidurals can't be done on me for some reason, so all the books I had been reading, and videos I'd been watching on natural birth in preparation for his birth were about to be put in action.  I was prepared, but had always envisioned a very healthy Asher at the end of it all.  I found it ironic that they were so concerned about my physical pain, and it was just so insignificant to me.  I'd take all the physical pain if they could just take away my emotional pain...or even better just give me back my healthy baby.  I got a yellow folder with information on what to do with the baby after it is born and a book of funeral homes.  A yellow folder that had "fetal demise" sticker on the outside of it.  I hated that folder.  But yet I left the hospital holding that horrible yellow folder that day.

Because my body was not near ready for a birth, I had to have a procedure done that night to help my cervix open at least a bit.  It is called a lamaneria placement.  A stick of seaweed that is forced into the closed cervix in hopes that it would help to open and efface it over night.  A very unpleasant procedure and experience.  The doctor was kind enough to open up the office on a late Saturday night and did it there so I didn't have to do that in the labor and delivery ward.   I went home and slept that night and matt and I arrived the next morning for the real induction.  The lamaneria did nothing. I was closed and not effaced at all.   I was induced using a massive dose of cytotec up by the cervix.  It started contractions fast and I labored for the next 11 hours all natural.  At 10:25pm, after only 3 pushes Asher was born.  He was a perfect, beautiful baby boy.  2lbs 2oz and 14 inches long.  My first thought when they placed him on my chest was just how perfect he was.  He looked just like Parker.  My next immediate thought was HOW can I leave him?  The moment Asher was born was the most horrific, but one of the most beautiful moments of my life.  Love at first site doesn't even describe it.  I loved him way before that day, but to see your child for the first time and hold them in your arms is a special something.  Even in death, I was, and still am so proud of him.  I held him for a couple hours just staring at him.   My mom came to see him, and Colin got to come see his brother.  Colin said "are you sure he isn't just sleeping?"  Oh how I wish that would have been true.  He wanted to take him home anyway...dead or alive.   Colin was so excited to have another baby brother.  My heart broke again into another piece which I didn't think was possible. 

My faith and belief is that everything happens for a reason.  God has an ultimate plan, even though we may not see or imagine why such a thing would happen.  I'd be lying if I said my faith has been unwavering throughout this experience.  But far too much has happened in my life that reminds me of my strong belief and faith and things that can't be explained otherwise.  Also, the term "shit happens" also comes o mind...but this has to be the biggest shit happens that I can imagine.  I feel like when I'm out and about there should be a visible scar on my forehead...something that is the mark of a mom who just lost her child.  Something that says, I'm here, I'm functioning, but I'm functioning at half staff.  Asher will forever be my 5th child.  A part of our family.  Life goes on, and somehow one foot in front of the other you go on.  But life will never seem the same for me.  I believe there will always be a "before" Asher  and an "after" Asher.  Until we meet again baby boy...<3 font="">

Asher Olsen

May 24, 2015 10:25pm

2lbs 1.7oz 14 in

 

Do not judge the bereaved mother.

She comes in many forms.
She is breathing, but she is dying.
She may look young, but inside she has become ancient.
She smiles, but her heart sobs.
She walks, she talks, she cooks, she cleans, she works, she IS,
but she IS NOT, all at once.
She is here, but part of her is elsewhere for eternity.
-unknown