Here are some things I wanted to tell you, but it’s been so long I don’t know how to tell you in a cool way anymore. So, totally uncooly!
Little is pregnant again. She told me around the 12th week, because she was coming to visit. “Figured you’d guess anyway when I asked if your kids were healthy before coming up.” Amidst my squeals and excitement, she added, “because of what happened, I didn’t want to tell anyone.”
“Until what, like the second trimester?”
“Until ever,” she answered, quiet and shaky and serious.
So I didn’t tell you. Except now I’m cracking because I can’t take the pressure. The way it turns out, Little’s due date is a week later than her first pregnancy. So basically ALL THE TRAUMA. Last week, she had her 20 week ultrasound. In the other pregnancy, the 20 week ultrasound was the last verifiable time the baby still lived. It’s the same time of year, with all the seasonal cues real easy to translate from the stillbirth to this pregnancy.
Guess what I’m saying is that if you have any wisdom for helping Little through the next couple of weeks, APPRECIATED. Also, any advice about baby showers and when to have them in this set of circumstances, appreciated.
#
Also, Little had a frank talk with me about minding my own business. Not in regards to her pregnancy, but towards our parents, and my constant fretting and checking up on them. But! Little’s advice seems easily translatable to her situation, as I read that last section back to myself.
Anyway, pretty flatly, she told me there’s nothing I can do anyway, and to quit making everybody stressed with my hovering. I told her: If I don’t hover, then what if Mom comes to her senses about needing help, and I’m not there to hear her?! To yank her out of her current hellhole no-help situation?! And then she drowns in her own tears and I could’ve helped but didn’t
?!!?!??!??!!?
Little sounded terribly disinterested. “They’re parents, you were never supposed to take care of them. Live your own life.”
So am trying to back off. Still sometimes guilty about stepping back from constant hyper-vigilance, but also thankful to be relieved of duty. … Or maybe I’ve learned nothing, since I still really want to know if you have advice about how to handle Little’s situation.
#
Told one more person IRL my blogging identity. Amazing how it seems like throwing my entire life away and THEY WILL KNOW ALL THE BAD STUFF and PANIC until there are literally no consequences for my actions, and then it’s hard to remember why I spent so much time crapping my pants.
#
My husband quit his job and started his own company. That he runs from home. So basically the kids go to school and it’s me and him, in the house for 6 hours, working. It’s like the start of one of those horror flicks where one of us goes crazy and kills the other, right?
Hope it’s me doing the killing, at least.
#
I’m a little obsessed with GOT and OUTLANDER, and although I don’t have cable, I have watched enough 5 minute Youtube clips to patchwork the entire latest seasons together, am fairly sure. Can we talk about OUTLANDER for a second? I am forced to watch this show with my hands over my eyes, peeking through my fingers and cringing HARD at the dialogue. Wait, let me be more honest. I canna hardly watch, re-watch, and then watch ag’in the fan video set to music, about fifty times, cringing. Ya ken, ma bonnie Lassie?
What totally doesn’t make me cringe are all the Harry and Draco secret romance videos I’ve stumbled across recently. I want it to be true!
#
You’ve heard this song, but I want to post it anyway.
This one too
wow…just wow… I don’t have any wisdom but I have a ton of sympathy and empathy and compassion and still no wisdom.
If you figure out how not to hover, please tell me … I am desperate for someone to relieve me of the duty and don’t know if it would matter… ugh.
…whew.
Hi, you!
I’m so HAPPY for Little and also very much heart in my mouth. Because I can imagine how fucking terrifying it must be for her, and for you and all the other people she loves, who also love her. Must be bringing up so many emotions.
I don’t know if you watch Doctor Who at all, but there was a really good conversation between him and his offsider in the last season. A quote I cannot find, so I’ll paraphrase it crappily! Where she gets hurt, and he’s feeling like crap about it, and says he has a duty of care. She tells him strongly and correctly that she never asked for him to do that, and that she takes her own risks and takes the consequences.
That is something that I bring to mind sometimes when I’m struggling at work, or with friends, or with my kids, when I’m feeling guilty that I can’t shield them from everything. Because hoo boy do I struggle with that too. I dance around that line a LOT, between “oh god I’m being a terrible (blank) and I need to FIX THIS FOR YOU” and “I can support you from a distance and help you work on the tools you need to get through this, but you’ve got this, you might hate it at times but you’ve *got* it, you’ll be fine”.
I.e. I understand. I really do. I feel for you. It’s a really freaking hard line to walk.
Re Little, I am wondering if you could maybe sit down and go through a short list of possibilities? Maybe that’d make you feel a little bit better/more constructive?
I am thinking about things like:
– does she like to be touched
– does she like to receive little gifts (incidental things like a type of chocolate she likes, or more specialised/more thoughtful things like if she mentioned that her blender broke and you go to some trouble to buy her a new one)
– does she like to be pinged frequently with little ‘thinking of you’ texts/emails/etc, which could be literally you writing “I’m thinking of you, hope you have a good day” or it could be “I saw this cute cat photo”
– how’s the pregnancy treating her physically; would she find it annoying or really fucking helpful if the next time you visited, you brought a basket of cleaning products and did her bathroom for her? or did a load of laundry for her? or bought an extra bag of groceries for her at the store and dropped it off at her place?
– I wonder if you reading http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/ and maybe even asking her if she’d be willing to, if that’d be useful? If you haven’t already of course.
– maybe have a think about her preferences with being poked to talk – does she prefer it if people make themselves available but don’t ask outright? does she find it annoying if people seem to be hovering? does she prefer it if people ask her outright “how are you doing”? does she prefer not to be asked at all, subtly or explicitly?
With all of the above, I realise that she may violently hate some of those things or might really appreciate them. I know for example that if I’m feeling a particular type of stressed, I really appreciate hugs or incidental touch (shoulder pat, or rubbing my arm as they pass) from the right people. But if I’m feeling a different type of stressed, I can’t handle being touched and it makes me tense. So I’m not saying that all of the above are Good Things To Do With Her in every situation; I just mean that you MIGHT find it helpful to think about her in relation to those things. It might help you work out a bit more clearly how to balance what she wants/needs, with what you want/need, with you feeling a little bit more clarity about you doing stuff that makes her feel loved.
I think, too, that it’s important to remind yourself that you are not expected to fix this for her. I know you know that already! And she’s making it clear, too. But dear gods it’s still so AWFUL though, isn’t it. Especially with a sister, someone you love so dearly, someone who’s been hurt badly before, especially especially when she’s a younger sister and so therefore it’s your job to make it all better, right? 🙁 Anyway. I think you might find it a bit helpful to actually say to yourself now and then “it’s not my job to fix it”. Even though you know that already. At least, it helps me a bit sometimes to say those things to myself.
I’m sure you have thought of all this stuff already, but I know sometimes it helps a little bit to read someone else’s thoughts. And hey, it helped me to type it out and feel a tiny bit like I’m being of assistance to you, even though I can’t fix things for you! (I’d love to.)
I know you are a great sister and daughter, because you love your family so damn much and you’re so *engaged*. I really respect that. I wish you all the best, love.
I don’t know that I’ve ever commented, but in little’something situation you could do a welcome baby party instead of a pre-birth shower.
Ah, love the many-splendored post.
I’m wondering if I gently mention the word co-dependent if I’m the first person to say it to you. I say that because I lean that way myself. So… learn to let people know you are available to help in whatever way they need, invite them to let you know what that is, and then step back and wait for them to ask.
With Little, know that she is never going to feel safe with this pregnancy. Let her know you are there to listen without offering advice or trying to fix it or reassure her, and then do it. Same goes for your mom. She is choosing her hell hole. Let her. For some reason it works for her.
You and your big heart are going to get through this, I promise. I’m not so sure about the husband being home thing though 😉
For baby shower – I can see skipping all together and doing a welcome baby party, because Little might not want to jinx things by having a shower. However, I can also see NOT throwing her a shower feeling like you didn’t believe the baby was going to come, or something LIKE that. So my suggestion is having the shower at like 36 weeks, at impending baby time, when there is firmly a kicky little person in there who she can feel daily to reassure her of his/her presence.
Also, my dad retired last year, which means my mom and dad are both home all day. My mom found a whole bunch of activities rull quick. Suddenly she’s volunteering for different organizations and making social calls.
I really, deeply love my husband, and I do not want to be WITH him all day. I don’t want to be with anyone all day, truthfully.
Ugh…. I used to proclaim loudly that I would always announce my pregnancies and let come what may, because if I should end up losing the baby, I would want people to know why I was a messy-wreck.
I still understand my logic behind that mindset. But I also understand that I was kind of an asshole. That I AM still kind of an asshole.
I was going to suggest the after-baby party as well… perhaps that’s the way to go? I never know any more.
I agree with Jill that this is simply going to be an emotional mess of grief and joy. It’s gonna be terrifying and wrenching and there is no help for it. Ride it. Name it.
It sucks to be on the watching/support end of things… I know it does. But it sorta hurts to love people, ya know?