New Year's Eve 2007

The new year is obviously a time for looking back & looking forward. 2007 is a year I'll be glad to leave behind. Without going into intimate detail, it was a crappy year at work -- we were reorganized late in 2006 and short-staffed for most of the year, with yours truly taking up much of the slack. Because of this, I was unable to take much of the vacation time owing to me. I sorely missed my coworker & office best friend who retired in December 2006 and, with an invasion of 20-somethings whose mothers are the same age or not much older than me (!!), I began to feel decidedly old & cranky.

There were health concerns in our family: FIL may have had a small stroke this summer, dh (who is an extreme worrywart) survived his first colonoscopy, but had some abnormal bloodwork at his annual checkup that obsessed him (even though the dr said repeatedly that it was nothing to worry about), my sister had an alarming dizzy spell this fall, & I took a bang to the head in August & am still feeling it, on & off, four months plus later. I've always thought our marriage was strong (it had to be to survive stillbirth & infertility...!), but these & a few other matters put some stress on our relationship this year.

BIL & oldest nephew have been having some typical parent-child battles about his future (nephew has grand aspirations of becoming a horror movie director; BIL is pulling out what hair he has left trying to interest nephew in learning a trade), which have made family gatherings awkward from time to time -- especially for me & dh, who want so badly to help -- seeing BIL's perspective, but also wanting to encourage our nephew -- but not wanting to say too much, because what do we childless people know about raising kids, right??

I find myself seized with fatigue & inertia. I feel scattered. Our passport applications have been languishing on the coffee table for months & months, and it looks like another year is going to pass by without the February sunspot vacation I've long dreamed about. The house is in serious need of decluttering (another sore spot between dh & me). Some days I just feel overwhelmed with so much to do & so little time to do it all in. My to-do list never seems to get any shorter. (And people think we childless folk have soooo much free time on our hands...!!)

My favourite scrapbook store closed, leaving me adrift & "homeless" for several months.

On the plus side: nutty as it was at work this year, I still enjoy it overall, and am back working for a boss I like & work well with. Our health concerns have really been minor, in the grand scheme of things, and there is still much, much more in our marriage that is good than difficult. We are still facilitating our support group & finding fulfillment in doing that. We enjoy the friends we've made through the group -- although a few of them either have moved or are in the process of moving right now. :( A new scrapbooking store opened, frequented by many of the friends I made at the old store.

And I discovered blogging! ; )

I will admit I am approaching 2008 with some trepidation. Feb. 8, 1998, was my LMP (last menstrual period) date for my pregnancy with Katie. Each year, I can feel myself "counting down" and reliving the events of my pregnancy on through to Aug. 5th (the day I went for my checkup, only to learn there was no heartbeat) and Aug. 7th (the day I delivered my daughter & briefly held her wee, cold body in my arms). And on through Aug. 19th (funeral), Thanksgiving (return to work & then the death of my beloved grandfather), and into November (due dates). This year, being the 10 year "anniversary" (what a weird label for such a sad, traumatic event), I expect it will be even more so. I'm glad I have this blog as an outlet (and I suspect it's one reason I began blogging when I did). Expect a lot of "10 years ago" posts & reflections from me in the new year.

In a way, I feel sort of strange. Unlike most people in the infertility & loss communities online (boards, blogs, etc.), who are posting about the here & now, my loss & even my infertility treatments were so long ago -- & yet they continue to cast shadows over my life, and I continue to write about them & their after-effects. Does that make me pathetic? obsessive? You don't hear very much from or about women like me. What happens to them when they stop posting? Do they eventually regroup and try more fertility treatments, successfully? adopt? achieve that mythical "miracle" pregnancy? Or do they just get on with living and build a childless/free life for themselves (just less noisily than me, lol)? Certainly, childless/free living lacks the day-to-day drama of the infertility & ttc communities that provides endless fodder for posting-- cycle watches, 2wws, trips to the clinic, testing & results, etc. And most of the time, I am just living my life -- and it's a good life, overall. I have much to be thankful for.

But there really is not a day that goes by that is not coloured in some way by loss & infertility. Not a day goes by that I don't think about my daughter and about the very different life that might have been mine. Some days are just darker (or lighter) than others. And on the dark days, I turn to my friends in cyberspace who understand, better than just about anybody, what I'm thinking and feeling.

But, I digress (I do that a lot!). Back to New Year's Eve. I don't really make resolutions anymore -- mostly because they always stay more or less the same: declutter the house (& keep it that way!), read more books, write more in my journal, exercise more, lose weight, etc. etc. And dh & I don't have any plans for tonight (we rarely do). He's at work today, but we will head out for dinner when he gets home, then to our favourite megabookstore for a Starbucks & a browse, and then home to see if we can stay awake until the big ball drops in Times Square.

I hope the new year brings everyone what they're hoping for -- and if not that, then something else that's equally good!

Our Katie tree

Before the holiday season completely passes by, I wanted to write about our Christmas tree, also known around our house as our "Katie tree." You'll see why...

Long before we ever actually started ttc, we knew we wanted a little girl, and that we wanted to call her Katie. Christmas 1986, the second one that we were married, I gave dh this Hallmark ornament of a little girl angel, swinging on a star (below) -- which was called "Katybeth" (!!) -- with a note saying, "I'm afraid this is the only Katie we can afford this year." He hangs it on the tree every year. How did I, could I know then that this would be the only Katie we'd have for Christmas, ever?

After Katie was stillborn in August 1998, I knew I wanted to find a special Christmas ornament for her. At a Christmas craft bazaar that November, I saw this Boyds Bears teddy bear angel & knew I had to have it for her:

That year, we also attended our pregnancy loss support group's memorial candlelighting evening, where I found this stained glass ornament & had her name written on it (I also bought ones for my mother & grandmother):



We were also invited to take home a pair of beautiful handknit baby booties from the Christmas tree at the event (made by bereaved grandmothers specially for the event). In the years since then, I've amassed quite a collection of booties, hand-crocheted snowflakes & other keepsakes from the annual candlelighting ceremony (we also take home the candles we've lit). I sometimes wonder what people might think if they visited our home to see a Christmas tree covered in baby booties (but I really don't care):


I have several of these red felt miniature stockings. One hangs on the tree; another decorates Katie's niche at the cemetery every year, along with a festive sprig:


Over the years, I've amassed quite a collection of teddy bear angels (many of them Beanie Babies). A few of the smaller ones hang on the tree, along with the original Boyds Bear teddy angel. The others sit around the tree on the floor, like an honour guard. (There are usually very few presents actually under the tree, as we always go to my parents' for the holidays -- & I'm usually not organized enough to have anything wrapped in advance anyway, lol.)


These are just a few of the ornaments that make up Katie's tree. I also have a substantial collection of Classic Pooh ornaments, which are not shown here. They're meaningful because Katie's nursery theme was supposed to have been Classic Pooh.

It came, just the same...

Well, this has been an "interesting" Christmas. As I wrote in my last post, first my sister & then her boyfriend came down with the stomach flu, which meant they could not come from the city to my parents' for Christmas Eve -- the first time ever that we have not all been together as a family on Christmas Eve, and the first time that we haven't opened our presents on Christmas Eve either. Thankfully, the former neighbours' daughter & her boyfriend came over for dinner & stayed to play cards, so the evening didn't seem quite so empty & bizarre.

My sister said that so long as her boyfriend was feeling better enough to be left alone, she would come out the next day for Christmas dinner. That morning, the phone rang: her car wouldn't start!! (It's a beat up old thing & I'm amazed it still runs at all.) So my dad & dh wound up driving into the city to get her. Neighbours' daughter & her boyfriend came over again & we had one of my dad's famous brunches, then opened our stockings & then finally the rest of the presents (backwards from how it usually goes). And then had our turkey dinner. So, as I said to dh, thinking of the line from the Grinch, "Christmas came, just the same." Well, not exactly the same, but it came & it wound up being allright in the end, albeit definitely different!

Sis knows what a stickler I am for tradition, & on Christmas Eve she called me to say that she wanted to make it perfectly clear that just because we were doing this once did not mean that Christmas Eve had to be this way forever after. I cracked up & said that was just fine with me! lol She left on Boxing Day (took the one bus of the day back into the city) but will probably return tomorrow or Saturday (depending on the car status, etc.).

Thankfully, no sign of the stomach flu here yet (knocking wood & crossing fingers), but I do have a cold. The morning after we got here, I got a tickle/scratch in my throat, which yesterday turned into a stuffy head & drippy nose. I barely got any sleep last night. Went to the drugstore today to stock up on some cold pills, but they haven't helped much yet. Oh well, maybe this way it will have worked its way out of my system by the time we have to fly again. At any rate, it's definitely preferable to the stomach flu!

More later...

Home for Christmas

Greetings from my parents' house, which is in a little town in western Canada, about 1500 miles west of where dh & I live, and an hour from the closest major centre/airport, where my sister lives. For 20+ years, I've managed to dodge snowstorms, etc., to make it home for Christmas. While my grandparents are no longer with us :( my parents, sister & I have always been together.

Unfortunately, this year, the tradition is about to be broken, and not by me, but by my sister, who lives in the city, only about an hour away, but nonetheless is just getting over a bout of stomach flu -- which her boyfriend now has, making it pretty much impossible for them to travel. :( (Not that we really want their germs here anyway.) I guess we will muddle through without her, but it will be different. It's not that she's such a Christmas-y person, but she's always been here (plus, she's supposed to be bringing a lot of the presents, lol). I just find it hard to believe that I've managed to make it here 20+ consecutive years from 1,500 miles away, and it takes the flu to break tradition. :(

On the bright side, my parents' former neighbours' daughter will be here for dinner tonight with her boyfriend. She's rarely missed a Christmas with us since she was a toddler (& she's now almost 24, eek -- the same age I was when I got married!! double eek!), so that will help fill the gap.

We had a few tense moments pre-trip, because although the weather was fine on our end, there were predictions of bad weather moving in here. Thankfully, the situation turned out to be not bad at all, & we made it here just fine.

There were, of course, innumerable babies & toddlers at the airport & on our plane, many of them dressed to the nines for the proud grandma & grandpa who would be greeting them at the airport. I vaccilated between enjoying them for the cuties that they were, and feeling sad that I've never been able to give my own parents that pleasure. One blond curly-headed little miss, about 18 months old, caught my eye in the airport lounge -- all dressed in a pink sweatsuit & dragging a stuffed cat along with her. She wound up sitting across the aisle & one row up from us on our plane, with her mom, dad & slightly older sister. She was very good for most of the 2 hour+ flight, watching kiddie shows on the screen in front of her, giggling, and even playing peekaboo with me for a few minutes. I wonder where they were headed.

At any rate -- Christmas Eve is upon us & there is lots to do (yes, even without kids around!). Just wanted to send out some Merry Christmas greetings & wish anyone who's reading a wonderful holiday.

Counting preggos

Karen at Upon Awakening recently had a post titled "Pregnant Women are Stalking Me!" I had to chuckle at the title, because I'm sure all of us have felt that way at some point. 

I can't remember how I felt about other pregnant women through the 2.5 years I tried to get pregnant... but after Katie was stillborn, & we began our struggle with infertility treatments, suddenly, they were EVERYWHERE. Dh & I work in downtown Toronto, where all the big office towers are connected via underground concourse, called the PATH. The PATH runs 27 km or 16 miles, & we walk through it every day to & from work (not to mention coffee breaks & lunch hours). Thousands & thousands of people travel through the PATH every day. And some days, it seemed/seems like dozens & dozens of them were/are pregnant women. 

I started counting how many pregnant women I encountered in a day (giving the benefit of the doubt to those who might have just been on the plump side). I would count, "1...2...3..." under my breath as we walked past them. I would often lose track & abandon the project before the day's end, but I think my record was 30 in one day. One day I practically walked into THREE of them, walking & giggling together, abreast. That just about finished me off for the day. 

Dh would gently tell me that they had a right to be pregnant, it wasn't a personal thing against me. ; ) And I tried very hard to remember that, statistics being what they are, a good number of those women had probably dealt with infertility & loss too. Maybe some bereaved mother or infertile woman had once enviously gazed at me & my pregnant belly in the same way. Somehow, though, those thoughts still didn't make it any easier. 

I don't count pregnant women anymore, but there are still some days when I seem to notice them more. Summers in particular -- perhaps because that's when I was pregnant myself (or maybe because there aren't as many winter coats hiding big bellies). The maternity fashions these days seem to be much more form-fitting & revealing, much more so than even just 9 years ago when I was pregnant. 

I sat beside a pregnant woman on the train on the way home tonight (or should I say she sat down beside me), which is probably what prompted this post. It was warm on the train & she had her coat off & I kept casting sidelong glances at her belly the whole way home. I honestly would not want to be pregnant now at my "advanced maternal age," but I feel sad thinking back to when I looked like that myself (& how happy I was), knowing I will never look like that again.

Santa stuff

OK, call me crazy, but today at lunchtime, I walked the few blocks from the office tower where I work in downtown Toronto up to the Eaton Centre, one of Canada's largest & best-known malls. Call me even crazier, but one of the reasons I braved the absolutely insane crowds was that I hadn't yet made my annual pilgrimage to see Santa. Now I wasn't actually going to line up & sit on his knee, of course -- I haven't done that in a good 40 years. But one of the little pleasures of Christmas for me -- a respite at a horribly busy time of the work year -- has always been to hang around Santa's castle for awhile & watch the jolly old guy visit with the kids. I get a real kick out of watching their varied reactions.

For many years after the loss of our daughter, I avoided Santa like the plague -- waaaayyyy too painful. I remember being at our local mall with dh in November 1998, right around my due date, & rounding the corner to see Santa's castle already set up & Santa himself already enthroned & receiving visitors. Of course, at that very instant, he was holding a newborn baby wearing a tiny red sleeper & Santa cap. Dh hissed at me, "DON'T LOOK!!" & dragged me past.

Gradually, after several years, I was able to return to Santa watching, although some years have been harder/easier than others. One of those first years back, I leaned over the rail to look down on Santa's castle, & Santa immediately looked straight up at me & waved, as if he'd been expecting me. Freaky.

So today, I watched & chuckled as I watched a little girl toddler wearing a red velvet dress, her hair in pigtails, howl as her mother placed her on Santa's lap, just long enough to snap the precious picture & then be whisked swiftly away. And I grinned as I watched a dad herd his two kids into Santa's presence. The boy was about six, raced forward & plunked himself without hesitation onto Santa's lap & started chatting away. His younger sister kicked at the ground self-consciously & didn't even want to look at Santa. She sat on her dad's lap beside her brother & Santa. I found myself mentally framing the photo in my head & thinking what a great, funny picture this would make for a scrapbook page.

And then, out of the blue, I felt a wave of pain wash over me, and my eyes began swelling with tears, and I had to turn and walk away.

Back at the office, several people came by to tell me that one of our former co-workers was at the reception desk, showing off his baby daughter, and how cute she was. We've had quite a few such "visitors" lately, & I've been doing pretty well with them. But even before I remembered that her name was Katie -- the same as my own daughter's -- I knew I just couldn't do it today. I stayed in my cubicle until I was sure they were gone.

Echoes from yesteryear

Dh & I spent the afternoon at his brother's house, celebrating our oldest nephew (V.)'s 19th -- 19th!!! -- birthday. The years have passed so swiftly. 

Two things especially brought this home today. First, I gave V. the scrapbook I've been labouring over for the past two years, containing photos of his first year.

And second, BIL recently had all their home videos transferred to DVD -- so we spent most of the afternoon transported back in time, watching our two nephews as sweet, adorable babies & toddlers, growing up all over again right before our eyes. It was hard to believe those cute little boys were now the tall (both 6-feet-plus), lanky young men sprawled on the couch across the living room from me. 

There was a moment, as the tape started, when I realized that it was one of our younger nephew (A.)'s birthday parties. And my heart leaped into my throat, because I thought it might have been the year that I was pregnant. His 6th birthday & party fell two days before I headed to my ob-byn's for my 6-month checkup -- only to receive the news that my baby had no heartbeat. That day, as I snapped photos, A. begged me to let him take a photo, so I handed over the camera & he snapped the only photo I have of myself visibly pregnant. 

The birthday party on the video was not that particular party -- I think it may have been the year before that one. I am not sure whether BIL videoed the 6th birthday party or not. As the boys got older, the video camera came out less and less often. I am not sure how I would feel if such a tape does exist -- whether I'd be hungry to see it (visible proof that I was, indeed, pregnant once), or just too painful to see how happy & blissfully unaware I was of the sharp turn my life was about to take? 

I was reminded of the time we were at dh's aunt's house once for a cousin's birthday, and someone brought out the old film projector & showed old Super 8 home movies. There, briefly, was a 13-year-old dh, and even more poignantly, brief flashes of his mother, who passed away before I ever got to meet her. Even photos of my mother-in-law are scarce, so I found myself trying to absorb as much of her flickering image as I could, this woman who loomed so large in my husband's early life. 

Coincidentally, my mom recently called me and opened the conversation with, "Well, we were at your wedding last night!" She & my dad somehow got watching the video from my wedding back in 1985. "And there was Grandma... and Grandpa... and Dido... and Uncle L.... and Great-Aunt A... and B..." she said. All people who aren't here anymore. Which is precisely why I've been avoiding watching the video for awhile now. I'm afraid of the floodgates of emotion that it might open up, seeing all those dear dead people again.

At the same time, though, I'm very, very glad to know that I have that tape -- that if I do want to see those people again, all I have to do is pop it in my VCR. When the people we love suddenly aren't with us anymore -- be they grandparents, parents or babies -- we cling to whatever things we have that show that they were indeed real and once with us, and this is what they meant to us. 

As SIL said as she flipped through the pages of the scrapbook I had made for V., "These are the best presents of all."