I was so, so sad and just felt such an emptiness in my stomach. I even felt phantom kicks! One of the worst things, was that my milk started to come in on about the third day. This was soul destroying as there was no baby to feed and my breasts were so engorged. I called the midwife and asked if there was something they could give me to dry up the milk and I was told that the drug had not been approved. They suggested I bind my breasts. Well, this did not sound or feel right to me at all and so I went with my gut feeling and that was to express with a pump. In fact, I decided to feed the milk to my Mosaic Downs son, who was undernourished and hadn't fully enjoyed the benefits of breastfeeding. Because of no stimulation and bonding, my milk dried up after about a week, but it felt more natural to me to have done it that way. Who knows, maybe the milk was a gift for Bradley!
I believe it is crucial to allow yourself to feel sad, I think for a solid year I woke up thinking about baby Jacques. My other kids have a toy called Ernie and sometimes at night he would just go off saying "I feel great". I still can't understand how a toy can just start talking without a button being pushed, but I like to think that perhaps it was my little guy telling me, that he was just fine. He still to this day goes off in the middle of the night sometimes, surely the batteries will go flat someday.........who knows?!
I started to feel as though I wanted to suddenly become very spiritual. My husband took me shopping and I found myself buying candles, incense and all sorts of meditative stuff.
I also felt quite creative and I felt the need to design a card with a picture of baby Jacques on the front. (The pictures I had of him had all been taken by the nurse in the hospital). I wanted to send it to all my friends and family. I wanted people to know what I had lost and I wanted them to support me. I often felt as though people dissed my experience and felt like I hadn't known the baby, so what is the big deal? This is where the misunderstanding of the loss comes in. Of course I knew him, I felt his every kick and felt the weight of him. I talked to him constantly and felt a real bond. I was expecting life at the end of the pregnancy, not death! It felt like a car accident to me, so sudden. But then how can you just expect others to know, when they have never been through something like that or even had to think about it. And so I created my card. It really helped towards the healing process. I later found out that some people thought it very morbid, but then again, it was about my healing process not theirs.
I also created a garden for little Jacques, we bought a little bench with animals on it and the neighbours gave me a maple tree which I planted in the garden. Some friends of mine made me a clay pigeon and I placed it on a rock in the garden. On mothers day, my husband surprised me with a butterfly on a metal stake which he put into the garden. It was so sweet, he came in singing "butterflies are free to fly" and it was so weired because soon after that, I heard the song on the radio?!
Another thing I felt compelled to do, was to make keepsake boxes for all of the mothers following me who lost babies. I got such a feeling of healing from this. Although I would probably not meet those mothers, I really felt a bond with them. I went to a craft shop and purchased all that I needed to make these - brushes, paints, little wooden boxes etc., and began making them. I would take them every couple of months to the perinatal loss unit. Once my dad came to visit and he made me a whole bunch of wooden boxes. I asked the art teacher at my daughters school if the kids in my daughters class would like to paint the boxes, I thought it would be a wonderful way to teach the kids about something like this. They painted the most beautiful boxes, so special to be done by children! I didn't feel like I wanted to join any support groups, but making the boxes was definitely a huge contribution to my healing.
I also composed a poem for my little guy, which I will post.
I am very fortunate to have some really positive people in my life. I was sent a couple of poems and excerpts from various books, which I will share in my posts. It really became a reflective time in my life and I think I learnt a great deal from the experience as painful as it was. I believe that we go through certain lessons in life to move us forward. We can of course choose to stay stuck, or push ourselves forward, allowing our souls to grow!
