Everything and nothing

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Everything is the same, and nothing is the same. This is my life now. This is life without my baby.

I drive my husband to the train and wave at my neighbors as they deposit their kids on the bus. The neighbors smile and wave back, but their smiles are tinged with sadness. Instead of thinking, What a sweet young couple!, I’m sure they’re thinking, That poor, poor sweet young couple.

I fill my days with a limited amount of work and lots of small projects around the house, content to take it easy and give myself a break while I pass the time. But instead of placid fullness and quiet anticipation, my days are marked by emptiness and futility. Nothing I do will bring her back, and so what is the point of any of it?

I go to church, I listen, I thank God for everything we have. But instead of feeling calm and healed and good, I seethe. God did not save her. I storm out halfway through, cursing under my breath. It feels divine.

I sit down at the butcher block island in my kitchen, gorgeous midday sun spilling through the windows. Our home glows like a dream, a place filled with beauty and hope and light. But I know better. It’s a place filled with sorrow now, with longing and darkness. With death.

I leaf through the catalogs that flood our mailbox, pages and pages overflowing with whimsical furniture and tiny, adorable clothes. But they’re no longer a pleasure to behold, a candy on my tongue. Instead they are barbs, dragged across my chest with each crinkling turn, cruel glossy daggers to my heart. I look at them to be close to her, to fill myself with the pain which is all I have left of her. I wonder who she would have been, which of these things she would have liked. I will never, ever know.

I scan my inbox. New posts file in from the mommy blogs, pregnancy tips and toddler advice and baby gear galore. But I no longer devour their words, hungry for more of their supposed wisdom. I know now that none of it means anything, because all of their tips and gear and advice did not get my daughter here alive. What good is parenting advice when you have no child to parent? I think about unsubscribing, but I decide to keep torturing myself instead.

I consider starting to write my book, approaching the planning with some trepidation as I always do at the outset of a project this big. But instead of savoring the promise of fulfillment at the end, I boil over with resentment. This book is too much to ask of me now, especially when you all seem to think it will somehow make me “better.” I will never be better. I am irreparably broken. And a book is not a baby.

I sit and laugh with friends, enjoy time spent with loved ones. But always there is another conversation going on in my head, the neverending litany of her name. Alana, Alana, Alana, Alana. My attention drifts, and I look at the places where she should be. The longing pools in my eyes. Where are you my baby girl? Why aren’t you with your family?

I get word of yet another friend and their happy, healthy birth. Like before, I am elated for them, and envious that they have what I do not, what I have wished for all my life. But unlike before, my envy is vicious, snarling. It yearns for blood. Can you imagine doing what you just did, knowing that your child is already dead? That you will have to hold a fully formed baby that you grew and carried and loved for nine months, but who will never take a breath? That you will be leaving the hospital without her? That’s what I did. I don’t say it, but I want to. I want them to hurt for me. I don’t want to suffer alone.

I undress my body, look at it in the mirror. It is strong and fit and shapely, ten pounds heavier than before and sagging in spots, but still beautiful. But the pride I once had has been replaced. I feel shame. This body, which once swelled round with life, is flat and taut and empty again. But it did not keep her safe; it did not even tell me she was in danger. How can I ever forgive you?

I lie down to bed at night and kiss my husband, tell him how much I love him. But instead of my back melting into the mattress, I flip to my left side and pin my body in position, praying it doesn’t unfurl overnight. I know it shouldn’t make a difference, not this early, but I can’t chance it — I need to know I did everything I could, right from the very start. I’m terrified that if there’s another baby taking root, it will end up starved of blood like the first, suffocated while I sleep.

I wake up in the peace of the night and wait for a kick. Then I remember, none are coming. She is gone. She has been gone for months, and she is never coming back. My mind still can’t quite wrap itself around that fact. Slowly the air drains from the room until I am left suspended in the vacuum of space, every nerve ending squashed and pulled and firing in agony.

I close my eyes, and can’t help but think what a relief it would be if they simply didn’t open in the morning. Ever again.

In your darker days, how do you cope? What brings you back?