Grieving, Or Not

Losing my mother feels so different than losing my father six years ago.

It's strange to me, since I feel closer to my mom (though not exceptionally close) than I did to my dad. But everything is different.

First of all, I've been through the loss of a parent before. I think the first time around, it rocked my world view. This time, I had a better idea of what to expect, in terms of my own reactions.

Secondly, my world has changed. I'm a parent now. I wasn't really one to fall apart even back then, but I did withdraw from the world for a few months. This time around, I don't have that choice. I have Calliope, and I have to be fully present each and every day with her. (Well, okay, occasionally I'm a little less than fully emotionally present, but that's been rare.) Along with Calliope comes forced interactions with other people, like her nanny, her nanny share buddy, and nanny sharing buddy's mother, who has become a very close friend. So I've lost the ability to hole up like a recluse.

That's both a blessing and a curse. I'm engaged in the world... but I'm also not really doing the work of grieving. And then when you throw in the stress of TTC'ing... and lice... and worrying about Calliope's limp (non-existent today!) and her peeing all over the house (also much improved)... there's no energy left over for grieving.

So I just keep pushing it away.

I remember, when my dad died, reading something how you can think about grief as something you take down off the shelf for ten minutes, to roll around in your hands and touch it experimentally, and then you put it back up on the shelf for the next day. That made a lot of sense to me. Controlled sampling from small plates of grief.

But I can't figure out how to do that this time around. It feels so big and ignored that I don't know quite where to start.

She's Okay

We went to the pediatrician today so, naturally, her limp was practically gone. She wouldn't stand balance on her right foot, even with assistance, but otherwise was barely favoring one leg over the other. It did seem like she was walking way more on the inside of her feet than I remember, but you know, I never focused on her gait so much before. And too, she was very aware we were watching her, and wouldn't walk normally.

Miracle of miracles, Calliope succeeded in peeing in a cup, so the doctor said her urine looked normal but sent it to the lab to be cultured to confirm that she doesn't have a urinary tract infection to explain the recent frequent accidents.

Happily, today there were no accidents except for her diaper being wet at nap time. She doesn't ordinarily even wear a diaper for naps (and was, briefly, dry at nights a few months back) but we are taking extra precautions nowadays.

In less happy news, I am definitely not pregnant.

Yesterday was really hard. I was awfully sad. I'm much better today.

See, these weren't IUIs. These were PGS tested (chromosomes counted), five day old blasts from my 35 year old eggs, harvested from the same cycle that resulted in Calliope's birth. So each one of these blasts had something like 70-80% odds. So for two cycles (each with one blast) to fail is impressive odds.

It never occurred to me that with nine frozen blasts, I would ever have to worry. But the RE at the lab assured me they have a 98% success rate in thawing blasts for PGS and then refreezing them. But I lost five blasts out of nine just in the thawing. Of the four remaining, three were chromosomally normal. I've used two. I have one left. And now I'm left wondering if these blasts really aren't healthy, after all that thawing and re-freezing, after all.

So I'm planning to do a fresh IVF cycle.

The good news is, well, first, I'm done waiting for an answer from this cycle. That's a blessed relief.

But the bigger piece of good news is that I've decided to let go of the illusion of control. The idea of not getting to experience this miraculous unfolding of a human being again is staggering. The idea of not providing a sibling to Calliope is sobering.

But that doesn't mean I can mentally insist that I magically conceive and carry a healthy child to term. I can hope, I can take lots of medications and undergo medical procedures... but at the end of the day, it's not up to me.

All I can do is decide, today, what I am willing to do. Today, I am willing to undergo IVF. So I will act accordingly. And at some point, I may decide that I've had enough. And then I can decide to stop and re-assess. I can look into donor eggs, or foster care, or adoption. Or I can decide to content myself with my one fabulous, practically perfect child who is here in the now, not stopping her own miraculous unfolding as I busy myself with imaginings of her sibling.

So that's my plan. Let go and let the universe.

She loved how her hair looked after a Ceta.phil lice treatment

I'm Struggling

It could be worse. Always. I'm okay, sort of. I'm holding on, mostly.

But yesterday I kept finding myself sniveling into a tissue. And I'm really not a crier.

Which brings me to the first issue at hand: PMS. As in, I'm not pregnant. I couldn't bear to take a pregnancy test yesterday, but I took three the preceding two days and they were all negative. I didn't exactly feel pregnant, but I had had some pelvic twinges, so I hadn't given up hope with the first BFN. But now I can't bear to see another one so I'm just holding out for my beta later this morning.

Calliope is coming with me for the beta, because after I'm done with that, we are going to see her doctor. Well, a different doctor in the practice, which at this moment, feels hard too. Because I sent her a tearful email yesterday and she actually texted me and then called me from her cell phone on her walk home from the subway. To be clear, I think she was much more concerned about me than about Calliope -- I guess my email sounded desperate? I didn't mean it too, just said I felt panicked for the following reasons.

Calliope has been limping for nearly two weeks now. I didn't think much of it at first. After a couple days, I checked for ingrown toenails and didn't find anything. A few days later, I palpated her entire foot and leg for any sign of tenderness. Nothing. A few days ago, I insisted she swap out her flip flops (with ankle strap) for her more supportive sandals. No change.

And then yesterday, it was noticeably worse. And suddenly, I panicked. Worrying about Lyme Disease, and neuromuscular disease.\

Fellow SMC "Beans" suggested transient synovitis. My pediatrician didn't think it was that but hopefully we will get some non-scary ideas today. But I'm scared.

Plus she's been having tons of pee accidents lately. Ten months after training. And seems totally shocked when they happen. Not like her.

Next challenge is lice. I discovered that I had them on Friday. My very close SMC friends downstairs have had them for a month, so I'm pretty positive I know where they came from. I think my friend didn't realize how small the eggs were, and kept missing some? And the olive oil treatment alone wasn't enough? I don't know. I did a good job of not being angry with her. But it was sure unfortunate. Because we had to stay home all weekend and comb and comb and comb. And douse our hair in two different treatments, one olive oil and one Ceta.phil.

Which was especially a bummer because we were supposed to visit Calliope's surrogate grandmother in CT, my mom's best friend. Who has suddenly become an important person in my liife.

Because, finally, my mom died. Almost three weeks ago. At home, peacefully. I was not there. I said my goodbyes several times, including the previous weekend. Calliope kissed her Grammy goodbye as well.

So this is why I have dirty dishes scattered around my kitchen. Every little thing felt just too damn hard.

Hoping for some good news today. For Calliope, at least.

Where, Oh Where, Have All My Posts Gone?

Long time passing.

Ahem.

Blogger hasn't been letting me post in a while. I've still been writing. But now to get all those posts back.

Ups and Downs

Much of the weekend was lovely. But both days my mom sounded really off, and Sunday afternoon, it just hit me.

My energy levels plummeted and even dragging myself through an Insanity workout didn't help. My friends from downstairs came up for a BYO dinner, and she watched the kids while I struggled to barely tidy the kitchen.

This morning, against my will, I forced myself to bike to work, knowing the blood pumping through my legs and the fresh air coursing through my lungs would cheer me up.

And sometime about lunch time, I was better.

My brother's been reading a Buddhist book on death, and his advice to accept my mother's imminent death suddenly clicked.

Let me be clear. This is not what I want. I want her to live for twenty more years. I want her to see Calliope graduate from high school. I want her to meet her future grandchildren. I want her to retire gracefully from the law firm she founded, and to go on fabulous trips around the world. I want her to take the Sisterhood by storm, and make small but significant changes in the world.

This is not what's going to happen.

And that sucks.

But fighting that truth won't change it. Hoping for each miracle, and protesting its failure won't change the final outcome. It will just bring me misery.

So I'm quietly changing my expectations.

I'm not going to advise her on how to cope. Thank god, I have never had to be in her shoes.

I will be here for her in whatever way I can. I'm going to visit her (alone) this weekend. I'm hoping to take her on a trip in a few weeks. I will spend the summer with her.

But I will stop fighting. And gracefully, I hope, accept the blessing of what time we have left.

Calliope was so tender with Baby Eliza and didn't want to put her down... I think we are
both thinking that one of these might be just the thing for our family!

A Little More Bad News

... And if that's not a title to repel a reader, I don't know what is!

The MRI showed my mom has a little bit of cancer in the brain. But it's in a part of the brain I've never heard of, so I'm not sure what to make of that. Must be a pretty small part. My mom said her nurse practitioner was "relieved by how small it was" -- after seeing my mom last week so sleepy, and hearing that she'd been pulled over for "erratic driving," she expected much worse.

So I guess that's good.

She seems okay. It's weird. She's never been an emotive person. And even now, with all this, she has yet to show any real emotion to me. I don't tend to show emotion to her, either, probably because she's always seemed so detached.

So I have no idea how she's really doing. A lot of me is grateful for this, honestly. Facing someone else's darkest fears with them is pretty terrifying, especially when that person is your mother, once the source of all comfort.

I'm encouraging her to pursue options for mental health support, and she already has some connections. Truthfully, even if we were the closest of close, I think it's better for her to lean on someone who is not her child. Surely she feels some impulse to protect me, and that will keep her from getting enough support from me.

The thing that sucks about all this, well, a big thing that sucks, is that I remember this sequence from when my father died of a brain cancer five years ago. There's no status quo. You just keep on getting little pieces of bad news, one after another. Even when you know someone is terminal, there's still denial and hope and prayer that it will be a long and easy journey. And each time you get a piece of bad news, you have to face that judgment and disappointment all over again. And it stuns and hurts and smarts each time, all over again.

A Decision Has Been Made

Thanks for the new bike, Grammy!

... I'm spending the summer at my mom's. Calliope will attend a local daycare a few hours a day, as I think it would be terribly hard for her to be torn away from her routine and her "social life." She needs structure and she needs little buddies to play with. It will be hard for me to provide either in MA without structured childcare.

Of course, I need structure and friends, too. I have a couple friends sort of nearby, and family scattered around, and I'm thinking about signing up for something, maybe a [prenatal?] yoga class. Not that I'm much of a yogi, but something to get me out of the house. And we will make a long weekend trip to Vermont to see a friend, and we will take a week in August to go on our second annual camping trip with another SMC and toddler.

And hopefully, having that little face and piping voice around the house will cheer my mom's spirits. She's been taking antibiotics for a possible sinus infection, and sounds totally un-foggy today. Totally like herself, absolutely with it. It's so weird to think that, in essence, she's dying. It's sort of horrible yet slightly cathartic to use that word.

I think I was in denial when my dad was dying, somehow trying to stay in the role of clinician, and his entirely predictable death came as a huge shock. I don't want to experience that again.

I don't think the summer will be fun for me, exactly, but it will be something to feel good about. And if there's any possibility of Calliope remembering her grandmother, this is the way to do it -- lots and lots of mundane time together. Not Disney vacations. Just many meals and bedtime stories and Play Doh sessions.

Right now, it doesn't sound too hard. I can drive to doctor appointments and track medications, if she starts to have trouble with memory, and grocery shop and cook and clean up. And take care of Calliope, too, of course. We've agreed that if she needs physical help with tasks like toileting and bathing, we will hire a nurse's aid, as we did when my dad was dying. She already has a cleaning lady that does laundry as well as house cleaning.

I'll have to tell my summer employer that I need to back out, but I reckon the "mother has a terminal illness" excuse won't burn any bridges.

I never imagined that I would make this choice, and I am still sort of reeling at the idea of it, but I'm surprised to find that I'm starting to embrace it, also. I never thought this middle-child-who-always-lived-the-furthest-away would make this choice. Life is full of surprises