Sad Stories

Does everyone's life have to have a sad story?  Do some people get away with having no real unexpected blows?  I know everyone eventually loses their grandparents, their parents and 50% of all people lose a spouse, right?  These are incredibly sad things, but we expect them, don't we?  I am talking about the stuff we don't expect.  I have been reading a lot about grief and loss and most everything is written for people experiencing normal grief.  I don't want to belittle normal grief - it is heavy stuff.  I know that my father misses his father every single day, that my mother misses her mother all of the time, that my stepmother still quotes her mother to all of us.  They will miss those loved ones forever and that is normal grief (although I am sure there is nothing "normal" feeling about it since it can be very heavy).  Losing Max was not normal.  Losing an infant suddenly is not considered "normal" grief.  It is considered complicated grief and it is known to take 3-5 years to "normalize" - in other words, it takes that long to feel about it the way someone feels about their "normal" loss.  I hope it doesn't sound like I am trivializing normal grief.  That is not my intention.  I am simply stating that there are certain experiences that go outside of the normal expectancies.  There are also non-death kinds of losses - divorce, loss of a job, natural disasters.  These are things that often are unexpected or certainly not something that you plan for...they take a great emotional toll.  Is it possible to get away with a lifetime that doesn't have any complicated grief?  Somehow we all think we are above it.  That it won't happen to us, and yet, it happened to me.

I was so naive to think that my "sad story" had already taken place.  A sad story that isn't even sad in retrospect.  In 1999 I was engaged to a great guy.  I loved him.  He was (and I am sure he still is) so funny and smart.  And though our love was never electric and consuming, we were very compatible and best friends and whatever, we were young.  He started to get cold feet about 2 months before our wedding and we called it off.  At the time, I felt beside myself.  The expectations, the humiliation, the unexpectedness - it was hard.  I had a broken heart.  For a few months, I walked around in a haze and then I realized that I could take control and start to live the life I always wanted.  I applied to graduate school, I signed up for the AIDS ride, I went on a mission to Israel, I started dating.  I turned the lemons into lemonade.  What I didn't do for a long time though was let anyone in.  I didn't want to get close to anyone because I didn't want to get hurt again.  I lived like that for about 7 years until I met Ted.  As soon as I met Ted, I realized that my "sad story" wasn't sad at all (even if I did tell him that I didn't want to "emotionally invest" in him).  Actually, I think I realized that my sad story wasn't very sad a long time before Ted, but I started to hope when I met Ted that my story would have a really happy ending.  And it did - for a little while.  I ended up with the right person for me and so I could look back at everything that happened before and know that it all happened for a reason.  I packaged up the old memory neatly and everything in the world made sense.  Still, I thought somehow that that would be the sad story that defined my growth personally.  How silly I feel now.  How wrong I was to even have thought that story was sad at all.  I was so lucky to have not known sad.

When I found out that I was pregnant with Max, I threw my whole heart in.  One of the most beautiful things about children is that you get to emotionally invest in them without fear of getting hurt, or at least, that is what I thought.  I let myself love him so deeply and I could see that his love for me went just as deep.  I had never, ever experienced anything like this.  Even with my own parents, whom I love deeply, I feel I am on guard.  I want them to be proud of me.  I want them to understand me.  I want them to care about what I am going through.  So, I have an agenda.  If Max had grown up, he would probably have had one with me too.  But, baby Max had no agenda.  Just to love and be loved.  Who knew that this simple, pure, perfect love could cause me so much pain?  Never in a million years would I have guessed.  And so I wonder what the lesson is here.  Should we be on guard always?  Never let anyone in ever?  They might hurt you with intention or hurt you because they die?  Would it be best to just detach and take care only of myself.  I did that for a long time and it was lonely.  Lonely is so much better than this complicated grief that I feel.  How would I feel today if I hadn't thrown myself entirely into the love I felt for Max?  Guilty?  More sad?  Ted and I want to have more children - should I protect myself by not getting too attached?  I was careful not to get too attached to the pregnancy that I had several months ago and I am sort of glad, since I miscarried.  There are some who would argue that perhaps I miscarried because I didn't get too attached.  I am guarded when it comes to spending time with friends and family since Max died.  There are too many people who I know could hurt me.  I have done my best to control my bubble, even though it is impossible to control completely.  My head is spinning....as usual.  Unlike when my fiance and I broke up - this story isn't going to end up in a neatly wrapped package with a happily ever after bow.  This story remains sad, no matter how many trees get planted, or dollars are raised for SIDS research, or stories are told about Max, or siblings are born for him to NOT get a chance to love and play with.  I will never look back and say, "oh, that story wasn't as sad as I thought it was".  It might hurt less one day, but it will always be sad and tragic.  I will be sad about losing Max for the rest of my life.

I try to look for people who are further along on their grief journeys to see how they are handling them.  I have written about some of the blogs I am reading.  Some are helpful - I can see how the family continues to love each other and to honor the memory of the child that they lost and find comfort in this life.  Some are less helpful - people are angry and feeling misunderstood sometimes still after many years.  They feel no support and all of their happiness died with their loss.  I think about people I have known personally - those people who are living with an extraordinary amount of loss.  For example, I spent about two years working closely with an Israeli General, Doron Almog, through my work at JNF.  He lost his brother, Eran, in the Yom Kippur war.  Then his son, named Eran for his brother, was born with severe developmental disabilities.  The family loved this son and spent so much time and effort in fundraising through JNF and other sources and working with the Israeli government to build a residential village for individuals with such extreme disabilities.  Not a sterile, sad facility - but a beautiful place with gardens, and a petting zoo, and art workshops and a beautiful swimming pool.  Aleh Negev was already open for residents and Eran had been living there when at age 20 he died unexpectedly.  General Almog also lost 5 members of his family in a suicide bombing in a Haifa restaurant in 2003, including his cousin and my friend, Moshe Almog.  So much loss in one lifetime and Doron and his wife are still fairly young.  I try to look to them for strength.  They still manage to enjoy their family, to take vacations, to spend time with friends, to love and spoil their grandchildren and to continue to fundraise in their child's name for the village he was to live in.  Make no mistake about it though, they are incredibly sad.  And, what about the Holocaust survivors who lost their entire families and had to rebuild all over?  Many lost a spouse and several children and then remarried and had more children.  I know that some of those individuals loved their second families with abandon, so incredibly grateful to have this kind of love and hope again.  Others kept themselves removed from their children - either consciously or unconsciously trying to protect themselves from ever being so badly hurt again.  These stories are extreme and then again, you never know that you aren't going to experience the extreme until you do (or don't).  There is no way to predict the future.  

So, this is the next part of my mental debate.  Do I protect myself by envisioning the worst possible scenarios and figuring out what I will do if each of them happens? (Ted leaves me, we have another miscarriage, or many, we lose another baby to SIDS or childhood disease, one of us loses the other one far too soon.......the list goes on and on).  It makes me want to seal myself in a room and never come out because life has hurt me so much I don't think I can take it anymore.  Or, do I just live and see what happens and hope for the best and continue to love my husband with all of my heart and soul, and get excited about the idea of lots of Leviss babies and all of the fun and wonderful things we will do with them and how much I will love them for the rest of my life, and start letting friends back into my life and just hope that they can put stuff into perspective and try to be loving with me?  I think I choose the latter, but it is not an easy choice and it won't be easy and I am not there yet.  I will do the best I can and try to live one minute at a time for now.  It's what I have to keep coming back to because I really have no alternative.  

Every day I get through feels like a complete miracle.  It is a complete miracle that we have made it this far.  It has felt like an eternity to both of us and yet, so far, time has not proven to be much of a healer.  Time has been good and bad to me.  In the very early days, I was in shock, which allowed me to be distracted by visitors and conversation.  In the months immediately following the shiva, the horror of what had happened to my precious baby was with me during all waking and sleeping hours (and minutes, and seconds).  The 55 hours from hell played in my brain and flashed in front of my eyes all of the time.  It felt unbearable, like at any minute, I would just fall on the ground and die.  I actually wished I would because every movement I made felt like a puppeteer was pulling the strings on this body I recognized but that was totally disconnected to me.  Going to Catalina for our anniversary was out of this world.  A totally wasted experience that only made me feel more disconnected to myself and my child.  Now that Ted and I could probably actually use a weekend away, we are afraid of reliving our Catalina experience and so we put it off.  As time has passed, I feel more "grounded".  Only meaning, I recognize that this actually is my life and I don't get to just lay down and die.  The slideshow doesn't play all day long, but that is because I have learned to control it somewhat.  I only feel the horror for short periods of time each day - an hour here, an hour there.  Still, at least once a week, I step back in time and have full horror slide show days.  They suck.  Now, what we both feel is a more profound sadness.  Max is more and more in our past.  We are really not parents anymore.  We have nobody to take care of but ourselves and the dogs.  We miss everything about him and sometimes it takes an effort to remember all of the little details of this wonderful person that we love.  The absolute worst times of day for me are mornings and bedtime.  In the morning, I try to keep my eyes closed as long as possible, willing the day to go away.  Eventually, I drag myself out of bed and go through the motions of my day.  I have mixed feelings at bedtime.  I am in shock that I actually made it through another day but I am reluctant to go to sleep because a) I might have a nightmare, b) It is really hard for me to fall asleep and stay asleep and c) I know I am going to have to wake up and do the whole thing all over again.

Toes!

Maxie had the cutest little tiny toes.  SO tiny!  When Max discovered his toes, he just couldn't get enough.  Those toes were always in his mouth - on the changing table, in the crib, in the bath.  Yummy!

What is SIDS?

I wish I didn't know as much as I do and still, I know next to nothing.  There are so many theories and precautions and yet, there are always exceptions to the rules.  What I know is this - SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) is the label given to the death of a seemingly very healthy baby who stops breathing, who shows no signs of any other disease or suffocation, and for whom there is no explanation for their death.  Looking at SIDS in this way, it is a death for which every possible explanation has been ruled out.  However, there are certain things that we know happen - a healthy baby, is asleep or at rest, they are unable to take a breath, and they cannot be resuscitated.  These factors have made researchers take pause and think that there must be something there.  While they have not come up with the explanation, there are those who believe there is something that is happening, illustrated by these specific factors, that point to there being a real cause and effect.  From what I have learned, the leading SIDS expert in the country is a woman named Dr. Hannah Kinney at Children's Hospital in Boston.  Her research has been in defining the cause of SIDS and the hypothesis which she has been testing is a brain stem abnormality in babies that affects their ability to regulate their sleeping and breathing patterns.  Now, I can't tell you much more than that except that somehow serotonin uptake in the brain is affected by the abnormality.  The baby is unable to identify high carbon dioxide levels and low oxygen levels and therefore change their position to get more air.  This is also, by the way, why Maxie is considered old for this to have happened and why it is most common in babies under 4 months.  Older babies can change their sleep positions easier than newborns.  In most cases the sleep conditions of the baby who dies contribute to the high carbon dioxide and low oxygen levels, which is why the American Pediatric Association recommends not putting babies in their cribs on their tummies, with blankets, bumpers, stuffed animals, or anything else (boppy pillows, sleep positioners, etc...) and also to keep a fan on in the room to keep air circulating.  Dr. Kinney truly believes that it is possible that the cause of SIDS can be found and that with that, a potential test for the abnormality would be identified, along with a potential cure.  Her research is being funding by private dollars in addition to National Institute of Health grants and other sources.  After we complete Maxie's forest (25k to go!), we will be raising money for Dr. Kinney's research.

There are other theories as well however.  Since 1997, the New Zealand government has been endorsing a national "mattress wrapping" campaign.  Dr. Jim Sprott's research has concluded that the issue lies in the baby's crib mattress.  The chemicals contained within the mattress grow a fungus that becomes toxic to babies.  (You can read more here: http://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/sprott/).  He has developed a specific way of wrapping the mattress, which apparently has been so successful that not a single baby has died on a wrapped mattress yet.  100% success rate.  Why aren't all governments encouraging mattress wrapping?  Dr. Sprott wrote a book called "Cot Death Cover Up" which basically points to a conspiracy theory with the SIDS research institutes, the governments, and the manufacturers of baby mattresses.  I am not one for conspiracy theories (even if I do like psychics and mediums), but 100% success rate has me sold.  All Leviss rainbow babies will be sleeping on wrapped mattresses.  Of course, Dr. Sprott's theory does not explain the woman whose baby died while she was nursing him or the one who died while in his mommy's sling and I have lots of other examples of exceptions to the "baby died in the crib" rule.

So, what do parents do about their babies or future babies?  I guess they pray.  They try to have faith that their baby will not be one of the few unlucky ones to have been born with this brain stem abnormality.  They will never know until their baby becomes one of the unlucky ones (like Max) because there is no test anyway.  You can follow all of the APA guidelines.  I know lots of parents who have told me that their babies just sleep more soundly on their tummies so they just put them down that way anyway.  I would obviously not take that risk, and didn't take it with Max.  I would suggest that parents make sure that their babysitters, nannies, parents (grandparents) and daycares are following the rules too.  Being liked by the nanny isn't worth not insisting that the guidelines are followed.  Your baby's life is most important.  I would wrap my mattress.  In the worst case, a wrapped mattress can't hurt.  You won't know if your baby has this issue so make sure that the oxygen is circulating wherever they are, keep a fan on low in the baby's room.  I have even seen guidelines that suggest using an air purifier.  I know that with our next baby we will also use our Babysense monitor that Gigi bought us for Max in addition to a snuza baby monitor.  The Babysense monitors movement under the crib mattress http://www.babysense.net/.  The Snuza clips right on to the diaper and monitors breathing and movement there http://www.snuza.info/.   Maybe at least this will help us sleep.  We will take a CPR class and probably retake every few years.  The truth is though that even if the baby stops breathing, if it is a true SIDS case, we won't be able to resuscitate him/her anyway.  Still, I know this can never happen to us again.

Losing Max has changed the entire course of our lives.  It has made a previously safe world terrifying.  It has forced us to take a step back from friendships that weren't very deep or were somewhat one sided because we don't have the energy right now for anything that isn't real or for people who don't truly care about us.  It has made us feel alone.  It has 100% forced us to question our faith and whether our community is even the right fit for us in some ways.  It has empowered me to bring up the elephant in the room (my son!), even when people have been clear that they don't want to talk about him.  It has inspired me to want to share the beauty of his soul with you, so that you can know him the way we knew him.  It has crushed our hearts into a million pieces.  With everything that I am, I will do my best to ensure this never happens to us again or to any other family that I can affect.  That is the most I can hope for at this stage.

Time is moving in slow motion.  I can't believe it has only been four and a half months.  It feels like it has been a lifetime.  Last night, we had some crazy winds.  I heard that they were up to 100 MPH.  Our Eucalyptus tree was dropping mad branches on our roof all night.  I was worried that Maxie's tree was going to blow over.  At one point, I actually thought to myself that I wanted to bring the baby into our room.  But, then I remembered, I don't have to protect the baby, because he is already gone.  I already failed the job of protecting my baby.  And, that's the kicker - I thought I was such a good mother.  I knew I was utterly devoted to him.  I can't begin to tell you how I read and researched about first foods, and best nutrition and we've already gone over all of the pumping I did.  I literally would pump and drive because I often didn't have time in between appointments to pull over and pump on the street and my job was not an office job (but, believe me, I pumped there too).  Not that I actually think breastfeeding matters now since a woman in my online support group lost her baby WHILE she was breastfeeding him.

I woke up this morning thinking about Maxie's baths, something I think about a lot.  Giving your baby a bath is really a warm and nurturing time.  It was my favorite time.  I was remembering the steps I took with each bath.  Lifting the arms and cleaning the armpits, and cleaning behind his ears, and shampooing his hair.  He hardly had any hair but who doesn't love a nice scalp massage?  I just knew it felt good and I wanted him to be relaxed and loved.  We had this little brush that we would brush his hair with in the bath. I always parted his hair on the right and combed it over.  It was a little nerdy looking when wet but soooooo cute.  Ted liked to brush Max's hair into a Caesar-do.  Either that or just straight back.  Once it dried, it mostly just ended up the same.  There wasn't enough of it for a real hair-do.  A few weeks before he died, I bought him a bunch of little board books at Costco, including this little waterproof book about duckies.  I would give it to him every night in the bath and he would hold on to it, chew it, look through it.  I love to picture him in the bath, "reading" his little duckie book and smiling with his nerdy comb over.  I loved giving him soft kisses on his wet cheeks.  I loved hoisting him out of the bath and wrapping him in a towel and making him feel warm and cozy.

Maxie's Smile

Maxie was such a happy baby.  Oh my gosh!  He was so happy!  He always had a look of contentment, even when he wasn't smiling.  But, as I have explained, he really did smile all of the time.  He didn't laugh all of the time, laughing was special.  Maxie's smiles were special too but they were very easy to come by. The best part about his smile is that it would spread across his face when anyone showed him just a little love.  He smiled brightly for cameras starting from a really young age.  He smiled at strangers and family alike.  He just beamed.  I miss this smile more than anything and I loved it more than I have ever loved a smile before.  His smile made us feel so special and loved.  What a gift he had!

Mice!!!!!

As I write this, I am checking over my shoulders and my skin is crawling.  When I was just a little pregnant with Maxie, I found some mouse droppings in our old kitchen.  It was enough to make me a little insane.  I cleaned everything out of the pantry and looked for holes to see where they were coming in.  We knew we were about to start a whole kitchen renovation and so I just thought that they would go away if there was nothing out that they could get to.  A few nights later, Ted and I were sitting on the couch watching television when I started to hear some movement in the walls.  We turned down the volume and then heard a full mouse stampede running through the wall right behind the couch.  I jumped on the couch and started screaming.  We ended up at the Home Depot that night buying a bunch of the Black and Decker Mouse plug ins that emit some sort of sound wave and make them go away.  I thought we had fixed the problem, humanely.  I didn't see the mice again until a few months before Max died.  I found some mouse droppings in our bathroom.  I opened the drawers and found them in there and in the place where I keep the towels.  Yikes, skin crawling again.  I started to wonder if they had found their way into Max's room.  Were they dancing on his changing table and in his crib while he slept?  Ay Caramba!  I thought I would lose it.  This time, I read in one of Max's baby books about peppermint oil being a natural mouse deterrent.  I ran to the market and bought some peppermint extract.  I poured it on pieces of cardboard and put them throughout the drawers in our bathroom.  Then I thought to myself, "I wonder if peppermint extract is the same as peppermint oil"...so I looked it up online and of course I found that peppermint extract attracts mice!  I ran into the bathroom to undo my botched job and opened up the towel drawer to see a mouse scurrying through my linens!  AAAAAHHHH!!!!!  NO!!!!!!!!  (skin is seriously crawling just thinking about this right now).  We set traps in the bathroom and caught a little dude.  There must have just been one because we haven't had any more mice since that guy got snapped.  Over the weekend, I was reading a book on the couch and I heard some movement behind a little book hutch that we have in our living room.  I slowly crept up to the hutch and the movement stopped.  I decided to let it go because I am too vulnerable for my greatest sworn enemies to be back again!  I can't take it!  Not a day later and Ted and I are on the same couch (we spend a lot of time on this thing as you can see) and I see a tiny little mouse crawling into the dogs' food and water bowls.  Right in front of our faces...so brazen.  No fear in the world.  I jumped up onto the couch and Ted said he would handle it.  YIKES!  I ran into the other room.  When he moved the hutch, he must have knocked the little sucker out but he didn't kill him.  He took him out of the house and dropped him across the street.  We decided he must have snuck in while Ted was doing work outside over the weekend and left the door was open.  Once again, I think the mice are gone!  I left this afternoon for a therapy appointment (so all of you Anonymous writers who accuse me of not getting help can take a deep breath....I went to therapy today) and came home and made a juice with my awesome Cuisinart Juicer (have I mentioned that both my mother in law and sister in law and two of Ted's cousins all work for Cuisinart?) machine then sat on the couch.  I turned around and saw a little mouse prancing on the countertop.  He walked over to the juicer, hung out on the cutting board where I had sliced up the fruits and vegetables, danced over to the stove top.  He really thinks he owns the joint!  So, now I am not even safe in my own home!  I need this like a luchen kup (a favorite Yiddish saying of my grandma Ann's meaning - I need this like a hole in my head.)  But, seriously, this is no bueno.  No Bueno at all.  Another one of the exciting parts of living in an equestrian neighborhood.  Can someone please explain to me why mice like horses?  Maybe this will finally get me out of the house!

The Medium Part Two

A lot of people have asked about the reading I had with the Medium back at the end of September.  They are curious to know what she said that made so much sense to me.  What did she know about us that I don't think she could have known if she hadn't connected with some loved one of mine on the other side.  I have no reason to keep any of it a secret so I am happy to share, and remember, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.  I don't care if you believe in it or not.  I like believing in it.  It gives me something positive to focus on and to live for....being with Maxie again.  This is all we really want.  Maybe if you have lost someone special or are just afraid of death and dying, this will give you some hope too.
I want to start by giving some background.  The Medium is a friend of a friend of a friend.  She didn't know me from Adam.  The woman I know that knew her didn't know me well either but is friends with one of my best friends.  I am sure that isn't easy to follow but suffice it to say that she is the one who put us in touch didn't know much about me except for that my baby died.  She contacted the Medium on IM and said "I have a friend of a friend whose baby died.  Would you do a reading for her."  As I understand it, the Medium said "of course" and then wrote back a few days later to say that there was a little boy hanging around her and that I should contact her and she would give me the reading for free.  The reading was scheduled for the weekend that Beth was in town visiting us.  Beth, Ted and I spent a lot of time together over the weekend talking about Maxie, picking out boys and girls "M" names for our future children, and even daydreaming about new lives in new places.  Ted and I had been talking for several years about moving to Portland and Beth and I talked about packing up and getting a house together in Seattle.  It has basically just been all talk but it is nice to think that there is someplace that we could escape to.  Anyway, I woke up that morning and took an early pregnancy test.  I had bought the kind that allow you to test 5 days ahead of a missed period and I was hoping to be able to share some good news with Beth before she left.  However, I got a "not pregnant" in my test window that morning and it made me sadder than I already was.  So I sat on the couch all morning waiting for my phone call with the Medium.
When I called her, she didn't ask any questions, she just explained that she is a Medium and not a psychic and she can give me information about my loved ones but can't predict the future unless there is something that one of my loved ones wants me to know.  Then she started my reading.  She said that she saw our little boy and that he was holding hands with a little girl.  She told me that when she sees this, she knows that those are our children.  She said that our baby was sad that he left us and plans to come back and wants us to give him an "M" name.  She also said that the little girl was going to come first.  She asked if I was pregnant.  I told her that in fact I was not.  That I had taken a pregnancy test that morning that came back negative.  She told me to retest in a few days and that she believed I was pregnant and that I had just tested too early (As it turned out, I tested a few days later and I was pregnant but as I wrote about on this blog, I later miscarried).  She then said that my son was with a man with prominent features, with a strong and square jaw, who had died from something in his chest or his lungs.  This sounded like a good description of my Grandpa Jack, who died from lung cancer.  She determined that Max died from something related to his breathing, from SIDS, she said.  She said that my grandfather was telling her that I had a great ability to write and that "It doesn't need to be the Great Gatsby, but that I should just put my pen to paper and write".  She asked if Ted and I have talked about moving to Portland or Seattle and when I answered. "yes", she said, "He says to get off the pot!".  She said that he told her that I didn't need to become a vegetarian.  I had stopped eating red meat when Max was born, as I started to feel a stronger affinity towards animals that nurse their babies.  (As a side note, my grandpa loved red meat, especially when it was salted and cured.  His favorite in between meals snack was sliced pan-fried kosher salami.)  She asked if I had any other questions, and I asked her about Ted.  She said that Maxie was holding up something blue and flannel and saying that he understood what it was...that it was something important to his Daddy.  She repeated that he wanted to make sure that his daddy knew that he knew it was something important.  If you know my husband,  you know that Giants football is probably one of the top most important things in his life.  Maxie was buried in his blue flannel Giants PJs.  Aside from those PJs though, we have lots blue Giants gear.  It seems pretty obvious that that is what he was talking about to me.  She said that Maxie was 100% with our family.  She said that there were about nine other people with him.  Between Ted and I, we have 9 grandparents who have passed away actually because Grandpa Jack was my mom's stepfather, I was just really close to him.
The Medium has given a few readings to friends and family since she gave me mine.  They were not totally accurate.  In fact, one friend who was looking to connect to her daughter, wasn't able to connect to her.  However, she has given two readings to two of my family members and was able to come up with lucky numbers, specific incidences from their pasts, specifics of the way they dress and the music that they listen to.  I don't think she even knew that she was talking to my relative with one.  Maybe she has a connection with us?  I have no idea.  So, now you wonder if am I a full fledged believer.  Here is what I can say - I believe that there is something that happens after we die.  Is that something Heaven or "the other side" or a parallel universe?  I really don't know.  What I do think is that every world religion pretty much agrees that our souls do not cease to exist when we stop breathing.  What I do think is that it is less important which religion has it right and more important that everyone seems to be on the same track.  What I do know is that this is important for me, because without this hope that I will see Max again some day, somewhere, I really don't know where I would be.
If you want to connect with my Medium, go to www.moriahthemedium.com.

Submerged

Ted knows me better than anyone.  He always knows what I am feeling and thinking before I say a word.  He has been suggesting that I get in the water and swim since about a month after Max died.  I have resisted.  Ted and I are both swimmers.  We love the water.  We can both spend hours in a pool, ocean, lake or river.  At some level, I think I knew that he was on to something but the idea of schlepping to the gym with my swim bag and getting wet and having to shower there and everything.  Before I had my miscarriage in October, I was doing a hike in Fryman Canyon, near our house, about 3-4 times a week.  It wasn't as soothing as it sounds but I kept hoping that being in nature would calm me down.  The truth is that I was always worried that I might run into someone and listening to wanna-be 100 pound actresses complain about their boy problems really put my own problems into a perspective that was way too overwhelming.  Our gym just opened 2 brand new locations near our house, both with swimming pools.  I never have to worry about running into anyone because I don't know anyone in Burbank or North Hollywood, and even if I did, they wouldn't be using the pool.  Nobody I know would ever use the pool.  To be honest, it seems like only really weird people ever use the pool.  As long as I can stay out of their lane, I am golden.  They tend to group in the lane with the stairs anyway.  It has been about a week now since I gave into the swimming and I have to say, it is better than medicine for depression.  I actually went on an antidepressant for about a month and the swimming has helped more.  I am still depressed.  In fact it is 11 am and I am still in bed.  But, at least while I am in the pool, I have an hour when I don't think about anything.  Being submerged in water keeps my thoughts from getting too deep.  It is better for my brain than sleeping, it is better than television.  I can't hear anyone, I can't see anything except my own hands in front of my face and the end of the pool.  The water must mess with my brain waves so that no thought stays in my head for more than a minute or so.  I still think about Max but it is muted for that short time.  What a relief!

Memories

Sometimes writing about my Maxie and remembering our sweet times together is more painful than anything.  Last night Ted and I watched a marathon of a show we have been Tivo'ing.  As we sat on our couch for hours, I started to think about dancing around the living room with Maxie.  The most lovely times were on the weekends, when Ted would come in from the outside and join us.  He would wrap his arms around Maxie and I and we would all slowly sway together, feeling the love of our little family, pouring our love into each other and our little boy.  The memory of it, while so tender and sweet, tears my heart apart.  It makes me want to lay down and die.  Sometimes it is easier for me to focus on the day to day hurt of my post- Max life than it is to focus on the sweetness of life with Max.  I don't want to forget one minute of my lovely life with Max.  I don't want to forget one detail of Max.  So, it seems that it is most important that I remember as often as I can - that I transport myself in my mind and heart back to my most wonderful memories.  Those memories that hurt me most now.  The memories of my special baby and our time together.

Nap on me, my baby

There is something about a sleeping baby that makes everything in the world feel easy and right.  They are so peaceful, so content.  I loved when Maxie fell asleep on me.  I didn't want to make a move so that I wouldn't ruin the moment.  His little cheeks needed to be kissed but I would let them be.  Not kissing Max when he was right there was torture.  I didn't want to disrupt his little dream land naps.  What an angel he was.  How proud he made me feel, how warm, how protective, how in love I was!  The helmet stage really melted my heart.  So cute!  This little man stole my heart and that very large piece will be with him forever.  This boy is my everything, my whole life.  I miss you Maxie Moo!  Every day, I miss you and love you more.

Pick on someone else & Thanksgiving Hangover

I spent some time yesterday reading some of the other SIDS blogs.  I was surprised (and also not surprised) to find that on every single one that I looked at there were challenging "Anonymous" commenters that had criticisms to share of the way that the parents were grieving their losses.  Strange that all of our blogs attract this element.  This is the part of the grief that baffles me.  Why is this territory so hostile?  Why would you want to cause more pain to someone who has lost a child than they already feel?  Two days ago I posted a long description of how SIDS affects parents who have lost their babies.   You may have read that there is nothing more traumatic for a mother than having her infant ripped away from her and that even among animal mothers, the reaction is shock, anger, despair.  How could anyone not know this?  Why would you pick on me?  You don't have anyone better to pick on?  If you were going to write to me, or call me or visit me, why wouldn't you go out of your way to try and be gentle and kind and helpful with me?  Grief is not only lonely, it can be incredibly hostile. My sadness makes you uncomfortable and so you lash out.
A girlfriend of mine suggested that I stop blogging.  That instead I create a website where I only write about the wonderful memories I have of Max.  I could link it to Auntie Beth's Team Maxie page and sell trees and t-shirts too.  That way nobody could lash out at me.  I created this blog for two reasons - to have a space to remember my baby boy and to chronicle my journey through this grief.  I have no intention of sugar coating the experience. I am not going to make it all pretty so that other people don't have to feel weird about my pain.  The people who are uncomfortable reading about it can stop reading.  Anyway, shutting down my blog would not shut down the hostility.  People don't like the sad and depressed.  They want it to go away.  One SIDS mommy I know told me that when she returned to work after losing her baby, there were people who just stopped speaking to her.  Then, after she got pregnant again and started showing, those same people started talking to her again.  There were people who tried to minimize her loss at every turn.  There were others who were just straight up hostile.  I have had many face to face, phone and email experiences with people who are not "anonymous" that I wish I could erase from my memory.  When I am with people who are uncomfortable I just politely smile and try to engage in the conversations that they are nervously trying to construct.  I try to be the person that they want me to be.  It is an effort.  I will never be able to look at some of those people in the same way again.  This blog is a place where I don't have to politely nod and smile.  So, creating a happy space to put my memories and shutting down the part of this blog that allows me to express my emotions is not the answer for me.  This blog has been a great space for me to be real.

Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  It always has been.  My mother has hosted it for our very large extended family for many years.  We usually have 30-40 people.  Even though my mother has traditionally been the hostess, the holiday reminds me most of my grandmother.  My Grandma Marilyn, who Maxie was named for, was an amazing cook.  She even had a trendy restaurant on Hillhurst Ave. in Los Feliz called "1928" back in the day.  My uncle Danny was a customer there and befriended my Cousin Andrea, who introduced him to my Aunt Alison and they have been living happily ever after.  I used to sell creations made of sea shells and googly eyes in the restaurant lobby with my best friend growing up, Danna.  We made little clam faced guys who would play sea shell horns and little sea shell barrettes and pins.  Our company was called "Dab Co."  We were so proud of our hard work.  My grandmother had previously been in the antique business and 1928 was filled with beautiful old antiques, some of which were also for sale.  Most everyone in my family had some time working in the restaurant in some capacity.  They were famous for their chili (which I still make) and their Sunday brunch (that is the meal that Danny and his friends would hit).  I loved hanging out at the restaurant.  One of the family stories about me from when I was a kid was how I tried to get out of Hebrew School one Sunday so I could hang out with my grandma at the restaurant.  As she tells the story, I said to my non-Jewish grandma, "To tell you the truth Grandma, it is very weird there.  I don't even know what they are teaching me!  They could be teaching me bad words for all I know!"   Anyway, Grandma was an amazing cook and the stuffing she made every year for Thanksgiving was out of this world!  I am more of a mashed potatoes gal but my Grandmother's stuffing was phenomenal.  I got the recipe from her the year before she died and I have no idea what I did with it.  Maybe with the help of some relatives I can piece it back together.  The Thanksgiving before my Grandma died (so I think that was TG 2006), the whole family came.  My uncle Jake and his wife Cherry, came from Scotland, where they were living at the time, and then three of their four children and spouses and all of their children (there are a lot), and all of my grandpa Jack's family - Auntie Harriet (Jack's sister), her daughters (the twins - Andrea and Stefanie), and their families, my uncle Steve and auntie Suzie and their families and my aunt Alison and uncle Danny and my cousins Lizzy and Nathan, and all of us.  Am I forgetting anyone?  I am sure I am because it was a big dinner and we were happy to spend so much time with Grandma because we knew she wouldn't be with us long.  That was a really special Thanksgiving.  Last year's Thanksgiving was extra special for us as well because Maxie was making his debut.  He wasn't even two months old yet and he was the hit of the party.  I was able to hold him in the Baby Bjorn for a while and then he was really passed around.  He spent an extra long time in the arms of my cousin Stef's boyfriend Eric.  Maxie was content to just sleep and sleep.  Introducing my little family to my big family was so amazing.  I only wished that my grandparents had the chance to meet him.  He was special beyond words.  Yesterday there were 7 of us at Thanksgiving and 8 dogs!  My mom and Ken, her best friend Jackie and her husband Stuart, Paul, Ted and I.  The whole day felt surreal.  No family, no baby.  My heart was numb.  I tried to dwell in the numbness and just will the whole thing to pass as easily as possible.  We all brought our dogs over - we brought our 2, Paul brought his 2, Jackie and Stuart brought their 1, and my mom has got 3.  So, keeping them off the tables and out of the pool kept us somewhat busy and entertained.  I kept thinking about Maxie and that he should have been there.  My arms felt VERY empty.  I was thinking that hopefully Maxie is with our family, with Grandma Mare, and Grandpa Jack and my dear cousin Andrea and my Grandma Ann (my grandma on my dad's side who spent every Thanksgiving until she passed at my mom's house) and all of Ted's grandparents.  If he is with them, he is not as lonely as us and is getting lots of love and attention.  If he is with them, he had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I can assure you though, he belongs with us.  It was not and will not ever be the same without him.  Today, I have got a Thanksgiving "hangover" and it isn't from drinking too much wine or eating too much turkey.

Thanksgiving

I am so thankful to be Maxie's mommy.  I am so thankful to have even had the chance to spend the smallest amount of time with him.  I am so thankful to have the most loving husband, who is the most wonderful father.  I am grateful for my family - each and every one.  We are so lucky to have friends who do their best to make sure we know how much we are loved and who make an effort to keep Maxie's memory alive in their daily lives.  I am so thankful that Maxie was able to experience last Thanksgiving and so much attention and love  I am thankful to be able to carry his love and memory in my heart for the rest of my life and to hopefully be reunited with him some day for all of eternity.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Parental Grief and a SIDS Death

I am kind of tired of trying to explain the complexity of this grief that I feel.  But, I found this interesting link (and have actually found SO many over the last four months) that validates my experience not that it needs validating at all but somehow I keep finding individuals who want to challenge my experience.  This website specifically talks about the complex grief and depression that a parent feels when they lose a child: http://www.athealth.com/consumer/disorders/parentalgrief.html.  About a third down the way on the page, they specifically talk about a SIDS death.  Please take the time to read it (I have posted that piece below)  I recognize that it makes some people so uncomfortable (people who don't even know me) to know that I am depressed.  I think that speaks volumes about the society that we live in.  A society in which I should feel shame that I am so depressed over my child dying.  I have been pretty straight forward about how I feel, even writing the details of my panic attack.  I do not feel ashamed.  I think that grief is complex, that I suffer from complex grief, and that it is important not to sugar coat this experience. The last comment on my blog somehow even seemed to be aggressive in telling me that I am depressed and in saying that they hoped my therapist was skilled enough to identify this.  My therapist is skilled enough to have identified this, so rest easy.  Depression is very serious on the one hand but is also not an abnormal experience to have after a baby dies.  What follows below is the text from the link above about SIDS.  It is right on target as to how this kind of a death makes a parent feel and as to the kinds of responses we encounter:

Parental Grief And A SIDS Death


The impact of a Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) death presents unique grieving factors and raises painful psychological issues for the parents and family as well as those who love, care for, and counsel them. SIDS parents must deal with a baby's death that is unexpected and unexplained, a death that cannot be predicted or prevented, an infant death so sudden that it leaves no time for preparation or goodbyes, and no period of anticipatory grief. In many cases, parents of SIDS babies are very young and are confronted with grief for the first time.

SIDS often occurs at home, forcing parents and siblings or other children to witness a terrible tragedy and possibly scenes of intense confusion. In some cases, the parents themselves are the ones who find the child dead and they must always live with that memory. In other cases, the parents may feel overwhelming guilt or anger if the death occurred while the child was in daycare. They may feel that the baby might not have died if they had been caring for it. "All too frequently, a SIDS loss is not socially validated in the same way other deaths are. Others often fail to recognize that, despite the brevity of the child's life, the family's attachment to that child is strong and deep and has been present in various ways since the knowledge of conception" (Rando 1986,167).
SIDS parents must take a journey that "involves a trek through grief-a strange and hostile territory that no one would ever pass through if given the choice" (Horchler and Morris 1994, 17). SIDS parents often retain strong feelings of guilt and sometimes a sense of responsibility for what happened even though they've been told there was nothing they could have done to prevent the death. Sometimes, parents are the victims of undeserved suspicion from law enforcement personnel, even family members, neighbors, or friends. In the most difficult situations, the baby's death may cause parents to be subjected to grueling investigations and hostile questions; they may even face accusations of child abuse.

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Probably the most stressful and anxiety-provoking act in human existence is the separation of a woman from her newborn infant. The response to this, which humans share with most of the animal kingdom, is an overwhelming combination of panic, rage, and distress. - RUSKIN, IN HORCHLER AND MORRIS 1994,16

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SIDS parents, relatives, daycare providers, health care professionals, and other adults feel helpless in trying to explain the unexplainable to other young children who may have been present at the time of the baby's death. It is especially difficult for children to understand why a baby died when it didn't appear to be sick. Also, in some cases parents are required to explain SIDS to adults who are misinformed or know nothing about the syndrome.
Any infant or early childhood death forces adults to think about their own vulnerability, but a SIDS death also brings with it total mystery, an absence of answers, and a frightening loss of control. The chaos surrounding a SIDS death leaves most parents feeling that nothing in life is predictable; a SIDS death throws everything off balance.

As is the case in most traumatic experiences, SIDS parents are likely to continually replay the events surrounding the death over and over in their minds and in their conversations. Whether the parents put a seemingly healthy baby down for a nap or for the night or took the child to the daycare provider, they assumed their child was well and in a protected environment. They felt secure; their family and their world were in order. Then suddenly, everything has been turned upside down. Even though there may be attempts to reassure the parents that the baby didn't appear to suffer, frequently they are not convinced. They repeatedly ask, "How can a perfectly healthy baby die?" Often these parents are told that SIDS doesn't carry a high hereditary risk; yet fears about having subsequent children haunt them.

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[The grief SIDS parents feel is like a]...continuous, crashing waterfall of pain...SIDS is a forced separation that will last forever. In the beginning, survivors are so shocked that their bodies and minds cannot even begin to comprehend all that has been lost...Shock and disbelief overtake most survivors so they can only vaguely feel their own empty arms and the rage that will eventually come full force. ...SIDS parents attempt to transcend the awfulness of [the baby's] death by choosing to celebrate the dead infant's life while not denying the physical finality of the death...[After a SIDS death, parents attempt] to travel the long road of grief to a place of rest and hope...SIDS parents must [try to] actively seek peace and joy in life-even in the face of a grief that will never end... - HORCHLER AND MORRIS 1994, 2, 16, 17, 248

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SIDS parents also are very often plagued by "if only's" that they are never able to resolve. They mentally replay such thoughts as: "If only I hadn't put the child down for a nap when I did." "If only I had checked on the baby sooner." "If only I had not returned to work so soon." "If only I had taken the baby to the doctor with that slight cold."

SIDS parents also need to know the value and importance of obtaining reliable information. They need to have access to professional support; and they need to be aware of the great benefits other parents have gained from attending support groups and sharing their experience or by expressing their thoughts and feelings in writing.
Moreover, bereaved SIDS parents often find that health care professionals are as perplexed as they are and cannot provide them with any explanation for the death. Although most health professionals know about SIDS, not all can provide parents with the information they so anxiously seek. They are unable to provide answers to questions such as: "Did my baby suffer?" "What are the possible causes of SIDS?" "What can I do to prevent another child from dying of SIDS?" "Are there symptoms I should have known about that could have prevented the death?"

In the case of some SIDS deaths, the autopsy findings may still leave unanswered questions, or the child's death may be attributed to causes that are problematic for the parents. Some families are subjected to agonizing doubts and delays from the legal system about the exact cause of death. The absence of standardized procedures for determining the cause of unexpected infant deaths brings added pain and frustration to parents already in the midst of a harrowing nightmare. Thus, SIDS parents are often denied the sense of closure that comes from knowing the exact cause of their baby's death.

A single SIDS death can have a ripple effect on as many as 100 people who came in contact with the baby or the family. "The expanded circle of concern" (Corr et al. 1991, 43) can include parents, extended family, neighbors, coworkers, child care providers, health care and emergency personnel, clergy, funeral directors, and other care providers.

SIDS parents and family members need to be around people who will offer them support in a nonjudgmental way; they need to know that some things in their lives are permanent and there are certain people on whom they can truly depend. Other family members, friends, or professionals can provide this sense of dependability and assurance by allowing parents both permission and ways to express their grief and talk about their confusion. SIDS parents need to talk and they need someone to listen-really listen-even if they tell their story, express their doubts and fears, and ask the same questions repeatedly. What SIDS and other bereaved parents are really saying is, "Let me tell you about my pain; let me talk about my child with you; please do call my child by name; please do not let my child be forgotten."

Friends and family members should try to do all they can to show their concern and help the parents in keeping alive memories of their baby. For most SIDS parents, it is also reassuring for others to try to mention special things they noticed about the baby and to remember the child's birthday or the anniversary of the death. By extending these personal and sensitive gestures, loving and concerned relatives, friends, and caregivers can become a source of reassurance and comfort for the grieving parents.

Some SIDS babies are so young when they die that family members and friends never had a chance to welcome them. They may have missed sharing the parents' excitement over the birth and affirming the child's existence. Many individuals do not understand the depth of parental attachment to a very young child. Bereaved SIDS parents should not be made to feel that others don't want to hear them, that others won't permit them to openly grieve. The parents of SIDS babies want their child's short life to matter not only to them, but to their families and friends, to the others in their "circle of concern," to the world.

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The dynamics of a SIDS loss [mean]...there is no chance to say goodbye to the infant or to absorb the reality of the loss gradually over time; the unexpected loss so overwhelms people that it reduces their functioning and compromises their recovery...The physical and emotional shock of the infant's death undermines the [parents'] capacity for regaining a feeling of security; the SIDS loss evokes particularly problematic grief reactions, such as the abrupt severing of the mother and father infant bond. - RANDO 1986, 166

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I do want to explain a little bit about why I was so angry yesterday.  You see, I am very fragile.  I lost my baby.  I feel as though the whole world will come crashing in on me at every minute of every day.  And, by the way, it already did when Max died.  I have this Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is a real thing and causes me to have a running slideshow in my brain nearly all day long of my Max moments - all of the beautiful lovely ones as well as the entire 55 hours from the time that I received the call that he stopped breathing to the time when we had to take him off of the breathing machine and watch him take his last breath.  I cry every single day.  Sometimes all day long.  Sometimes less.  I have a headache, heartache and a stomach ache all day, every single day.  I feel a phantom baby sitting in my arms and if I close my eyes, I can imagine kissing his cheeks and the back of his head and nibbling on his little ears and whispering to him how much I love him - every single day.  I wake up every day sad.  Every single day.  This is a lot for me to handle myself.  I can hardly handle it at all.  I can't tell you exactly how Ted feels but what I can tell you is that he is devastated.  Max was his little boy and best friend.  He has a beautiful photo of Max in his car that used to be there to make him smile while driving but now serves as a memorial.  He has all of his own sadness and then comes home to me, which can only make him extra sad.  In spite of many people knowing this, there are still certain people who seem to want to take this opportunity to teach us a lesson - whether in self reliance, or in stepping up to the plate, or in accepting that life is tough and we should learn to grin and bear it.  If they aren't trying to teach us a lesson, they are just unwilling to adjust their approach with us just because our baby died.  Some of these people are "friends", some of these people are colleagues, a couple have been "professionals" that we have paid to help us through this crisis.  One professional told me that my grief does not serve me...as if it is a choice.  This professional has never lost anyone close to her except her own dog, so I am sure that from her perspective grief does seem like a choice.  I would dare her or anyone to find a parent who has lost a child and didn't grieve...and parents who murder their own children don't count.  I have a friend who I politely asked to try and find someone else to lean on after her dog died.  Her response was "Nah".  She wanted to continue to share everything from her life with me, even if it hurt me.  I think the lesson she wanted me to learn was that the world doesn't stop spinning because of my loss.  Or maybe it was that everyone has grief and I need to be sympathetic to others going through things.  I recently asked a colleague for help in trying to put together a plan for my future.  He told me that my strength was in the work I used to do and that I was on my own (not in those exact words but pretty close).  Perhaps to my old self, each of these examples (and plenty more) would seem like no big deal.  Just people who don't really get it or just don't want to help. No big deal, right?  I have let so very few people into my sacred space, I have been so selective about who I engage with that if I have let you in, you are among few.  I have only let people in who I think will be soothing or who I think might be able to help me in some way.  I am protecting myself because I am breaking.  The truth is that I know these people who have hurt me well enough to know that they don't "get it" and probably wouldn't be helpful or soothing.  In most cases, these people have hurt me on more than one occasion since Max died or in more than one way.  Still, what drives me out of my mind is that each of these people thinks that they were doing me a favor - by visiting with us, by teaching us a lesson, by helping me learn to be more self sufficient.  That with all of their worldly knowledge, they were teaching me something.  Or that I would be grateful that they took time out of their schedules to visit or sit down with little old me.  What they don't understand is that every day I learn a new hard lesson about life...with or without their help.  If you are worried that I haven't learned enough or that somehow my fragility is such that I can't do for myself, you can stop worrying.  I have learned enough about life for ten lifetimes.  Hate to say it, but I probably have learned more about life than you.  And I now understand that when you say "I can't imagine what you must be feeling", you really mean it.  What I am feeling is dread every morning that I wake up that I have to face another day.  What I am feeling is complete heartbreak that I will never see my child again in my lifetime.  Never Again!  What I am feeling is sorrow that my life will never be as good again and I have years of sorrow to look forward to - the whole entirety of my lifetime.  What I am feeling is shock, horror, disappointment, grief, anger, sadness, despair!  Imagine the shittiest day of your life and then imagine waking up to it every day forever.  You wouldn't want to "do lunch" on the shittiest day of your life.  You wouldn't want to listen to someone who hasn't been through what you have been through tell you how it's going to get better.  You wouldn't want someone trying to distract you by speaking in tongues or making joke after joke.  You may think that is what you would want - you wouldn't.  You would want someone to really listen to you.  You would want someone who really cared about you enough to maybe even put your needs ahead of their own, even if just for the time you spent together.  You would want help from someone who had the ability to be helpful to you.  I honestly just don't have room in my life for the people who want to teach me a lesson right now.  I need to focus on being as well as possible.  I barely have room in my life for my very nearest and dearest right now.  I love hearing from people.  I love emails and comments on the blog and even a voicemail (because I don't always pick up the phone).  But, I guess what I am saying is that  unless you have been where I have been, please try not to ignore my vulnerability and grief.  It isn't going anywhere very soon and you don't know better than I do about what I need.  Please try to be compassionate and remember that I am a mother who lost her baby and that I am sensitive and heartbroken and my spirit has been destroyed.  If you can remember to approach me with love in your heart instead of an agenda, you will find that I will love you in return.

You're so vain....

You probably think this post is about you....

I think it is important to start this post by saying that I probably am not talking about you.  Most every single person who has been close to us through the years has gone above and beyond to make sure we know how much we are loved, but, I have also found that the people who always think it is about them are the ones who keep hurting me.  I am angry today.  Just so angry.  There are people who keep letting me down.  They interact with me as if it is somehow all about them.  They reach out to me to feel good about themselves, not because they are interested in how I feel.  And, it is obvious.  I am not saying that they 100% do not care about me, I am saying, they are mostly thinking about themselves.  They want to tell me all about their kids and all about their awesome lives (which is fine) or they just want to talk about some issue that is happening at work but when I bring up Max, it becomes a battle.  They get defensive.  "I was just trying to help", they say.  Really?  The most helpful thing you can do is listen to me, is to try and understand me.  If I was longing to shoot the shit and jib jab about life, I have at least 100 people I could call (and I am grateful to those 100 people for being in my lives...and I look forward to jib jabbing with them in the future).  I am focused on my loss.  If you thought I would be able to focus on anything else, you were mistaken and I apologize.  But, I am also angry today that I NEED to apologize.  That I need to worry about whether bumping into me will be uncomfortable for you, or that when you come over you don't feel so awkward, or that you will be uncomfortable if I bring up Max.  I love my son as much as you love yours.   I am just not lucky enough to hold him in my arms.  I am not lucky enough to tell you stories about what silly thing he did yesterday.  I am not lucky enough to watch him grow up.  I am looking for support (and to be honest....I am not even really looking for it).  I don't call you up and ask you to come over (with the exception of maybe 2-3 people), I don't ask for you to help me think through a problem I am having, I don't ask you for anything really if you think about it.  But if I want anything from you, it is for you to help me get through this.  I am a lucky girl in that I have got a lot of friends.  I have a lot of close friends, from growing up, from high school, from college from post college...  I have put many of these friendships aside for the time being so that I can heal.  I don't need you in my sacred space right now.  I am figuring out how to heal with the help of my husband, my family, a few friends and some professionals.  So, I guess what I am saying is that you aren't really doing me a favor by checking in if you can't handle what you are going to hear from me.  If hearing how miserable it is to live without my son feels aggressive to you, you should probably acknowledge that you aren't capable of handling this kind of grief, and that is ok.  If you come to me asking how you can help and I ask for your help...don't act surprised.  We aren't in a battle.  I am telling you how you can help me.   If this post makes no sense to you....I am not talking to you.  Right?  Make sense?  If I tell you what I need but you would rather shoot the shit, I don't have room for you right now.  It isn't because I don't like you or because I am not being fair.  It is because I am dealing with shit you can't even imagine (and more than likely, you have repeatedly told me that you can't imagine it).  Anyway, some days I wake up angry.  Today is one of those days.

Maxie's Acid Reflux

I remember taking this picture so clearly.  Max and I had just been at Mommy and Me Yoga and we lasted about 15 minutes because he was crying through the whole thing.  I tried nursing him, rocking him, rubbing his little back - it all made him cry harder.  That was during Hanukkah of 2010.  I was still on maternity leave.  He had started crying non-stop the night before.  We left yoga and stopped at the post office on the way home so that I could send a package of a few early hand me downs to my girlfriend in France who was expecting a little boy.  She was so worried that her little boy might come early and she wouldn't have clothes for him so I put together a little package of a few things that Maxie had already outgrown.  He was less than two months old here.   I took this photo in the post office and then I posted it on Facebook and just wrote "Acid Reflux :( " on the post.  I got about 20 responses from parents who had had to endure infant reflux.  Max was miserable.  It sucked.  That night JNFuture (our young leadership group at JNF) had their Hanukkah party at the Comedy Store and it was one of the first outings without Max that Ted and I went on after Max was born.  We came home and never went to sleep that night.  My dad's family came over the next night to celebrate Hanukkah with us and Ted and I must have looked like the living dead.  We definitely felt like it.  Max spent the next 3 days and nights wailing all day and all night long.  On day 2, I joined him.  We both just cried and cried.  I remember my step mother calling one day and I just cried through the whole conversation.  There was nothing to do really until I could get to his pediatrician.  Our friend Missy had suggested at the JNFuture party that we ask for Zantac, which her little boy was on when he had infant reflux.  I asked for it.  The crying stopped.  (The pediatrician wasn't going to give it to me but I sort of insisted).  I also stopped eating dairy for about 5-6 months because several mommies had suggested that a dairy intolerance might be causing the reflux.  During that time, Ted and I discovered the joys of overpriced Almond ice milk "ice cream", which was actually delicious.  I also ate a lot of imitation sour cream and cream cheese and put almond milk in my cereal and coffee.  Yum.  This was the one real rough patch we had with Max.  I had acid reflux in my third trimester with Max.  It sucked.  Bad.  It broke my heart thinking about his teeny tiny little body and him having to deal with acid shooting up his teeny tiny little esophagus.  Poor baby.  The medicine did the trick though.  After about a day of the Zantac and every day after that, we had a very happy baby.

Cautious

I am overly cautious.  I don't like to be at home with the doors unlocked...even in the middle of the day.  I don't like leaving the dogs in the car while I run a quick errand, even with the windows rolled down and parked in the shade (they are so pretty, I don't want to tempt the dog nappers).  I like to follow rules.  If I am told that I need to process things at work in a certain way, I don't like to be told that there are exceptions.  I don't like cutting in line.   I get nervous asking people on the airplane to switch seats.  I like to be on time, so much so that people make fun of me.  I once showed up at my friend Molly's birthday party a week early.  If I have ever been late with you, it has been a fluke.  Lateness makes me crazy.  When I was pregnant with Max, I read every book you could get your hands on.  I made sure not to eat things that I was not supposed to eat.  People said it was ok to drink wine, I think I had about 4 glasses throughout the pregnancy and felt weird and guilty each time.  I took my vitamins every single day.  I started looking at daycares in my second trimester.  When Max was born, I watched all of the videos about Happiest Babies on the Planet and Sign Language and Making Music with Baby and Baby Massage.  I even watched a video about how to give a baby a bath. That was where I learned to keep a warm washcloth on Max's chest so he wouldn't get chilly.  I teased my daycare that I stalked them during my maternity leave...but it wasn't really a joke.  I googled them, I called the licensing facilities, I strolled Max by the house nearly every single day.  I read Baby 911 for leisure.  I wasn't even looking up potential issues or questions.  I was reading it like a book, chapter by chapter and then going back to read it again.  I worried that someone might forget that frozen breastmilk should be warmed in a bowl of warm water and should never be put in the microwave because of the hotspots that could burn a baby's mouth.  I worried that Max's room might get too warm or cold and checked the temperature obsessively. I am the one who brought up Max's plagiocephaly (flat head) with my pediatrician, not the other way around.  I lingered when I dropped Max off at daycare and I lingered when I picked him up.

I let my guard down.  How could I possibly be next to him every single minute of every single day?  How could I and yet, I can't imagine how I could ever leave another baby's side again.  How will I go to the bathroom let alone go to sleep?  I failed my baby by not being there watch over him.  In what kind of a world do we go through a whole lifetime of planning for children, carrying this baby for 9 months, paying attention to everything we consume for the best possible outcome, birth the baby (no easy feat), breastfeed, care for, love, adore, kiss, be all-consumed with...and then just hand our own flesh and blood off to another person?  I mean, I know where we do this...here.  We all do it.  I should have been with my boy and I am not saying that I know what would have happened if he was with me that day.  In my gut, I feel he would be here with us today.  I am not blaming anyone but myself.  I failed my little baby.  I failed our greatest love.  I should have been with him.  All of those years of caution just thrown to the wind, like anything that I ever worried about before Max ever mattered.  None of it did.

Don't give me what I can handle because I cannot handle it!

Someone gave me a copy of the book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" at Max's shiva.  I was so mad at g-d, I was really interested to read what possible explanation there could be for what happened to Max, the BEST of the "good people".  I read a few pages and realized quickly that this book was going to let g-d off the hook!  Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote the book to ensure that we don't blame g-d.  The whole premise of the book was to say that the bad things that happen, don't happen because of g-d, but in spite of g-d.  Sorry.  That is a hard pill for me to swallow.  I have got a lot of blame for g-d.  (Notice, I am back to writing his name in the Jewish way.  I am a flip flopper).  No way was I going to read that book!  Absolutely not.  For some reason, this happened to Max and Ted and I and not to some asshole.  In fact, when I meet the mothers (only because I haven't met any SIDS fathers yet) or read the blogs of parents whose children have died, I am astounded to find that the second thing we all have in common is how devoted we all were as parents....even Rabbi Kushner!  It is as if the good people are at a higher risk than the crack heads.  WTF G-D????!!!!  I just had coffee with my neighbor Melissa, whose daughter died of SIDS.  She is the most lovely person you could ever hope to meet.  She is sweet, a devoted wife, smart, a totally devoted mother.....she is a wonderful person.  Need I remind anyone that she GAVE ME HER JOURNAL!?  Most people cannot say, "I am so sorry about Max".  Hell, most people cannot say "Max".  But this woman gave me her journal.  Granted, she has suffered my loss so she doesn't have to feel weird around me.  But, that is BEYOND the call of duty - as there is no actual call of duty.  Just because you have lost a child doesn't actually mean that you have to reach out to other people who have.  So, why Melissa?  Why her daughter Marley?  Why the Spohrs? Why me?  Why Ted?  Why Maxie?  Sorry, I am still mad at g-d.  At Max's shiva, a few people (of course) let me know that "G-d doesn't give you anything that you can't handle".  What an asinine thing to say to a grieving parent.  If you learn nothing else from this blog, please learn that you should never say that to anyone.  Even if there is a small percentage of people who actually feel better hearing this, most people DO NOT want to hear this and so you will be better off just saying, "I am so sorry about Max (or whoever you are sorry about)".  Did Max die because G-d decided that Ted and I were SO strong?  F*@# that!  Seriously?  Another blogging mom posted a photo of an art piece she found that said "God doesn't give us what we can handle.  God helps us to handle what we are given".  As a response to the stupidest platitude known to a griever (aka - g-d only gives you what you can handle), I like this.  But, as the premise of a book (When Bad Things Happen to Good People), I do not.  G-d should know better than to end the lives of BABIES!  He/She is G-D afterall!  Perhaps I could buy the whole argument of G-d putting us on earth and giving us free will and that when we are evil or neglectful or bad to our own bodies that there might be murders or injuries or diseases that result.  It doesn't make it right, but at least I could rationalize it.  But, when a perfectly decent and GOOD person becomes ill with disease or dies instantly - What The F*@#!?   I have a beautiful cousin with a devoted husband, and a little boy who died after fighting a long battle with cancer several years ago.  She was funny and warm and smart and a mother!  I do not let g-d off the hook!  I have two relatives with cancer right now - they are mothers, they have both lost too much already (a twin and a husband), they are important and wonderful and necessary on this earth!  I do not let g-d off the hook for them either.  I was hoping to find some meaning, as all grievers hope to find.  And, I suppose it is my own fault for not fully giving myself to religion early in life.  If I just BELIEVED, then I could find comfort in g-d.  But, I can't even tell you if Judaism believes in an afterlife.  I really don't think Jews believe in heaven.  And, if they do, they don't talk about it like the Christians do.  If you are Christian then you believe that you just do good on earth and then you go to heaven.  If you are Jewish, you believe that you do good, not because you will be rewarded but because doing good is the RIGHT thing to do.  Maybe we need some more bribes.  When the sky falls in on you, it is hard not to get a little selfish and wonder (or at least I am wondering), "why the hell did I focus on doing good?  where the hell did this get me?".  And, I am not saying I am a "good" person.  But, what I can confidently say is that I have DONE GOOD.  I have campaigned for affordable housing, senior care, equal rights, I have catalogued the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, I have spent countless hours volunteering on numerous projects, I give money to many charities every year (supporting Israel, supporting water projects in Africa, supporting children, supporting gorillas, supporting public radio, supporting cancer research, supporting wildlife.....), I spent two years organizing, educating and raising awareness around the genocide in Darfur (and so I KNOW that g-d is unjust because these people have been murdered and raped for living in rural villages and minding their own business).  Again, it isn't that I think I am a saint (you can go back and read about all of the stupid and "bad" stuff I have done as well in one of my original posts....and it isn't even a complete listing), but I have done good.  I have done right by my Jewish faith.  Can someone please tell me what it is that I am missing?  What I always loved about Judaism is that we weren't doing good just to be rewarded.  It wasn't about earning the prize.  Judaism seemed like a model for the way I would want to raise my children - to be good people, not so that they could earn a piece of candy or a toy, but so that they would feel good about themselves that they were doing good.  But, as a parent I certainly would never kick my kid in the face after they did a good deed.  (Obviously, I wouldn't kick my kid if they did a bad thing either but I am using the example for emphasis).  Why did g-d choose to kick us in the face?  If you know the story of Job in the Old Testament, you know that we are taught that G-d does sometimes kick a good person in the face.  In fact Job was the best of the best and G-d took everything from him (including his wife and children) on a bet.  It has been four months today since Max stopped breathing at day care.  I have no more answers today than I did four months ago.  It is still very early in the grieving process for us (especially considering it is a life long process).  I often think that my days of being good might be over.  I have been trying to convince Ted that we should rob a bank.  I mean, why the hell not really?  Upside - we get a whole bunch of money.  Downside - we go to prison or get shot.  Seems like now is the time to take this risk.  If not a bank, then maybe a convenient store or something. Yes? No? Thoughts?  I know what you are thinking because I am thinking it too.  A person who might be prone to panic attacks may not be the best candidate for a new career as a bank robber.  I'll see if I can get those under control first and then come back to this plan.  In the meantime, I am looking for some answers over here and not getting much.  If you think you can help a sister out, I am all ears.