I remember only bits and pieces of the long drive home from the city. It had been 24 hours. Only 24 hours since my world was shattered beyond repair. My husband and I were in the car, loaded with all of Cam's belongings from the hospital and an empty car seat, struggling to maintain any ounce of composure I had left. I felt empty and felt a longing for my son. I felt like there was a bungee cord attached to me that was trying to pull me back to the room in which he died. To bring me back to June and start the whole process over again. I didn't want to see my child suffering anymore. I just wanted to see him. To touch him. To hear his voice. To see him happy and smiling again. To hold him in my arms. To keep him safe. Somewhere along that two hour drive, the bungee cord snapped. I snapped. I felt like I had truly lost him and that I was leaving him behind.
It was hard. It had only been 24 hours. I sat in the passenger seat, quiet, trying to understand. I couldn't. In some ways, nearly 20 weeks later, I still can't. I sat, with my hands folded tightly in my lap, wondering how I was supposed to go on living without the person who made my life whole. Who gave me my purpose. Who I had spent the last 4.5 years loving, caring for, teaching and raising. As a mom, I had forgotten who I was as a person. I had spent so long being a wife and a mom and I forgot how to be me. Without my Cam, I felt lost. His death had left an incredible hole that I feared would never be filled. While I sat, holding my own hands in some attempt to comfort myself, I relived the previous day, wondering what I could have done differently, if I was able to comfort and reassure my son, if he felt how much he was loved by both of his parents. I thought about how badly I wanted to be with him again, how desperately I needed my son. I felt like there was no way I could go on without him. I had lost my purpose.
At some point during our long drive home my husband broke our silence. He said, "Do you want to have another?" I immediately said yes. And then immediately wished I hadn't. As soon as the word left my mouth, I saw Cam's life flash before me. I saw him at birth, growing as a baby, learning to walk, his smiles, his laughs, his playfulness. I immediately felt like having another would make Cam feel like we were replacing him. Like his life and death meant nothing. Like we could start over as if he never existed. I didn't say anything aloud because as soon as I said yes, my husband's face softened. I sat next to him and chatted about the possibility of having a new baby and the joy a new baby would (hopefully) bring to us. At no point did we discuss when and if we should start "trying." There was no rule book on timelines. We had to be focused on trying to move on with life in a positive way, a way to honor Cam's memory.
December 6th. Only 32 days after Cam passed away. My husband and I were both back to work, trying to navigate our "normal" daily routines mixed with our grief and emotions. Our had become eerily quiet and neither of us knew what to do there anymore. That night, on the 6th, something told me I should take a home pregnancy test. I don't know what made me do it. I took a home pregnancy test and it said "pregnant: 2-3 weeks." I dropped the test on the floor and stared at it in complete shock. I couldn't believe it had happened so soon. And I didn't know how I felt about it. I called my husband at work and told him. He was equally as shocked but I could tell he was excited. I could hear the smile when he talked to me. It crushed me.
A baby is supposed to be a happy thing. A positive thing. But in the initial days and weeks of my pregnancy, I felt remorse, guilt and regret. I felt like I was being pulled in so many different directions. I was missing my son. Missing everything he was. And I was regretting that I was pregnant. I wanted my first pregnancy to be my only one. To have it be something special that was just for Cam. I didn't want to go through it again. I felt guilty. How does a mother get pregnant so soon after losing her only child? How could I possibly do that to him? How would he have felt about it? Did he think I was trying to replace him and forget about him? I spent so many nights crying. Crying because I felt like I was betraying my child and crying because a small part of me wanted this baby. And crying because Cam used to ask if Mommy would have a baby in her belly again. The answer had always been no, that when he was born he was everything we wanted and our little family was complete. I cried because I felt like I had lied to him. I cried because I will never get to see what he would have been like as a big brother.
As with any pregnancy, my emotions have been all over the place.
Sometimes uncontrollable. I have been struggling to come
to terms with my feelings towards this pregnancy. Somehow, I finally started to feel positive. I started to feel like this is ok. That Cam would be happy. That he wouldn't feel like we were replacing him. Deep down I know and understand that no one can ever replace him but it took a long time to remind myself of that. I still worry all the time. I worry that I will miscarry or end of having a premature delivery. I worry that this baby will have cancer. I have nightmares of going through it all over again. Logically I know it is highly unlikely, but I worry. The farther along I am in this pregnancy, the more I become comfortable with it. I still have days where I felt guilty or regretful but not nearly as often.
We're now 19 weeks in to this pregnancy. We have been fortunate enough to have a few ultrasounds and have been able to see baby moving. We have seen and heard the heartbeat (which makes us breathe a sigh of relief every time). I have been feeling wonderful movements and my husband is starting to be able to feel them as well. Aside from a lot of morning sickness, we have been very fortunate to have a healthy pregnancy thus far and to know we are growing a very healthy baby. We wonder what this baby will look like, if it will have similar features to Cam's, what the personality will be like. As bittersweet as this experience is for us, we know this baby is truly as blessing. We feel this baby is a gift from Cam. His way of telling us we were meant to be parents and that he wants us to keep going. It is his way of giving us back our purpose. Our beautiful family of three will become a family of four this summer. And this new baby has the gift of having the strongest guardian angel.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Thursday, March 9, 2017
As one life ends...
I keep going back in my mind to the day we took our son to the children's hospital. To the day we got his cancer diagnosis, to the day he started chemo, the day he started radiation, the day the oncologist said chemotherapy was no longer an option. All of these days and events play over and over in my head like a horror movie or a bad dream. These days have been playing over and over in my mind for months on end. And one day, one horrific day, plays the most.
Friday, November 4, 2016. Our son, named Cameron by the way (I realized I have never shared his name before), woke up screaming at 3 am. He had been having a really tough few weeks, spending 18 days in the ICU with a fungal pneumonia and being hooked up to oxygen and a c-pap machine. Most nights he woke up crying because he hated the mask. This was the same in the early hours of November 4th. Cam woke up, crying and screaming about his mask. Nurses came in to help us figure out how to help him feel better. Because he was on constant oxygen, he was also hooked up to a machine that read his heart rate and blood oxygen levels. This machine kept beeping. His heart rate kept rising and his oxygen levels kept lowering. The nurses kept raising the oxygen levels, giving medications to help his heart rate and to help his pain control. No one slept that night and Cam was scared. By 9 am, after six straight hours of trying to get the situation under control, the doctors and nurses came in to talk to me. They told me what I already feared. That they were out of options to try to save him and my son was dying.
Those words hit like a tun of bricks. My son, my beautiful sweet Cameron, was running out of time. In this moment, his whole life flashed before me. I saw his first smile, saw him say "mama" and "dada" for the first time, saw him walk and play. I saw him showing his father every autobot ever made and teach him how each one worked. I saw him loving his family and friends. I saw him being incredibly strong for each poke, each test, each chemo treatment and each radiation. I saw him, so wise beyond his years, laying next to me in the bed. I asked him if he was scared and he nodded. My heart broke. I tried so hard to find a way to take his fear away from him. The only thing I could come up with, while holding back my own fear and tears, was to pick him up and hold him. I asked him if I could and he nodded. I carefully picked up my sweet 4 year old and held him. I held him and rocked him and talked to him. I told him how much Mommy and Daddy loved him. How proud and honored we were to be his parents. How incredibly brave and strong he was throughout his five month battle with cancer. How much we would miss him but promised that we would someday be ok. I told him it was ok to let go. That he'd done everything he was put on this beautiful earth to do. I held him, and rocked him and loved him with everything I had. I kissed his beautiful bald head, held on to his hand and tried to sing him our song as he slowly closed his eyes. At 11:30 am, on November 4th, our son took his last breath in my arms.
The days that followed are a bit of a blur. Our families had flown or driven into town to support us. We held a visitation and funeral. We had our baby cremated. We waited so impatiently to be able to bring him home. Being a military family, we couldn't bear the idea of burying him and leaving him behind when the next posting message arrived. So we brought him home. It felt right to keep him home with us. Somehow it took a small amount of the pain away. My husband and I (with the help of my mom and stepdad) cleaned up all of Cam's toys and home school things. We carefully packed everything in boxes to be stored. Packing up the things that brought him so much joy and gave him such an imaginative outlet felt impossible. How do you take all of these physical reminders of your child and pack them away? But we didn't know what else to do.
Tomorrow it will be 18 weeks (126 days) since our Cam passed away. We have tried to move on with life and honor our son as best we can. We talk about him to anyone who who will listen. We look at his photos and watch his videos. We sit in his room (which was left untouched) and talk to him. We search everyday for signs that he may be here with us in some spiritual way. We have cried, we have yelled, we have wondered why this had to happen to our son, to us, to our family. We have asked ourselves how we could have caught the tumor sooner, what we could have done differently with the treatment. We have questioned our parenting and our time spent with our son. We have blamed ourselves for what happened to our child. We have begged ourselves and each other for forgiveness for something that was completely out of our control.
One of my coworkers recently asked me what the hardest part of this is. At the time, I told her it was grief coming in waves. Coming when we would least expect it. Since she asked me, I have been thinking it over. The waves of grief are hard, yes. But the pain of knowing my son is gone and I will never get to hear his voice, hold his hand or play with him again is harder. Knowing the my son will be forever 4 years old is harder. Never getting to watch him grow up and become a pilot. Wondering what he would have been like in school, who his friends would have been, what activities he would have chosen to be involved in is harder. Never getting to see him graduate from high school, fall in love, get married and become a father is harder. Knowing that his life is forever frozen, 4 short years after it began.
Mommy and Daddy love you Cam- to the moon and back and all the stars.
Friday, November 4, 2016. Our son, named Cameron by the way (I realized I have never shared his name before), woke up screaming at 3 am. He had been having a really tough few weeks, spending 18 days in the ICU with a fungal pneumonia and being hooked up to oxygen and a c-pap machine. Most nights he woke up crying because he hated the mask. This was the same in the early hours of November 4th. Cam woke up, crying and screaming about his mask. Nurses came in to help us figure out how to help him feel better. Because he was on constant oxygen, he was also hooked up to a machine that read his heart rate and blood oxygen levels. This machine kept beeping. His heart rate kept rising and his oxygen levels kept lowering. The nurses kept raising the oxygen levels, giving medications to help his heart rate and to help his pain control. No one slept that night and Cam was scared. By 9 am, after six straight hours of trying to get the situation under control, the doctors and nurses came in to talk to me. They told me what I already feared. That they were out of options to try to save him and my son was dying.
Those words hit like a tun of bricks. My son, my beautiful sweet Cameron, was running out of time. In this moment, his whole life flashed before me. I saw his first smile, saw him say "mama" and "dada" for the first time, saw him walk and play. I saw him showing his father every autobot ever made and teach him how each one worked. I saw him loving his family and friends. I saw him being incredibly strong for each poke, each test, each chemo treatment and each radiation. I saw him, so wise beyond his years, laying next to me in the bed. I asked him if he was scared and he nodded. My heart broke. I tried so hard to find a way to take his fear away from him. The only thing I could come up with, while holding back my own fear and tears, was to pick him up and hold him. I asked him if I could and he nodded. I carefully picked up my sweet 4 year old and held him. I held him and rocked him and talked to him. I told him how much Mommy and Daddy loved him. How proud and honored we were to be his parents. How incredibly brave and strong he was throughout his five month battle with cancer. How much we would miss him but promised that we would someday be ok. I told him it was ok to let go. That he'd done everything he was put on this beautiful earth to do. I held him, and rocked him and loved him with everything I had. I kissed his beautiful bald head, held on to his hand and tried to sing him our song as he slowly closed his eyes. At 11:30 am, on November 4th, our son took his last breath in my arms.
The days that followed are a bit of a blur. Our families had flown or driven into town to support us. We held a visitation and funeral. We had our baby cremated. We waited so impatiently to be able to bring him home. Being a military family, we couldn't bear the idea of burying him and leaving him behind when the next posting message arrived. So we brought him home. It felt right to keep him home with us. Somehow it took a small amount of the pain away. My husband and I (with the help of my mom and stepdad) cleaned up all of Cam's toys and home school things. We carefully packed everything in boxes to be stored. Packing up the things that brought him so much joy and gave him such an imaginative outlet felt impossible. How do you take all of these physical reminders of your child and pack them away? But we didn't know what else to do.
Tomorrow it will be 18 weeks (126 days) since our Cam passed away. We have tried to move on with life and honor our son as best we can. We talk about him to anyone who who will listen. We look at his photos and watch his videos. We sit in his room (which was left untouched) and talk to him. We search everyday for signs that he may be here with us in some spiritual way. We have cried, we have yelled, we have wondered why this had to happen to our son, to us, to our family. We have asked ourselves how we could have caught the tumor sooner, what we could have done differently with the treatment. We have questioned our parenting and our time spent with our son. We have blamed ourselves for what happened to our child. We have begged ourselves and each other for forgiveness for something that was completely out of our control.
One of my coworkers recently asked me what the hardest part of this is. At the time, I told her it was grief coming in waves. Coming when we would least expect it. Since she asked me, I have been thinking it over. The waves of grief are hard, yes. But the pain of knowing my son is gone and I will never get to hear his voice, hold his hand or play with him again is harder. Knowing the my son will be forever 4 years old is harder. Never getting to watch him grow up and become a pilot. Wondering what he would have been like in school, who his friends would have been, what activities he would have chosen to be involved in is harder. Never getting to see him graduate from high school, fall in love, get married and become a father is harder. Knowing that his life is forever frozen, 4 short years after it began.
Mommy and Daddy love you Cam- to the moon and back and all the stars.
Cameron
February 16, 2012- November 4, 2016
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