Self Care

Part of my survival through the loss of yet another sweet baby is my own self care.

I chose my exposure to things which might trigger feelings of loss, or make me think of my doll baby Lainey Katherine.

That has been relatively easy to do.  I've hidden friends with small babies, friends who are pregnant from my Facebook feed.  Since I am in Young Women's at church I am not exposed too much to other women, pregnant, or with little babies, but at work, that has been problematic.

I work in a Machine Shop (a story for another day)  with 7 men.  It's attached to a family race shop, so Brothers and Sister working together daily, neat to watch.

A few months after I started one of the machinists came in announcing that his girlfriend is pregnant.

My heart just sank.  I can't get away from this, from hearing about it, I was so sick inside.
The Father had only dated the Mother for 3 weeks, when she got pregnant, so not a long committed relationship and here comes a baby.  I could hear talk about it and kept myself out of the loop of it all. Then today the opportunity presented itself today, to tell him about my baby.

Ordinarily I don't do such a thing with pregnant folks, that tends to go bad, but it was the perfect chance and I took it.

I asked him, "Did you know I had a baby girl in the fall?"  He was shocked, "No, I didn't know that".
I explained after 24 years of marriage, while on birth control, we discovered I was pregnant and we found out almost immediately that Lainey had a life limiting condition".

Right away he spoke up about how he knows others that have gone through similar things with cord accidents...said it was such a miracle, that so many things can go wrong...

I told him about T18 and explained the difference between T21, told him we were willing to do what God had in store, bring her home or bury her...I showed him a picture of her sweet face.

It felt good to share my littlest girl with him if only for a minute.  I am hopeful that he'll be considerate when talking about his new baby, sleepless nights and the expense of diapers...

I just needed him to know, I am prayerful that he will be sensitive, know that I am still grieving, hormonal, still losing my hair, that I still ache for my daughter and that maybe I can't fulling engage in conversation about his infant son.  

I'm glad he was receptive and it was a good conversation, so relieved it's over.