Before and After

Before Clara died, the idea of losing her or Nathan or Isabel was unbearable. After Clara died, I learned that I could live through it even though it hurts more than anything.
Before Clara died, I never knew just how much a person could handle at once. After Clara died, I realized that we are all so much stronger than we would ever believe.

It's been 6 days since we found out our very much wanted daughter was gone. It feels like a blink of an eye. Time seems to be on fast forward and is taking me farther from my memories of her, and farther from the last time I held her in my arms or touched her little face. I just want to hold her forever and my arms ache in the emptiness that she left.

People tell me that they don't know how I can do this, that they could never go through it, that I must be strong, and although I might be strong, I could only do it because there was no other choice. As I told my sister, I found out my daughter had died, I delivered her without an epideral, had a placenta torn out of me, had emergency surgery, left my precious baby at the hospital, planned her funeral, buried her. Yeah, I can freaking do anything now! I also had a huge support system surrounding me every step of the way. My family, friends, wonderful nurses, and my wonderful husband. My husband was there through everything and in some ways, dealt with more than I had to. He lost his baby, and then had to go through the fear of possibly losing his wife. He had to take emotional control of so much. He had to be my emotional support while dealing with his own grief and fear. He was my guard, Clara's guard, Nathan and Isabel's guard. While I was physically unable to hold my baby or even look at her, he made sure that she was ok. He made sure that the nurses and anyone who interacted with her were gentle and careful, and they were. Everytime he left the hospital room, he was met with happy and proud new dads, taking their new babies to get their first baths. He smiled back at them while inside he was heartbroken because his daughter lay silent and still in her room. He took care of so much. I appreciate everything that he did, but I am not surprised. That is my husband.

People ask how we're doing, and I don't really know how to answer that. In some ways we are doing ok, and in others, we are not, but we will be someday. We are all dealing with our grief, and it comes in waves. Sometimes we feel almost normal and other times it feels like the pain of losing Clara will engulf everything and the thought of living on without her is unimaginable. I keep feeling panicked that I lost something or forgot something, and then remember what I lost. I hate waking up in the morning. It just means one more day without Clara. I don't want to do anything but I go through the motions because I know I need to and I know that my family needs me. Ken is heartbroken and is missing his little dragon like crazy. He got to spend the most time with her after she was born and I know that means so much to him. He carried her little casket to her gravesite with Nathan walking beside them, and told me that, "you carried her into this world, and I got to carry her out". Nathan is having a really hard time and I worry about him. He is a very internal person and already tries to carry everyone else's problems, and I know he has tried to protect everyone that he sees hurting while really hurting himself. He seems very angry and won't talk about it hardly at all. Every once in awhile, he will say something about missing Clara, but not often. We are encouraging him to talk about it while trying not to pester him. We got him a book that will hopefully help him deal with his grief. He seems very distant and then very clingy. We're just trying to spend quality time with him when he is willing. Little things upset him and bring on tears that he tries to hide. It's hard for him. He had plans on how he was going to take care of his baby sister that were suddenly stolen from him. Isabel seems to be dealing with her grief ok. She misses her sister. She was so looking forward to being a big sister and could not wait for Clara to be born and I think she feels a little lost that that was suddenly taken from her. She is very adamant that she IS a big sister and we tell her that she definitely is. We found her "I'm a big brother" book (she never had an I'm a Big Sister book) on the couch yesterday with a couple of used tissues. She had been looking at the book and crying, poor babe. I am going to make her a special I'm a Big Sister book. That way she can read HER book about HER sister. She's acted out a little and has thrown a couple of tantrums, which is VERY unlike Bella EVER, and will talk baby talk sometimes. She is dealing with it well overall though.

Physically I am getting better. I get frustrated at the slow pace at times however. I get tired really easy and can't venture too far yet, but I am getting stronger. I can now walk up the stairs without my heart pounding all of the time. My legs still burn when I go up the stairs or walk too much, but I think that will end soon. It's hard to lift things and although I've never been really strong in my arms, I am a weakling at the moment. My throat is only a tiny bit sore from being intubated, and I've had a little cough since then that I think is probably from irritation, but that's getting better too. My muscles aren't sore anymore, so that is good. Apparently, they aren't soft with you when they need to get you fixed up in a hurry! But I would rather have some residual aches and pains and be here then have had something really bad happen.

I created this blog to talk about how we are coping with Clara's loss. I'm hoping it will be beneficial to our healing and I hope that someday we will look back and see how far we've come. I also want to share Clara and have a place to talk about her no matter what those feelings might be. I love my beautiful butterfly and miss her so very much.