My New Normal

Nothing’s been the same since losing Gabriel.  I’ve worried about Zoe since we found out we were pregnant.  I had miscarried a few months before then and I was so afraid of losing another baby.  All was well when we finally had the ultrasound that showed that my fluid level was fine and that she was developing normally.  Or so I thought.  Turns out I just found more things to be worried about once she was born. 

It hasn’t helped that her weight and her development have, at times, been a concern for others as well.  She had to see a specialist in Rockville due to tremors, but was dismissed after two visits and I was told she was just “easily excited.”  Now she’s nine months old and still not crawling.  People ask me all the time if she’s crawling yet.  No, people.  No. 

I was feeling really discouraged after her last well visit when she wasn’t doing most of the things the doctor asked me about, but, sure enough, she started doing most of them soon after that.  She can wave, give kisses, feed herself cereal, pull to stand (with some assistance) and is cruising very slowly along furniture.  And, yes, I do feel like calling the doctor’s office to have them add all of this to her official medical chart, ha!

I’m learning, slowly but surely, that she is her own little person, with her own timeline of when she’s going to do things.  But, then it happened.  I found one more thing to be worried about.

This morning, she was really sleeping late.  Later than usual.  As the minutes ticked away I imagined myself going upstairs to check on her, wake her up, etc.  I calmed myself and decided I’d let my angel sleep.  And then it occurred to me – Did I ever turn the baby monitor back on from yesterday??

Yep.  She’s fine.  She’s actually very awake and talking away - probably about the latest baby gossip.  Whew!! 

I know it will get easier, but for all you amazing mommas who have experienced loss, this is just our “new normal.”  For more insight, read this poem below…  (And, I’m happy to say I no longer feel most of these, now that it’s been almost three years!)

The “New Normal” – Author Unknown

Normal is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone
important is missing from all the important events in your family's life.

Normal for me is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Birthdays
Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Valentine's Day, July 4th and Easter.

Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a
funeral than a wedding or birthday party...yet feeling a stab of pain in your
heart when you smell the flowers and see the casket.

Normal is feeling like you can't sit another minute without getting up and
screaming, because you just don't like to sit through anything.

Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand what if's & why didn't I's
go through your head constantly.

Normal is reliving that day continuously through your eyes and mind, holding
your head to make it go away.

Normal is having the TV on the minute I walk into the house to have noise,
because the silence is deafening.

Normal is staring at every baby who looks like he is my baby's age. And then
thinking of the age they would be now and not being able to imagine it. Then
wondering why it is even important to imagine it, because it will never
happen.

Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness
lurking close behind, because of the hole in my heart.

Normal is telling the story of your child's death as if it were an everyday,
commonplace activity, and then seeing the horror in someone's eyes at how
awful it sounds. And yet realizing it has become a part of my "normal".

Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your
child's memory and their birthday and survive these days. And trying to find
the balloon or flag that fit's the occasion. Happy Birthday? Not really.

Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special
my baby loved. Thinking how he would love it, but how he is not here to enjoy
it.

Normal is having some people afraid to mention my baby.

Normal is making sure that others remember them.

Normal is after the funeral is over everyone else goes on with their lives,
but we continue to grieve our loss forever.

Normal is weeks, months, and years after the initial shock, the grieving gets
worse sometimes, not better.

Normal is not listening to people compare anything in their life to this loss,
unless they too have lost a child. NOTHING. Even if your child is in the
remotest part of the earth away from you - it doesn't compare. Losing a parent
is horrible, but having to bury your own child is unnatural.

Normal is taking pills, and trying not to cry all day, because I know my
mental health depends on it.

Normal is realizing I do cry every day.

Normal is disliking jokes about death or funerals, bodies being referred to as
cadavers, when you know they were once someone's loved one.

Normal is being impatient with everything and everyone, except someone stricken
with grief over the loss of your child.

Normal is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat
buddies who have also lost a child.

Normal is feeling a common bond with friends on the computer in England,
Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and all over the USA, but yet never having
met any of them face to face.

Normal is a new friendship with another grieving mother, talking and crying
together over our children and our new lives.

Normal is not listening to people make excuses for God. "God may have done
this because..." I love God, I know that my baby is in heaven, but hearing
people trying to think up excuses as to why healthy babies were taken from
this earth is not appreciated and makes absolutely no sense to this grieving
mother.

Normal is being too tired to care if you paid the bills, cleaned the house,
did laundry or if there is any food.

Normal is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have two
children or one, because you will never see this person again and it is not
worth explaining that my baby is in heaven. And yet when you say you have 1
child to avoid that problem, you feel horrible as if you have betrayed your
baby.

Normal is asking God why he took your child's life instead of yours.

Normal is knowing I will never get over this loss, in a day or a million
years.  And last of all,

Normal is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you to feel, so
that everyone around you will think that you are "normal.”