Nine Months: Remembering

It has been nine months. Three-quarters of one year. More than half of the time that Hudson was alive. That is probably the most shocking thing of all. She has been gone for more than half the time that she was here. One of these days in the frighteningly not-too-distant future, in less time than has already passed, she will have been gone longer than she was here. She has been gone for such a very, very, very long time already.

Last February was full of some of our favorite memories with Hudson. There was the massive blizzard in DC, which I’ve already written about, during which we learned that our girl was a true snow-lover. There was the UNC-Dook game, the traditions of which she fully embraced, even though she had no idea what they meant (but she would have learned soon enough). And then a few weeks later, when we were still digging out of the last remnants of the snow, Hudson’s Grandma and Grandpa came to visit from North Carolina for a weekend.

What a day we had out on the town. We didn’t let a little cold and snow get us down.  Grandpa and Daddy took turns with her in the backpack and we were unstoppable.  Well, with the one exception being that we didn’t have any mittens for her (not that she’d have kept the little toddler mittens on) and it was really cold. We brainstormed about what to do and were almost about to stop at one of the tourist gift trucks on Constitution Avenue to buy some socks (which we’d learned during the snow were highly resistant to removal by a toddler) when Ed said she could just wear his gloves. Hence this silly look. But hey, whatever works.

 

We started the day at the National Building Museum, one of my favorite places to take Hudson. The building itself is beautiful, with a massive atrium forming its center, perfect for little ones to run around with wild abandon. In the middle of the atrium is a fountain, so any time spent running around the atrium also meant keeping her from running straight into the fountain, which I have no doubt she would have done if given the chance. She was fascinated with it. The real attraction of the Building Museum for kids, though, is the Building Zone, a small room off the center atrium full of toys to construct things with. There are cardboard bricks, bean bags, bags full of scrap fabric, a toy house, Tinker Toys, wooden blocks, large stuffed blocks that kids can stack high and then knock over or fall into, and many more. There’s also a kid-sized house with a kid-sized door and kid-sized windows and kid-sized windows chairs that little ones can explore. The Building Zone was always a favorite with Hudson.

Unfortunately for us, on this particular day, the Building Museum was hosting some sort of science and engineering expo for middle schoolers, so the Building Zone was closed and the atrium was packed with people and displays. Did that stop Hudson? What do you think? No way. As soon as we put her on the floor, she was off. I used to worry that she had so little fear—she’d just take off not even knowing if we were behind her. And when we went after her, she just tried to go faster. Miss Independent. That’s exactly what she looks like in these pictures.

Since the Building Museum was a bust, we headed to the Museum of Natural History instead. The mammal room was always a hit with Hudson. So many of her favorite animals were there, including some massive lions, in front of which she was always eager to stop and practice her signature “RAWR!”

Once she’d had her fill of the Museum of Natural History, we headed across the street to the ice skating rink in the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery and stopped to watch the skaters for a bit.

Then we happened to see the carousel on the other side of the mall. Somehow we’d never really noticed this before, and we were surprised to see it open in the winter. Hudson had been on a carousel once before, but it was inside a suburban mall and wasn’t nearly so grand as the one on the National Mall. Grandma and Grandpa decided they had to take her. Very few people were in line for the carousel in the middle of February, so we didn’t have to wait, and there were probably only one or two other kids on the ride. Grandma and Grandpa loaded her up on the best “horse” of the carousel, a beautiful dragon seemingly colored just for her. Her daddy tried hard to catch a good photo of her each time they came back around to our side, and her Grandpa kept trying to get her to wave at Daddy, but the carousel was going just fast enough that it was hard for her to pick him up in her line of sight in time to wave before they had already passed by. The series of photos are priceless in spite of, or perhaps because of, this silliness.

As we wound down our adventures on the Mall, we headed to McCormick and Schmick’s for dinner. A chain steakhouse with massive mahogany walls and white tablecloths might seem like an odd place to take a toddler for dinner, but as it turned out, it was just perfect for this particular toddler. As we waited for our food, and throughout our meal, at any time when Hudson would get a little antsy in her highchair, one of us would just pop her out and do a little lap around the restaurant. Hudson was loving it, and everyone loved her (imagine that). She’d walk, stop in front of a table, peer up, and turn on that Hudson smile, at which point every person at the table would break into a huge grin and begin talking to her. She was a hit. She was so magnetic—it’s amazing to think about where that personality would have taken her if she’d had the chance to grow into it.

It is February, which means that I only have two more months’ worth of these memory photos from Hudson’s happy toddler days to share, plus one final photo we took in May the day before she got sick (one you’ve seen many times if you read here regularly). It means that in three months, we will begin making new memories with Hudson’s little brother that will not include her, at least not physically. That makes my heart so very heavy. The idea of continuing to move forward without her is sometimes just so overwhelmingly sad that I don’t even know what to do with it. I am so grateful for every single memory with her—they still play in my head just like high-definition movies—but I remain inconsolable that we will never make more. It is all just so very wrong.

I miss you, my girl.  I miss you so incredibly much.

Hudson Chaney on Dook

Tonight is the first of two matchups between Dook and Carolina this season. Like any two double Tar Heel parents worth their salt, Ed and I worked hard from the very beginning to indoctrinate Hudson in her role in the greatest college basketball rivalry in history.

It started the day she came home from the hospital:

(I recently went looking for a new UNC going-home outfit for Jackson and nothing, absolutely nothing, came close to being as awesome as this. Initially I had some reservations about sending him home in the same outfit that Hudson wore, but now I think perhaps it will be another one of our family traditions for each of our kids to wear it on that special day).

It continued in February of 2009, when Hudson geared up for her first big game day.  Note that the sleeper she wore home finally fit her more than 2 months later—their newborn size was huge!  And check out her sweet kicks, courtesy of her Aunt Lindsay:

And then she stayed up with us to celebrate the victory (yes, that says 101-87... remember those days?):

And in March 2009, her mom and dad got lucky enough to get tickets to the Dook game at the Dean Dome. Hudson stayed home to watch the game with her Poppy, decked out in more of her Tar Heel finery. I love how she looks so worried in this picture, like she really hopes they pull off the V.  They did. (This was probably the most consecutive minutes she ever spent in front of a TV.)

Last year was even more fun (despite the dismal state of our basketball program at the time). Dressed in her Tyler Hansbrough jersey and UNC hat, both compliments of her Grandpa, and her “BEAT DUKE” button, Hudson learned about the silly fun of pom poms (although towards the end of this video, she doesn’t seem so sure…):



And then, the crowning jewel. Ed taught Hudson the best party trick ever learned by a toddler in all of history. This video was taken last May, a week before Hudson got sick, eleven days before she died. It is the last video we have of her. It is the only video we have of her saying any words. It is precious in every possible way, not least of which is the joy it still brings us to watch it, and the joy it will undoubtedly bring her younger siblings every year in the future when we watch it on game day:



If Hudson were with us today, she’d be heading to school in a Carolina shirt for game day (just as her mama is wearing a Carolina blue sweater and her dad a Carolina blue tie). Maybe we would have made Tar Heel cookies for her to share. She’d be trying to teach all of her friends to say “NOOOOO!” whenever she said “DOOK!” And I’m pretty sure she would probably be able to sing the entire alma mater and fight song by now, too, since I sang it to her every night before bed. I bet she’d be especially forceful with her ending: “DON’T GO TO DOOK!”

How I wish she were here to do all of that.

Never Close Enough

I’ve been thinking on this post all day and I still don’t quite know how to write it. Maybe because this is just another variation on the same post I’ve already written more times than I can count and I’m just running out of ways to describe these same emotions.

I’ve had the longest string of fairly good days that I can remember having since Hudson died, I think largely because I’ve tried to keep myself busier than usual. I’ve found that staying busy in the evenings and on the weekends makes the time go just the slightest bit faster. It’s not that I haven’t had sad moments, lots of them, but for the first time, those moments don’t always turn into sad days like I’ve grown used to expecting them to.

And how do I react? I pick the scab. I go looking for the sadness.

Back when I used to work at the firm, I had a minimum number of billable hours I had to meet every year. There would be days, even weeks sometimes, when the work would slow down. Others would often tell me to just be grateful for those times while I had them, for things would inevitably get crazy again. And yet I couldn’t help but still be stressed during those times, I guess partly for fear things wouldn’t pick up again, at least not enough, and I would come up short on my billable time at the end of the year.

Now, during these days (well, weeks, I can actually say for once) when I have a bit of a respite from the worst of the grief, I can’t just be grateful for the break. Instead, I find myself poking into the dark corners, especially as the respite grows longer and longer. I spent some time today reading over old entries on the blog, ones from back in June and July, just because I needed a reminder of some of those rawest of raw feelings. I stop so often in front of her pictures, which are everywhere, and just stare at them, thinking about her, telling her how much I miss her, until I feel the welcome warmth of hot tears. I sometimes find myself crossing my arms over my chest, just trying to remember again what it felt like to hug her tight, wishing desperately that she would just materialize there. Often before I go to sleep at night, I ask her to come visit me in my dreams because I am just so desperate to see her. As we get farther and farther away from Hudson’s death and nearer and nearer to Jackson’s birth (a much-anticipated event that will bring much-needed joy, laughter, and healing into our lives), I am frantically clinging to my little girl in any way I know how. And yet no matter how much poking I do, I can never get close enough.

I guess this is why grief is truly a lifelong process. I will never be able to get close enough to her again. But I’ll probably also never stop trying.

Kicking the Habit

I have not had a Coke since lunchtime a week ago. I thought this worthy of its own post. Before Hudson died, I had gotten serious about trying to kick my Coke habit. I had been in a habit of drinking at least one Coke a day, often two, for a very long time. Ever since my mom died in 2002, I’d certainly become far more aware of my own mortality than I’d ever been before, but having a child completely changes your perspective on these things. I didn’t want to miss out on my daughter’s wedding, or her first child, or watching my grandchildren grow up, and while I’ve now learned the hard way that there’s only so much of that I have control over, at that time, I was at least going to try to exercise control over the things I could. My first attempt was last year right about this time. I’d done well for about 2 weeks, cutting back significantly without cutting out Coke altogether. And then it snowed. And we were all in the house together for several days. It wasn’t stressful—it was special. It felt like a special occasion to me, so I figured why not splurge? Well, there’s a very good reason why not—I slipped right back into my old habit. Then, a few months later, about two weeks before Hudson died, I read this article about a huge longitudinal study done in Singapore that showed a significant association between pancreatic cancer and sugary soda consumption. People who drank two or more sodas a week (remember, I was drinking about that much every day!) were some huge percentage more likely to have pancreatic cancer than people who did not drink sodas. Granted, pancreatic cancer is still extremely rare, and out of the 67,000 people in this study, only 180 or so had pancreatic cancer. But still, an association, with or without an actual causal connection, between my main vice and the cancer that killed my mom at age 57 kicked my motivation to quit drinking Coke into overdrive. And I gave it up. I’d been off it again for almost 2 weeks when we landed in the hospital with Hudson. And, well, you can pretty much imagine the rest. About two months after Hudson died, I tried again, and did well for a few days until I had one very, very bad day with the grief and was right back there again. I also gave it up for the first few weeks of this pregnancy, and then as soon as the OB said that caffeine was OK in moderate amounts (which I already knew, of course, but wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth), you know I went right back out and got a Coke that day for lunch. And then a month ago, when gestational diabetes was mentioned, I cut way back again, but still had the occasional Coke.

Friday (and this is the really good news in this post), I learned that I passed my glucose challenge test, so NO GESTATIONAL DIABETES! Which is excellent news. You’d think this would make me want to go start guzzling Coke. And I do kind of want to. But I won’t. I keep telling myself that I can handle just drinking it in moderation—just on weekends or just when we go out to eat, but honestly, I know better. If I can just rid myself of the craving altogether, I’ll be much better off. The on again, off again just makes it much more likely that I’ll end up permanently on again.

Who knows whether giving it up will ultimately help prolong my life? But I certainly know it’s no good for me (nor for poor Jackson, who doesn’t have a say in the matter). And I certainly know that I don’t NEED to drink it (despite what I often tell myself). So without really thinking much about it or setting a start date or any of the other things I usually do, I’m just not having any. None for seven days. And kind of like the sewing projects, I have the feeling that once I’ve made it this far, I want to make it farther. Again, there are just so few things that give me a sense of accomplishment these days—tiny though this thing is, it is still an accomplishment. In some ways, I feel like I am doing this for Hudson as much as for me.  I can’t really explain why, but somehow I feel that.  Or maybe it’s that she’s giving me the strength and motivation I need to do something I’ve been trying to do for quite a while. Somehow, this has something to do with her, which feels good. Let’s hope it sticks this time.  

Oh, and did you hear? NO GESTATIONAL DIABETES! I won’t go out and guzzle a bunch of Coke. I will, however, lick every last bit of frosting left in the bowl from the homemade cinnamon rolls I baked this morning.

Appeal

Another grieving mom suggested this to me a while ago and it just keeps slipping my mind. But today I got some pictures of Hudson I’d never seen before taken by people in my own family, including this one of us last Christmas reading a book together, which may be the only such picture that exists.

I realized that if folks in my own family hadn’t yet sent me all the pictures they have of Hudson, then it’s quite possible that there are other people out there who have pictures of Hudson I’ve never seen (and thank you so very much to those of you who have already sent many such pictures to me). Maybe we don’t know each other well but were at the same party together (one person who is a friend of a friend sent me just such a picture) or maybe you are a close friend and have just not gone through your old pictures. Or maybe you have hesitated to send pictures like this to us for fear they would be upsetting. 

In any event, if you ever had the pleasure of meeting our sweet girl and think you might have pictures of her that we’ve never seen, I can’t even tell you how grateful I would be to get those. If you have any, you can send them to me at the email address listed on the right side of the blog.

Thanks so much, everyone.

Flashbacks

Last night, I was reading a book our office just received called The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law. Since I am currently struggling mightily with exactly how to do this, I was interested to see what the authors had to say. I skipped around and started with the chapter “Happiness: A Primer,” which basically reviews what scientific research, particularly neuroscience, has to say about happiness.

Well, you’d think by now that I would know to stop at “neuroscience.” But I didn’t. I don’t even think a red light went on. I just kept reading innocently enough.

Until I reached a section about the three different “brains” and the functions of each. I didn’t get past the first paragraph. All because of one simple sentence:

“The brainstem controls heartbeat, respiration, body temperature, and other essential functions.”

In an instant, I was transported right back to those wretched three days in the PICU. I was right there by Hudson’s bedside when the nurses would disconnect her ventilator tube momentarily to change its position or clean something out or moisten her gums and lips with ointment. During those 10 seconds or so, I stared as Hudson’s chest just lay flat, unmoving, no breaths going in or out. And then they would put the vent back on, and her chest would start rising and falling again, in an all-too-regular rhythm.

In eleven short words, I was right back there by Hudson’s bedside on Wednesday morning when the PICU nurse asked me, “Does she feel cool to you?” Cool? Why would she feel cool? I touched her forehead and her tummy and she didn’t feel particularly cool to me. They took her temperature and it was below 90 degrees. (I remember thinking what kind of mother was I that I hadn’t noticed this?) They went to work immediately trying to raise it. The nurse tried to fish out the ibuprofen suppository she’d just given Hudson within the last 30 minutes. They covered her with a warming blanket, which looked like a big, clear, pool float. It was very hard to keep in one place and made it difficult to lie down and snuggle with her. They insulated her IV tubes with warmers so that the fluids they were pumping into her would help raise her temperature quickly. They put her on a continuous temperature monitor so they could keep track. About an hour before this, the neurologists had done some reflex tests and gotten no responses, but those results were completely invalid since Hudson was probably hypothermic at the time. While this momentarily gave me some hope, I quickly realized that the fact that her brain was apparently not even doing a most basic function of maintaining her body temperature was independently a very bad sign.

In one tiny sentence, I was right back there in the armchair by Hudson’s bed on Thursday afternoon as the nurses gingerly moved her into my lap and arms so that I could hold her on that last day. Her blood pressure kept dropping, making the monitor sound off ominously, until the nurses realized that one of the joints on her central line was cracked, so the medicine that was controlling her blood pressure was unstable. It was then that the attending physician asked us if we wanted them to take any extreme measures to prevent her from crashing if her body had decided it was time to stop. We said no.

“The brainstem controls heartbeat, respiration, body temperature, and other essential functions.” I read that one sentence and immediately, my own heart started racing as I remembered how Hudson’s brainstem slowly ceased doing any of those things. I got up from where I was reading, went downstairs to the room where Hudson’s memorial table is, and there, with the light off, I just let myself be back in that place. I was there for several minutes, crying and taking deep breaths in the dark, just letting it be. And then I felt better.

I have wondered many times about whether I have been experiencing some form of PTSD since our stay in the PICU and Hudson’s resulting death. I’ve certainly read articles about parents who spent time in the ICU with their children suffering from PTSD (and that was in cases where the child did not ultimately die). I don’t know enough about the condition to say so one way or the other. The main symptom of PTSD I have experienced is this repeated reliving of the worst moments of those awful days. And while I have certainly experienced some other symptoms of PTSD, none have been so dramatic or affecting as these flashbacks, and none have been truly incapacitating.

What I can say, though, is that even as recently as a few months ago, the flashbacks I had last night would have sent me into a downward spiral that might have lasted for several days. I wouldn’t have stopped crying after a few minutes. I would have crawled into bed and been up half the night continuing to relive those moments over and over again in my head until I succumbed to a fitful sleep. This time, the worst of it was over within several minutes and the only lingering after-effect was yet another anxiety dream (this one involving Bess repeatedly running into the street even as I called to her over and over again—even though it was Bess in the dream, it was definitely a dream about Hudson). Otherwise, I slept relatively well, woke up feeling okay, and have managed to make it through writing this post without falling apart again.

I realize that I’ve written about some of the moments included in this post several times already. I guess I am only just now grasping the real power of telling my story over and over again. I don’t know if the flashbacks themselves will ever go away, but over time, their quality has changed, their grip on me has lessened. And for that, I am incredibly grateful.

BIG

That is how I feel. Really big already. Several folks have been requesting belly photos, and I put some up when I was pregnant with Hudson, so I guess it’s only fair that I do the same for Jackson.

8 weeks

12 weeks

16 weeks

20 weeks

24 weeks



But the striking thing is how BIG I am now compared to where I was at this point (and much later) with Hudson.  I told Ed I wanted a do-over when I have not just eaten a big meal.  Compare the picture above with the two below and you will see what I mean.   

With Hudson at 26 weeks!

With Hudson at 30 weeks!

Speaking of big, I had my follow-up ultrasound on Monday to check in Jackson’s growth. He is still measuring above the 97th percentile overall, but apparently that is largely due to the size of his head. His abdomen (88%) and leg (75%) measurements are now in a much more reasonable range (but still big), but his head is measuring so big that it’s apparently jacking up the rest of the measurements. Hmmm… The perinatologist then asked if either of us wear big hat sizes. I said that I do. She went and found a measuring tape and actually measured my head, saying, “Yeah, that’s pretty big.” I told her that while no one ever commented about it when Hudson was in my belly, she was always above the 90% for head circumference after she was born, even as her body weight dropped into the 25% range. So maybe our kids just have big heads (although I fear it getting to the point that people start talking c-section—I’ve got big hips and did it just fine the first time on my own, so hopefully it will never get that far). His heart rate was a good 150 bpm. The echogenic focus is still there on his heart, but the perinatologist told us that she’d just gotten back from a conference about fetal imaging where there was a big argument about this and wanted to reassure us that most every doctor in the country agrees that without other markers, it has no clinical significance.

Of course, we couldn’t get through an appointment with just good news, could we? My amniotic fluid index (AFI) is just a smidge high. There’s apparently a debate about what is considered normal. Some say 22cm, some say 20. Mine is 21.3cm. At 25 and over, one is diagnosed with polyhydramnios, or excessive amniotic fluid. Most of the time they have no idea what causes this condition (so it’s idiopathic, as in no known cause, as in “we’re such idiots, we can’t even figure it out”), but it can be associated with some birth defects that would cause the baby not to swallow the fluid like he’s supposed to (although the perinatologist said other indicators on the ultrasound appear to rule that out), or with gestational diabetes (there goes that one again), or with other things that are rare. It can also just be the result of a big baby that makes a lot of amniotic fluid, which is obviously what we will hope for in this case. Unfortunately, it can also be associated with some very nasty complications, including pre-term labor (because your uterus gets so big, it thinks it’s time to deliver even though the baby isn’t cooked all the way yet), as well as cord prolapse and placental abruption (because when the sac actually breaks, there is so much fluid in there that it gushes out and can push the cord through first, which is VERY bad for the baby, or it can tear the placenta away from the uterine wall before it is time, also pretty bad since it causes hemorrhaging). So… I’m scheduled for another follow-up ultrasound in 4 more weeks to check on the AFI. Not that I’m not happy to get a look at the Penguin as often as possible, but I’m not happy at all about the reason why. We didn’t have any issues of any kind with Hudson—I guess I didn’t realize how lucky I was.

I then saw the regular OB on Wednesday for my monthly prenatal appointment. This time, I saw the same doctor who was with us through most of our pregnancy with Hudson, and who would have delivered her if she’d gotten there in time. Instead, she just did some of the follow-up stuff—she missed the big event altogether. But she is a great doctor, and sat there patiently as I went through the entire litany of things that are worrying me right now (I had them written down)—whether I should worry about the AFI thing, a rash on my thigh (which is just eczema), feeling like I have to pee all the time and nothing comes out (hmm… pregnant much?), a pain in my upper back, which I’d become convinced was probably a symptom of lung cancer (yes, I am that insane right now—I have had back pain of all kinds for more than half my life, mostly associated with a disc problem, but this time it is lung cancer), worrying that I might be having Braxton Hicks contractions and just couldn’t tell (this one is probably a legitimate concern). She was just as kind and patient as she could be, answered all my questions, said she totally understood my paranoia, and when I asked about when we’d start doing appointments every two weeks, she said usually we start at 28 weeks, but that if I’d prefer it, we could go ahead and start now. I’m sure you can imagine how grateful I was. I also drank the disgusting orange syrup for my glucose challenge test—I am very hopeful that I pass. The doctor seemed to think that was likely since my sugars were so good when I tested them myself a month ago. Hopefully I can get those results tomorrow.  Everyone cross your fingers for no gestational diabetes.  This baby’s head does not need to get any bigger than it will get on its own. 

I keep wishing I could allow myself to just let go of all this anxiety, enjoy being pregnant (although I can’t say that I was one of those happy, glowing pregnant women the first go-round either), and really start focusing on emotional preparations for being Jackson’s mom and still being Hudson’s mom all at the same time. But I’m grateful to have compassionate caregivers and perhaps some new creative outlets that can help distract me for the next three and a half months. I’ve also committed myself to getting back into therapy—I’m in the process of trying to find a good behavioral therapist around here who can help me manage the anxiety of all of these transitions hitting at once.

Big. It’s all so big. My belly. Jackson’s head. The anxiety. The grief. Hudson’s memory. The enormous challenges ahead of us. Very, very big.