Today, we had to go to the mall.
I hate the mall. Especially on a Saturday. Everyone is out shopping, pushing their strollers-grandmas buying gifts for their grandbabies, mothers and daughters sharing lunch and buying new clothes, fathers and sons looking at video games or trying to buy a birthday present for mom.
It hits me hard. I have a great relationship with my mom. I live a few hours away from her now, but I have so many fond memories of Saturdays at the mall with her. People watching, bargain hunting, talking about our weeks. Sometimes seeing a movie or sharing a milkshake.
Walking past the stores that are dedicated to small children's clothes-there is a store that before I was pregnant I would complain about. How can people spend that much money on clothes that their babies are just going to throw up on?
Now, I would give anything to spend my money in there.
I think about what it would be like to spend the day at the mall pushing a double stroller. Buying little boy and little girl clothes. Perhaps my mom coming to visit to go with us.
How silly to just get so caught up in a day at the mall?
I don't even like the mall.
How silly it is to dream about something that will NEVER happen. Because they are gone. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I forget that there is only one baby inside of me right now. It's like weirdo deja vu-I was pregnant at the same time of year, exactly one year ago. Sometimes I wonder if I could close my eyes and pretend like the last year never happened. Perhaps it was all a dream? At the doctor yesterday, the nurse came in, one who clearly doesn't read charts and said, "So are you having two boys or two girls?"
I said, "It's just one girl."
She laughed. "Oh. I've had three patients with twins in a row, I get them all mixed up."
HaHA.
I said, "I am here because my twins died."
I admit that I said that to be mean. Because I wanted for her to feel the burning that I was feeling. I am not proud of that.
Sometimes I feel like I am doing nothing right.
But still I dream. I dream when I'm at the mall. And I am trying so hard to be positive. I am so unbelievably thankful right now-I feel like I'm in a dreamworld. I wish I could fast forward time. I'm keeping hope. I'm letting myself dream. Even when it hurts.
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The last time I saw my doctor she bustled in the room with a great big smile and said "Hi Sara! How are you today! It's such a beautiful day I can't believe I have to be stuck in here alllll day!" My reply to this cheeriness? "Actually Dr V...I haven't noticed how pretty it is outside." She paused for a minute, looked at me and said..."Oh yes. I do remember now...you lost a baby recently." "no. I lost two. I lost twins."
"Oh really? I didn't see that in your chart...mumble mumble looks at chart...mumbles...Oh yes. I see."
Great. I go to the doctor for a simple iron work up, and she hasn't even read my chart to see how my life has turned upside down and scrambled before my eyes. Thanks Dr. V.
It hurts when our caregivers don't seem to care.
I am so sorry, Christy. It always makes me hurt when someone asks how many pregnancies I've had - it's right there on our charts, just read it. It makes us cherish the good doctors/nurses that much more.
Oh my dear friend, I actually JUST went to the mall today and went past the Gymboree and about lost it. The cute spring clothes are out and I should be shopping for summer clothes for the boys but we aren't. It just breaks me heart time and time again.
I had the SAME thing happen at our OB's office last week, the nurse who was incredibly RUDE asked me how many pregnancies I have had. I told her to look in my chart where it would say that I have had one pregnancy that resulted in the LIVE birth of my twins but they passed away shortly afterwards. I was beyond pissed with her and told the Dr about her as well. I'm so sorry you had to go through that!
*hugS*
I would have told her as well.
Thinking of you.
xo
You werent mean at all. Honest. Not mean. She should have read your chart and bothered to get patients straight. I am so sorry.
Whenever I go to the store, I always think of what could have been... It never fails.
I experience that same Deja vu feeling. I've even referred to Nora as Ella a few times. I worry Nora will have issues and think she's a replacement for her sister. Or think we love Ella more than her. Sigh...
My peri is a multiples doctor, so everytime I go, I get asked how many babies I'm carrying. I didn't lose twins, but I still get sad. I should have two babies. I don't like any of the typical questions I get there. I'm not a typical, joyous pregnant woman. I'm a mother, grieving for her first born, desperate for her second child to live.
Thinking of Sophie, Aiden, and baby girl. xxoo
I think you've said something similar on my blog before, but I'll go ahead and say it here :)
Sometimes I feel like our stories - our feelings, at the very least - are so similar that I could have written your posts myself. I want to comment so you know that I'm here and reading and so "get it"! But yet I'm kind of left with nothing to say, because I have nothing to add.
So, yeah. I hate the mall too. And I want to spend way too much money on two sets of clothing, while pushing a double stroler.
There is just something about the shops isn't there? It always seems to set me off on the 'what might have
beens.'
Like so many people have said, I don't think you were being mean. You were just telling the truth.
I've had that happen to me a couple of times. I always feel really awkward about correcting them when it's obvious they didn't get a chance to read my notes. When I had the miscarriage back in November, the nurse said to me "oh you have twins, they must be x months old now." I nearly said yes, because I wanted to have them both, even if it was just for a moment. xo
Its so cruel isnt it? All the ways losing our babies makes us cringe and cry, even at silly things. I do it all the time. I go into the stores too, wanting to buy the things that would fit Henry right now, then remember he's dead, and somehow I feel humiliated and silly -- as if I almost forgot for a moment that he was dead.
I used to dream about all this so much. All the time, I would space out and dream about being a mom, being with my mom as a mom. You're brave. I can't dream at all yet. It's just too, too scary.
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