Meet Catherine

Back when I lived near a local cemetery, I would just meander through the headstones, sometimes snapping photos of ones that catch my eye. This one, it caught my eye. Can you see why?? If you look at it, it says she is buried with her son, but no dates for him. Having a fascination for not only cemeteries, but geneology, I decided to look into this.

Catherine was born on May 5th 1913 in Pennsylvania. She had a husband named Michael, who was born on August 21st/23rd 1904/5 in Ohio. On September 21st 1932, they welcomed their first child, a little girl named Deloris. On January 24th, 1934, they welcomed their second daughter, Rose. Catherine was born on May 19, 1935. Their daughter Irene was born in in 1936.

Sometime in the fall, Catherine would of gotten pregnant with her son, Michael JR. I'm sure she was anticipating a normal delivery with him and was likely looking forward to the possibility of this being their first son. Unfortunately, this was not going to have the happy ending that was anticipated.

On May 27th 1941, due to an obstructed labor, a craniotomy was performed on Michael, who was hydrocephalic. I do NOT recommend googling this operation as it's fairly barbaric. Michael either had a birth defect or an infection or was already gone. Either way, they had to do this in order to remove the baby as it was "less risky" to the mother to do this. They had to do an x-ray to get a visual and then put Catherine through this.

Sadly, Catherine developed puerperal infection due to the procedure she underwent. Just ten days later at 2:08pm on June 6th, 1941, Catherine passed away due to the infection, leaving behind her husband and four daughters.

Quick update

I cannot believe that I've neglected this blog as much as I have! Life is just crazy anymore. Not only am I a WAH mom, but I'm also a college student! I had decided back in may to go ahead and go back to school to get an Associates in Web Design and Development. I was so excited my first night! I have three classes at the moment, with two being writing intensive and the third being a math class. Needless to say, a few weeks in, I'm not exactly sure that I'm loving the writing intensive stuff, but, I'm breezing through the math.

It's really hard trying to juggle everything, but I know that I can do anything I set my mind to. I'm actually toying with moving everything back to blogger as I really am not that crazy about wordpress and plus, I'm attached to Google services. I think  I'll play this one by ear!

I may start writing about homebirth again, but, I need to focus on the life I'm living right now. I'm not even journaling like I'm suppose to for my one class! I do feel guilty not doing as much as I use to because I know it's still needed. The backlash for speaking out was the final nail in the proverbial coffin for me. I think I endured so much that it left me scarred. Who knows what the future holds!

No Longer Consumed

I got to spend my day yesterday with my dad doing a poker run for my old support group. It was a great day, esp seeing all this support for pregnancy/infant loss. A few times I thought of my daughter. I also thought of my sister. I thought of how we had the loss of our daughter's in common. These weren't those all consuming, depressed thoughts though.

When he dropped me off, he asked if we were going to the cemetery like we've always done on Sundays. I told him no, that we don't go all the time anymore, I didn't have that need. He understood, which is great. However, it's led to me doing a lot of thinking and pondering. I think it's important to the movement that we are able to discuss the latter stages of grief.

When you lose your baby, it really is like a roller coaster. You have your ups and downs, you never know what each day will hold. You just hold on and keep breathing. After that first year, things gradually start looking up. The second year hits, then the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. You find those bad days occurring less and less. The times where you sob and feel your heart being ripped out of your chest, they lessen. Somehow, we gradually just kind of accept what your life is and you kind of accept your child being gone. This isn't to say that sometimes you don't have a meltdown and don't find yourself wistful about how things should of been, because you do. However, I'm finding myself no longer consumed. I love my daughter and miss her more than anything, but, my life has continued on. I can look at her photo and briefly talk about what happened without breaking down. I don't have a need to be at the cemetery the same time every week. I often worry that it makes me look like a bad mom or like I don't care. I think it's just that you do get to that point where it doesn't rule your life. I feel like I have to justify how I feel to myself, I have to remind ME that this is ok. This is why I rarely post on here anymore, I just don't have that need. This is still a little bit of a strange feeling for me, but it's ok, I'm going with it. Part of me is kind of relieved that I'm in this place because it's just so different than it use to be. I'm me, the different me than I was before, but I'm still just ME. I'm not just a loss mom anymore. I am, but, it's not my identity, if that makes sense. I'm going to just accept where I am and go with it.