I’m feeling very compelled to write today for whatever
reason that may be. I’ve been thinking about my journey through grief a lot lately
and where it has taken me and have wondered where it will take me from here.
Losing Tenley has been such a beautiful disaster; I know many people may ask
why I choose the word beautiful about something so ugly. I have to pick that
word because that has truly been a great definition of my journey through
grief. Yes I’ve felt like I have been in the depths of hell, the ugliest place
you can ever imagine but my little girl fought so hard to show me the beautiful
side of it and today I can honestly say I can see it.
I try and start from the first day of losing her….
The best word to describe that day was NUMB, maybe it was
the morphine or maybe it was because of how sick I was when I delivered her but
I honestly don’t remember crying one tear on the very first day. I know, I know
it sounds crazy. How could you not cry when your child died? I don’t know but I
do know she was with me that day telling me to be strong and that she was ok. I
also know that I had that one little button and the tip of my fingers that I
could just press and I would feel NUMB all over again. I did cry though I cried so much I could have
made a lake, but those tears just didn’t come at first. That morning though when I woke up without my
belly and without my baby I CRIED and I cried hard and for a long time, trying
my best to be quite so I didn’t wake Louie. I wanted to be alone I wanted to
feel the pain and I just needed to cry. The nurse came in shortly after I
finished my giant sob fest and asked if I would like to see Tenley again, I
shook my head with a smile and immediately started crying again. I feel like
the tears didn’t stop for months after that. I would wake up crying, I would
wake up swearing I could hear her cry in her room only to go into an empty room
and an empty crib. I would hold her blankets and just cry on the floor asking
why. Why my baby? The answers came to me though and what a beautiful journey it
has been since then.
The answers came that I needed to volunteer for families
like mine; I needed to be there for mothers who we’re feeling that raw emotion
I was feeling. I also feel like I needed to know I wasn’t in this alone and
that there we’re others “like me”! More answers followed when I realized I
needed to work with these families even more, somehow I need to touch these
families, and then it hit me I wanted to become a NICU nurse. I could relate in
some sense and if the unimaginable happened to their child I could be there for
them in a deeper way than most NICU nurses. Once again it didn’t stop there
though so I became a Doula, I still haven’t done any doula work but I will get
my foot out there in a matter of time and when it’s right. Becoming a doula
then made me want to go further, I want to be a midwife. I don’t ever want a
family to be treated the way I was when I was pregnant. I can see this
blossoming into something BIGGER though and I’m just waiting for Tenley to show
me what’s next in my journey. I went from not worrying about going to school to
wanting to be a midwife and it’s all because of this Beautiful Disaster that
happened to me, out of pain beauty came.
Once I found out why this happened to me I could see why and
what my life was supposed to be. My little Tenley has only begun to show me all
the fabulous things she is going to bring to my life. I can feel her (and I’ve
been told) she is just tugging at my arm like “come on mom, I have so much to
show you”! Little did I know my daughter was going to teach me about life
instead of me teaching her about it. I’ve
learned to smile through the pain and hard days and I know that is what she
wanted. She wanted her mama to be happy and she wants me to teach people and be
there for them.
I made her a promise the day she passed I whispered in her
ear that “I was going to make a difference for her and fight” and that’s what I’m
doing. When those doctors can see the day that I’m better at helping an
expecting mother than they we’re I can smile that I finally made my promise
come true to my little girl and I can smiling knowing that if I can help one
mother have a better experience through their birth and loss of their child
this journey will have been worth it.
The day she died was really the first day of the rest of my
life without her, my clock started all over again and she has given me life.
Thank you my Tenley girl for giving me such a beautiful blessing.
“I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as
I’m living my baby you’ll be” – Robert Muncsh
