Nathan was born on a Friday. The normal chaplain wasn't at the hospital that weekend, nor was the head nurse over "special cases." We were told that when the chaplain came back on Monday that she would have the photos of Nathan developed and call us to pick them up. However, I woke up on Sunday morning completely freaked out that the pictures would disappear. That the camera would fall in water or someone would accidentally delete them. I was so distraught about it that Daniel, Matt, and I promptly drove to the hospital to try and get the pictures put on Matt's laptop. I couldn't go in. It was too hard. I sat in the car with Daniel while Matt went upstairs. He talked to the head nurse, Nicole, who apologized for not being there and gave us a regular box that they had just gotten the day before. We don't use it. We like our other one. Nicole told Matt they wouldn't be allowed to put the pictures on the computer because there were other people's babies on there as well so it was a privacy issue. She did show him the pictures though to set his mind at ease. It was good that he was the only one that went because I might have freaked out on them about not getting a back up of the pictures.
So we waited until Tuesday when the chaplain, Sharon, called us. We had my mom watch Daniel and I went back into that hospital, back up the elevator to the labor and delivery area and met with the chaplain. She had his pictures for us. They were perfect. She was super sweet. But I could barely hold it together. Ok, I didn't really hold it together. I tried. Because I'm always trying to be strong. Like if people see me weak, even people who see this pain all the time and know, then I'm less of a person. We made our meeting with Sharon brief. I didn't want to be there any longer than I had to. Before we left though she went back to her office and brought back a stuffed bear. She told us about this study that showed that many parents who lose a child have actual physical arm pain. That their arms ache. So she likes to give out bears for parents to hold. Plus, she said, they are super absorbent for when you need to cry.
Honestly I don't even remember much else that week. Nothing. I was essentially a zombie. The following Friday a few days later was the first teacher day back at work for the new school year. Looking back now, I should have at least taken my 6 weeks off like I would have for any other delivery. But my thought was, the sooner I get back to normal, the sooner I'll feel normal. I justified my feelings with the logic of how important the first few days are at setting the tone for the rest of the school year, which is true. 100%. But that was an excuse. I sent out an email to the people at work a few days before I went back letting people know that we weren't pregnant anymore but that I didn't want to talk about it and it would be easier for me if people didn't say anything, not even condolences. Honestly to this day I don't think many people at work know that I had Nathan. I didn't take into account though that not everyone would have read their email. I had been at work for all of half an hour before I ran into someone who congratulated me on being pregnant. Wasn't quite the distraction that I hoped work would be for me. I was able to distract myself the rest of the day though. That night, Daniel was asleep and Matt was watching TV on the loveseat when I was completely overwhelmed with grief. I crawled into the small space left on the loveseat and just bawled into Matt. It was a week that day. That he was born. That I held him. That I had to leave him at the hospital instead of bringing him home. I knew that Nathan didn't actually live so it's not like he would have been a week old, but that's what it felt like.
Going back to work didn't make things go back to normal. It just made me postpone my grief. I went days where I was distracted enough that I didn't think about Nathan much, only to have the sadness knock me over like a tidal wave. I was barely functioning. I was a robot during the day, working, taking care of Daniel, taking care of the house, and then at night I would think about Nathan. It got to be so much that there were times when I tried to not think about him because it would be too much. Maybe it wouldn't have been so intense if I had taken the time to not be "normal."
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