yucky poo-poos

Yucky poo-poos is a phrase I invent to describe my morning sickness. I am feeling a trillion times better but I still have moments when the yucky poo-poos creep themselves back in. They usually come at night and usually when I am especially exhausted, either physically or emotionally. Today is one of those days.

I hear from Laurie today. Her email both brightens and darkens my day all at once. I am so relieved to hear from her. She is going to survive this.

She had a placental abruption which means the placenta detached from the uterus, cutting off the oxygen supply to her baby. By the time they got him out by c-section, he had already passed away. He was a boy. They named him Andrew Eugene (Eugene after his father.) He looked just like his big brother, James. She was able to get his footprints and keep some of his hair. The doctors say that if he had lived, he would have been brain-dead. The fact that he didn't have a life of suffering is the only thing that brings her any peace.

I am tortured by the reality of her nightmare. He was a real person, with real hair and real little feet. He had a name.

My past, present and future come together in a bare moment of grief. The wounds from my own loss are barely healed and I feel them tearing back open. I remember that shock. I remember that darkness. The hopelessness. The bare-boned loneliness. It's still raw in me.

The thought of my good friend experiencing these feelings right now this very moment (feelings even bigger than I can relate to) brings fresh tears to my eyes. Nobody deserves this. I hate this for her. I hate it.

And I think about the baby growing inside of me. I thought after the first trimester I could graduate to safety. Turns out there is no safety. You just never know. My baby's future and my future and my husband's future are all just as uncertain. Life has its own plan we have no control.

My friend who calls to grieve with me over Laurie's loss is Amy. She is a generation older than us and Laurie and I call her Auntie Amy. We love her. She's the kind of "auntie" whose lap you just want to lie your head on and tell all your problems to. This picture was taken of the three of us (with my husband) at my wedding last summer. I ask her on the phone how her chemo treatments are going. She tells me (in her always happy-positive tone) that the cancer has spread to her bones. She doesn't tell me much more but I know this is not a good thing.

Like I said, life has a plan of its own. And we have to accept all of it. We have no other choice.

It's kind of like accepting the yucky poo-poos, only on a much larger scale.