I don't know how you do it...

Originally posted on CaringBridge on December 6, 2014 3:21pm

It's what we hear all the time..."I don't know how you do it."  To be honest, we don't know how we do it, either.  Before we lost Brady, I couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose a child during pregnancy.  Once we learned that we were going to deliver him, and he was not going to survive, I had no idea how I was going to survive.  As we drove away from the hospital, no longer pregnant and with no baby in the backseat, I didn't think we'd ever recover.  Yet somehow, we did.  I don't know how we did...time, love, and support were all important factors.  We joined a support group where we could share our stories with others, and that helped as well.  We made some donations in Brady's memory that made us feel like we were carrying on his legacy.  Somehow, we began to heal.

As I was pregnant with Henry, I feared every day that we might lose him too.  I couldn't imagine losing another pregnancy.  As I spent day after day on bed rest, all I could do was hope and pray that he would arrive on time and healthy.  And he did!  He arrived perfectly healthy looking almost exactly like his big brother.  I was almost afraid to believe he was real!  I would hold him, and see Brady's face.  Then I would put my head to his face to make sure he was breathing, to make sure he was real.  Over the first minutes, hours, and days I fell more and more in love with this perfect little boy.

As Henry grew, he continued to be our perfect little baby.  I would read stories on Facebook of families and parents losing children.  I would wonder, "How do they survive??"  I couldn't imagine losing a child...one that we actually got to know, interact with, watch learn and grow.  I'd even read stories of parents losing babies during pregnancy, and though I'd been through that, I still wondered how they managed to go on.  These stories seemed to catch my eye more and more often...I just couldn't imagine.

Then Henry got sick.  And sicker and sicker and sicker.  And admitted to the PICU.  We saw a neighboring PICU family lose their baby girl.  I wondered, "How do they do it??"  We met moms who had lived in the hospital for months, even more than a year, and I wondered, "How do they do it?"  I tried very hard not to let myself wonder, "How would I do it?"  I didn't want to acknowledge the possibility that Henry may not get to leave the hospital with us.  I couldn't picture us driving away from the hospital without our son yet again.  I couldn't picture us surviving that.

Yet somehow, here we are.  Somehow, we get out of bed each morning.  We eat three meals a day (thanks to the support of our family, friends and community.)  We do laundry (grudgingly) and the dishes and take out the trash.  We go through the motions of everyday life.  I don't know how long it will be until the motions become living again, how long until the pain begins to ease (though it will never completely disappear.)  I don't know how long it will be until the memories are fond rather than painful.  I know we will get there, we've done it before.  I know it will take time, love, and support.  I know that finding a support group may help, and making donations and doing things to carry out Henry's legacy may bring some peace.  But I still can't verbalize the answer to the question, "How do you do it?"  The only answer I have is that we just do...