Dealing with my grief

For almost four weeks now I have mostly just stayed in bed. I do not find pleasure in anything. I do not enjoy any food. I do not crave for anything except for the strawberry cheesecake we bought from the coffee shop at the hospital during Sofia's last days in my womb. My husband asked me where I wanted to go and I couldn't think of any place where I wanted to go.  I just want to be with Sofie but I can't because I have a son who needs me.  The only thing that makes me laugh is a thirty minute portion of a local daily noontime television show. Most of my time is spent researching about the causes of non immune hydrops or reading survival stories of babies with hydrops. I am now a part of this facebook support group of mothers whose babies have hydrops . It is there where I find survival stories and wonder why the same miracle was not given to our baby.

I know most people would say that I need to move on or that life has to go on.  I know life has to go on and it will, eventually.  But I will live life without moving on because she will always be with me and I will always be missing a part of me and because of that life will never be the same.  What I need to do is to cope.  But right now, I just need to be in touch with my grief and that is what most people do not understand.

There was only one day when I became productive in a way.  It was when I decided to make a thank you card for my perinatologist and Sofie's pediatrician. Sofie's pedia had a kind and gentle manner. I know he handled my baby with kindness and gentleness.  His wife, my perinatologist was very thorough, and explained everything to us in layman's terms. But it was actually on the day of my emergency delivery when I fell in love with her. She was just part of a team of doctors that we were working with but when the attending ob told us on the phone that I had to have an emergency c-section, she left her clinic and brought me to the pre-labor room herself though I had my husband with me at the time and could have easily wheeled me to the pre-labor room himself.  She never left me in the pre-labor room, though there was an attending doctor inside.   She was there and she was the one who made sure I was given the meds I needed and that I was comfortable.   Her presence in the labor room gave me much needed comfort, although it didn't seem like it at the time.  When I told her I couldn't control my anxiety, she spoke reassuring words to me.  While I was enduring the terrible effect of magnesium sulfate, she ran her hand on my forehead just like a mother would, and that is something I will never forget. She is still young though maybe around my age or a year or two older. She stayed with me in the pre-labor room until my attending ob arrived.  That was when she left to go back to her other patients.   She was also the first doctor who arrived in the operating room where I continued to tell her of my anxiety and where she continued to calm my fears.   She gave special permission to my husband to enter the pre-labor room and see me, and when I was in the recovery room, she again gave special permission to him to do the same thing because she knew the emotional state I was in.   She was competent, sensitive, kind and compassionate.   Who wouldn't fall in love with a doctor like her? I don't care if she charges higher consultation fee, I guess that goes with the territory of being a high risk ob with a subspecialty in perinatology.   What matters most to me is how she treats her patients. I don't mind spending a couple hundred pesos more.

I bought a box of fruity muffins from Contis'  to go with the card and dropped both off at The Medical City. 

the thank you card I made with my scrapbooking supplies

Here's what the inside of the card looked like before I wrote my personal note to them.

I hope they enjoyed the muffins and that the thank you card inspired them and brought a smile to their lips. 

I found out that making something for those who were physically present during my ordeal and thanking them for the specific things they did for me is a good way of taking a break from my grief without totally distancing myself from it.