unfair AKA: Right Where I Am: 6 weeks and one day

My Mom has called me every day since Holden was born/died.  Yesterday, like many other days, she started to choke up when she tried to say something.  Then she said, "Nevermind."  She does this a lot.  She doesn't want to cry.  She feels guilty for crying to me when I am the one who had to give birth to a dead baby. I tell her she loves Holden too and she has to grieve too and it's okay to cry.  She says she doesn't want to.  But then she continues with what she was going to say.  "I've been thinking about Holden a lot and it just seems so unfair!  I mean, you take care of yourself, and you do everything right and then you still don't get to take your baby home."

And she's right.  It is unfair.  I've thought this a lot since we lost Holden.  It's NOT FAIR!!  And every time I say it or think it, it makes me feel like a small child.  I actually sound just like Lennon to my own ears.  Lennon, who is her very own person at seven years old.  She makes her own rules and when she finds out that not everyone else will follow them, this is what you hear: IT'S! NOT! FAIR!!!  Well I had my own rules.  I don't know who broke them, but I'd like to do some very violent things to them.  My rules were 1. take care of myself because I'm taking care of my baby too.  2. Give birth to said baby.  3. Take said baby home and love and care for him forever.  I guess when I made my rules I forgot to say I wanted my baby to live.  I wish I had known that I needed to specify.  Again, it's not fair.  Nobody told me.

I guess the reason this bothers me so much is that, for anyone who knows me, they know I hate it when adults act childish.  (Child-like is completely different)  I absolutely abhor petty behavior.  And I know A LOT of people like this.  People who will use any means to get what they want, including the facade of friendship or (the worst) their own children.  I loathe people who act like they are entitled to certain luxuries in life, like playing the Nintendo everyday or having your birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's or standing around BSing at work all day and expecting a raise.  You know what I mean?  Childish.  And saying "It's not fair" just makes me think of that.  It sounds whiny.  But is expecting your child to be born breathing something we are not all entitled too?   I don't know.  I've thought plenty of times that some people don't deserve to be parents.  Am I one of them?

I expressed this to Lee the other day.  I told him that I don't know what makes me think I could do it.  Between the two of us we already had six kids and Holden is number seven.  What makes me think I can handle taking care of that many young people?  And now I wonder what makes me think I deserve to?  Of course I'm wrong to think all that and that's not how things really are, but hey, that's where I'm at.

And speaking of children, I talk to my daughter's all the time about Holden.  In fact we had another good talk last night.  Lennon says things sometimes that make me take a step back and really look at her.  She told me last night that she wished dreams really did come true because Meadow always dreamed she'd have a baby brother.  Meadow said, "Well we do, we just can't HAVE him."  And to that Lennon replied, " That's what I meant."  A lot of times Lennon seems to go about her day in Lennon-land.  She does what Lennon wants to do and if you don't like it there is Hell to pay (screaming, crying, fits, nasty looks, attitude.)  So when she says something like this, I think, Wow, this little person is growing up and she actually does have an understanding of things outside of Lennon-land.  She's not always childish... and that scares me.

What a paradox we BLMs with living children live in.  Before I wanted my daughter's to stay the perfect little people they are now because I would miss it when they are older.  Yet I absolutely know now that I don't want that.  Having a child who can never become anything other than a newborn is the worst kind of parenting imaginable.  With Meadow and Lennon, I look forward to who they can and will become.  With Holden I will never have that.  And that is SO unfair.