Money! Money! Money!

Even while I was in labor I was very concerned about the money. Nolan and I had budgeted for a home birth. Which, after the supplements I bought to help keep us both super healthy, the birthing tub we rented, our birthing kit, the prenatal care and the actual delivery round out to about $2,000. That is with out any insurance helping.

We did not however budget for a hospital birth. Thank goodness we have insurance. I just got the insurance statement in the mail and this is what it says. Total costs from Ball Memorial Hospital: $12,799.14. After insurance: $1,719.26. Now you have to keep in mind that this is without any prenatal care, any supplements, and this is only charges to me. If Asher had lived there would be approx. another 10,000 for him - minus whatever the insurance would cover.

And on top of worrying about hospital charges, I knew we were facing funeral costs. Which we had no insurance for. This is where I get to tell about God's provision and blessing in the midst of it all. When you have a funeral, you pay for the services of the funeral home and for the services/land for the cemetery. The total funeral home services (taking care of Asher, the casket, the guest sign-in book, transportation of Asher and flowers to the chruch, set-up at the church, transportation of Asher, Nolan, Vera, and I to the cemetery and then Nolan, Vera, and I to the dinner afterward.) were around $3,500 - ALL of which (except for the casket and the sign-in book) were taken care of. The funeral home donated the services. Then my mom and dad paid for the casket and sign-in book. We would never have had the money for any of this. We'd needed to be on a payment plan; for years.
then the costs for the cemetery (the plot, the vault, and the digging) were also all free. I don't even know how much it would have cost (either because no one said or because I don't remember that part of the conversation and didn't pay attention to the paperwork). I only know that the vault was supposed to be over $600, but something happened and they gave it to us for free. Asher was buried in Gardens of Memory cemetery in a place called "Baby Land". I think it is perhaps the most heartbreaking place I've ever been to. It is a space on the grounds of Gardens of Memory where only infants are buried.
The only thing that was left to discuss after the services, and burial, was the headstone. Nolan picked out the most beautiful one. It has a picture of an angle guiding some children across a bridge. You get the sense that the angle is also protecting them on their journey. It also has a place for a vase to be set so that I can take flower out there. The cost for this was $1,932.00. Our options were to pay for it monthly ($50 per month for 3 years) and then, when it was fully paid for, they would make it and put it over Asher's grave.  But we really did not want to have to wait 3 years for our child to have a real grave marker. So my wonderful grandma sent us the money to pay for it. It is important to Nolan and I to pay for this part ourselves. So we will be paying my grandma back over time. She told us not to worry about it...... but we need to do this, for us......for Asher.

I can't believe how God provided for those needs. If we would have needed to pay for all of this out of our pockets it would have been upwards of $21,000.00. God truly owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

P.S. I forgot to mention all the people who sent/gave us money. It made it so we could eat out, or order in and I didn't have to cook. It also helped with our regular bills since Nolan had to miss work. I am just amazed at God's provision for us.

.05%

According to http://www.marchofdimes.com/Pregnancy/complications_umbilical.html 5% of the 1% of babies with a true knot in their cord die.

Also according to http://depts.washington.edu/hswork/multnomah/ten/mom_baby/mchd02/005a.html there are about 133,000,000 babies born world wide each year.

If this is true, then 66,500 babies die each year by miscarriage or stillbirth due to a true knot in their cord.

That is .05% or 1 in 2000.

In your lifetime, your average chance of dying in a car crash is 1 in 83.

.05%

Depression

I have 1 and a half bottles of wine and some super cheap vodka in the cabinet. I haven't had any yet, and if I start, I fear I may not stop. 30 days ago I gave birth to my son. 30 days ago, at about 8:30 in the morning I handed my son over to the Man. The mortuary Man. He put him in what looked like a black duffel bag and I went to sleep.

Today, my plans were to go buy a party dress and some red heels I like very much. But I don't care about red heels today. I don't care about parties. I don't care about eating. I don't care about Christmas. I don't care about anything or anyone today. I feel like I can't breath. Or like I'm trying to breath in water. I inhale, but it does no good. My head still spins, my arms feel heavy and I know I'll soon die. I'm probably starting to scare some of you. Some of you are ready so jump on horseback and whip out your swords to save me. Thank you. I promise everyday isn't like this. Although as reality sets in, these feelings become stronger and  more frequent. I suppose this is normal too. I guess I have to travel the valley if I want to climb the mountain.

Yesterday I felt nothing. I was on even keel all day. No sadness, anger or fear. But no happy either. I don't know what's worse. How long does it take to accept and recover from loosing a child? How long until my heart isn't broken anymore? How long before I can go buy those red shoes without feeling guilty for feeling happy? How long before I want to cook fabulous food again? How long before I want to do anything other than lay in bed in the fetal position? How long.....?????

The other day I was thinking about what sort of things I want to do to celebrate Asher's life at the one year mark. Mrs. Barnard, would you mind terribly if we borrowed your sparklers idea? I like the thought of lighting sparklers. I also like the thought of drinking wine and releasing Chinese lanterns (the kind that are sort of like tiny hot-air balloons.) And maybe we'll bring a portable CD player and play some Aerosmith. And maybe, by then, I'll have started to feel happy with out feeling guilty. Maybe by then, we'll have decided to have more babies. Maybe by then I'll have surrendered my fears as well as all the hopes and dreams I had for Asher. Maybe by then I won't have to convince myself every morning that I really was pregnant and I really did have a baby boy and we really did name him Asher Benjamin Ritchie and he really did die. Really.

And now I'm going to go get that bottle of wine and learn some self control and have just one glass. Temperance in the Midst of Tragedy. That's what I'll call my book.

Monday will be 1 month.

I'm sitting here crying. Its been an exhausting day and I feel really overwhelmed. Vera has been sick and I fought with Nolan all day. Piddly stuff. Little things that take over and make mountains out of themselves. And I just want my baby back in my arms. Right now I never want to have another child. Ever again. I want to go out to the cemetery and lay down next to where he is with his album and the lock of his hair I have and cry. I want to just lay there forever and cry. I sound like an insane person. I just sit and stare at the  piles of Asher's clothes in my room. I smell the last clothes he had on. I touch his hair. I stare and stare and stare at his face. His slackened bluish face. I try to understand what went wrong. Over and over I play the "What if ....." game. What if I'd lay still more. What if I'd jumped up and down more. What if I'd just chosen to do things like everyone else and scheduled a C-section. I could have saved him. If I hadn't been so stubborn. Why was everyone but me so terrified those last 3 weeks, but I had no clue. Where was my mother's intuition? How can a knot in the cord kill some babies but not most? Why did it have to be mine?? I never opened his eyes to find out what color his eyes were. Every mom should know what color her child's eyes are. I just want to hold him again. I wish I could go back and hold him more. I wish I'd have told that Dr. not to give me the cervidil so my labor would have lasted longer. Just a few more minutes with my son. MY SON. my son. Right now the part of my brain that makes sense says that this is not my fault and that no one blames me. But the unreasonable part of me that aches and craves to have a baby boy in my arms says that this is most certainly my fault. And that everyone secretly blames me. They all thought you were crazy to start with...... what else could possibly have happened??? Of course you signed your child's death warrant. NO! No! This is not your fault. This was a random act of nature. Something that cannot be predicted or prevented or helped in any way. My brains are arguing. All day they argue.

The other day I lay in bed holding Vera's baby doll to my chest and talking to it. I'm surely going crazy. I'm really great at hiding it, you'd never know from the outside. I don't let people see me act crazy. I don't want people to know I'm loosing my mind.

Monday will be 1 month. 11 more months and it will be the anniversary of his death.

Song #5 Down in the River to Pray

About 10 minutes later my nurse came back in with the morphine. Nolan was sitting by my side and we were talking. Anne went around to my left side where the IV was and started unpackaging the pain killer. I remember my mom was sitting a a chair to my left and my dad was standing across the room in front of me. Next to him was my pastor. Then it seems like Jim and marla were across the room on my right. I asked the nurse what this was going to do to me and she said that it would make me feel kinda drunk. (Now I've honestly never been drunk so I still don't really know what to expect) I say, ok, and I turn my head over to Nolan and we keep talking. I suddenly feel a cold sensation travel up my arm, around my brain, and then back down my right arm. I remember telling Nolan that I felt something funny. And then I remember people laughing at me and being concerned that I was going to make a fool of myself in front of my pastor. I also remember looking at my mom and seeing her so sad, but feeling a sort of hazy happiness, and wishing she could feel it too. Mom told me later that I kept telling her that she needed to get some of this and that if she asked nicely the nurse would hook her up. I also remember my dad laughing at me and saying how 6mms of morphine was nothing. (I also remember wondering how he knew what 6mms of morphine felt like in comparison to more than that. But I think that might be a story for another day.) I guess I was pretty funny considering the circumstances. I don't remember a ton about those minutes, but I do remember that medicine didn't do a darn thing for those contractions. I got up a few more times as the contractions began to get stronger and longer. After about 3 or 4 I was lucid again and it was as if I'd never had the morphine. Marla or my mom would follow me into the bathroom and stand there with me or rub my back. Anne (my amazing nurse - this is not sarcasm, she really was amazing) asked if I wanted a body ball and I told her that would be nice. But I only got to use it for like 20 seconds total, because at this point the contractions were coming at about 30 seconds apart. But don't get any ideas that this was close to being over, because it was a good 4 hours before Asher was born.

I stood for what seemed like hours in that bathroom. The counter was just high enough for me to grip the far edge of the sink and snarl into the basin. I started out on the balls of my feet for every contraction. In the beginning I never came down off the balls of my feet. All I would do is grip the sink, grit my teeth, stand with my feet apart, and growl. It was the angry growl of a wounded mother wolf trying to protect her cub, but knowing she is powerless. So full of sorrow and anger and fear. I suppose that sounds corny, but it's true. As time wore on and I began to get tired I started hearing Lori's (my birthing class instructor) voice in my head; keep your feet flat..... keep your voice in low tones......keep your bottom loose........ say "OOPEENN"........ride a wave in your mind with each contraction. So I started by putting my feet flat on the ground and moaning instead of growling. It became the guttural moans that come from a power deep down inside that no woman knows she has until she goes through labor. This moan was not like anything you can stop from coming out. It has to come out. This moan reverberated in the sink of that bathroom and off the walls. It vibrated my whole body from the inside out. It gave a release to my pain. If I were to stop that sound..........well, I don't know, because I could no sooner do that then keep the sun from rising. With each contraction the moan would start soft, and as my uterus tightened the decibels would rise to what seemed like thunder in my ears. As the contraction eased off so did the roar of my voice. It felt good. It also felt like I was dying.

(This is a totally random side point which I never want to forget, so I'm putting it in here now) As I was growing up, my dad used to make comments about how I needed to be tough as an Indian squaw. He used to say that they just went off by themselves and squatted in the woods or a field to give birth (this is actually true for some tribes, I have a book about it). At some point he came in and said one of the most encouraging things to me. He said "You sound like a squaw." Now I know this sounds like a ridiculous thing to tell a laboring woman.... but it was honestly a compliment of the highest order. Later he came in and said "Come on! Tough it out!" Again, unless you know my dad, you'd never know this was him cheering me on. Letting me know he'd do anything in the world to take this pain away from me. Telling me he loved me and that he knew I was a strong woman. That he was proud of me.

At some point the nurse came in and asked if I'd like the dr. to check me (that is check my cervix for dilation), to see if there was any progress. I asked if she could just do the checking, and she said yes she could. I squatted a bit and she reached up inside me and said I was 3-4cm. I got really disappointed at this point. I felt like I'd been in that bathroom for hours. At this point I decided to get into the shower. This is when the real magic began to happen. If I'd have been smart, I'd have gotten into the shower right off the bat. That is where I'm the most relaxed, in the water. They would have let me in the birthing tub..... but the Cervidil was still in my vagina. So the shower it was. The contractions became stronger, harder, like someone was going to pull my body apart right down the middle. But there was Lori's voice again in my head..... keep your butt loose....... low tones......... keep your jaw muscles loose..... say "OOPPEEENNN".......... ride that wave! it took every ounce of control in my body to relax the muscles of my butt and cervix and vagina. It was like pain from hell itself when I would begin to relax, but after the muscles were unclenched the pain became tolerable; and so I learned a pattern.

A contraction would start, I would stand up (Anne had gotten me a chair to sit on while in the shower), I would consciously plant my feet firmly on the floor, grab the railing and clench my hands with all my might while at the same time moaning "open", unclenching my bottom and envisioning myself riding a gigantic wave. As the wave would fold itself into a giant curl, the contraction would be at its peak; as it crashed to the shore the contraction would come to an end. Then I would sit down again. Exhausted, I'd sleep for the 30 seconds or so until the next one came on.

This song reminds me of my time spent in the shower. The fellowship I felt with God. The kinship I felt with every mother giving birth who had come before me. The closeness and support from my family. And the prayers for me that were said that night. I choose this song back in May.

Song #5 is Down in the Rive to Pray by Alison Krauss

No one else.

‎..No one else will ever know the strength of my love for you..After all, you're the only one who knows what my heart sounds like from the inside♥


-to Vera and Asher. 




This was written by a friend of mine. I stole it. Thank you Brigid. 

Shaking

I'm angry and I feel hateful. I feel like my insides are gonna fly apart. No one has caused this. And I don't know where to direct my anger. I thought about going for a drive, but I'm afraid I might not have the best driving skills right now. I want to throw my dishes and smash the christmas tree. I wish I had a baseball bat and a metal trash can to bash. This isn't fair. I'm so angry I'm shaking and crying. I want to punch someone. I want to shake them. It feels like there is a ball of fire in my stomach. Its pure boiling rage. Don't tell me we can try again. Don't talk to me about God's goodness. Don't say it will all be fine. I don't want to hear about how time heals wounds. How dare you talk about how you can imagine. Don't expect me to put my clothes on or get out of bed or be nice or smile ever again. THIS IS NOT FAIR!!!!!!! I LOVE HIM!!! I ATE ALL THE RIGHT THINGS. I EXERCISED. I HAD ALL HIS CLOTHES WASHED!! THEY'RE ALL STILL IN MY ROOM. I'M DONE BEING BRAVE AND GOOD AND FINE AND OK. I'M DONE. I MIGHT CUSS. I might go sit in my car and scream at the top of my lungs. GO SIT ON SOMEONE ELSES PORCH, SATAN.