Day of Significance

I've been trying to write a post and it's just not happening.  I'm not sure why I want to write it, because I really already did, but I still feel like I need to write something.

I guess the difference is that was about what I think and right now I'm thinking more about everyone else.  Our friends and our family.  Our network who has been amazing throughout the last year.  I guess I just wish that there was a day that I knew that she would cross their minds.  A day of some significance.  But I don't expect there would.

The typical choice for a stillborn child is their birthday, the day that they gained a physical independent presence in the world.  But that is also the day that Chiron was born.  And it may not seem fair, but that day is more about him and the start of his journey.  And that's even to me who carried both of them.  I really can't expect anyone to think of her on their birthday.  And is it really even her birthday?  Technically, I don't think she was born.  We didn't get a birth certificate.  Medically, I think she was just removed.

And it's not just because it is also Chiron's birthday that this date doesn't make sense.  Perhaps even more important is the fact that she had been dead for almost six weeks.  We had all come to terms with a reality in which she was not living by then.  All that remained were our physical goodbyes.

I really think that November 11 is the day that will always be specially hers in my mind.  But as this is essentially a construct of my own mind, it will not have significance to others.  Why do I say it's a construct?  Because we know she was alive the afternoon of November 10 and we know she was dead by 8:00 am November 12.  The perinatologist made a guesstimate that it had probably been the night before and so I've run with November 11.  Since I've since read that fatalities due to cord compressions most likely occur during 2-5 am, it seems likely it was actually November 12.  But I'm sticking with November 11 in my mind regardless.

Facebook doesn't give you a slot to input "date I delusionally credit as the anniversary of the death of my stillborn daughter" though.

So, what is the purpose of this post?  I really don't know.  I guess it's mainly to sort out in my own mind that I haven't worked through everything yet.  I find myself thinking that I've really come to terms with everything, but this is not true.  And probably never will be.

And the real reason I'm writing this?  Probably that I need to send something out there to the universe every so often as a sanity check to make sure that she was not just a figment of my imagination.  That she existed.  That she was Heart.  That she abused her brother in every ultrasound we ever saw.  That her name was Aurelia.  That she had a middle name despite the fact that I was asked what it was for the first time within the last couple weeks.

All that long ramble aside, I have gotten amazing evidence of her significance in the last few weeks.  In addition to the Scrappy Doo Preemie super hero entry, which he came in first place and is going to judging on (!), we also created a fundraising team for Hand to Hold based on both Chiron and Aurelia, http://goo.gl/QUmZo.  We did share this with a few people and I stuck it on facebook twice, but we really didn't work to try to get people to support them.  We just made it available.  And as you can see if you clickthrough, people were amazing.  The number of separate family units that added their resources to ours has floored me. So, while there may not be a certain date that they all will think of her, I know there are dozens of people out there who have Aurelia cross their minds at times.  And that makes me smile (and perhaps cry).

Heart & Eggplant

Social Networking

So, I am still considering writing out Chiron's (and thus our whole family's) story, but just haven't really made strides in that direction.  The one thing I did do a couple months ago was to download my Facebook data so I could look through what I wrote there to help give me context and information.  I found this status:

has realized one thing she realy values about facebook: recognizing that in the good and the bad of life, you're not alone.  Others do and are experiencing similar things.  And more than that, people care.  Thank you all for existing.

I wrote this on April 19, 2010.  Before I was even pregnant.  While I believed it at the time, I did not know the degree to which it was true yet.  Another status I found was written on November 12, 2010 at 23:44:

is processing.  Sometime between Wednesday morning and before this morning, the girl twin died.  No abnormalies or infections to give an idea of why, so focusing now on giving the boy twin as long as possible to grow and develop.  This was just past 24 weeks.  No guarantees obviously, but hopeful thoughts.

The response to this showed the absolute truth of the first status.  So, thanks for existing social network. I knew I needed to update through Facebook and so I did and both the act of doing so and the responses I received really helped me through the following weeks/months.  Had it not been for Facebook, I know I wouldn't have reached out to tell people who reached out to help me since they knew through Facebook. 

And that's a convoluted enough sentence to justify stopping here.