Cady Kathleen Roman was born August 21. Cady Kathleen Roman died August 21. My mom and Chris and I think my sister, dismantled the crib, took everything off the walls and packed away every trace of our child. I had told them that I didnt want to walk in there and see anything that reminded me of her, so to please get rid of it all. For a long while after that, I had a very hard time even looking at anyone who was pregnant. I resented them. I was angry. I know that anger is one of the many stages of grief and I was grieving hard. I isolated myself. I went through the motions of living. I was not a nice person. We decided to go away for a bit. We went out to Colorado. Our nieces lived there. They were so little and I could not look at them with out breaking down in tears. We had lots of talks out there in the mountains, shed lots of tears and somehow managed to survive.
We were told to wait a year to try to get pregnant again, my body and mind needed rest, I had just delivered a baby. That was the plan.....well, I guess that was the plan. It was kind of unspoken. I remember October rolling around and thinking that it was time, against all advice except what I knew to be right in my heart.....Chris's birthday was the 19th and in his card, I wrote, "I'm ready to try again". He was thrilled of course, not only had he lost his daughter, he was quickly losing his wife..... I had become a shell of a human....... it was this decision , to try again , that ultimately saved me. It didn't take long and I was pregnant again. I knew that this was the right thing to do. Having another human depending on me for survival shook me out of the hell that I called my life. I was cautious, obnoxiously so.....afraid at every OB visit, fearing sometimes even expecting ,loss again. Time went by, weeks into months and months in to a term pregnancy. We made it. I gave birth to our second daughter July 13, 2001, less than one year after burying Cady.
Since then, we suffered another loss (another story entirely) but also had another sweet baby girl ,Maddox, in 2005. Noting that our 50 % success rate on delivering healthy babies (G4 P2) was not really ideal, our doctor agreed to a tubal ligation....mentally, emotionally and physically....I could not get pregnant again.
Fast forward to today, 14 years later. I still bear the scars of this loss. You cant see them, I keep them hidden.....However, I worry, excessively so sometimes, about my kids and their well being.Thank God I have Chris. He keeps me sane and grounded and is constantly reassuring me that all is well. I guess when you experience loss, it takes time to trust again. My work in this lifetime is to learn to trust again. To trust that all is exactly as it should be, to not expect the worst (because you might actually get the best) and to know that life is not to be feared. I try to not project my worry onto my kids and believe it or not, my oldest daughter is often my voice of reason. She has perfected the phrase...."don't worry Mommy.". I say it all the time, our kids are our greatest teachers. They see life through a pure and innocent lens and remind us to be thankful. I am still very much in process and have a lot of work to do, but these days, I can pick my battles with greater ease. I'm learning to trust and am often putting myself in situations that require me to trust those around me, complete strangers sometimes. I'm slowly fanning my girl's wings and encouraging them to learn to fly and to trust. I was given this gift of two amazing healthy daughters. I do not take that responsibility lightly. I prayed for these kids, to be given the chance of motherhood again. My kids come first, it is their time....such a fleeting, precious time......
Sometimes it takes an injury, often a significant injury to give us a chance to rebuild what was broken. And more often than not..... That place that was weak and hopeless becomes a place that is stronger than the rest. We are all fighting our own battles. Some public, some silent and mine is no more significant than any other.....but we are all warriors. Happy Birthday Sweet Cady. Mommy loves you.
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