No such thing as recovery...

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20340293,00.html

This is an article about John Travolta in People.com

John Travolta: 'We Work Hard Every Day' to Recover from Son's Death

By Jeffrey Slonim and Blane Bachelor

Friday January 29, 2010 10:20 AM EST

John Travolta and Kelly Preston

A year after the tragic death of their 16-year-old son, Jett, John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston say they "work hard every day" on healing – a message reinforced by their recent trip to deliver medics and supplies to earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

"Once you get yourself stable, then you're able to reach out again," Travolta, 55, told PEOPLE. "And I think this whole year, every day we've been working on stabilizing ourselves. And it's been successful so far."

Added Preston: "It helps to look out and be helpful to other people … that really helps."


I agree with everything the two of them said, but then, you can't really use the word "agree" when talking about grief, because everyone's grief is so unique. As for the term "recover", that word has no place in discussing the loss of a child. A child is permanent, their soul is unrepeatable, they are not lost & replaced. It isn't like a sickness or a depression you get over one day like it never happened. Whether you parent a child here or not here, you parent them for life. A mother who has lost her only child is no less a mother than one who has one living, one dead. A person can "recover" from many losses, but I think losing a child is different, you may get some acceptance, but even that comes and goes.

Awesome letter to the Editor!

This was in last week's paper, a fantastic rebuttal to the ridiculous article the Post put out last week about how newborn circumcision may be recommended again based on very flawed studies done in Africa on HIV & circ.

There's good concern for not circumcising boys


Thursday, January 21, 2010

It would be disgraceful bioethics for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend circumcision for U.S. infants based on African studies ["Circumcision may receive new support," Health, Jan. 19].

Amputating healthy, vital, nerve-supplied erogenous tissue from helpless infants, based on an assumption that they will be promiscuous adults, is remarkably totalitarian medicine. It also flies in the face of epidemiological realities. The United States has high rates of HIV and the highest rate of circumcision in the West. The "experiment" of using circumcision to stem HIV infection has been running here for decades. It has failed miserably. Why do countries such as New Zealand, where they abandoned infant circumcision 50 years ago, or European countries, where circumcision is rare, have such low rates of HIV?

Circumcising infants who can then claim as adults that they are less likely to catch or transmit HIV is a foolish gamble. And if circumcised individuals still need to practice safe sex, why bother with a procedure that might make them overconfident? Moreover, in an age when "super bugs" are rampant in U.S. hospitals, the CDC needs to weigh carefully the ethics of preventing disease by amputating healthy tissue from helpless children.

John V. Geisheker, Seattle

The writer is executive director and general counsel of Doctors Opposing Circumcision

Jakob is 10!

My first baby is 10!
Pictures to come... He is having his 1st sleepover to celebrate his new decade this weekend.

There is a great website for parents who lost babies called "A Glow in the Woods." I am not that articulate anymore about intense grief, I am not there anymore, but I stop by and read from time to time. Tonight I read such a great essay there, "Birthing a Dying Child"
http://www.glowinthewoods.com/home/2010/1/11/birthing-a-dying-child.html

This part is great:
"As expectant parents dream up their their ideal “birth plans,” young mothers describe their birthing experiences around water coolers or playground equipment, and well-wishers congratulate new parents on Facebook walls, the birthing experience is often closely linked to merit. The fewer the interventions, the longer the unmedicated labor, the more (or less) dramatic the coping with labor pain, the bigger the baby, the higher the Apgar scores, and so on, the more heroic the birthing woman. Anyone who believes machismo is a strictly male phenomenon should listen to newly minted mothers swap their birthing stories. The natural birth movement in particular and the contemporary North American culture of parenthood in general deemphasize the unavoidable fact that no matter how much a woman takes care of her body, knows her body and trusts her body, the birthing experience may go horribly wrong."

And this, as a Catholic I love this:
"Receptivity is a central motif in Mariology across Christian traditions. "Here I am, the servant of the Lord," says Mary in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke as the birth of Jesus is foretold. "Let it be with me according to your word." Mary’s openness to the mysterious movement of God is her chief virtue and ours. But opening ourselves to that which is beyond ourselves is dangerous business. The possibility of parenthood is no exception. When a couple open themselves to reproduction, they also open themselves to the relentless pain of being unable to conceive, unable to give birth. A pregnant woman opens herself to being cruelly betrayed by her own body, to standing by helplessly while her child is betrayed by his or her own body. Opening oneself to giving birth is opening oneself to suffering and death-to managing debilitating handicaps, to burying one’s child, to being overcome with sadness at the mere sight of another parent doting on a healthy newborn. Opening oneself to giving birth is opening oneself to hell."


Being open to God's will is a huge part of my life and that's what gives me the strength to go on & be a parent to my living boys and be open to whatever plans God has for us. When I'm expecting a baby I don't care how old I am, I won't get the AFP, nuchal screen, CVS or amnio. All of my kids are equal, born or preborn. Anything really bad can be seen on ultrasound.

The essay also says this:
"Some Old Testament scholars define "lament" as the reaction to a belief-shattering experience. Even though I knew better, before I carried and birthed my daughter Cara I believed that if I did what was right, I could expect positive outcomes. This is my lament. Metaphysically speaking, I do not know why bad things happen. I do not know whether God wills them, merely allows them, cannot stop them or something else entirely. What I do know is that I am not fully the master of my own destiny and that one day I will again witness the birth of something beautiful."

I remember seeing people leave the hospital every day with healthy babies when I was stuck in there with Alistair, and I never did leave with him. Even in the worst days back then I knew one day that I would again experience the awesome feeling of leaving the hospital with a precious little person.

With all of the devastation in Haiti right now, I feel self centered for blogging. I just read that its a logistical nightmare, the port is too damaged to use & the airport just opened, but its a mess because too many relief planes are coming in. Then, there's not really a safe and stable place for relief workers. Wouldn't it be nice if some of the big cruise ship companies anchored empty boats close by and helped provide shelter for Haitians and relief workers?

I need to be sleeping right now! Everyone else is & that means I can too, but instead I'm here.

This picture was posted here last year, but I realize now its a picture of pure victory and joy. I had just gotten out of the hospital (kidney stone drama, big time) the day before, on Christmas Eve.

It was Christmas morning and I was healthy again. I had an unobstructed bladder for the first time in months & I narrowly avoided a stent placement that would have stayed in place for 4 months. I was on the mend and my 22 week gestation baby was OK after a night on IV morphine, and I mean lots of it.

I was and am so grateful that we made it through all that OK & as anyone knows who has had the unfortunate experience of hearing me talk about it..I am still shellshocked. I trust doctors less than ever and I know I have the possibility of more kidney stone dramas, but I will remain optimistic that it won't be that bad ever again. I may write more later (sorry!) but here is me last year, enjoying the absolute privilege of being sprung from the hospital on Christmas & here is my precious little guy & I together a year later.

I will try to write something little every other day or so, just to record that I was here!




Ram-baby loves to sit with us and play with spoons but has still not had any solid food, at 8 & 1/2 months. The time of your life when you have the sealed digestive tract of breastmilk only is so short, I'm not in any rush to break that seal. He is happy & chubby, he just nurses a lot. I don't why that doesn't help me lose more weight, but it doesn't seem to have much effect yet :(

Christmas break has been really good and really bad. I am oddly excited about returning to normal routine.