Ambiguous Grief

We're Home.

We came home last Monday night, the 4th of January. I had been away from home for a month. It was weird to come home. Especially with a baby in tow. But a good weird. Thankfully Andrew's been off work this week otherwise I think I would have really lost it...I needed the help. Just to stay awake in the middle of the night to feed Levi sometimes I needed someone to talk to.

While Levi was in the NICU we were able to take part in a lot of activities thanks to The March of Dimes. Which I'm now a huge supporter of. Because really, without them, I would have gone crazy and not made the one good friend I did. One of the activities was a discussion group and chance to make a name bracelet with Levi's name on it. The discussion in the group was about Ambiguous Grief.

AMBIGUOUS GRIEF - Occurs when loss is psychologically felt but not physically confirmed (or when the individual is "there" but not there as with Alzheimer's Disease).

Most parents of premature babies feel a sense of ambiguous grief but don't know that's what it is or even how to deal with it if they do.

I feel this grief, because we can't be sad that Levi's here, because he's alive and healthy and just early. Yet I feel grief over the fact that I didn't get to experience certain things in my pregnancy. I'm still "supposed" to be pregnant for 3 more weeks. I didn't even get to wear all my maternity clothes. I have no idea how big Levi would have been full term, or how big I would have been. I didn't have a baby shower before he was born. I missed basically a month of my present life here in Alex. We didn't have a "normal" childbirth experience. There's a lot that was unexpected and different.

But yet, there's things we experienced that we wouldn't have without this premature experience. Such as the incredible love of so many people in our lives, especially our church family. They are too many to number, but we had tons of visitors or calls, lots of snack food brought to the hospital, the dog was totally cared for, our car which had broken down pre-hospitalization was paid to be fixed, we were loaned a car to get to St. Cloud, lots of chocolate, a place to stay in St. Cloud, lots of gifts for Levi, More prayers than I can imagine, Levi's incredible baby room being painted/decorated, our house being cleaned up, our car being delivered to St. Cloud, more food and gifts, money to help with all the expenses and lack of work on our parts, and I could go on. We experienced the intense love of the body of Christ in a way I could never have imagined. I wouldn't trade that for the world.

So, bare with me, there are times I'm sad, like today when I take down the "Baby Countdown" calendar I had on this blog. I can't bear to see where "I should have been". It's a little sad somehow. And yet, as I hurry to finish typing and go feed my perfectly formed son, I can't help but cry tears of joy.

So I'll be crying for many reasons now. Just remember to keep praying for us, because we are "grieving" and rejoicing all at once.