2.02.2010

The Health Department

We babyloss mamas all have (at least) one place we avoid like the plague. Because it's filled with memories. And those memories have teeth.

Yesterday I had to walk through those doors, right into the assault.

The bill for the yearly license for the store was due. I tried to focus straight ahead to the window I needed to go to.

But as I passed the left-turn I'd in the past made for the WIC department. The Help Me Grow door. Where I took my official pregnancy test and applied for Medicaid because we had no maternity coverage.

I remembered the last time I walked that hallway. When I returned my WIC coupons. When I'd told the office clerk that my baby had died.

For a moment, she was speechless. I pushed those vouchers into her hand. She insisted on talking to me about their postpartum program. I fled the room, the office, the building.

Our worlds are seeded with emotional landmines.

What's yours?

9 comments:

  1. Mine is anything medical. I don't watch any tv shows about medical situations, fast forward movies and change the channel for commercials. I've had enough medical drama...I don't need to see it played out again.

    On Sunday, my 7 year old son had a major asthma attack which landed us in the urgent care...again. It's really stressfull for me. I rise to the occassion when I need to but then I crash and burn after. I am however so grateful now when we get to walk out of the doctors office or hospital. That's definitely something that I took for granted before.

    Sorry for the rough day and incident.

    Hugs,
    Trisha

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  2. I'm signed in as John again so sorry about that! It really is me! LOL

    Emotional landmines? So many like you say...

    The Hospital, obviously. I have to go there for the Bereavement meetings. It sucks walking in through the Maternity Entrance and seeing everyone with car seats and balloons. That should have been my ending, that was how it played out in my head.

    My office at work, mainly the Wall Calendar like I said in my blog. Just a big empty reminder of where I should be, and where I was last year.

    A local shopping centre. Last time I went there I was heavily pregnant and moaning about all the bargains I was missing as I didn't know the sex. I can't bring myself to go back there yet.

    My Sisters Wedding Album. I can't bear to look at the pictures, I was so, so happy that day. I was about 25 weeks pregnant and past 'viability'. I thought I was on the home straight. I was so happy to see my sister get married and so happy that my family of three would soon be a reality. I am glowing with happiness and it makes me cry hysterically every time I see the pictures. Lucy was safe then.

    Sending you love from our little Island xxxxx

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  3. I won't even DRIVE past our WIC office.

    I didn't return my vouchers, I just never used them. I only called the WIC office and told them because I kept getting reminders about my breast-feeding class that was coming up. So I called and told them I wouldn't be attending, my baby had died.

    They tried calling me to tell me I could still get WIC for six months after a loss, but I never called them back. I had to have Mike call them and ask them to stop calling and make sure any mail correspondence would not be mailed out because it hurt me too much to deal with it.

    My emotional landmine is Church. Though I am finding it a little easier as each week goes by and I realize there is just no way I am going to make it through without God holding me. It took 14 months to be able to go to church without breaking down at the sight of a baby girl. I almost cracked this past Sabbath. But with God's help I held on.

    I think it will probably always hurt to some degree, though.

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  4. I did marketing in my previous job and had to go to hospitals...guess where my boss requested I go on the first day back from my leave from losing Lily? THE hospital...ugh, walking in those doors was so painful because the last time I had been there was the day that I discharged and had to leave my dead daughter's body there...

    ((HUGS)) it so sucks..

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  5. I'm not really sure. I work every day in the hospital that we got her diagnosis and where she was born. I've never felt it to be a place to avoid anyways. I haven't been back to the funeral home. I don't know how that would be if I ever had to go back in there. It would prolly be hard. So, I guess the jury is still out on this one.

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  6. I'm sorry you hit another land mine Emily. My land mine for the longest time was my scrapbook room (maybe because it was where I did most of my dreaming and planning, or because it was where I heard my thought the loudest) and the guest room that was supposed to be Logan's. I still don't look at the OB/GYN office, where the initial doom started, when I drive by. The hospital is bitter sweet. I had my first born there so I have a lot of great memories about her birth adn all of the classes, but they are always tainted with the reminder of my sweet Logan's death. I guess the "nice" thing is that eventually these land mines got less explosive and are now just tweaks in my heart. I think of Logan every time I walk into that guest room and every time I sit down to scrap, which sadly has slowed way down because sometimes all I do is sit there and think.

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  7. The hospitals where our babies were born and died...

    St. Lukes, where my mother received cancer treatment...the hallway...the smell...the rooms...the restroom where I broke down after the first few days of the beginning of the end...the waiting room...

    The yellow ultrasound room...

    Perrysburg hospice center...

    The river road in the fall...

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  8. i don't know why i've missed all these posts, emily. i'm so sorry. i still hate going to the ob, i still get upset and want to cry in the waiting room. when i went for one of my first appts for this baby, i asked the nurse to remove all of the baby pictures off the wall because they made me hysterical. but, i also avoid baby's r us and target. two places DH and i used to go and stroll the aisles and dream about what we'd eventually need for ella.

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  9. I'm a month+ late finding your blog, and this post in particular, and I was at first struck by the subject of the post, but then also by the date you posted it: February 2nd. The anniversary of my own miscarriage.

    The biggest emotional landmine I have is the term "Groundhog Day." It brings me back in time to the day, having just found out that my "pregnancy failed to progress" (doctorspeak for "your baby died"), in shock, as the admissions clerk made awkward small talk with my 3 year old while I signed papers to have a D&C.

    "It's Groundhog Day... did you hear whether he saw his shadow?"

    I know she was kind-hearted and was trying to be polite and maybe lighten the mood for my son, but in my devastation, the absurdity of the question struck me with the force of a speeding train. "WHAT???" screamed my brain. "Who cares? How can that possibly matter?"

    It's been ten years, and it doesn't get any better. "Groundhog Day" will always be my sucker punch, my emotional landmine. I may be okay the other 364 days of the year, but not on February 2nd.

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