One year has passed since my son came into this world, a baby wanted, hoped for and looked forward to for my then 44 years. My first child, an unseen dot which grew to a peanut, and then transformed day by day into a full baby. Limbs sprouted and fingers formed, each visit to the doctor brought amazement and joy. His ahem father’s son, there was no hiding his sex.
Pregnancy was my wife’s happiest period of life, so she later said. So much anticipation. Such fun expectations. Sure, the morning sickness and the trek up our massive hill – 13 stories tall, higher than any rumored mountain in Kansas – in the hot muggy Japanese summer in the final months weren’t on her top ten list, but a baby, wanted and loved before conception is a more than a promise of hope. Such a baby is hope itself.
Laying in bed, with my hand on the bursting belly, I swore my paternal love and protection. We promised a better life than those which fate had befallen us. No runaway parents, sexual molestation, no rapes or mental torture on our watch.
Would our son be a scholar like his mother? Would he inherit his cousin’s athleticism or did that come from the wrong side of the family? What happens when you mix a six-foot American with huge feet and a five-foot Taiwanese with tiny ones? Will he be a happy or a fussy baby? How will he grow?
Will he tag along with his father or stay home playing with his mother? Can he learn English, Chinese and Japanese as a child? Far more important than this idle speculation, indeed, the most important a father can ask of a child; how soon will he be able to golf?
We lay in bed and asked questions just to ask for answers could only come in a dozen or
so years. We planned and we talked and we laughed and teased each other. I would put my mouth on her belly and whisper secrets to my son. Two boys outnumbering one woman.
It wasn’t just my wife who was the happiest then.
A baby’s first birthday is something special. More so for the parents than for the baby, who’s more likely to fuss than enjoy the fun. In future years, a birthday will become special, but the first birthday should be a day of joy
Tomorrow marks 365 days since he left departed. Too weak to cry, his rasping breath grew fainter and fainter, until, some four hours into his life outside the womb, his tiny lungs failed and he was still.
Knowing your child will not be long for the world is a mixed blessing. It’s less a shock – I guess – than in pre-ultrasound days, but the difference is like being pushed off a cliff suddenly or being told a couple of months in advance. Either way, it’s a hell of a drop.
What happiness. What sorrow. In our little Tale of One Family, Dickens could not have expressed it better. Indeed, the best and the worst of times.
To say the first while was rough is as understated as old money. Never having lost anyone close before, my wife’s first experience with the death of a loved one was our son, and losing a child is as hard as it gets. Born into a stoic culture, and living in a foreign country without kin, her shared tears were to wet only shirts of mine. Were she sure that there was a place to meet him, the days were not few where she would have gladly followed our son.
Me, never a macho man, at best and a wimp whenever possible, I can cry and cry I did. Quit sobs on the phone with family an ocean away, and body-shaking torments of tear, flowed free in bars, with close-by friends. Still, gushers of tears don’t wash away the pain.
You never forget, but the pain does fade. People talk of a heartache, and until it aches, you really don’t know what that means.
She turned to me in bed, not long ago, and said she could no longer do it every morning. It hurts too much.
I guess I can’t blame her, if I were in her position, I think I couldn’t do it either.
The first night we spent together, she said how much she wanted a child. A little surprised, but I was happy to find someone I wanted to create a family together. Even after the heartbreaking loss of our baby, and then the continued pain of the miscarriage which followed, my wife and I kept trying. She started taking her temperature each morning.
Like clockwork, her period would come and then ovulation would follow. Sex on command was a little strange, but we’re still in an extended honeymoon, so that was no problem. After ovulation, if the temperature stays up, good news, if it falls, try again next time, kiddies.
For six months, she would lay in bed for the full five minutes to get the most accurate reading. For six tries, we would try each time it wouldn’t work. Several were hard to take, because her temperate would stay up, she would seem pregnant and then all of a sudden it would stop.
She couldn’t take it anymore. It was too hard for her. She’s found out that her body works fine, and we know how long ovulation will take after her period starts, so she’s only going to look at the temperature then.
We’re still trying for kids and really want them. I understand that these things take time but it’s hard.
Work isn’t going well now. I can’t get into many details, but it’s rough now. I find myself slipping into depression again. I’ve increased my dosage and my counselor is back in town, so I’m able to get out of bed in the morning.
I posted earlier about needing to stop drinking and about the crazy shit going on back with my mom’s family. Everyone back home is tied up with that and my sisters have their own problems, so no one remembers what the date is here. I guess because everyone gets to used to me being the guy who supports everyone, that no one remembers that even the strong are weak.
Friends don’t understand. There was a thread recently about what you don’t understand without experience, and depression and losing children should be included. I told my friend about the depression, a guy whose bent me ear weekly about all the problems in is office and how to solve it, and his response was a quick, “you’re one of the strongest people I know, you’ll get over it.” Maybe so, but it sure doesn’t feel that way now.
Most of my friends are drinking friends, anyway, and in this transition period, I just don’t want to be hanging out in bars. Japanese male society is based on drinking, so there goes a lot of companionship.
I’m so alone.
The one bright spot is my lovely wife. I carried her for many months after Ian died last year, and she’s carrying me now. Her sweet laugh, her excitement at seeing me at the end of the day. She’s everything to me and that’s what’s keeping me going now.