It Begins Again

Since becoming pregnant, I have found myself checking the baby monitor at night more frequently, even though Aiyana is an almost-17-month-old toddler and not a baby I need to worry about. The early mornings have my mind wondering, "She's ok right? Of course she's ok. . ." and yet, a tiny bit of nerves makes me click on the monitor anyway.

Ugh. It's beginning again. It's beginning all ready.

I've found myself trying to convince myself that surely, it won't be as hard as last time when Aiyana was born - -that I will not have that permanent anxious weight on my chest all day and night with my new little boy. I haven't let go of that hope, but I know having a newborn, in all its fragile-state through the first few months, is always going to be triggering, and always going to be hard.

My thoughts have often been revisiting my last therapy session in Provo, as of late, which was in January 2011. "Since you cannot rationally convince yourself that you were not at fault for your son's death, you need to learn to forgive yourself," my therapist had said. It was an assignment I had taken on, though I'm not sure I followed through well enough. It's just too hard to convince myself that I was at fault, but impossible to fully believe that I wasn't.

I know, I know. We've been over this, and around this, and yet here I am again. Even I am rolling my eyes at myself, thinking, "Really? Come on, you need to let this go." I still can't. I don't think about it all the time, but since becoming pregnant I have been, even reading SIDS articles about babies re- breathing carbon dioxide when a blanket is over them. . . which it was. And yes, Ty was strong and could lift his head and roll, so it doesn't make sense that he would be in danger. Often times, I think the blanket concern is for younger, newer babies with less movement control. But then I continue to read that babies with risk for SIDS are at risk because something is not right with their brain stem that would tell a "normal" baby to reposition away from inhaling trapped carbon dioxide. . . and so I find myself back to where I was so long ago. . . It could have been prevented. The one night I used that different, bigger blanket might have made all the difference.

And yet Dan still remembers and stands by the blessing he received from our Bishop, stating clearly that Dan knew before this life that he would lose a son. . .

I wish I just knew for sure one way or another so I could walk the path I need. If I'm at fault, I just need to know. Why is it important? Because guilt, more so than even learning to live with Ty missing from our lives, ever nags me from a small corner -- sometimes edging out further and stronger when I can't reign it back in, a nasty little demon from my personal Hell.

So I need to pretend. . . or accept? that I was partly at fault -- an accident, of course, like parents who might feel responsible for an accidental drowning or hitting their child with a car. I wish I could talk to someone who's been through that. The question is coming to me more frequently, "How do I forgive myself? How do I get over the fact that perhaps I could have a three-year-old running around with his cousins, playing with Aiyana and preparing to be a big brother?" I have no answer. Just conviction that I need to follow through with this assignment because no one can convince me 100% otherwise that all is as intended.

There's a mother's blog I read not too long ago whose daughter drowned on vacation. On her daughter's "Angelversary" (day of her death) she chose to honor her daughter by encouraging everyone to forgive someone, like this mother tries to do for herself. It was in August, and I went through the motions of letting go a white balloon for this little girl, as well as a white balloon with the words, "I forgive . . ." to represent forgiving myself. I didn't really feel anything for me, but it was a start and is a push in the right direction.

So, here I go on another personal journey, seeking forgiveness with help from Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ to know how to do this. Is it possible? Really? I don't know. I'm not sure how it is but I have to try 100% this time and see what happens. Maybe I'll find an answer during Conference this weekend.