Monday, April 11, 2011

Runaway Baby

We recently took The Runway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown out of the library for D. We have been reading Goodnight Moon to D since she was born so I thought we should read her the other classic M.W.B. book. I know some people think The Runaway Bunny is creepy because the mother bunny won't let her son have any freedom (I believe one blog I read referred to the mommy bunny as a stalker mom) but it makes me sad for all the obvious dead baby reasons. I read it and think, "Why didn't I get the chance to convince my son that he should just stay with me?" I can make ridiculous promises/threats about what I will do to stay near my child. What if I had the chance to tell Reid how much I wanted him to stay with me? ( I mean telling him while he was alive and in my arms, not sobbing it out to an empty room after he died) Would I feel "better" if I felt like I got to try to keep him here instead of him slipping away before he was even born?

4 comments:

Merry said...

Well, of course, I don't know. I can't know unless I have to manage a stillbirth too. But, I don't think so. Different, not better. I did get those bits of Freddie, but I also got a hell of a lot of fear and terror. And I had to watch his little hand go blue and his cheeks go white and I had to live 11 days of not being in charge of him, not having any rights over him or being the things he needed.

Just different, I think. I'm grateful for what I got - I don't think I'd swap (so maybe better?) but it's poor comfort tbh and the residue, the wondering if we made the right choices, if any one made a mistake, if he might have come through, the memories of him full of tubes, struggling for breath, going yellow, having canulas put in - those are all a bit dreadful too.

I think different. And I think we often want what we didn't get :(

Hugging you. Wish I could do it in person :(

Anonymous said...

Do you think it would have changed how you feel now?

Asking to to stay, like he had a choice?

I sometimes wonder if in the hours after my son was born, and he was alive (but dying and I didn't know it yet), had I asked him to please stay, would he have obliged me?

Maybe I didn't pray hard enough. Maybe he didn't hear me when I told him I loved him and I needed him.

Every beat of your heart Reid heard, every belly rub while with you, was a symphony of asking him to stay. I am sure.

car said...

That really is a crappy trade off, the chance to plead with my son to stay with me but it comes with even more what ifs and memories of watching him going through invasive medical procedures and eventually watching him die. Merry, thank you for sharing your perspective, especially since you are in the middle of the anniversary of all these tings happening.

We all do want what we didn't get and will never get with our babies. And we all are filled with many "what ifs" and "maybes". I hope that acknowledging them here will allow me to live them.

Merry said...

Grin. I can only say writing it all down seems to help. I dunno if you'd noticed me doing that? ;)