After spending about 10 days in Ohio, it was time to go back to Omaha on Monday, August 9th, 2021. Jared and I both decided to take the remainder of my maternity leave time off, so we had until Monday, August 23rd before we headed back to work. We had already discussed the likelihood that coming back to Nebraska would be hard, especially since the previous two weeks we had been occupied with setting up Stevie’s service arrangements. With a few more weeks off, we knew we would have time to kill with our grief.
The night we got back into town, we were greeted by our pitbull Annie at the door. We could tell she missed us (thank you to our neighbors for watching her!!) and we felt like she was hesitant to trust us for fear we might leave again. Coming back to the house was much harder for me than I expected. I felt like I was walking back into a nightmare…our countertops were covered in a few floral bouquets with crunchy petals, stacks of cards from people sending their condolences, and the feelings of dread – knowing this was the location where Stevie first stopped breathing. I tried to start unpacking from our trip, but soon found myself balling my eyes out on our bedroom floor.
I had so many thoughts, feelings, and questions still lingering. Questions and fears about the future. What if we never find out what happened? What if there was something we could have done? What if, for whatever reason, I cannot have children again? How am I going to go back to work? Should I stick with the plan we had for me for when I returned to work after maternity leave? When is my body going to feel normal again? When will I be able to really go hard in the gym again?
Jared let me bombard him with all my concerns and listened patiently, then talked me through a lot of my questions. He helped me, and continues to do so, with prioritizing my concerns in a logical/sound manner.
The majority of the two weeks leading up to work, we tried to fill the time with random tasks around the house. The first day back, I cleaned out my closet and gave a bunch of clothing to Goodwill. We also did quite a bit of yard work – I pulled weeds in the back and the front, sprayed weed killer (got stung by a hornet in the process!), and Jared fixed a section of our fence that had too much wear and tear from a recent storm. I recall one day pulling weeds and just experiencing the worst sinking feeling – I just felt utterly hopeless. I thought to myself “What if I never feel happy again? What if I constantly feel hopeless?” It is hard for me to describe how awful those thoughts feel. I had never experienced those thoughts and feelings in my life before, and I 100% do not recommend it to anyone. It really is terrible. Thankfully, those moments passed, and I have yet to feel that way since those two weeks at home…but for those brief moments, I really thought long and hard about my mental health. I agreed that I would see how a few weeks at work would go and if I thought I needed some type of medication (anti-anxiety or anti-depressant), I would contact my doctor about it.
One of the days home I went in to talk with my boss. He was my new commander that had taken over the squadron while I was on maternity leave, that I mentioned in blog #3. I went in to talk with him about future plans for my career. Before going on maternity leave, there were a lot of plans my old boss and I had discussed and put into place for when I returned. But now that Stevie was gone, I felt all out of sorts with everything regarding my future and my career/professional development. Having an uncertain future generated a significant amount of anxiety for me, but Jared and I talked it out and discussed extensively about what we envisioned. My priorities had changed a LOT……family will be #1, for as long as I can imagine. But I just needed to sit down with my new boss and discuss the way ahead, and ensure I was making the right decisions for me, Jared, our personal life, and our careers.
After much discussion, I can tell you at this moment I did move out of my old squadron and up into the Operations Group (an echelon above a squadron) where I oversee a lot of administrative functions for the Group. We also know that we will be remaining in Nebraska until at least summer 2023 (but more likely summer 2024). Regardless, it was very helpful for me to have these discussions with my new boss, and my DO, and to solidify plans for the future.
With those two weeks off, Jared and I also took some time to go out. We had not been out to socialize in a long time, primarily because of COVID and then having Stevie. We went and watched an Omaha Stormchasers game (minor league baseball), went to a beer brewery and dinner one night, saw Union Omaha play (men’s semi-pro soccer), and went to a Shinedown concert (I had bought tickets for Jared’s birthday, and this was an event we had planned on finding a babysitter for). While at the Stormchasers game, there was a family sitting across the aisle in the next section. They had two kids, the oldest was probably five and the younger probably two. The two-year-old was fussing most of the time, and we think the family ended up leaving the game early because of it. I thought to myself “what I would give to have a fussy child!!”…I wouldn’t even care. I would let them cry their ass off and get people around us to stare and I’d still be so happy. What’s even crazier about this story is, a few weeks later Jared would bring up this exact moment and tell me he had the exact same thoughts.
At the Shinedown concert, there was a moment when the lead singer mentioned a couple they met in Omaha when they were on tour in 2019. The couple had a son they lost to cancer at the age of 12, and they told the band that their son loved Shinedown and his favorite song was “Get Up”. The band then told the crowd to think about the last year and all the hard times everyone had been through, and to also think about someone they had lost, whether to COVID or maybe just lost touch with over time….and then they played “Get Up”, kind of as a memorial/dedication to that couple’s son and to others who have lost someone. It was a special moment Jared and I shared, thinking about Stevie and how our lives were and still are forever changed.
We also attended our first session with our pregnancy & infant loss support group when we returned to Omaha. I was really anxious and nervous about it…I was dying to talk with other parents in the same boat, but I also had no idea what to expect from the group. Would I be required to talk? Would there be other parents that lost children the way we lost Stevie? What if the group doesn’t “work”? At the beginning of group, the facilitator walks us through a meditation/breathing session to help us relax. I cried the whole time during this relaxation technique during the first session. I just could not relax. But much to our relief, we felt really good after the first session. I really found hope again after listening to other parents, and hearing that they all went on to have children after losing one child. It was comforting to know that we were not alone in our thoughts and feelings, feelings that we otherwise may have thought were weird or isolating if we never found this group.
The last event I want to discuss from those two weeks home was when Jared and I decided to go out shopping for a new shelving unit for our living room. This shelving unit would be the place we would put Stevie’s trunk, another item we were in search of. Her trunk is where we decided we would place some of her items – her baby book, printed photos, the guest book and program from her services, and a few of her frequently-worn onesies. After walking around for a bit at a furniture store, we found a shelving unit that we almost bought. It was taller and skinny, so we would have to buy two to fill the space we wanted to place it. Then, we looked at how to put it together and found it was a really dumb way – with “cam lock fittings”.
See, when we bought Stevie’s crib and dresser, we also bought a small frame that would go on top of the dresser to section it off into what would look like a changing table. This frame utilized these cam lock fittings – the purpose of these fittings are to hide the screws from the outside once the frame was built, so no one can see the screws. I was unsuccessful in putting this frame together because the dang cam lock fittings are so freakin’ annoying and time consuming to put together…in essence, I never got them to fit together properly, stripped one of the frame boards in the process, and decided those should be more “pregnant-user-friendly” lol.
So when we looked at how to build this shelf, I was so upset to see it was ALL cam lock fittings. That was enough to seal the deal for me – I told Jared I did not want to buy this shelf for that very reason. We himmed and hawed for a while, but eventually walked out without buying the shelves. I started crying once we got to the truck and we realized that this seemingly simple task of finding a shelf was more trivial than we had anticipated. This shelf and trunk had to be PERFECT. It was for Stevie, so I put a ton of pressure on myself (as usual) to find something better. After an unsuccessful trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond after that, we headed to Hobby Lobby. And there it was……….we found the shelf! It fits perfectly in our living room. It would not be until the first week of October that I would find Stevie’s trunk – also at a Hobby Lobby, but a different location.
One Positive Thing:
How about them Browns?! Haha – no, really though!
A few weeks ago, I finally ordered a Browns jersey! After growing up in Ohio my whole life, it was not until around 2016 that I really started watching the Browns in a dedicated fashion…I suppose Jared’s own dedication was finally wearing on me – haha. For the holidays this year, we will be staying with my brother in Wisconsin and have tickets to the Browns-Green Bay game on Christmas! It should be a blast…and I’ll be able to wear my new jersey.
Anyway, I chose #24, Nick Chubb, for my jersey. He is not only one of the most talented running backs in the league but is also what the military would call a “silent warrior”. Someone who shows up every day, works hard, is incredible at his job, asks for nothing in return, and very humble – all reasons I think he is a pretty great dude. I started following him on Instagram this weekend and was surprised to find he has his own cereal, “Chubb Crunch”. To my even further surprise, a portion of the Chubb Crunch proceeds go to First Candle…an organization dedicated to ending/preventing SIDS and other sleep-related infant deaths. Apparently, Chubb’s nephew passed away a few years ago to SIDS. I just couldn’t help but think “What are the chances?” Yet another way Nick Chubb is awesome, and more human, connecting with fans on a very personal level.
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