It's OK to grieve the loss of your child..The purpose of this website is to bring together parent's, grandparent's and families who are grieving the loss of a child or a pregnancy. There are many reason's why these losses occur and we may never fully understand why they happen.
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December 10, 2010
Our baby, Caleb Edward Overbo, or is it Emily Grace Overbo? - 10 weeks old MY STORY
I met my ex-girlfriend Brenda in June 2010 on an on-line dating website. It wasn’t long before we hit it off and began seeing each other on a regular basis. She lived in Edmonton, Alberta and I lived in a small hamlet about an hour south of the city. Wanting to see each-other every day made commuting difficult so I chose to work closer to the city and we made the decision to live together about three months after we met. Perhaps the timing wasn’t right, we moved in too quickly, who really knows for certain? We were in love and to us, that is all that mattered. Brenda had an eight year old son, Nathan, from a previous marriage and in September of 2010 we all moved into a duplex in Edmonton. I’m the first to admit that life with me is not always an easy one. We had our share of challenges and Brenda told me that she wouldn’t commit to living with me unless I was serious about US and my desire to father a child with her. Our pregnancy was planned, we definitely wanted to be pregnant. In mid-September of 2010 Brenda had her IUD removed and we actively began trying to conceive a child. Her doctor advised her that she should not expect to get pregnant for at least 6 to 18 months. Almost immediately after it was removed, Brenda began bleeding heavily; to the point of actually passing out in the parking lot of her workplace one day. First week of October: Being concerned, I asked her if she wanted me to pick up a pregnancy test kit on my way home from work. Of course, not really knowing what I was looking for, I picked the most expensive one I could find, figuring it would give the best results. I can still remember the day she told me she was pregnant. I was in the kitchen making supper and she came downstairs looking like a totally different person. It’s so true when they say a pregnant woman has a look like no other; Brenda definitely had that look, she was “glowing”. All she said was, “Babe, I’m pregnant.” Obviously I was stunned. She showed me the pregnancy test and it wasn’t just a blue line, it was a FAT blue line..definately pregnant! The first person we told was my Dad. He was so excited to know that he was going to be a grandpa for the first time. We sat down one day in late October 2010 and tried to figure out when she got pregnant. We finally decided it must have been October 1, 2010, because on October 2, the bleeding she had been experiencing for over a week stopped; instantly. We assumed it was because of chemical changes within her body, brought on by the conception of our child. Of course, we were completely elated. Nathan was very excited that he was going to be a big brother. Things changed drastically on November 20th, 2010. I was driving my taxi in Nisku, Alberta when I collided with a fire truck that blew through an intersection. As a result of the accident, I suffered a Tibial Plateau fracture in my right knee which required surgery. A steel plate and 8 screws were put in to fix it. Because of the surgery, I developed an extremely severe Staph infection that just about killed me. I was in the hospital in Edmonton for most of December 2010, undergoing another 4 operations on my knee. Months of intense antibiotic treatments and physio were required. All of this was taking a huge toll on our relationship. It wasn’t until a few years ago, that I finally realized how bad it was for Brenda. She was under an incredible amount of stress and it was affecting us in ways that you couldn’t possibly begin to imagine. I was released from the hospital on December 31st, 2010 and was taken home to my dad’s house to recover. Dad single-handedly moved all of my stuff back to his acreage, where I was living, prior to moving to Edmonton. A few days later, on January 7, 2011, my dad, Edward Overbo was killed instantly in a horrible car crash just west of Camrose. Six months before he died he TOLD ME that his wife would, like Judas betraying Jesus, betray him. I know that knowledge of betrayal was lessened somewhat by knowing he was going to be a grandpa. It was all he could talk about in the month before he died. I was sitting in his chair in the living room and that day, after looking up at the clock, (it was about 6:10pm) I made a comment to my former step-mother saying, “Gee Dad’s been gone a long time..” She replied, “there’s a hockey game on tonight, he probably stayed to watch the game.” Un-beknownst to me at that time, my dad was spending his last few seconds alive on earth sliding across an icy highway in his truck. One of the worst things to be is a greedy liar and traitor to your family. My former step-mother is BOTH. My Dad was hurt terribly by her betrayal. While he accurately predicted her betrayal, one thing he couldn't predict was his own sister betraying him. At the post-funeral luncheon held at my aunt's house, I overheard her saying to her best friend, my ex-stepmother, that "I don't think you got enough from the will...you should go after more". With the assistance of her meddling, the resulting legal entanglements have been going on for four years and have taken a huge toll on my family, both emotionally and financially. My former stepmother will have to answer to my father one day for her betrayal. She alone is the author of the demise of any relationship she ever had with my family. Her greed has ruined everything..any legal and financial gains she has achieved are nothing more than a shallow victory, ill-gotten and certainly un-deserved. I’ve always had a strange connection to premonitions, “seeing things” before they happen, having really strange dreams like singing a duet with Waylon Jennings and then waking up the next morning, only to hear he passed away that night. I was always a very intuitive child growing up and that intuitiveness has continued into adulthood. Psychic Abilities? Maybe. Confusing the heck out of me? Definately. Some may call the abilities I have a curse – some may call it a blessing. I don’t know which it is for me, it’s all so confusing. Two of the hardest phone calls I’ve ever had to make were to my two brothers Wayne and Jason, telling them our father was just killed in an accident. I then called my Aunt Carol in BC and asked her to contact my mom and step-dad who were travelling in Mexico. Next I called Brenda; she didn’t answer so I left a message on our machine and about a half hour later she called me back, crying hysterically. We wanted to make “us” work: we talked about attending counselling together; we both wanted to make our relationship better for the baby’s sake. About 4 days later, after funeral arrangements were made and my dad was cremated, we attended his funeral together as a couple in Camrose, Alberta. My family buried his ashes in Kinsella, Alberta and a few days after my dad’s funeral, Brenda was fired from her employment with George Richard’s Big and Tall in West Edmonton Mall. Apparently, being a single, unwed pregnant woman is “not good for business” and those douchbags trumped up some bullshit internal theft charges and fired her. Brenda was “besides herself” with stress and grief. Not only was she worried about me being sick and unemployed but now, with the grief over my dad being killed and the added stress of being fired for being pregnant, it was becoming far too much for her to bear. Two days after she was fired, she called the house and told my mom (who was visiting) that we lost the pregnancy. She went to the doctor for the second ultrasound to determine the sex of our baby and was told by the doctor that she “couldn’t find a heartbeat”. At 14 weeks, we lost our precious ‘Angel’. On December 10, 2010 we saw our baby’s heart beating for the first time, a perfect 168 beats per minute. We were so happy…January 18th, 2011 the world as we knew it came crashing down around us..Brenda and I were inconsolable at this point. I grieved for the loss of my Dad, but in certain respects, losing the baby hurt way more than losing my Dad. My father had lived a full life. Sure, he had his aches and pains and while he may not have been quite ready to go, he wouldn't have wanted to suffer in the hospital. Our baby was never going to have a chance to live. Many times over the last five years I’ve questioned God why he took our baby..why did we have to suffer this way? Within the span of six weeks, I nearly lost my life to a deadly infection, I lost my dad, my girlfriend and our child. My brother Wayne explained it best to me, he said, “Dad died because he was ready to go. He had to get Heaven ready for Caleb.” That was the name Brenda and I had chosen for our first child: Caleb Edward Overbo for a boy; and if it was a girl, Emily Grace Overbo. Even with all of my pain and confusion, it was NOTHING compared to what Brenda was going through. She had to carry our deceased child inside her for another 3 weeks before it could be removed. Our baby was gone…Our life together was over…there was nothing left to do but cry. I did plenty of crying over the next few days. It got so bad that my mom had to call for an ambulance. I was sedated and transported to the hospital in Camrose where I voluntarily spend 2 days in the psychiatric ward. On the third day I checked myself out because they were doing nothing for my grief. They were more concerned with drug and anger management patients; There was no room for grief counselling. I decided to seek counseling on my own, which I did for another six months. Part of my healing process was learning that there was nothing I could have done to prevent the loss of our baby. I tried for a year and a half to “win” Brenda back but finally had to come to the realization that I couldn’t “fix” her pain or “us”. She had chosen to move on with her life and I had to respect that. Moving on for me, was a different matter however. Despite saying she would “never contest his will”, my former step-mother did just that. She lied to and betrayed my father; she lied to all of us. The stress of fighting her over my dad’s estate coupled with the loss of my relationship with Brenda, the loss of our pregnancy was just too much for me to bear. I found myself “retreating into my shell,” trying to find my way through a maze of pain and regret and inconsolable loss. In addition to realizing I couldn’t fix something that was broken (my relationship), I learned that perhaps what I needed to do was refocus my energies. I began “talking” to my angel baby every day. I would have “conversations” with him/her. I would tell him about my day, the things I did and people I saw. One day while I was hauling oilfield pipe in northern Alberta, I looked up at the sky and said out loud, “Daddy’s working hard baby, do you see me?” and I waved. Just as I said that, a single bird flew right across my field of vision. I took that as a sign that my Angel did in fact see me and was watching over me. There were many, many times in my life where I should have been killed. I’ve had multiple car accidents, I’ve nearly driven into the side of a moving train at a railway crossing, I’ve worked in Haiti while living next door to a man who was demon-possessed, I’ve been cursed by Haitian witch-doctors, I’ve taken chair shots to the head inside a wrestling ring, I’ve even walked away from a head-on collision with a pick-up truck; I was driving a motorcycle. Through all of this, I’ve always BELIEVED I had a Guardian Angel protecting me. Watching over me, many times protecting me from harm, bad decisions I’ve made and my own occasional stupidity. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I REALIZED IT WAS MY UN-BORN BABY WHO WAS PROTECTING AND WATCHING OVER ME…He WAS my Guardian Angel: he was protecting me long before he was ever conceived. And he will continue protecting me until the day I die. In addition to talking to my Angel, I write him letters. I started writing to him as a form of therapy. I tell him about my day and I always end the letter by telling him “I love you and I miss you”. Every night before I go to sleep, I tell him “Daddy loves you and he misses you.” I will never know, in this lifetime anyways, if our baby was a boy or girl. I refer to it as a boy because of what I perceive as a mathematical certainty: I’m the youngest of three boys and Brenda had a son. These letters ARE my therapy..they help me deal with the day to day pain of losing a child. My personal belief is LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION. Seeing our baby’s heart beating for the first time on December 10, 2010 only solidified that belief. October 1st, 2010 was the happiest day of my life; and January 18, 2011 was by far, the very worst. The pain NEVER GOES AWAY…But it does get easier to bare with every day that passes. There is no timeline on grieving..there is no book that says you have to grieve this way or that. There is no protocol or S.O.P. that says you can only cry at certain times. Cry when you need to..laugh when you need to. If it helps, get angry at God; trust me, He’s got big shoulders. Be smart enough to realize YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE THIS JOURNEY OF PAIN AND CONFUSION ALONE. There are people who care. Talk to a friend, a pastor or minister or priest. Write to me. Sharing your pain and grief is the only way you will be able to handle the myriad of emotions that come with the loss of a child or a pregnancy. As I said earlier, the pain never goes away, but it does get easier..trust me on that. I’ve BEEN WHERE YOU ARE, I know the pain, anger and feelings of hopelessness are excrutiatingly debilitating. As hokey as it sounds, Time does have a way of healing all; but only if you LET IT. Have daily conversations with your child..write letters to them. Send me your letters and photo’s..Share your story with me so I can share it with others and perhaps TOGETHER, we can provide comfort to someone who has no-where else to turn; someone who is desparately seeking answers to un-answered questions. No parent should EVER have to outlive their child. Ultimate healing for yourself when faced with the loss of a child can only come when you recognize that there are circumstances that sometimes occur which are way beyond your control. The best way to regain your happiness and to honour the memory of your child is to help others see that tomorrow may be overcast, but eventually there will be a bright and sunny day ahead. Help me – Help yourself – Help others. NO-ONE NEEDS TO TRAVEL THIS ROAD ALONE… Forever Missing My Angel, Caleb Edward Overbo/Emily Grace Overbo, Robert Overbo |