Sparkling Lauren, a super special sparkling surrogacy and a "gayby"

[lilith]

This is the stage of grief called DENIAL.

I've met many, many parents who have walked these journey of losing a child. Every single one of them tells you do not EVER fully "get through" the grief. Nor have I ever met a single parent, myself included, who wanted to "get through" the grief.

You do not get through it and come to the other side where it doesn't impact you. You adjust to a new reality where your feet can hold onto the ground and waves have to be stronger, or more unexpected to know you over like the early waves of grief do.

Rather than chastise and disregard what experts and other parents have taught me, I have taken their comfort to heart, because they have walked this longer than I have.

The ONLY POSSIBLE WAY to reach the place where Lauren claims she is, is to not have been attached nor loved the child who died in the first place. Maybe Lauren is capable of that, but her daughters are not. And since she never got ANY support for herself, except for her sparkly rainbow friends, and only got the Social Services mandated support for her girls for the duration that the authorities required it and not a day longer, I don't believe one word she spouts off about parental grief.

Lauren wants to be special. She wants it to not be a life-changing event. I don't think she was unattached with Elijah. I think denial is easier than facing the reality that this is the rest of her life, and is forever, permenantly changed. I have known parents 30+ years out who tell me exactly the same thing as those who have lived less time since the loss of their child. Lauren is the only person I have EVER seen claim she can just "get over it" and move on with her life. Perhaps it helps her function, but it doesn't change the fact that she has no right to dictate to her daughters that they do it with her.

You only need to see the picture on her sidebar of her holding Elijah's body to see she was attached. That is the face of a woman whose world has just crumbled around her, and I think it's entirely genuine,

[chaotic life]

Honestly, the day I figured out how to answer the question of how many children I have without hesitatnig, panicking or breaking down into tears was the day I knew I would survive.

And yes, I look just FINE if you meet me and know me. That doesn't mean that what you see is all there is. My children are amazing children. They smile. They are thriving (all but one, who has had much more trouble with the grieving than the others). But, that doesn't mean the waves of grief don't hit them still too.

I don't want to live to see when I am no longer impacted by my son's death. That I am impacted is his immortal legacy. He was alive. He lived. He was larger than life and incredible. It is SUPPOSED to bother me that he didn't get to grow up. I am supposed to hesitate sometimes and pause and sometimes even cry.

I am not supposed to be so entrenched in grief two years out that I cannot function for normal life and daily functions. But I AM supposed to still ache, to still long, to still sometimes have nightmares that I neglected to take care of him, and to remember him.

In fact, my therapist this spring recommended that I buy cheap china plates at thrift shops and keep them for when I or the kids are having a very emotional day for the sole purpose of being able to put them into pillowcases and break them. She stressed that the biggest emotion parents and siblings don't allow themselves to express enough is the anger.

But then, my therapist who runs a grief therapy center for children who have lost a loved one clearly knows FAR less than Lauren, the special snowflake who has willed herself out of grief for her child, who isn't impacted and has moved onto a new sparkly life after Elijah.

Except, handing over a newborn and being left with empty arms AGAIN is going to rip her bandaid off that festering, gangrous sore she's been denying exists, and send her into a tailspin of grief she may not be able to find her way back up from. Because I DO know what that's going to feel like too. Thankfully, I was young and there were no children dependent upon me at that point in my life, thus I was free to grieve properly.

[Idolatry]

I hear a robust spiritual reality is helpful for rapid processing by immigration when you're trying to enter a foreign country nine months pregnant.

[chaotic life]

I can't get it to quote, but lilith, I agree with you. I think Lauren was VERY attached to Elijah, in ways she has never been attached to her girls. Thus why I said she's in denial. If she faces the depth of her grief, she has to accept it. Denial is easier.

[dora]

I wouldn't be surprised that she doesn't mention grass fed, I would assume that Australian cows eat grass just like New Zealand cows do.

Edited to add - conversation has moved on since I stated typing this. Whoops!

[August]

Dora, you give her too much credit. She hasn't looked into any of this, just been told by Mercola that organic= good and is running with that.

:clap: :clap: absolutely agree. I'm really fortunate to live in an area where organic/free-range/grass-fed and so on are in very high demand, so easy to find and helps some on the prices. Unfortunately when my kids were young there were waaaaayyyy too many times I'd just say fuck it, and go through the Mc Donald's drive through on the way home from work. But I did try to balance that out by buying non-fake versions of everything to the extent possible. Even if it was little differences - like the organic, real vanilla squeeze chocolate for milk for a treat, instead of the powdered mix with a zillion artificial ingredients. It was pricier, so they got it less often, but that's probably not a bad thing in the long run.

This one time, my kids were preschool aged and I broke, said fuckit, we're going through the McDonalds drive through. Little fuckers didn't like any of it. One bawled because the hamburger wasn't ham. I mean, really, children!

I have since found something there that one of them will eat, but the other won't have anything except apple sauce. Which, I suppose gives me super special hippy organic points, but is actually a big PITA when in a pinch.

[FJismyheadship]

I have been trying to figure out when a little sugar is okay! I bought a cake and have a couple of slivers of it ready for my kiddo... if I can ever work out a good time for her to have some. Obviously not good for breakfast, and the sugar rush effect (crankiness!) minus something substantial in her belly would make life hell. After she eats lunch, she goes down for a nap. Then she wakes up, and generally has a snack, which I guess might be a good time to let her have a sliver of cake, but by the time I think about it, she has already grabbed a peach off the table and is eating it. And then she gets mad anyway because my piece is bigger than hers. After dinner, I don't want her to have it because its really close to bedtime and even though the sugar makes her tired, it also makes her stay up longer, and makes her really cranky too.

So I guess I shouldn't buy cake. Or anything really with processed sugar.

[Peas n carrots]

Fucking hell she is in denial.

I've never had children but I was a teen when my mi lost a full term baby. Two years ago when she would have graduated high school she had a rough day. Unless there is something terribly wrong people who have lost children never get over it.

Those poor kids...they are the ones that are going to have to muddle their way through their mother's surrogacy grief.

[Trynn]

My mom let us have sugary stuff on occasion. But t was a special treat and we knew if. If we'd never gotten any of it, we would've just wanted it more. Because I knew it was there when I wanted it, I didn't really develops a preference for it.

[lilith]

I have been trying to figure out when a little sugar is okay! I bought a cake and have a couple of slivers of it ready for my kiddo... if I can ever work out a good time for her to have some. Obviously not good for breakfast, and the sugar rush effect (crankiness!) minus something substantial in her belly would make life hell. After she eats lunch, she goes down for a nap. Then she wakes up, and generally has a snack, which I guess might be a good time to let her have a sliver of cake, but by the time I think about it, she has already grabbed a peach off the table and is eating it. And then she gets mad anyway because my piece is bigger than hers. After dinner, I don't want her to have it because its really close to bedtime and even though the sugar makes her tired, it also makes her stay up longer, and makes her really cranky too.

So I guess I shouldn't buy cake. Or anything really with processed sugar.

I'm guessing you're the mother of a firstborn toddler?

My advice, and I really really don't mean to sound condescending, this is the sort of stuff I stressed about with my firstborn too, is to just relax about it. Let her have a little sugary food when it's available and she feels like it. The side effects are unlikely to be as dramatic as you fear and really won't matter in the greater scheme of things. Enjoy the delight that you'll see on her face when she tastes cake for the first time and remind yourself that she has access to a greater range of healthy foods than the great majority of children in human history. Be kind to yourself and don't stress yourself to death trying to ensure that every single choice you make for your daughter is the perfect one.

[church_of_dog]

I just realized with a somewhat sickly horror that I have a story that will combine the healthy vs junkfood eating story and the losing a child story.

In 1978 when I was 16, my 12-year-old brother died in an accident.

I can attest that the grieving process can be bizarre. I was a fairly unemotional kid and he and I also weren't especially close at that time. I was of course shell-shocked, but I think most of it was self-consciousness along the lines of "how do I tell my friends" and "what are the rules about when I should be solemn and when it's still ok to laugh or do trivial/fun things". And of course I was also worried about my parents, who were understandably devastated. I tried to cry, but there wasn't much emotion and hardly any tears. But a few years later when [the singer] Harry Chapin died just as I was making plans to go see him in concert, I found myself crying about that, somewhat out of character. And then another couple of years later when a coworker, whose wife and kids I also knew, was killed in an accident, and our office held a memorial for him in one of the little parks in San Francisco, we all stood around holding hands in a circle and singing and I found myself sobbing uncontrollably. This was a very nice man but I really didn't know him very well, it's just that he was part of this office community that I had become a part of, and so we were all like one big family, and I felt that family connection strongly, even if I hardly knew the individual. Anyway it was only in hindsight that I can see the connection between my overly-emotional reactions to those deaths and my brother's death and my lack of instant grieving.

And the candy story: We had a modestly healthy diet back in the 70s -- not a lot of fresh veggies but on the other hand, not much sugar -- sodas, candy and desserts were rare treats. Like most kids I craved the candy and junk food and as I grew to adulthood I had my moments (ok, years) of eating poorly just because I didn't have the temptation control.

After my brother's death, as my parents were cleaning out his room, they found under his bed a shoebox, full of candy bars… He had apparently either bought them secretly, or perhaps saved them from Halloween. None of us had known about his stash. It gives me a chuckle now to think about it.

[alba]

Has anyone else noticed Lauren's post about losing Elijah is all about her? The girls get maybe one sentence at the end.

The thing is, if Elijah had been her only child, I wouldn't be nearly so critical. Concerned, yes, because I think this surrogacy is going to hurt her in a way she doesn't anticipate, and I think one of the commenters on the blog hit the nail on the head when they said Lauren is trying to regain control by losing a baby in circumstances she controls. But I wouldn't be so critical if it weren't for the fact she's dragging four grieving children along for the ride.

[August]

Church of Dog, the strangest thing about the yoghurt post from Lauren is that just last week she was pointing out that tantrums and meltdowns are often about some other issue entirely, not the purported reason. She's either parroting something she didn'tunderstand, or she's wilfully ignoring anything which suggests she is making a bad decision. Sure, maybe the girls have forgotten Elijah and Aisha's meltdown was over leaving a close friend, it's possible.

My mom let us have sugary stuff on occasion. But t was a special treat and we knew if. If we'd never gotten any of it, we would've just wanted it more. Because I knew it was there when I wanted it, I didn't really develops a preference for it.

I'm glad you didn't develop a preference, but I don't think it's entirely due to exposure/not. I parent my children the same way, and I'm convinced a sweet tooth is inborn.

[alba]

I'm glad you didn't develop a preference, but I don't think it's entirely due to exposure/not. I parent my children the same way, and I'm convinced a sweet tooth is inborn.

I agree. My parents treated food in much the same way, and, while my dad and I could devour a 36-pack of jaffa cakes together in ten minutes, my little sister, like my mum, enjoys chocolate as an occasional treat but doesn't see the big deal about it. Given that my sister and I were parented the same way, I think we just inherited traits from different parents (because I have obviously rigorously tested this with a large sample size :lol:).

[Mama Mia]

I just realized with a somewhat sickly horror that I have a story that will combine the healthy vs junkfood eating story and the losing a child story.

In 1978 when I was 16, my 12-year-old brother died in an accident.

I can attest that the grieving process can be bizarre. I was a fairly unemotional kid and he and I also weren't especially close at that time. I was of course shell-shocked, but I think most of it was self-consciousness along the lines of "how do I tell my friends" and "what are the rules about when I should be solemn and when it's still ok to laugh or do trivial/fun things". And of course I was also worried about my parents, who were understandably devastated. I tried to cry, but there wasn't much emotion and hardly any tears. But a few years later when [the singer] Harry Chapin died just as I was making plans to go see him in concert, I found myself crying about that, somewhat out of character. And then another couple of years later when a coworker, whose wife and kids I also knew, was killed in an accident, and our office held a memorial for him in one of the little parks in San Francisco, we all stood around holding hands in a circle and singing and I found myself sobbing uncontrollably. This was a very nice man but I really didn't know him very well, it's just that he was part of this office community that I had become a part of, and so we were all like one big family, and I felt that family connection strongly, even if I hardly knew the individual. Anyway it was only in hindsight that I can see the connection between my overly-emotional reactions to those deaths and my brother's death and my lack of instant grieving.

And the candy story: We had a modestly healthy diet back in the 70s -- not a lot of fresh veggies but on the other hand, not much sugar -- sodas, candy and desserts were rare treats. Like most kids I craved the candy and junk food and as I grew to adulthood I had my moments (ok, years) of eating poorly just because I didn't have the temptation control.

After my brother's death, as my parents were cleaning out his room, they found under his bed a shoebox, full of candy bars… He had apparently either bought them secretly, or perhaps saved them from Halloween. None of us had known about his stash. It gives me a chuckle now to think about it.

I'm really sorry for the loss of your brother. Grief really does impact people differently, and at different times. I have a family member who lost a sibling as a young child and all of the children showed and experienced their grief differently - some of them you could tell it greatly impacting all their life choices, others it wasn't so obvious. Your story about the chocolate bars actually made me tear up a little, because it's something I could completely see one of my children doing, she was absolutely obsessed with chocolate at that age.

[sea_gale]

My parents lost a child. This was many years before I was born, so I don't especially have issues with his death myself. But I do know that when your child dies, you never get over it. You learn to live with it, but the grief is with you always. Lauren is either a sociopath or a liar. Possibly both.

[hoipolloi]

Speaking of surrogacy gone incredibly bad, this dreadful story about an Australian couple's treatment of their Thai surrogate & the child she carried for them popped up on FB today: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parent ... 7009760126

The associated editorial commentary (linked in the above news story) is worth noting, too:

Surrogacy is a legitimate and increasingly common way infertile couples are achieving parenthood, but it is acts like theirs that will only make it harder to gain acceptance.

Commercial surrogacy can be conducted humanely and be well regulated (it is legal in the US) and can benefit both would-be parents and women who wish to give an extraordinarily gift, have completed their own families and wish to set themselves up financially.

Parents who have used commercial surrogacy in the US include Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban and Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick.

Even so, acceptance of surrogacy has been slow here, and given commercial surrogacy is illegal in Australia couples who cannot find an altruistic surrogate must use overseas agencies — making the process extremely complex and more difficult to manage.

Public opinion about surrogacy is now destined to plummet, just another side-effect of this awful pair’s actions.

The ripple effect of their choices will be felt by thousands of people — and most importantly the lives of one little boy, and one little family in Chonburi province in northern Thailand have been altered be changed forever.

[chaotic life]

My kids appear to be fine to the casual observer. That doesn't mean they are, or ever will be "over it". They are in an environment where they are safe to both laugh AND grieve.

I'm sitting in the car, eating lunch, and about to go but two little girls first day of school outfits this very minute.

My youngest daughter just informed me she has memorized the poem, "When Tomorrow Starts Without Me." She just recited the entire poem and tells me that when she is sad, she reads the poem (which is in a frame in my living room with a plaster handprint of their brother's) and it helps her feel better.

The grief is always there. It will always be there. It's not about getting over it, but weaving it into the fabric of their stories in away that it doesn't interfer with their ability to thrive.

[hoipolloi]

Grief is always with you. My youngest brother died of leukemia at age 4 over 50 years ago. I haven't forgotten him nor have I forgotten how shattering that death was for our close family. I learned at that age that people who claim sorrow brings loved ones together didn't know what they were talking about because my & my family's experience was that, ultimately, we each had to get through the grief & loss on our own. No one else can do this for you or decide when you're "finished."

My next-younger brother was 6 and I was 9. We understood COMPLETELY how devastating and final this was. Somehow, through some kind of herculean effort, my parents made it through all of this and, as I look back, managed to keep family life on an even keel in spite of what must have been unbearable pain. None of us "got over it" nor will we ever. Grief is an intensely personal matter and I don't believe that anyone can speak for anyone else, including a parent speaking of children, when it comes to whether or not a person is "over it" or how that grief affects one's inner life.

In some ways, the older I become the more the feelings of that time return, if only because it's the first direct experience of loss & grief in my life that I recall. Each new loss recalls the first one and then all the others.

[Mama Mia]

What continues to drive me crazy about the whole situation is that she seems absolutely incapable of understanding that she can not possibly know what impact this will have on all four of the individual, unique people who are her daughters.

Each of them would have had a different relationship with their brother - due both to age and individual personalities. It might be the littlest who took it most to heart because she was jealous of not being the baby anymore and now feels guilty without knowing why. It might be that the 6 year old worries everyday that her mom will give her away, or jump over a bridge with her. The 7 year old might have been incredibly close to her baby brother and cry for him every night, quietly, and desperately, secretly hope her mom will change her mind and keep this one. The 9 year old might just be trying to " move on", and pretend this isn't her life, but her mom being pregnant is keeping it at the front of her mind.

Lauren just can't possibly KNOW that noneof these girls will be completely devastated by giving this baby away when it actually happens, and why, after everything they have been through would you take that risk? Even if you really, truly believed it was highly unlikely ( I don't) that one of them would have a hugely negative reaction -- why willingly set up a situation to take the risk?

[ViolaSebastian]

Well, and we also have to keep in mind that the girls not only lost their baby brother, they also lost their father (for all intents and purposes) when he was committed to a psychiatric facility. From her writings on her blog, it looks as though David was the more involved parent of the two...which is really saying something when someone who was actively experiencing extreme mental health issues is the closer and more responsible parent.

[Mama Mia]

Well, and we also have to keep in mind that the girls not only lost their baby brother, they also lost their father (for all intents and purposes) when he was committed to a psychiatric facility. From her writings on her blog, it looks as though David was the more involved parent of the two...which is really saying something when someone who was actively experiencing extreme mental health issues is the closer and more responsible parent.

Yes, that she glosses over that they did also lose their father AND that their father killed their baby brother is mind boggling. And it wasn't " even" that they lost them both in an accident, their father, who loved and cared for them every day of their lives, murdered their baby brother. How could at least one of those girls possibly not have severe issues with trust and fear of abandonment? How could watching their mom give away a baby possibly help that?

I think the middle two girls are in an especially perilous position emotionally with all of this. They are both old enough to clearly remember their brother and father and the circumstances of the death, but not really old enough to process it ( not that anyone is), or to cope with having another sibling disappear. The littlest was possibly too young too have much memory of it, or at least to buy whatever explanation of life that Lauren is selling, maybe. And I think Aisha is sadly well on her way to just assuming she has to deal with whatever cluster fuck situation life throws at her-- until she escapes in a few years with some vastly inappropriate lover.

[ViolaSebastian]

It's sobering to think what sort of issues these girls are going to have with men due to this. After Lauren gives birth to this baby (and presumably leaves it in Iceland), those girls will have lost every male member of their nuclear family.

[So Many Lies]

You only need to see the picture on her sidebar of her holding Elijah's body to see she was attached. That is the face of a woman whose world has just crumbled around her, and I think it's entirely genuine,

Yeah it's sad alright. But it's unusual to spontaneously capture this on camera and put it on your blog shortly after the fact. We all process differently, sure, but it did make me go "hmmm".

Maybe I'm just being a franger though.

[chaotic life]

We have pictures of the two weeks leading up to my son's death, though we have none of him post-mortem, but he certainly looks dead in several of them.

The hospice nurse told me it's actually quite common for people to take pictures, far more common than most people realize.

However, I have never, nor would I ever publish any of those pictures publically in which any member of the family's raw grief is showing. I'm very careful about those pictures. They are there to hold memories for this family. They do not exist in order to share with other people. When making the slideshow for his funeral, I deliberately weeded out any pictures in which he looked dead (he was not as I stopped taking pictures when he passed but some of them look morbid) or any in which there is obvious, raw grief being expressed by any member of the family.

I don't fault her for the pictures existing. I find it very bizarre that she had them posted nearly instantly and keeps them up two years later.