Dear facebook,
Why have you suddenly taken it upon yourself to mark my daughter, Georgina, as [pending]?
Pending what precisely?
The day of resurrection?
Love Catherine W
I nearly typed this into my facebook profile status and then remembered that if I were to do so, people I work with can see it, mums whose children go the same playgroup as Jessica can see it, my extended family can see it. So I didn't type it.
I didn't think they would find it funny.
Her information has been listed on my profile quite happily for over two years as, Georgina 26/08/08-29/08/08. Just to avoid any future acquaintances innocently querying why they never seem to see my third child.
I wanted to list her but I also wanted to make it obvious that she had died.
But now she is stuck in limbo, pending.
So what do I do now?
It seems to be my refusal to add her date of birth that is causing facebook to doubt whether she has ever existed at all. Or if I am still, perhaps, pregnant with her. Pending seems more suggestive of the latter.
I didn't want to add her date of birth because that would give her a listed age appearing under her name.
So I could leave her on my profile with her age creeping steadily upwards?
Which, obviously, in real life it will never do because she doesn't age. Being dead and all.
Leave her on my profile with a [pending] status underneath her name?
Because that really messes with my mind a little. Pending.
Strange how my heart still gives a small thump of hope.
Because facebook seems to think she might be coming back? Really? That can inspire hope?
I really am desperate aren't I?
What has happened to me. Sigh. Exasperated sigh.
Or I've got the option to 'remove her from my family?'
Now there's a jolly option. Bet everyone has had some fun times pressing that one.
And I just can't quite manage to click that button.
Because she has already been removed from my family and one of the few tenuous threads still connecting us is on . . . facebook? Sigh. Exasperated sigh. Again.
How did it ever come to this? That her being listed on my facebook profile is so important to me. I just don't know. Perhaps my brain is a little bit broken.
Anyway, mr. facebook, my dear old bean,
I do appreciate that you probably aren't dealing with people wanting to list dead children every day of the week. But, during my hunt for a way to get rid of the pending text underneath my own dead child I discover that you do acknowledge that you are dealing with dead people, apparently you 'memorialise' their profiles. And that, frankly, is making me rather nervous. What will you do to mine if I get run over by a bus tomorrow? I have a strange vision of you adding an electronic halo to my profile picture? Or horns and flickering flames perhaps? When you will you finally delete it? Will you eventually have a massive facebook mausoleum of dead profiles? The electronic equivalents of those black and white family photographs that end up at car boot sales.
Anyway, Georgina is still my child and I want to have on the list next to her brother and her sister. So I suppose she'll just be 'pending' until you change the system or until you memorialise my profile.
Thanks for messing with my mind just a little bit this morning.
I now want to go play with this, because I think Aurelia should be in the list.
ReplyDeleteMy local mothers of multiples club, which I am still a member of having paid my dues and figure I will keep since they have useful info in their forums and well, I think carrying multiples counts (there's no grammar in this sentence, sorry) uses a site called bigtent. In bigtent there are profiles and they not only have children options, but they have multiples specific stuff asking about zygosity and the like. But it gives no way to indicate that they are dead.
I was fiddling with this profile because I was asked to put EDD for my current pregnancy of twins and I couldn't figure out what the heck to do. In the end I settled on making her name "Aurelia-Stillborn". I'm not sure this is a good solution, but I figure it at least communicates...
I think Facebook should have a way to deal with dead children. While it's less common for younger people, Facebook has people of all ages and it gets increasingly common.
Ok, going to go look at Facebook now...
Georgina lived and had clear dates. Seems like they should be able to calculate that. I'm not sure how a stillbirth would even work, but Georgina seems blatantly clear to me.
I just went and looked at Bigtent as a result of this and yup, and under "Aurelia-Stillborn" it reads "13 months, female".
ReplyDeleteI guess the options there are 1. completely remove her, 2. leave it how I have it or 3. just put her name.
I think I like my current choice. Not only does removing her seem wrong to me in general, it seems completely wrong in a group focused on multiples. Might be popular to remove the "negativity", but I've actually been really impressed by their positiveness in embracing that she did exist rather than wanting to bury her in a corner. There was a list put together of members who had multiple sets of multiples the other week and the person who did it included me, which struck me as really positive for some reason.
I'm also really impressed by their positivity in acknowledging Aurelia's existence. A friend of mine who had twin girls fifteen years and, sadly lost one before birth, was asked to leave the twin group that she had joined whilst she was expecting. I thought that just seemed so awful. She still had twins didn't she?
DeleteOh, that seems brutal to me. Who makes that kind of call? Sounds like they should set up their own group called "Too scared to acknowledge dead babies". I'm glad Aurelia gets a listing, and Georgina, even if the [pending] status is confusing and heartbreaking.
DeleteI remember having my own little 'does not compute' moment when I realised that Z died on the 27th and was born on the 28th. My compromise to that was to deny that the 28th was a separate day (it really wasn't for us, we didn't sleep, all the lights stayed on all night in emergency) and to call the 27th her day.
What's weird is I kind of tried to self-remove myself and several of the members went out of their way to make clear that they didn't think it was appropriate.
DeleteI haven't posted anything in the "expectants" group with this current pregnancy, because I just feel like "they" wouldn't like that. Where they is the mothers currently pregnant with multiples. They have done nothing to earn my judging, but it's still there.
One of the oddities of multiples pregnancies to me is they DON'T talk about losing one of them, pretty much ever in the "books". I reread Barbara Luke the other day and not a thing. But it's common. I've seen stats of 1 in 96 and 1 in 102 of twin pregnancies result in one living child. I've discussed this with a couple people and the answer I've gotten is that on the parent side of the literature, they try to focus on the things you can do something about. Like noticing signs of preterm labor.
Hmmm, perhaps I should think of this in terms of my guilt thoughts. That they really don't think there is anything you can do about loss in multiple birth to the point of why even mention it.
Hi, me back again for the third time.
ReplyDeleteSo, I did head over to Facebook to look into incorporating Aurelia and it reminded me what pending means. Pending means that the person who indicated has not confirmed the relationship from their own Facebook profile.
Both of my kids and my sister-in-law are thus pending as well.
One alternative might be to make another facebook account in her name, login to it and confirm that you are her mother and be done. You could do that without a birthdate. And then put serious security measures on that account so it's completely private and doesn't show up in searches?
I might go experiment with this...
Hmmm, Jessica and Reuben seem to have been accepted despite not having confirmed their relationship! I think that's why it is bugging me a bit, because their profiles both seem fine but Georgina's had gone a bit glitchy.
DeleteAlthough facebook has now reset one of my aunts to pending despite the fact that she confirmed that she is my aunt some time ago! So perhaps it is just going to make all my relations pending. Who knows?!
I fiddled with it a fair bit yesterday and both boys are clearly pending and there is no way to change it other than to have them "accept" from what I've read in the help.
DeleteBut as it is only letting me add male relatives, there definitely are some issues in the guts of "relationships" in Facebook.
This did get me to play around with the life events in Facebook and I was able to add the death of a loved one for Aurelia. I debated and decided that while it may be "odd" to the rest of the world, the date of her death is much more significant to me than the day she was born.
It also motivated me to share the blog post I wrote of her name in the sand to two older friends and I got really positive responses from that. Both actually read the entire blog from beginning to end which dumbfounded me. I have some friends who have read all allong, but I am just so honest in it that I haven't just shared it out. I figure it's an easy google though.
So, thanks for all the good that came in my day yesterday because of this post.
Hmmm... Ok, Facebook is only letting me add MALE relatives for some reason, so I wasn't able to play with it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've now set a record for comments. Not so good at the patient waiting for my thought to complete.
Oh Facebook... our joy and our pain all neatly wrapped into a 'simple' timeline. Sorry you have to deal with trying to find a way to make changes. I wouldn't want to delete either. Pending? What the heck? *sigh*
ReplyDeletex <3 o
My FB "ages" the kids. I have a blurb about all the kids in the about me section, so if people read it, they'll know that, in spite of the oldest kids "aging" they are only seeing updates of the youngest 2.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree... It's a huge frustration. :(
It doesn't age any of my kids, alive or dead. I must have something messed up!
DeleteOh my. Pardon my language, but what a mind-fuck that is. Not like I can't drive myself crazy enough sometimes, I wouldn't need FB adding to it.
ReplyDeleteXOXO
I get that Facebook likes to focus on the positive, fun, stuff, but I keep hoping they'll realize that they've grown into more than that, but the fact that they can't handle this sort of thing (how hard can it be if you're a computer genius) is discouraging.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry you have to deal with this. "Pending" would be unnerving for me, too.
Oh fucking facebook.. that's all I have Cath. Sending hugs
ReplyDeleteStupid Facebook.
ReplyDeletePending??? I really don't like that.
God. Sometimes I hate Facebook. And it's not just the management of it, either--it also has to do with the whole culture. About a month after Molly died, I posted a picture of her perfect baby feet; and then shortly after, a picture of her sweet and beautiful face. I only got one reply (aside from my husband) to that post, which put another crack in my already broken heart to be honest with you. It wasn't even a traumatic picture--no blood, she's wrapped in a blanket with just her face showing, and she looks like she's sleeping even though she was still alive at the time. But I guess people just don't know how to respond to a picture of an almost-dead baby. I suppose they'd rather read the inspirational message of the day.
ReplyDeleteI understand your need to acknowledge your daughter, even in seemingly small ways. I want to share my daughter, too. She may be dead, but I continue to love her and always will....I'm so proud of her. There are times when, instead of only being overwhelmingly sad, I look at her pictures and think, "My husband and I made her," and my heart just swells with pride.
So I get why it's so important to you. Pending...bah. Damn Facebook.
It seems to me, that Facebook is only really comfortable for those who:
ReplyDeletea) like to share with the world every itty bitty detail of their lives eg. "I'm having a cheese and gherkin sandwich"
b) need to make themselves feel better by collecting as many 'friends' as possible
c) want to have somewhere where they can project an image of having a picture perfect life... (which we all know is a big fat fake...)
Gosh I sound bitter, don't I?
I guess I'm jealous to be left on the outside looking in at all the shiny, happy people (and yet, I feel compelled to keep looking, when I should really just avoid it for a while)...
I just don't fit in there anymore. It has no facility to accommodate dead babies... So, I guess that excludes me.
Pending... Gosh I wish, If only it was a matter of time before we got to see them again.
Ack, fb. FFS.
ReplyDeleteI do have C. with a listed age creeping upwards. I don't have a struggle with it. In my mind, it's the age she should be if she were here physically with us. And who knows, in some place, on the edges of my dreams and the sidelong glances just outside of my peripheral vision, she is there...gossamer, lovely, and eight...nine...ten...and so on. I like to think that she is not static and unchanging, wherever she is, any more than we are.
((HUGS)) Catherine. I hope you can find a solution that works for you. It's all so frustrating some days.
Hello--I found your blog through another BLM's blog. My son Drew is also "pending" on my FB page. I think it's because he doesn't have an account to confirm it. But, a while ago when I noticed it--before they made all the changes, I could view my profile as another person and he wasn't pending to them. So, I think to people on the outside our babies just show up as our children, but to our profiles, they're pending. At least that used to be true.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't FB suck sometimes?!
Oh thank you so much Kate! I've just logged in as my husband (ahem!) and you are right, Georgina is just listed as my daughter with her dates, no age and no 'pending' status beneath. So at least it is only my profile that this is visible.
DeleteI think that would make me crazy. Or itchy. Or both. I am already not a fan of the facebook and think this has made me even less of one.
ReplyDeleteFacebook. I don't have an account. I just can't. I couldn't before George and I really, really couldn't after. I wrote a post once about FB and what an unfriendly place it is for the grieving and it really upset some people.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant Catherine. Absolutely fucking brilliant. I don't know quite what else to say.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand people who get upset when other people point out that FB can be an unfriendly place for the grieving.
ReplyDeleteHmmm. Who is living in reality and who is living in LA LA LAND?
You already know how I feel about FB, Catherine W. And now that they have marked Georgina [pending]...well, there are some grudges I will be forced to carry to the tomb. Conscience dictates it. And this is true even if she does not show as [pending] in other people's accounts. The fact that she does on yours is the lowest blow.
Fan of yours, if no fan of FB,
Cathy in Missouri
FUCKING HELL! PENDING? I think that might mess with my mind a little. I don't even know what to say exactly..how can FB even have that kind of power over our thoughts and feelings...I think this is why I generally have been avoiding that shit hole place all together...because it messes with my mind. I loved this post. Maybe Camille and Georgina can be pending together...whatever that means. In my world it means dead...pending seems better but also gives ambiguous hope..maybe it is the start of a new FB religion...haha
ReplyDeleteI don't get facebook at all. I didn't get it when I had an account beofre Emma died. I had no real qualms about deleting it after and I don't really embrace it now when I have an account where ALL my friends are babylost parents. It's a very strange place I find.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Zuckerberg knows things that the rest of us don't know...More likely it will take a babyloss situation in the FB inner circle to spur some recognition of this type of family arrangement.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand I think that not having a way to acknowledge R on FB and in other social settings is no big deal. It's not nearly as bad as the fact that she's dead anyway.
On the other hand, acknowledging my dead daughter might be awkward for my FB associates but, I'm certain that it's not nearly as uncomfortable as her death or the misery her death has caused for me.
Oh dear. FB strikes again. I've been slowly disengaging myself from that world for a variety of reasons. This is just another one on the list.
ReplyDeletePending. That just strikes me as so weird. But I do like your letter, it really made me do the dark giggle.
Also I love Tracy OC's solution, too.
Sending you lots of love. xo
PS--Sorry I'm so late to the party, as usual :)
This is a bit late, but it struck a chord. Last year, before fb changed over to the timeline, they were posting the previous year's status on the right hand side of the page. Each day would update, and you could continuously see where you were the year before.
ReplyDeleteThe problem was that I chose to carry to term my daughter, who had a lethal birth defect the year before. In the initial months of my bereavement, I began seeing the previous year's statuses pop up on my page. From the very beginning, hopeful stages when I first discovered I was pregnant- through the opening parts of the tragedy- when I found that I was carrying a girl- each bad day, each day where hope was revived and we thought things may not be as bad as they thought..... There was no way to shut it off, so I decided that for the time being, fb wasn't for me. They really don't have a lot of options for those of us who may not have cookie cutter families.
Ugh, Catherine. Just ugh. I remember when I went through this on Baby Center after Hudson died and when I got pregnant with Jackson. When she died, I was still getting regular emails with "Your 17-month-old, Week 3." I got rid of those immediately. But when I got pregnant with Jackson and went back on there to put in his due date so that I could track my pregnancy, there was Hudson on my profile: "Your 21-month-old" along with a link to some article relevant to that age. I had no idea what to do-- my only option was to delete her, and of course, that wasn't an option. So, she's still there. Every time I log in, I see her name, her age, and an article about kids her age over on the side bar.
ReplyDeleteOn a purely logistical note, the FB timeline (if you switch to it or when it ultimately switches you) will let you add an "In Memory" event to your timeline. So my timeline now has Hudson's birth and death as well as Jackson's birth on it. It's a tiny and ridiculous thing, of course, but I was glad for it.
As always, so very sorry that this is even something you have to consider. It is just so very wrong. xoxo
and now that I actually look.... Bea is pending as well. :(
ReplyDeleteStupid facebook. Urrrghh. xx
ReplyDelete