Part of My Human Heart

Credit: via X, photog unknown

Exhausted after a lengthy day of early pediatric appointments, work, and the daily toil of managing a toddler on my own, I set out into the clusterfuck of the Southern California traffic we’re notorious for, eyes and GPS set to Pala Casino and Resort for another Lea Salonga concert. The drive was long but surprisingly peaceful down the 15, and a little life returned to my half-mast eyelids as the excitement of seeing my favorite singer began to build. Driving down the small winding road to the glimmering lights of reservation casinos set deep in the hills, I took the opportunity to blast my favorite concert performances on the radio that, for the past year, had been commandeered by my little backseat driver’s preferred Cocomelon chart toppers.

Like most American youngsters, my first exposure to the Filipina songbird was nothing more than a faceless musical voice backing the latest in Disney’s parade of 90s princesses, Princess Jasmine from Aladdin in 1992 (she would later also lend her singing voice to Mulan). Shortly after captivating the world from the heights of a gravity-defying enchanted rug, I watched as Lea reprised her role as Eponine in the 10^th anniversary of Les Misérables. Making an effective transition into a French street rat drowning in a cesspool of unrequited love, with her soiled face and ragged clothes it was no wonder my little teenaged lezzie heart went aflutter over her. Unfortunately, in those days the internet was still obscure at best, and keeping tabs on your latest heartthrob was not the simple Google search and clickbait link it is today, thus I lost my grasp on the vague awareness I had of her ongoing vocation.

But despite my ignorance of her professional developments, Lea continued her lustrous and what would soon be several decades long career (yes she is old enough to have a 46 year long career, but obnoxiously enough she looks 10 years younger than me). In reality, she is not that old, she simply began her career at the ripe old age of 7 in the Philippines in the production of The King and I. Admittedly I can’t do her CV justice in this small space, but she continued through many other roles from Annie to Fiddler on the Roof and the Sound of Music; she released her first album, Small Voice in 1981, and while building her vocal career, her theater career continued to flourish. At the top of her repertoire of productions, her most notable role was originating Kim in Miss Saigon. She landed the job at 17 and performed both in the West End and on Broadway, garnering Olivier and Tony awards respectively for it. Following the aforementioned stint in Les Miz as Eponine, she returned as Fantine to reaffirm her expertise in untimely deaths and prostitution and performed both on Broadway and in the 25^th anniversary special. Other noteworthy productions of her career were Cinderella, Flower Drum Song, Cats, Once on This Island, Sweeney Todd, and George Takei’s Allegiance. She has also graced TV and movie screens here and in the Philippines as a coach on The Voice, a devious mom in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, and in the Filipina cultural drama Yellow Rose, among many other credits. My crazy ex girlfriend told me she even got 3 and ¾ stars on Star Search once!

More recently she enjoyed a few more firsts in her career, playing a Filipina on stage for the first time in her role as Aurora Aquino in Here Lies Love, and, adding another feather to the overflowing plumage in her professional cap, she became a first-time producer for the show. She also wrapped a months-long run in the West End headlining alongside fellow Broadway queen Bernadette Peters in the Stephen Sondheim tribute show Old Friends. She performed at the White House under formal invitation from President Biden and performed with the Tabernacle Choir Christmas 2022.

After years of living under my cushy rock of oblivion, I rediscovered Lea on her post-pandemic tour in 2022 entitled Dream Again. I had serendipitously received an events calendar for the local performing arts center, one I had never been mailed before, with Lea gracing the cover. I toyed with the idea of attending. In a random comments thread on Reddit where the topic pinballed around Mulan, Ming-na Wen, and eventually Lea, I disclosed my thoughts of perhaps attending her concert and was met with resounding directive to purchase my ticket immediately. “You won’t regret it!” they said. Though the show was still a few months away, as I clicked into the site, I found only a handful of seats were left, and to the nosebleeds I went (literally, I had to take the stairs to get to the elevator that would take me to the top level; apparently the magic carpet was out of service that night). The houselights went down, the music surged, and a tiny little Lea emerged onto the distant stage and blew me away…either that or it was the lack of oxygen at that altitude…probably a nice mix of both, actually.

She returned to the same venue just a little over a year later, and wiser I was, I promptly secured my ticket several months in advance and landed in the second row just a few feet from center stage. With a much clearer view of a slightly taller Lea, the music was the same exceptional standard but the physical emotion of the performance is exactly why this woman is much more a theater star than just your typical singer. And here we are again, the third Lea show of the third year.

The Pala Casino was not a venue I’d seen before, and admittedly I still hold favor for the comfort of my easily accessible and more traditional concert venue Cerritos Performing Arts (If you're reading this Lea, hinty hint), but fuck it, it’s Lea live. And apparently this time she knew where she was too. Attendees were a wide array of concert goers, some superfans (yours truly), others with a prolonged interest in the talent that was about to grace the stage, and a few who had “just looked up who she was before we got here.” There was, as Nic put it, an ocean of Filipinos that had flooded the resort, and I soon learned that Filipinos are much like us Mexicans in that they run on their own standard time and many were still entering the center when Lea took the stage at 8:17. But seated and started, the show finally went on. The thing I enjoy about attending multiple concerts is the ever-rotating hits Lea tends to slip into the repertoire. Being mindful of attending the same venues in roughly a year’s time, she ensures you’ll never get the same show. I’d heard many hits on her CDs and longed to enjoy them live, and I was finally graced with one of my favorites, an opening of Feelin’ Good. She swayed into some heart stopping Sondheim, a few staples of more modern pop songs including Stitches by Shawn Mendes and handsome New York gay agent Josh Pultz’s favorite Britney’s Toxic. She gave tribute to her motherland with Anak and a moving encore of Nais Ko, and paid her typical homage to her 46 year career with a medley of the amazing hits that won her Tonys, Olivier awards, Disney legendhood, and global accolades. The show was also sprinkled with touching covers of John Lennon’s Imagine, the late great Whitney’s Greatest Love of All, and an emotional For Forever from Dear Evan Hansen that left her and our eyes glistening.

Lea is a rare and amazing singer in that her vocal range isn’t simply a measurement of octaves, but the range of style and tone that can bend to many genres of music. Her renditions and covers aren’t simply showtune versions of modern music, as many others end up slipping into when they attempt the same feat. This adaptability is the mark of a true talent, diverse, classically trained, extremely well-developed chords that fit the music. She’s one of the few talents I’ve heard who manages these transitions so seamlessly. But this isn’t the only reason I adore her.

Now for those of you who are new to my polyamorous celebrity obsessions, subjects of my admiration are lovingly dubbed wives, and they span various public forums from the arts, athletics, sciences, government, etc. They’re not simple crushes or attractions (though they’re all inarguably effing gorgeous), but they are icons, trailblazers, role models, and genuinely good people who contribute more to the world than a few good songs, a few world cup wins, or an enticing TV show. People who foster change.  

This is all encompassing of Lea on a few different fronts. As previously noted, she blazed many trails for aspiring Asian performers when she won her Tony for Miss Saigon in 1993 as the first Asian actress to snag the statue. She lent her voice to the first Asian Disney princess, opening doors of representation for young Asian girls the world over who had never seen themselves staring back at them from the movie or TV screen. She was the first Asian to play a traditionally white role when she stepped into Eponine’s shoes in Les Misérables and returned years later to fulfill another white role of Fantine alongside a sea of multicultural stars. Today she uses her star power to lift others up and pass the torch to the next generation coming up the path she forged. Now I’m not Asian, but as a person of color, I deeply appreciate the work that goes into creating a level playing field for any minority group, to ensure their stories are told, and to create and hold space for them, because opening the door for one story ensures others of different shades and skin colors will follow.

Another cause Lea has shouldered is her backing of the LGBT+ community (I am one of those, just in case the super gay blog didn’t give it away). It’s kind of a given that you have to be good with the gays to be in musical theater because we are quite literally everywhere, but public support of the community doesn’t come without its pitfalls. Coming from a predominantly and staunchly Christian country, the backlash still occasionally makes itself known on her social media posts when fans chide and criticize her for affirming rainbow warriors and their sinful lifestyles. Unphased, her unwavering support has become more personal this past year as she revealed that her AFAB kid, Nic Chien, whom she shares with Rob Chien is using non-binary pronouns and identifies as queer. She has described navigating the unchartered territory of parenting a queer child, continuing her education through Nic, and has worked to hold space for her kid to grow and live as their authentic self, setting an example and hopefully encouraging other parents to do the same.

As a side note, while I am a cis gay woman, as I’m nearing 40, I have felt a little more confidence in playing with my gender expression and the clothing I choose to present in. Now don’t get me wrong, I still love my dresses and heels and will go all femme for a night on the town with the girls, but I have also started dipping my toes into gender bending with a femme flavored suit and a tie or bow tie to top it. This was the selected outfit for this evening’s concert, and as I waited in line and arrived to my seat, I caught more than a few side eyes and blatant stare downs of my fit,  the glaringly gay woman attending a hot straight woman’s concert. Hit with the tiniest pang of self-consciousness, I grabbed a margarita and sat to await the start of the show, not necessarily hiding, but not trying to call attention either. Imagine the cocky little grin on my face when the hot straight woman sashayed onto the stage in a strikingly similar outfit, sans a tie with an added tapered tulle skirt, rocking the same flavor. At this moment I sat a little straighter. I mean I sat up, not straight, it was still a gay sit. Not that this was an intentional move of solidarity on her part, but unbeknownst to Lea, it certainly became one for me.

Other noteworthy movements have been years of rallying for reproductive rights for people with uteruses, world hunger, and numerous causes involving children. She is unafraid of speaking her mind. With cheeky and sometimes salty memes on Instagram or threads on X and Facebook, she will wag a finger at compatriots, colleagues, aspiring artists, audience members, and fans who misstep in one form or another, and she will dole out a sound verbal lashing to anyone who violates her boundaries (dressing room crashers take note).

Whatever her countless qualities, her talent, kindness, trailblazing, sass, advocacy and beauty, the woman has my admiration, my utmost respect, and my heart. And a shit ton of my money, but mostly my heart.

Thank you madam.

 

Closet Expulsion

 The polarization of American society that first took hold with the introduction of the Trump administration has left what was a steadily progressing zeitgeist in crumbling ruins. The septic hatred running in the veins of our compatriots has left our individual rights and liberties pock-marked with regressive craters of oppression; ignorant rhetoric and baseless fear the driving force behind the dissension. Though many demographics have fallen victim to this tidal wave of persecution, one of the front-runners making headlines as of late is the LGBT+ community, namely the trans community, specifically trans kids. In spite of the monumental SCOTUS ruling of 2015 allowing equal marriage and the numerous protections rolled out by the Obama Administration, the few rights secured for trans people have been steadily rescinded; the molehill of equal rights we were able to scrape together is quickly eroding.

The laundry list of attacks on the trans community has expanded both in length and in bounds across the US. Limitations on medical treatment and patients seeking gender affirming care, including puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, top surgeries, and bottom surgeries. Schools and athletic organizations, answering questions that hadn’t yet been asked, banning trans kids from playing in school sports. Schools and public libraries banning LGBT+ books and drag queen story times. Schools banning any mention or discussion of LGBT+ topics, people, families. All in the name of protecting our children. Protecting them from fabulous deviants. From glittering heretics. From flamboyant hedonism. From grooming. 

Ignoring the statistics of mental illness, substance use, suicidality (trans/NB suicide attempts increased 40% in the last year), these protections have proclaimed yet again in the face of diversity, “you don’t belong. You are less than. You are loathed.” The dangers of such lamentations are decidedly obvious, but quite possibly one of the biggest threats to the safety of our trans/NB children is the spread of parental notification rules in public schools. Essentially these policies require teachers to out children to their parents before they are prepared to do so themselves, under the guise of protecting the rights of parents, ensuring parental involvement, and open communication in families. A witch hunt of sorts that for many will result in an emotional death sentence for kids when their parents will undoubtedly respond negatively, even abusively.

For myself, I felt the pang of fear for my community’s kids across the nation, watching the ill-fated battle unfurl on distant coasts from the safety of my liberally-dominated progressive California home. My heart ached for the trials and tribulations I knew they would face in less supportive communities, in unsupportive families. While the trend was far from surprising in most states (is anyone surprised by the genetic embarrassment that is Florida anymore?), I was left stunned and appalled when this fight was dragged to my doorstep, not only in my comfy left-wing niche, but straight to my old school district.

On Thursday July 20th, Chino Valley Unified School District held a school board meeting to vote on their own proposal of parent notification. The policy would require teachers to notify parents if their student requests to be called by a different name, requests the use of different pronouns, or attempts to use a gendered bathroom that does not align with their sex assigned at birth. The crowd was divided as some noted the clear and present dangers of forcing kids out into potentially volatile environments, others pretending to fight for stronger familial units as one teacher shared “you should never have a secret from your parents, and if you have an issue, you guys need to work it through.” Ignoring the scores of countless LGBT+ youth that have been mentally and physically abused, that have been forced from their homes, sent to conversion therapy and religious reparative retreats, kids that ultimately commit suicide, many showed their blind utopian privilege in the matter. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond attended the meeting to voice his opposition of policy, but was cut off by proponent and board member Sonja Shaw, and booed by other attendees before being escorted out of the meeting by security. Shaw has long argued under the pretense of the protection of children, but fellow board member Andrew Cruz didn’t even attempt to hide his own transphobic stance, stating “There has always been man and woman, and then you have this transgender, and it is not going to stop there, and it is a mental illness.” The policy passed 4-1.

The meeting was held at Don Antonio Lugo High School. My alma mater. The policy itself struck a chord, but the location, the practice, triggered a trauma. Long before policies and mandates, before anyone was required to disclose the private details of teens’ closeted existences, my teacher did so on her own accord when she attempted to out me as gay to my mother on parent teacher conference night. I say attempt not in that she tried and failed to disclose, but simply that she outed me to my already aware mother. This, however, did not fare well for me as my mother was not only aware but staunchly against my chosen path to eternal damnation.

Earlier in the semester, my teacher had spotted telling photos in my binder, revealing pictures of my then celebrity crush Mariah Carey (to be fair, at that point in her career, there were no photos of Mariah Carey that weren’t revealing). Though I was not completely out, I was not the greatest at keeping my own secret, perhaps a subconscious attempt to get out, or just flippant adolescent stupidity, who knows. But the pictures were there and my conservative teacher clearly saw them. She made no comment, asked no questions, just walked by and continued on with the instruction for the day. Weeks later, during open house, my mother and I sat at her table, and she ran down the brief synopsis of my academic performance. Just as we were closing the meeting, she noted she had one more concern to add. She turned to my mom and said “your daughter has inappropriate photos of women in her folder, sexually revealing photos of women. I thought you should be aware, and she needs to remove them immediately.” My face flushed, shock took hold of me as I froze. The rage came later. But first my mother’s came. My mother simply nodded, assured my teacher that the photos would be taken out, and we rose and left. It was a quiet and tense procession back to the car before my mother unleashed. The embarrassment, the utter humiliation of someone else knowing that her daughter was gay, that someone reprimanded her daughter, and by proxy, her, for gay behavior. Our already strained relationship stretched to the point of breakage that night as I took my verbal lashing and tears silently slid down my burning cheeks on the way home.

This transgression came about while I was already deep in the midst of emotional turmoil. My troubles in adolescence were drawn from multiple facets: a history of complex trauma, difficulty in school with severe bullying, discord at home. But my sexuality was one of the main factors that contributed to a suicide attempt a year before my teacher’s expose. My mother’s response when I first came out could have saved or broken me; it was unfortunately the latter. It wasn’t my choice to come out to her then, just like it wasn’t my choice when my teacher thought she was beating me to the punch. But both times left me feeling alone, devastated, and hopeless. It was never her place to commandeer my coming out process, it was never her right to catapult me into familial crisis to clear her own conscience of moral duty. She was wrong. And now that very school was ground zero for a policy mandating that all teachers follow in her footsteps.

Chino is not the stereotypical right-wing breeding ground one would expect to foster such ignorance. In fact, I often credited my childhood experiences in the public school system with my broadened perspective of diversity, growing up with a student body comprising all cultural, racial, and religious backgrounds; the epitome of the great American melting pot. Perhaps they're another victim of the changing times, perhaps an unspoken policy that was always there, waiting in the wings to be called to center stage, but clearly there was never really any space held for us here. Here we are the minority amongst the minority. And the angry mob is coming for our children. This policy will isolate, devastate and render countless trans and nonbinary children fearful and hopeless. And if it can happen in the safe confines of blue California, it can happen anywhere.

The Race for Rights

While Pride 2021 comes to an end and the world prepares for the biggest global sports competition, the Olympics, the battle for our trans family rages on. In the last few months, laws banning trans kids and adults from playing athletics has crashed over the nation like a phobic tidal wave, though the epicenter of its genesis has yet to be found. In spite of the lack of scientific evidence supporting these widely accepted beliefs, the residue of an anti-science, anti-LGBT+, anti-common sense presidential administration dusts the shoulders of state lawmakers and they have waged a war on the contents of trans people’s pants.

On the heels of a disastrous year filled with death, racism, a tumultuous and stressful election, and a wavering economy came the surge of conservative lawmakers taking on the battle of trans children in school sports. Following suit came policies aimed at college levels and even some challenges to the Olympic policies in place. As it currently stands, eight states including South Dakota, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, Montana, Alabama, and Florida have passed some version of a trans athlete ban in answer to a question that hadn’t even been asked. Many of these states have little to no record of trans athletes attempting to play school sports with their identified genders; there was no big bang moment, no looming threat, no catalyst that moved their hands in signing these bills. More than likely, as is the way of most politicians, it was a distraction to divert attention from other issues, say perhaps unfettered mass shootings, failed attempts to challenge the election and overthrowing Congress, abuses against black and latinx people alike, but this distraction is unbelievably detrimental to the trans community, and steeped in lies.

The LGBT+ community historically has grappled with higher levels of mental illness and suicidal ideation, and the trans community makes up a much larger portion, with nearly 10 times the rate (approximately 41%) of suicide attempts of non-trans individuals. Twenty to 30% of the LGBT+ community abuses substances as a form of self-medication compared to 9% of non-LGBT+ individuals, and nearly half the trans population struggles with depression. While all these issues may stem from different root causes for each individual, one could easily argue that these roots intertwine to form the web of societal failings: lack of support from family, friends, and their community, religious ostracization, lack of access to proper care, overall exclusion, hate crimes, etc. In short, every moment of a trans’ person’s life where they feel different, rejected, judged, abnormal, less than, unworthy, inhuman are moments that could inevitably lead to crippling despair and even death.

It can be difficult to wrap our heads around the ignorance, the fear, the hatred that surrounds people just trying to live their own lives, but the reality of the world is that hate is parasitic and eternal. It doesn’t evolve, it doesn’t slow, it doesn’t grow smaller, it simply moves from one host to another until some superficial enlightenment forces it out of its cozy niche, then it finds a new ill-fated pariah to leech off of. We’ve jumped from races and ethnic groups, economic casts, nationalities, genders, colorism, people with disabilities, sizeism, ageism, religion, and ultimately sexual orientation. While no one can argue that these groups are now free of hate, it has lessened even marginally with them over time as acceptance has grown. Unfortunately in the ebb and flow of its current, hate’s latest target happens to be trans people. And it’s hitting them hard.

Though the focus of this piece lands on athletics, the scope of the attack on trans people hasn’t narrowed to sports. Previously, laws were introduced to stop trans people from using their appropriate bathrooms. Other recent laws have been proposed to deny gender affirming treatments to trans people, including hormone blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and gender reassignment surgery. Some protective laws have been put in place to require school staff to address children by their identified names and pronouns and allow them to use appropriate restrooms and locker rooms. But even as recent this week, a school board meeting discussing trans protective policies erupted into chaos in Virginia as ignorant parents, falling victim to lies, propaganda, and disinformation fought against the well-being and safety of these children. As former state senator Dick Black said, “it is absurd and immoral for teachers to call boys girls and girls boys. You’re making teachers lie to students.” It’s ironic that individuals so concerned with telling the truth use misguiding rhetoric and bald-faced lies to push their own agendas. Cries of perversion, claims that bathrooms and locker rooms will be infiltrated by perverts who pretend to be whatever gender on a whim just to sneak a peek at innocent patrons, confused individuals who don’t know what they want and therefore shouldn’t have access to affirming procedures because they’ll just change their minds later and regret it. Even claims that allowing our children to be whomever they are is just plain child abuse. And as sensationalism goes, the bigots eat it up, regarding the science as a liberal fairy tale. And such is the case with sports.

In hasty judgments that we all sometimes fall victim to, it’s easy to jump to baseless conclusions that seem common sense but really have no scientific backing. It’s easy to assume that a woman who was born a biological male would hold a sexually dimorphic advantage over their cisgender female competitors. It’s easy to worry that the playing field would no longer be level with trans women who are typically biologically stronger and faster. It’s easy, but it’s untrue. Though studies specifically on trans athletes are still fairly new by scientific standards, those that have already been conducted have consistently found that pre-pubescent trans children playing sports have absolutely no advantage, as the onset of puberty has yet to take any considerably hold on their physique or abilities. Additionally, post-pubescent and adult trans individuals who take hormone blockers/hormone replacement therapy have shown no biological advantage after one to two years of consistent treatment; instead they experienced a lessening of muscle, stamina, and bone density, placing them physically on par with cisgender female athletes and making for fair play.

The International Olympic Committee recognized these facts as presented by the scientific community and first made provisions to allow trans athletes to compete in 2004. At the time they established three requirements to ensure the status of trans athletes: 1) They must have had full gender reassignment surgeries, 2) They must be legally recognized in their country as their identified gender, and 3) They must have been under the treatment of HRTs for approximately 2 years. They revised these requirements in 2015 for many logistical reasons. Requiring healthy individuals to undergo risky surgeries proved unethical, especially when many trans and non-binary people choose to retain their biological genitalia. They also found that in many conservative countries, being legally recognized as one’s identified gender is unlikely. The requirements as they stand now is that an individual must maintain their identified gender for four years and they must be on HRTs for at least one year, with appropriately maintained testosterone levels (all restrictions apply solely to male to female transgender athletes. Female to male athletes have no limitations).

Though the adult world and some professional sports circles have adjusted and made allowances for these athletes’ existence and abilities, children and adolescents continue to fight for the right to play. The bridge between childhood sports and competing in the professional realm is all but blocked for kids who can’t play where they belong, who feel out of place and awkward. As such, they are less likely to pursue these activities that could provide them the self-esteem, the self-worth, the societal affirmation they require to avoid the statistics of mental illnesses, substance abuse, and suicide attempts that lie ahead. However school boards continue to fight to protect the delicate sensibilities of the privileged white, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian children under their charge, sacrificing the minority yet again, their lives be damned.

As a gay, biracial woman, I know firsthand the struggles that come with various degrees of minority status and intersectionality, and feel the pain of others facing the same. Sadly, I encountered many other minorities who fell into ranks in the attack on our trans family, people who undoubtedly have been victims of discrimination themselves, but saw no fault with reciprocating the hate to others. One black cisgender lesbian argued to me on a gay Facebook page that she is a professional boxer and she absolutely could not fathom having to spar with a man, therefore trans women should not be allowed in sports. Even after presenting empirical evidence, many other LGBT+ people in this thread disregarded the science and doubled down in their ignorance. It was altogether frustrating and heartbreaking that there are so many battles science can’t win, even in our own circles. As the world progresses and breakwaters slowly build to protect our various social groups, it is our responsibility to protect others who are still out in open water.

Every proposal, every bill, every law signed into place is screaming in the faces of trans people you are not right. You are not okay. You are not normal. You are not human. And you don’t deserve to be treated as such. It’s time we found our voices and screamed love even louder.

Good luck to all athletes in the Tokyo Olympics.

Special shout out to my Sports Wife, Megan Rapinoe and the rest of the USWNT team. LFG.

The Smallest Light in the Darkest Year: Happy Birthday Jace

It feels odd buying a birthday cake. Lighting the candle feels more like a somber vigil than a celebration of any sorts; it's a tiny light in a dark, silent room. Instead of singing, there are only tears. It’s been a year since Jace died and was born, and it feels strange calling it his birthday but it feels wrong to call it the anniversary of his death. All I know is that I should have been planning my son’s first birthday party after a year of wonderful milestones and memories, and instead I planned a trip to a family vacation spot to spread his ashes into the sea after a year of trials and tribulations and missing my baby.

Catalina is a favorite spot, one my family has frequented since I was 18 months old, and an annual tradition we have observed since, first for vacations, then for Father’s days. We have many traditions that we have passed on to my brother’s kids and I had hoped to begin them with Jace this year, from collecting golf balls to buying him a small stuffed buffalo, and a million other things jammed pack with nostalgia. I had been pregnant during our trip last year, and I was dreading our trip this time around with his absence, but I was saved by the pandemic and our trip was cancelled. The only downside was that I had planned to spread some of his ashes in the dive park there during the holiday. An avid scuba diver, I had hoped Jace would love the ocean and eventually want to dive like his mommy, so it seemed perfect to leave a piece of him there. With COVID changing everyone’s plans, I tentatively moved the trip to his birthday, and on September 8^th, we disembarked on the island with his teddy bear urn in my backpack. Not the way I envisioned bringing my son here for the first time.

My mom and I went to our family breakfast haunt, The Sandtrap for some drinks, and while we sat on the patio near the planter, I spotted a lone golf ball sitting amongst the succulents. As kids we would cross the street to the golf course after breakfast and hunt for lost balls in the bushes. My brother’s kids do the same every year, but now most balls are secretly planted by grandpa to ensure everyone has a successful search. This time, though, it was a genuine find, and it was almost as if it was waiting there for Jace. After, we went to the dive park. I opened a birthday card my mom had brought for him with a small paper butterfly fluttering out of it upon opening. I removed the glass heart I had carried his ashes in, then reluctantly scattered some of his ashes into the waters crashing on the rocks; I still had the ashes in his urn, these were overflow ashes that hadn’t fit inside the small container, but it was hard to let any piece of him go. We sat by the water and cried. Later, I went and filled the heart with sand, hoping to find some shells to add. The beach is not known for its shell production, but I found a single, perfect white shell to add, just for him. We then gravitated toward a small toy shop. One tradition I had started for my brother’s kids is on their first trip to the island, they would get a small stuffed buffalo (for those unaware, buffalo are common on the island, practically their official island mascot). I almost felt odd buying one for Jace, but technically it was his first trip to the island and he deserved one just as much as any of the other kids, right? My mom purchased the toy for him and I tucked it into my pack with his bear. We sailed home after lots of tears and broken hearted, but also with some closure as we reflected on the last year.

Things of course have gotten easier with time, though the cloud of devastation hovering over me at the moment is thick with the heartache that Jace’s birthday brings, heartache of what should have been and the trauma of every single thing that happened in these few days one year ago. The flashbacks have gotten worse, I’ve been crying for the past two weeks, and some days can hardly manage to function at work or through basic life tasks. The triad of my friends’ healthy babies born this time last year are preparing for their real first birthdays, and it stings that we are and will always be the ones left behind them. But there were good days in the last year too.

For the most part, being around baby stuff is easier. I can walk by the baby section of Target without tears welling in my eyes (though a sharp pang may still sling through my heart suddenly from time to time). I have unmuted most of my friends with new babies on social media (though the occasional baby announcement still stings and I’ve avoided gender reveal parties). I’ve bonded better with my youngest niece, whom I mentioned in my previous post was a bittersweet shadow of what my year should have been, and I survived her first birthday party, save a few tears and plenty of wine. We play more, cuddle more, and laugh more together in spite of it all.

As life goes, however, there were obstacles and pitfalls in my road to recovery. I had been healing with the help of time, working through my darkest days with my amazing family and friends, and my therapist, and I had been gradually preparing myself emotionally and physically to get pregnant again. I grappled with feelings of guilt for trying again so soon, as if it was disrespectful to Jace’s memory. I lived in fear of revisiting failed IUI treatments and even more fear of getting pregnant and living the next nine months in pure anxiety of losing another child. I recalled the daily anxiety I felt after learning Jace was sick, overanalyzing every time he stopped moving, every little pain in my side, holding my breath when he didn’t stir the moment I awoke in the morning, terrified he had died in the night. How could I live through that again? But I was determined to go through it all, I wanted to be a mother that badly.

Navigating my process around COVID, I met with a new fertility doctor via telephone, and we ordered preliminary bloodwork. A week later she called with the results, slight hesitation in her voice as she ran through the basic tests first, then sighed and paused when she got to my hormone levels before ending my dreams of biological motherhood in one fell swoop. Her words came in small fragments from what I can recall now: hormones levels abnormal; egg production too low; egg quality poor; no IUI. She suggested IVF, again far too expensive for a procedure so unsure and never covered by insurance. Egg donor? Embryo donor? Still too expensive and why go through the financial and emotional strain for someone else’s baby? No genetic connection, no mini-me with my eyes or smile, not even a little funky toe like Jace had. I steeled myself for a second opinion and returned to the doctor that had helped me get pregnant with Jace. He was more optimistic about my prospects and believed trying again was worth it, but even then he could only offer a 5-15% chance of success. The first doctor was covered by my insurance, but my wallet was barely stretching for one round of IUI if I used this clinic. Ultimately I decided it wouldn’t be worth it, and I should save my money for the guarantee of adoption.

But before we parted ways on the phone, my doctor lowered another boom on my already crumbling walls. He asked, “for the sake of science” about my failed pregnancy with Jace. As I shared the circumstances, he pointed out additional concerns with my treatment for IUGR, asking what the doctor had done and why she hadn’t done other things. He asked about the diet they placed me on. I told him there was no special diet, the doctor had said it wouldn’t change anything; I had placed myself on high protein and high vegetable diet, for whatever it was worth, which ended up not being much. He asked about medications. I was told there were none that could help. He inquired after bed rest. I recalled that I asked about bed rest early on, but she had told me it wouldn’t make a difference. I recounted how when things were taking a turn for the worse, one Friday I had told my boss to prepare for my absence because I was going back to the doctor the following Monday and demanding that she place me on bed rest. The next day I learned that Jace had died, and realized he was probably already dead when my boss and I made plans for my leave. The doctor, maintaining careful professionalism in his constructive criticism for my young perinatal specialist, shared that though he was not a specialist, he would have implemented more treatments for my child if he had been in charge of his care (and no, staying with him was not an option as the fertility clinic only monitors pregnancies up to 12 weeks). He shared that special diets, newly developed medications, and bed rest were all shown to have helped with IUGR. Though these treatments may not have saved Jace, at least we would’ve known that we had done everything possible. I wouldn’t be plagued with the constant what ifs I face now, if the specialist had only bothered to try and save my son.

It was then that my one biggest complaint about my treatment shot to the forefront of my mind and joined these new painful revelations. My blood pressure. Once I had found out that Jace was sick, as stressed and fearful as a new mom would be, my blood pressure skyrocketed during my pregnancy. Every time I went in for check-ups, the nurses had to take my blood pressure multiple times before they could get an acceptable reading; one time the nurse gave up and just sent me in to see the doctor, then tried another 6 times after the appointment before I could go home. And in all these times, riddled with cuff marks on my arms, my doctor never once mentioned my blood pressure to me. Being naïve and ignorant in pregnancy issues, I figured if she hadn’t brought it up, perhaps it wasn’t a significant concern at this point. However, in the few days before his death, a circulation issue was identified in one of the arteries of Jace’s umbilical cord. It wasn’t until after he died and I researched it that I found this was not caused by IUGR, but likely by my high blood pressure. And I think it ultimately killed him, not the growth restriction.

A week after Jace died my mom and I sat in the doctor’s office for a final appointment, a debriefing of sorts, and this woman said verbatim: “I am kicking myself because I wish we would have monitored your blood pressure more closely.” This was the first time she had spoken of my blood pressure. Now. After I had already cremated my child. I was too grief stricken, too numb to respond with the rage that would eventually hit me and boil over and continue boiling as every doctor I met following my delivery noted the same: concerns with my blood pressure. Not the IUGR, that didn’t seem to register with most, probably because it’s actually extremely rare for a baby to die from growth restriction. Even at his final appointment, though he was still behind in his size, Jace was still growing. And then he was gone. And now she is kicking herself.

Yes I had thought of lawsuits, but it would have been too financially and emotionally strenuous to battle it out with a conglomerate like Kaiser Permanente in the courtroom, especially with a pre-existing diagnosis that could easily be made the fall guy in our war of blame. But after finding out that I would never have another biological child, and this woman is likely responsible for the loss of the only child I would ever carry, I would be lying if I said I had never thought to kick her too. It's not uncommon for practitioners to play a role in the loss of a baby, as I learned in my support groups. They often dismissed the concerns of mothers who instinctively knew something was wrong, or like me, preyed on the ignorance and naivety of new mothers-to-be, perhaps due to ego, or perhaps their own inexperience. I'm not sure which category my doctor fell into. Partially for cathartic purposes, partially to slap her via written word, I wrote her a polite but emotional letter about my experience with her. I’ve yet to send it, I’m not sure I ever will, but I continue to hope that in her own self-flagellation for her negligence, she has learned something that might help her save someone else’s child. No lawsuit in the world is going to bring back mine.

Finding I could no longer carry a baby came with a twisting, churning sea of conflicting emotions. A storm with one day finding myself literally heaving and struggling to breathe between the sobs, and the next day calm and collected, both in anguish at the loss of my dream and in relief that there would be no IUI battle, no 9 months of crippling anxiety. I had moments of clarity that adoption would be best, I had moments of irrationality where I toyed with the idea of begging my family for funds to blow on fertility treatments that would likely end in heartbreak anyway. A few people have put in their two cents on my options, but none have offered to pay the steep costs of IVF as of yet, none have volunteered to shoulder the fear of losing another child, so it would seem their opinions hold little understanding of the challenges I would face.

So adoption has been decided. Foster to adopt, to be precise. And I am making strides in the approval process. To be fair, as I had mentioned in previous posts, adoption was in the plan all along, and was going to happen for any children after Jace was born. Now my timeline has just been pushed up with an important component of the equation missing. Most people think it’s a breeze compared to the difficulties of conception and pregnancy. But in spite of the all too easy “why don’t you just adopt?” response most women with infertility face, adoption is no easier emotionally and there are several other obstacles to work around. Though financials are non-existent issues in the foster to adopt world, there are more challenges and ultimately no guarantees that the child placed with you will end up yours. They could be returned to their family and it’s another loss to endure for an already broken hearted parent. But this is the risk we take to be moms, and it’s the only option I’m left. There is no easy answer in the world of infertile women, and at times even fewer answers for single, gay women who want a family.

So the healing continues. More mountains to climb, more work to be done in the therapy office, more tears to be cried on the couch when I’m alone at home. And still, in this all, missing Jace every second of every day. There are still a few days of complete darkness, guttural sobs, silent screams in the shower, and a deep loneliness. But now there are more days of calm and peace, laughter, and hope. I don’t think the darkness will ever go away completely, it never does when a parent loses their child, but hopefully it will shrink away, sit quietly in the corners of my mind, and only pop up on occasions like Jace’s birthday, or Mother’s Day. Not enough pain to consume me, but just enough to hold a standing testament of how much Jace was loved, and how much he is missed. And I never want to lose the ache of being his mother. His birthday was hard, the candle on his cake was the smallest light in the darkest year, but stands testament to the fact that we survived this first year. It's a flicker of hope for what may come, in the midst of heartache and healing. 

I love you Jace, happy birthday my sweet boy.

Forever on the Frontlines

These past few months have shone a spotlight on our health workers and their level of dedication and commitment to caring for others. I have been fortunate that neither me nor any family members have needed that care during this devastating time, but I did need it once before, and my nurses were the unsung heroes long before this pandemic took the world by storm. They really always have been.

When I lost Jace, I had a few incredible nurses on hand to walk me through the darkest day of my life, and while there was little they could do to ease my pain or reduce the trauma, they made my time at the hospital bearable, survivable.

I went in to deliver Jace on a Sunday, which meant the L&D of Kaiser Permanente was on skeleton crew with a shortage of most staff. There was only one doctor on duty, and I only saw her four times throughout the 15 hour stay at the hospital. She was a bit cold given the circumstances, and wasted little bedside manner on me. She rattled off the plan to bring my dead child forth and went about her daily routine. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, as it had sounded like she had already worked a lengthy shift before I sulked into her delivery room. My mom argued that doctors just tend to be distant like this because it’s an emotional defense mechanism. “They have a hard job to do, if they get emotionally involved it can become too much for them.” While I certainly understood this argument, I couldn’t bring myself to agree with it. As a therapist who has worked with extremely difficult cases, I know how bad I would be at my job if I turned off my heart completely and worked only with my head in spite of the emotional effect. My clients would see the disconnect in me as much as I saw it in my doctor. But luckily for me, nurses have gone to a different school of care.

A small group of nurses came and went as their shifts changed, a few I only saw once or twice, others may have been there for the delivery I couldn’t really recall, but one was stationed with me for the majority of the day, and showed such immense care for me I had to wonder if she were a therapist in another lifetime. Amanda tag-teamed it with another nurse whose shift was up at the beginning of my visit and she was truly a blessing throughout the day. She performed her standard duties, taking vitals, helping me go to the bathroom, administering the meds, fetching ice chips, but the extra duties made the difference. She always took a moment to sit with me after the blood pressure and temps were taken, and asked how I was doing. She offered to listen if I needed someone to talk to; she often held my hand, tried to reassure me, and appeared genuinely stricken by my tragedy. During one of her many visits, she sat with me for several minutes and gently encouraged me to allow a photographer to come take pictures of my son once he was born. She provided grief booklets to me and my family and explained to me the resources available. She provided absolutely no pressure in the decision to see or hold my baby after he was born. She took the time to ask his name and she wrote it on the dry erase board to be sure any staff member who came in knew who they were delivering.

When the delivery came, I hardly recall how the nurses and doctor came into the room so quickly, and in the panic, pain, and grief and don’t remember any of the faces of the medical staff that surrounded me. I don’t know who cleaned him, who handed him to me, and I don’t remember anyone leaving the room. I just remember the sudden silence, the tiny baby in my arms, and Amanda sitting next to me, typing some key information into my chart.

I cried quietly as I cradled Jace and whispered all my love to him, followed by an abundance of tearful apologies for not being able to keep him safe, for not being enough to keep him alive. Amanda suddenly reached out and touched my arm. “This was not your fault. You don’t need to apologize for anything. You didn’t do anything wrong.” I sobbed harder, nodding in agreement, but deep inside still believing that I could have done something, anything else while he was alive and it could have made all the difference.

Eventually Amanda stepped out to allow me time with Jace, and then I called my family back in. It was late when she returned and I asked her to contact the photographer. A slight look of concern passed over her face, and she said she would try to call the agency because their office closed in less than an hour. She assured me if they couldn’t get the agency, they would take photos for me, and rushed off to get them on the phone. She returned to share she left a message and hoped they would call back soon. I imagine she frequently checked for calls and messages, and while she was sitting with me, the call came through and she returned once more to happily share that the photographer was on her way. Amanda and the other nurses rushed to gather a blanket for him and went off in search of a knit cap that would fit his tiny head for his photos.

Throughout the night she returned trying to encourage me to eat, offering to get me a variety of snacks or juices. I hadn’t been able to eat anything that day, but I had no appetite, and she seemed concerned every time I turned it down.  She sat again with me for several minutes to explain the details of the mortuaries available to me for stillborn services and arrangements, and guided me toward the most affordable one as I knew these arrangements would be costly in addition to a significant hospital bill.

Other nurses came to take Jace’s weight and height as well as his footprints. They returned with a beautiful shadow box they had made with his name and footprints, as well as a hand-made bead bracelet with his name. They gave me a beautiful book for grieving mothers.

Amanda assured me I could spend as much time with my baby as I wanted; I could stay the night at the hospital if needed, but as hard as I knew it would be to leave my son, I didn’t want to remain with the death that hovered in that room any longer. I had said my goodbyes to Jace in the several hours I opted to stay with him, and I knew it was time to go. Amanda gathered Jace from my arms and gently set him in his delivery bassinet as I settled into the wheelchair, and she painstakingly removed his knit cap and blanket so I could carry them home with me. As she wheeled me down the empty hallways taking me further and further away from my son, I sobbed, and she rubbed my shoulder.

My mom’s car sat waiting for me at the hospital entrance, and as I lifted myself from the chair, I turned to thank her. Though she had been a solid rock for the last 11 hours with me, tears started to fill her eyes. I hugged her, and we broke down together in each others’ arms. “This was the worst day of my life,” I told her, “but I couldn’t have gotten through it without you.” I hugged her just a moment longer, then my mom said her thank yous and goodbyes, and we left the hospital in silence. I found myself wondering many times if Amanada was okay, knowing the experience must’ve been truly unpleasant and possibly traumatic for everyone involved, especially for those who refuse to disconnect and be present with their patients. But it made all the difference for me. The photo above was a picture of a nurse posted to the internet months ago who had worked an extremely long shift and ended it with a stillbirth before returning home to her sister's for a quick dinner and emotional moment. When I saw it for the first time and many times after I became emotional myself and I thought of Amanda. 

I have heard from some women in my support groups that they were not as fortunate as I was with the medical staff that accompanied them through their losses. I’ve heard from others they had experiences similar to mine. Whatever the case, I am grateful for the staff that carried me through this. Their care and support of me will never be forgotten, and a part of me hopes that if I get pregnant again, they may still be there so we can close this circle of grief together. One woman in the group reported that she had read an article that some nurses believe that most of us don’t even remember their names. I admit I struggle to remember the name of the nurse who came in once to take my temperature, or the nurse who came to take Jace’s footprints, but I remember when Lori cleaned me up after my water broke, and when she gave me my medication. I remember Penny taking charge when Amanda went on break. And I will never forget Amanda.

Whenever you’ve needed a nurse or will need one, remember it’s often a thankless job with long hours, tough tasks, difficult patients, and trauma, and they still come back to work the next day to do it all over again.

Thank you.

Having a Million Moments

It’s been six months since the worst day of my life. I’m still alive, though at times I’m not sure how I’ve survived this long. There have been so many desolate, heart-rending moments that it has become my mantra whenever someone randomly came upon me in tears: “I’m just having a moment.” So many moments; my life has been redefined by grief, surrounds this grief, and each and every day it looms over me like a cloud, ready to strike without warning. Somehow I navigate through each small storm, but every raindrop represents a thousand tears of missing my son.

In the first month or two, after returning to work too soon following my loss, I hadn’t even bothered to put on make-up. More often than not, on the few days I had ventured to try, my make-up had been cried away before even arriving to the office; other times it may have lasted to lunch, but behind my closed office door it wouldn’t keep much longer than that. Many mornings I was late to work (I’m still often late) because I could not stop crying while getting dressed, or because I had cried so much the night before, my eyes were swollen beyond recognition and I couldn’t traipse into work flaunting bee-sting swells. Other days there were no tears, but also no motivation, and I struggled to drag myself out of bed to perform the mundane task of pretending I wanted to be at work or anywhere other than the dark recesses of my empty and silent apartment. I had moments wondering if I should have stayed home from one day to the next, but truth be told, if I stayed home every time I cried, I would have been MIA from work for the better part of a year. Eventually I realized this was my new norm and people would have to accept me as such: I was going to cry, I could cry at any moment without warning, and I would likely be in a down-trodden, fuck my life mood on the daily. So if you knocked on my door with a question needing an answer, you would know that you would likely find me teary-eyed, snotty nosed, red-faced, with a simple “I’m just having a moment” as an explanation for it all. And it would have to suffice.

These moments could be sudden and random thunder claps of grief; at times they came when I least expected them, even in the middle of bursts of laughter I could shift seamlessly into hysterical heaves of sobs and tears, but other times they were brought on by very obvious triggers, usually baby stuff. My electronic devices drew from cookies of search history during my pregnant days and spewed out suggestions for baby clothes, gadgets, diapers, and newborn posts. Clients came into the office with my son’s name, a name that had never been popular, which no one had bore in my six years of working at this clinic, but suddenly following his death I was bombarded with three Jaces reverberating off the walls of my empty heart. But nothing hurt more than the babies around me and those who were blessed with healthy pregnancies.

I struggled to be around my niece, who was only 6 months old when I lost Jace; I struggled sometimes to hold her, to peer into her cherubic face, knowing I would never cuddle my son the same way, he would never reach the milestones she would conquer like laughing, crawling, walking. At times I was desperate to hold her, other times I couldn’t bear to be in the same room as her without breaking down. A triad of friends were pregnant with me, all of us due just a few months apart from one another, and it was earth shattering to watch as each of them brought their healthy, beautiful babies into the world while I wore the ashes of mine around my neck. We had once shared our pregnancy woes and excitements, we had bubbled over future playdates and being new moms together, and now they had moved forward on this wonderful road of motherhood without me. Two of the trio had already suffered their own losses previously, and I recall thinking how dreadful it would be if one of us lost our babies, how hard it would be for her to bear witness to the rest of us having our kids. Truth be told, I didn’t count myself as being the one at risk; the others had a history of difficulties, and they were the ones I feared for. With 20 weeks of healthy tests and good ultrasounds, I never thought it would be me. But one in four women suffer from a pregnancy or infant loss, and of the four of us, statistics rang true: it was simply my turn.

The biggest challenge with this came the balance of self-preservation and my glaring absence from the living. Always having built a strong bond with my older nieces, I realized a gap was forming between my youngest and me because of my difficulty in being around her, and I worried we wouldn’t be as close. Her first birthday party is around the corner, and I’m trying to build the strength to go. It will be a heartbreaking reminder that my son will never reach his first birthday, but I don’t want my niece looking back on photos years from now, wondering where I was. With the triad, I’ve had to mute social media posts and I struggle to ask about how they and their children are doing because I can’t talk about their babies without the painful reminder that I don’t have mine. I should be sharing in their joy, this momentous occasion of their lives, planning visits, gushing over their babies, stealing another minute holding them. But I can’t even see a photo of them without crying. I feel like a lousy friend. I feel like a distant aunt.

Everyone of course has been incredibly understanding and respectful of my process, but the guilt is there nonetheless. With grief comes an immense amount of guilt for various things, but mostly I felt guilt for being unavailable to mostly everyone in my life. I stopped interacting with most friends and family because social interactions were so draining, most times I didn’t feel like leaving the house. Other times I refused invitations because I feared bursting into tears at any moment and ruining the fun for everyone else. It was easier to stay home knowing I had the freedom to cry when I pleased, that I didn’t have to put on a mask of joy, that I could just be a grieving mom. I forgot birthdays and important events, and I struggled to be present as a bridesmaid for my best friend’s wedding and all the gatherings leading up to it. With a bridal shower and wedding ceremony attended by two of the triad, and a bachelorette attended by a pregnant woman and the chatter of her upcoming baby shower, it was challenging keeping myself together so I wouldn’t take the focus off the bride. I made it through most of the events unscathed, save an emotional moment when one of the triad brought her newborn to the bridal shower and when I had too much to drink at the wedding, drunkenly insisting that another one of the triad to show me photos of her babies. This was more so I could feel like a good friend asking about her little ones than actually thinking I could handle seeing her blessings. It ended with a tearful “I’m happy for you” and a jaunt back over to the open bar.

I had joined support groups, one online and one face to face, mostly in hopes of finding other mothers struggling through the same. The face to face group was short-lived and mostly unsuccessful as the faces all changed from one group to another, and after I was three sessions in, the group facilitator quit. The online group was a mosaic of freshly bereaved mothers, anxiety-inducing stories of failed pregnancies and potential hazards I had never heard of, irrational emotions, and worst of all, a never-ending storm of grief. The resounding message from most women in this group was it doesn’t get better. Some were years into their loss and still lamented that their grief was as powerful as the day their child died. And it scared me. I didn’t want to fall into that bottomless pit. I had once lived in a 12 year depression and I didn’t want to feel that weighted darkness on my shoulders again.

My friends and family did their best to raise me above the clouds, checking in with me, trying to drag me out of the house, sending me small thoughtful gifts. My mom was at my beck and call whenever I needed a shoulder to cry on. My staff at work, usually the anti-social types tried their best to stay festive for the holidays to keep my spirits up. My best friend found the time to send daily funny memes and videos on Instagram in the midst of the chaos preparing for her own wedding. My dad, who has never been great with emotions, took it a step further in an effort to fix my sadness by finding me a project. A new home, in fact. The plan had always been to buy a home after Jace was born, when my apartment lease expired. But with Jace gone and mortgage interest rates at an all time low, my dad determined this was the time to buy. He was helping me with the down payment and left me with little choice, though I fought tooth and nail against this plot, knowing such a huge life decision should not be made a month after losing a child, knowing I hardly had the energy for it. A rushed escrow and a move in date fit snugly between Thanksgiving and Christmas was an emotionally draining whirlwind of distraction, but when the dust settled, although I loved my new little home, it was no cure for this level of heartache.

Some things were not so helpful, such as comments that were made but not thought through. Having people tell me I can “just try again” like Jace was so easily replaced. Others telling me “something better is coming” as if he wasn’t the something better I’ve been waiting for all my life. At a family gathering, in the midst of hyperactive sugar-fueled children tearing around the house, one family member asked me if I was grateful I didn’t have to deal with the chaos of children once I returned to my home. Yes, I am grateful my son died so I don’t have to deal with an ecstatic, giggly squealing, slightly crazy toddler that I paid thousands of dollars to have. Asshole. Others were well-intentioned but misaligned religious comments. I’m not religious, but I could appreciate the vigils, the spiritual-themed gifts and condolences; I even allowed people to hold my hands and pray for me. But I could not abide the religious justifications of my loss, the chorus of “it’s God’s plan”, “a test of strength”, “heaven needed another angel”, and “he’s in heaven waiting for you.” If it was a plan, it is the most fucked up plan since the slaying of Egyptian first-borns. If it was a test, my whole life has been a test, I didn’t need another. Heaven did not need my angel, I did. I don’t believe I will see my son again. It’s painful, but less painful understanding this was some biological failing than trying to understand some distant deity sitting on a cloud watching his plan of inflicting immense suffering play out. And the suffering is still playing out.

The remnants of PTSD are fading: the dreams of ongoing pregnancy loss, the anxiety of driving the same street that I had taken to the hospital that day, the heart-stopping stomach flutters that were mistaken for his kicking are slowly dissipating. I've nearly forgiven my body for what I've believed to be the worst betrayal of me by letting my son die. I;m trying to give myself the space to grieve when I need to. The tears have subsided to a few times a week versus a few times a day. I’m slowly finding my way through this storm and I’ve had to live through very difficult moments of honoring and remembering my son to get there. I painstakingly filled out Jace’s baby book the best that I could, noting the information I could about his conception and prenatal growth, sugarcoating the story of his delivery, and pasting his ultrasound photos into the pages that were meant for pictures taken after he was born. I tattooed his tiny footprints on my forearm above his name. My due date was marked by a tear-filled hike to my favorite place in the mountains and a balloon release, little latex pockets of air with messages of love to my son scrawled on them. His teddy bear urn still sits on the shelf shown in my last post with a candle lit for him each and every night. I still sleep with his blanket and travel with it wherever I may be going for overnight stays. I write him letters professing my undying love for him. I wear his ashes around my neck in an engraved urn necklace.

I am doing better day by day, however. I'm seeing more friends, getting out of the house. I'm crying less, laughing more, slowly coming back to life. I know I’m forever changed, that grief will always be a part of me and a daily challenge to combat, but I can’t let it stop my life. I’m trying to prepare myself emotionally, physically, and financially to try for a baby again as living motherhood is still a dream of mine, but he will always be my firstborn son, and big brother to any little ones following in his tiny footsteps. Until then, I’m going to keep having my moments, so thank you for your patience.

This Isn't How It's Supposed to Be

“When a child loses their parents, they are called an orphan. When a spouse loses [their] partner, they are called a widow or a widower. When parents lose their child, there isn’t a word to describe them.” Most likely because it seems so inconceivable to society that a child should be taken from their parents, that an innocent can die so young, warranting a label for those they leave behind. But it happens more often than we think, and unfortunately, it happened to me. And here I stand, without a label and without my child.

Something’s Wrong

The pregnancy had started off like any other, simply navigating through the first-time mom anxieties of surviving the first trimester, waiting for genetic test results, eager to see the little blob of a baby nestled in my womb at the monthly check ups and hear that rapid little heartbeat pounding away in me. The weeks flew by without a hitch, a pregnancy much easier than the conception challenges I detailed in my previous post. We made it to 12 weeks, and I noted that the doctor had some trouble seeing the baby on the ultrasound screen, saying the baby was a bit small, but after a few adjustments with her machine, the ultrasound went on without an issue. She took the baby’s measurements and again I noted the length, 4.44 centimeters. Being raised on the imperial system, it wasn’t until I got home and used my trusty centimeters to inches converter on Google that I realized the baby was half an inch smaller than it should have been. My new mom panic ensued, and it took hours of self-talk and journaling to calm myself down, reassuring myself that if something had been wrong, the doctor would have said something, and I needed to relax. I wrote to myself in my journal that my baby was fine and we would be a happy, healthy family soon.

At 19 weeks, it came time for the anatomy scan. The technicians declared that everything looked fine and everything was developing as it should, but they noted the baby, a little boy, was smaller than he should be. Though they couldn’t get a doctor to come speak with me at that moment, they assured me they believed he was fine, and that my due date would simply need to be adjusted as it was probably miscalculated. I left initially concerned, but again spent the week reassuring myself that my son would be okay. I went into the next doctor appointment confident, my only concern being that in moving the due date, I may be stuck in the hospital over the Christmas holidays. Little did I know how menial my stupid holiday fears would become. Meeting with a midwife standing in for my vacationing doctor, she laid out the diagnosis that hit me like a freight train: Intrauterine Growth Restriction. The baby wasn’t growing like he should, most likely due to a poorly functioning placenta and not enough nutrition filtering to my child. It was then I had learned that my earlier suspicions had been right, the baby had measured small during my 12 week check-up, but the doctor hadn’t been concerned as he was only slightly smaller than he should have been at the time, and she didn’t feel the need to mention it. His condition had worsened considerably in the last 7 weeks. I was warned of several concerns, the possibility of early delivery, hospitalization, careful monitoring, birth complications, even the small but unlikely chance of stillbirth. I was referred to a perinatal specialist, and I went home and sobbed on the couch for the rest of the day.

Following my first scan with her, the specialist was less enthusiastic about our prognosis; the baby continued to fall behind in his growth and if he stopped growing before he was the size of a 24 week old fetus, she would not be able to save him with early delivery. I tried to remain optimistic as more tests were run, including bloodwork and an amniocentesis to rule out other possible causes, and felt a bit brighter when the next check up showed he had remained stable thus far. But when the doctor measured him two weeks later, not only was he continuing to fall behind in his growth, but he had developed a circulation problem in his umbilical cord. Although he was measuring at 22 weeks, just two weeks shy of our goal for delivery, I was 26 weeks, and the doctor warned me that babies in these circumstances had a low chance of survival. For a moment I sank under the weight of her prediction. I left the appointment and sat crying in my car, lamenting that my baby was going to die. 

Overwhelmed by the weeks of anxiety and stress, in a moment of pure emotional weakness, I thought to myself I can’t sit around and wait for my baby to die, if he’s going to die I wish it would just happen already. After all it was better than sitting around with false hopes for a miracle that wouldn’t come. In spite of my dark moment, the next day, I had managed to pick myself up and convince myself to continue fighting for my son- after all, he may die but he wasn’t dead yet. He spent the day kicking and bustling around inside me, and I believed that we were going to make it, he would grow to 24 weeks. I believed we were going to be okay.

The following day, I was back to work, a busy day that found me on my feet and moving constantly, so it wasn’t until the end of the day, lying in bed that I noticed I hadn’t felt him kick all day. I panicked for a moment, but de-escalated my fears by acknowledging that he had probably moved during my active day and I just hadn’t felt him. The words of my doctor echoed in my ears that he was small, and I would likely have days where I wouldn’t feel him move and I shouldn’t worry. The next day, however, my attention was trained on my womb; he hadn’t moved like he usually did when I first woke up, and food, movement, poking, and jiggling didn’t stir a response from him either. My mom tried to reassure me, and for a moment I thought about waiting the two more days for my next doctor appointment, but I couldn’t manage the suffocating anxiety for another two days. I decided I was going to the hospital to be checked. Driving there, I had a small sliver of hope for good news, for nurses to find the baby alive and well and silently heave a frustrated sigh at these new moms and their dramatic overreactions. But part of me knew to prepare for the worst.

I was already crying before the nurse entered the room with her Doppler ultrasound. I held my breath as she swiped it over my belly, and a slow rhythmic beat emerged from the speakers. Too slow for a baby, I realized. Either this was my heartbeat, or the baby was dying. The nurse suddenly rushed from the room and in moments returned with a doctor and a mobile ultrasound machine. The doctor quickly checked my stomach and the deafening silence filled the room. I glanced at the screen and saw my son curled up in a small ball in my stomach, as he often was, but there was no sound, no movement. I could barely manage to whisper, “I’ve lost him, haven’t I?” The doctor said she believed the earlier heartbeat we had heard was mine but needed confirmation from the OBGYN on duty. She left to retrieve him and he returned. Without saying a word to me, he ran the ultrasound and simply stated “I agree.” With that, after six and a half months, my son was gone.

I blubbered the news to my mom over the phone, and she rushed to the hospital as they advised me they were going to prepare for delivery. However, sensing my discomfort and hesitation, the doctor gave me the option of placing a balloon in my cervix to begin dilation and sending me home for the night. The plan was to return the next morning and begin the worst day of my life. I agreed and went home, carrying my dead son in me, running my hands over my stomach and knowing he could no longer feel me. I sobbed through the night, being pummeled with occasional contractions. My mom and I returned to the hospital the following morning and she guided me to labor and delivery as a I wept that I wanted to go home, that I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to birth my dead baby.

When Hello Means Goodbye

The delivery room was dim and unwelcoming. We were immersed in a dark cloud and I thought ‘this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.’ There was no joy in it, no eager anticipation or excited well-wishers, just darkness, silence, hospital staff expressing condolences and eventually the arrival of tearful, mourning visitors. I waited four hours to see my delivering doctor, who was busy with an emergency delivery and a triage patient. I was monitored by a friendly nurse who was too cheerful for the circumstances and had my blood drawn by a phlebotomist that mistook me for a happy expectant mother, unaware that my baby was dead and asked if I was excited to meet my child. The doctor eventually came in and ordered the medications needed to induce labor, and luckily my plucky little nurse was replaced by another who was likely a therapist in a different life or heavily trained in situations such as these; Amanda handled the majority of my care for the rest of the day, going above and beyond the call of duty to carry me through this desolate day. And she was the only one of all the medical staff in this whole ordeal to ask me my son’s name: Jace.

Jace was my first baby, I had no idea what to expect or the level of pain that could await me. The doctor and nurses had been liberal in offering pain medications as they assured me I could have whatever I needed and I “don’t have to feel anything at all” if I didn’t want to. It went without anyone having to say that this was possible because one doesn’t need to worry about the effects of medications on a dead baby. We discussed the epidural as well as IV drugs. Not being a fan of pain meds, I refused them for awhile as the contractions grew, planning on waiting for the epidural, but eventually I gave in to the IV drugs and soon any sense of contractions left my body. I sat in my hospital bed, distracting myself with the Golden Girls and Wall-E on TV, breaking down into tears during commercial breaks and after a visit from the nurses. My dad and stepmother visited, my brother and sister-in-law were on-call as we tried to judge the effectiveness of the induction meds and predict a possible delivery time; the doctor gave the liberal estimation of a few hours to a day or two. I was only 4 centimeters dilated at this point but the doctor had shared we would likely not need to go to 10; Jace was much smaller than normal, after all.

About an hour and a half after I was given the pain meds, I was hit with a massive contraction. Assuming the medication was losing its effectiveness, I sent my mother to request another dose. Seconds after the contraction subsided, another began. I paged the nurses once more, and they responded that the pain meds were on their way. I cried out suddenly with an explosion of pain, and I felt Jace drop. I panicked, yelling out “the baby is coming! The baby is coming!” and as though they dropped from the sky, five nurses and the doctor were in my room, rushing about to finish the delivery that was nearly done. Jace was mostly out, it would only take another push or two to bring him into the world he would never know, but I couldn’t do it. I was crying hysterically with my mom and stepmother on either side of me, gripping my hands. My mind hadn’t registered the nurse directing me to ‘bear down’ and push, and I didn’t really want to, because I didn’t want any of this to be happening. I didn’t want it to be real. I didn’t want my baby to be dead. I finally mustered the strength to push and felt my son slip out of me, slip away from me. There was no celebration, no newborn wails, just my own guttural sobs in the otherwise heavy silence. This was not how it was supposed to be.

They cleaned him up and asked me if I wanted to hold him, though I had been told I wouldn’t have to if I didn’t want to. Of course I wanted my son, I needed to touch him, I needed to see him, and they handed me the several sizes too-large receiving blanket with the tiny little human I had grown wrapped delicately inside. His skin was under-developed and a deep red color, his eyes were slightly opened, and with no functional muscle control, so was his small mouth. His head was shrouded with a knit cap, again far too large, but his soft skull had come out misshapen by the birth canal and the loose, wrinkled skin that crowned it was better left hidden from sight. However, a quick peek under the hat revealed small, feathery wisps of black peach fuzz in small patches here and there. His features were all developed, his little nose, ears, lips, even his ten fingers and toes showing hints of small nails beginning to grow. Though it was hard to tell which parent he would have looked like more, one ringing declaration of my maternal claim to him was the tiny middle toe on his left foot, jutting upwards above the rest of the carefully lined appendages. The deformation was one I too bear on the same foot, and lovingly call my “funky toe.” I marveled at the genetic consistency, adoring that it was even reflected in the tiny footprints the hospital staff had gathered for me.

I spent four hours with my son, memorizing every detail of his face and body. I cradled him, whispered all my love to him, along with apologies for my body’s failings, my own failings of not being able to protect him, to save him, and begged his forgiveness. I sang “You’ll be in my Heart,” a song I had played for him while he was in my tummy and rocked him. I swaddled him in his oversized blanket and for a moment, I was able to be a mom to him. My family took turns holding him, but for some it was more of a challenge, either it was the realization that their grandson or nephew was gone, or just being overwhelmed by the heartrending appearance of a 26 week fetus who never should have died. They passed him around and cried. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

The nurse had informed me of a volunteer who would come professionally photograph him if I wanted. My initial reaction was of how macabre this must be, who would want pictures of a dead baby? But after seeing my baby, I knew I wanted these pictures, needed these pictures. I wouldn’t take photos with him, but I agreed to the photographer. Kayleen came shortly after 9pm, just after finishing photographing another family’s heartbreak, and took several wonderful photos of my baby. In a moment I immediately decided I wanted photos with him, holding him, and even some of my family members did the same. The hospital staff made a bracelet for me with Jace’s name on it, and made a beautiful shadow box with his name, footprints, and birthdate in it. They bundled up his blanket and baby cap for me when I left.

There was nothing more difficult than being wheeled out of the hospital with empty arms, leaving my baby up in the delivery room, waiting to be transferred to the morgue until the mortuary would pick him up the following day. I sobbed all the way down to the hospital entrance and climbed into the car. No baby, no car seat needed, just a quiet, devastating drive home, and a somber black parade back to my apartment door. Nothing at all like I envisioned my return home after giving birth. I cried until the early hours of the following morning and fell asleep clutching his empty baby blanket.

The Fallout

The first days after his death were a blur. My body was slowly recovering from the delivery, the only silver lining being that I’d had no complications following Jace’s birth. The bleeding subsided, my body quickly regained its pre-baby shape, but biology doesn’t acknowledge dead babies, and my milk soon came in, my breasts aching from the engorgement, my heart aching for a baby I would never nurse. As difficult as this was, when my milk began to dry up, I felt the last sense of motherhood I had slipping away as well.

I stayed locked up in my apartment, leaving only once to make arrangements for Jace’s cremation at the mortuary. When given a task in mourning, some people function better with the distraction, and I managed the exchanges with the mortician well until it came to filling out paperwork, when a line asked for my relation to the deceased. I realized that for the first time in my life I was writing that I was someone’s mother, but I was writing it on his death certificate, and if my heart had already broken and shattered, this decimated the shards into a fine dust. A week later I would retrieve my son’s ashes, stored in a small brass urn and embedded in the body of a soft brown teddy bear. The bear was the funeral home’s default selection for untimely infant deaths, and probably carefully selected with grieving parents in mind who could cuddle the bear and feel some semblance of holding their own baby. At least that’s what I’ve spent many nights doing since he came home.

Most of my friends and family were aware of Jace’s prenatal complications, and to derail the frequent questions and requests for updates, I wrote a painful post on social media detailing his passing. Before being inundated with texts and phone calls to salt the wound, I requested space and time to recover. Previous downfalls of my life typically resulted in my withdrawal and refusal of any support system, but having a history of depression and suicidal tendencies in my teens, I knew isolation could potentially cripple me. So I tentatively opened myself to a small circle of support. My immediate family stayed with me most of the first week, my mother staying over the first few nights, my dad and stepmother coming over for dinners and check ins, my brother, sister-in-law, cousin, and aunts taking time off work to fill in other times. Their support ended up being crucial in those first hours, whether they provided momentary distractions from the torrential grief or just listened to my rambling ruminations of the pregnancy, the delivery, the aftermath, whatever I needed to get out of my head by expelling it aimlessly into the universe. They brought me food, flowers, even gifts, so similar to how things would have been if he had lived, and yet so different, still so dark. It wasn’t an endless stream of family and friends coming to meet the baby and dote over the new mother. It was a funeral procession. This was not how it was supposed to be.

But in spite of the support and their nearly constant presence, when they did leave, the loneliness I felt was unexpected and all-encompassing. Solitude has never bothered me before, I’ve been single for quite some time and often found peace in being on my own. I never required a partner for happiness, but being a mother was another story. My desire to be a mother was born 15 years earlier and it never subsided; I needed this to feel complete. When I had finally learned I was pregnant, I fantasized of the adventures my little one and I would share in this life and dreamt of the family we would make. For the 6 months I had him, I had been a we, and I never wanted to be just me again. I regretted the moment I wished for his quick death, because it meant in ending the torturous waiting, I missed out countless precious moments with him, talking to him, feeling his little kicks. I would give anything to feel just one more kick, to have just one more day with him. With him gone, the emptiness in me drowned me, the fear of being alone, dying alone, washed over me like a tidal wave. In writing this, it has been a month since I lost him, and I still feel as though I’m fighting the undertow, thrashing for the surface and never quite reaching it.

Breaking free of the loneliness wasn’t an easy task as this meant rejoining the living world, a world oblivious to my recent heartbreak. Like a seamless transition into a Teasdale poem, I had stepped through the soft rains and found a world that continued on without me, without my son, a world full of laughter, celebrations, and of course, new babies. The nuclear holocaust that had leveled my life was confined to the bubble of my small existence and everyone around me went on about their lives, giving my red-rimmed, swollen eyes a quick glance at the store before awkwardly averting their own to the ground and moving on, never knowing the depth of my grief. I half wished I could wear a sign saying “my son died” as if people might steer clear, stop staring, avoid baby talk, keep their newborns out of sight, and let me get on with my shopping without inciting a meltdown. Of course, this isn’t realistic, so all I can do is clench my teeth, avoid the baby section of Target, and blink away the random tears that catch me unawares when a sudden thought of Jace resurfaces.

As time goes on, moments where Jace resurfaces come in waves; some days are fairly easy, which sounds like it would be a relief, but it actually feels worse to start to feel better. Going through a day without crying seems as though I’m beginning to move on, I’m beginning to forget him. I feel guilty for laughing, for allowing myself to have a good day, for doing anything but bury myself in endless despair, in constant emotional self-flagellation. But in spite of the brief guilt-ridden reprieves, the whippings are still in full swing as the bad days rear their ugly head, creeping in out of nowhere and clinging to my back as I try to learn to function again. I’m not sure those days will fully go away. His loss is a hole in my heart that will never heal.

I wish this could be some inspiring blog of recovery, how I battled and permanently banished the dark cloud of grief and loss, but the pain of losing a child never dissipates, you just learn how to mitigate it. I’m still learning. I’m still dodging pregnancy announcements, new baby posts, diaper commercials. Still trying to figure out how to tell people I don’t have on social media why my baby bump has suddenly disappeared. Still trying to master this balancing act of remembering and cherishing my son without revisiting the explosive pain of losing him. I still cry myself to sleep with his blanket, I still cuddle his teddy bear urn. I look at his pictures every day and pull out his memory box, the baby book with his ultrasounds to look back on the short life he had. And while I’m not anywhere near the end of this road, this is the path to recovery that I must walk, saturated in pain, but only because there was so much love for my son to begin with.

I love you Jace, and I miss you every day.