“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.
