Three Minus One: Stories of Parents' Love and Loss (14 page)

It wasn’t possible in that moment to make sense of what had happened, from a medical or emotional standpoint, so we carried on with the new plan of action. Did we want to deliver her today, or wait a while? Is there anything we want to do first? It always seems easier to assume a role or task, rather than delve into the bottomless pit of pain and grief in situations like this, so we agreed to make arrangements for Molly, grab our hospital bag, and proceed with the delivery. I felt utter dread at the thought of birthing my dead baby—how could I possibly find the strength to do it? I loved her terribly, but things had gone so completely wrong. It just wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Still reeling from shock and the sucker punch of emotions, we somehow made it home. Staggering into the bedroom, I grabbed the neatly packed hospital bag and emptied out its contents, strewing nursing bras and baby blankets across the room. I was possessed with grief, determined to weed out every last piece of baby paraphernalia. The drive to the hospital was sobering, allowing us a moment to brace ourselves before facing the next stage of the ordeal. “I can feel her moving now!” I wailed as we turned into the parking lot. My body had deceived me; with each waddling, reluctant step, I could feel Maggie’s body swishing and floating, graceful limbs and hands moving in rhythm. These sensations had become familiar to me over the past week, yet it was only then as we passed through the sleek sliding hospital doors that I realized how mistaken my perceptions of my own body had been. In that moment, I was convinced that the innate, primal mother-child connection that every pregnant woman is supposed to possess had malfunctioned. Even in my belly I had failed my child, and there was no one to hold accountable but myself.

Walking into Labor and Delivery less than two years ago to deliver
our first baby, everything seemed happy: the pleasant receptionist and the jolly maternity care coordinator who waved and remembered us from the preadmission appointment. We were greeted like old friends. Even the walls seemed welcoming in their soothing tones of peach and eggshell. Now, everything about the place seemed cruel: the obnoxious front desk clerk engaged in some kind of hilarious exchange on the phone. Didn’t she know what had happened? I glanced at the insipid framed watercolors on the walls, images of mothers cradling newborn babies. We were supposed to look at them and smile knowingly with the glow of expectant parenthood, which, I now understood, quickly becomes intolerable to anyone whose baby has just died. Today, the maternity care coordinator was busy spreading jollity to another pregnant couple.
That was us
, I thought bitterly as we scuttled past.

Everything was ready in our room: a cap, gown, and tiny diaper were laid out in the crib. A baby is going to be delivered here today. Will they dress her and put a diaper on her, I wondered, or just wrap her lifeless body in receiving blankets? There was comfort in dwelling on the minutiae of the situation, rather than confronting the impending wave of grief, fear, and guilt that threatened to break at any moment.

The silence of a stillbirth is deafening. It is the absence of everything that should be—the sounds of a baby’s first breath and cry; the tears of relief and joy from mother and father; the jovial chatter of doctors and nurses tending to mother and baby. Even if I had been able to forget that the baby I was delivering had died, the silence in the room at the moment she emerged was engulfing. Instead of sighs of relief, I was sobbing and wailing like a wounded animal. Maggie didn’t wriggle or splutter as nurses swathed in blue gowns swooped in and whisked her away to the warming area. That day, the usual hustle and bustle of nurses carrying out the necessary cleaning, measuring, and wrapping of the baby was more like a respectful murmur. There was no haste; everyone trod gently and spoke quietly. Someone asked if we wanted to see her. Yes, we wanted to see her, so she was
prepared in several layers of soft blankets and handed to us. Her beauty, despite peeling skin and blood-tinged lips, was undeniable. We were left alone, just the three of us, to talk and snuggle. We told her we loved her, and how much we wished she could stay with us. I hummed “Maggie May” and rocked her in my arms. Then we said good-bye.

At home several days later, I was struck again by how dysfunctional my body seemed, as my now useless breasts began lactating. I cried, I leaked milk, and I cried some more. Forced to retrieve my previously discarded nursing bras, I stuffed them with breast pads in disgust. What kind of cruel joke was Mother Nature playing? Could there be any greater slap in the face to a grieving mother than spontaneous lactation after the death of her baby? We can’t switch off the natural, hormone-driven urge to nurture and nourish our babies, even when our babies die; as women, so we’re told, mothering is at the very core of what it is to
be
a woman. But I already knew the mother-child connection was broken somehow; my body had failed at the most critical moment, in what should have been its most natural function, supporting and growing a new life.

Yet I needed my body to cooperate. In the midst of intense sorrow grew a fierce determination to not be conquered by fear. I wasn’t angry at God, or my doctor, or anyone else involved in this tragedy; I was angry at fear itself. I was angry that the fear of intense grief and pain might throw my life off course, and I really would never feel okay again. I wanted to converse with my child without a torrent of tears when she asked questions like “Where is the other baby?” Eventually I did feel okay, and two years later we were hopefully, cautiously retracing our steps, returning to the hospital where we met our two girls for the first time and said good-bye to one.

The unlikely gift that comes with the death of someone you love is the realization that love does not go away when they are gone; in many cases it grows stronger. The terror of reopening the wounds of loss and grief was ever present, sometimes even oppressive. It took a determined effort not to succumb to that fear, but the profound
desire to give birth to and nurture a healthy child, coupled with our determination that this tragedy would not define us, carried us through a new pregnancy and the birth of our beautiful, screaming baby boy. The depth of pain we felt when Maggie died proved to us how unfathomable a parent’s love for a child can be—a gift beyond description.

Elizabeth Heineman

T
ouch him.

Touch his face, his narrow cheeks, his hard brow. Use the tip of your index finger. Cradle the back of his head and move your hand down to feel the curve of his skull. Trace the hump of his chin, starting from the tape that holds the intubation tube in his mouth. Continue down his long throat to his collarbone.

As you support him with your left arm, use your right hand to pull the blanket away from his chest. Fill your hands with your baby. Spread out your fingers, making your hands as big as you can. One on his back, the other across his chest. Your hands will not meet, because this is a big baby.

Try another hold: one hand on each side of your baby’s head, fingers overlapping at the back. Now you have a feel for your baby’s head and your baby’s torso. Your hands will want to remember those proportions.

Unfold the rest of the blanket. See the stump of your baby’s umbilical cord, brown, with a piece of gauze held in place with a clamp. See his small uncircumcised penis, his wrinkled, dark scrotum. Notice how fat his thighs are, and turn him around to see if the buttocks from which they extend are equally fat. The lower legs look slim in
comparison. Be careful of the pegs protruding from the shins, the pegs that were to deliver drugs directly to the bone because the veins were too small. His feet are wrinkled and crusty with meconium.

Hold your baby under his arms so his feet rest on your lap, as if he were standing. You’ll have to support his head.

Notice that his eyes are half open. He looks like he’s looking at you. Meet his gaze. Tell him with your eyes how much you love him. Lean your brow against his brow, your nose against his nose. Close your eyes.

Breathe in. Smell your baby’s smell. It is earthy, bloody, unwashed. Lift your baby higher, until your nose is buried in his neck. Smell him again. Inhale deeply.

Sit your baby on your lap. Tell him that he is your beautiful, beautiful baby. Tell him that you love him, and that you will always love him. Caress his cheek and tell him the same thing. Kiss his face and say it again.

Invite your baby’s Daddy over with your eyes. Hold your baby up so Daddy can take him. Watch how Daddy cradles him as he stands, how he looks down at him, biting his lip.

Talk about your baby. About how big he is. About how his eyes are open. Let conversation falter.

Follow Daddy with your eyes as he sits down by your bed. You can hold the baby together. Put your face to your baby’s face as Daddy does the same from the other side.

Close your eyes. Breathe deeply.

Pull back as Daddy takes your baby’s hand. He will slip his finger into the hollow between your baby’s curled fingers and the palm of his hand. Look at the wrinkles on the back of your baby’s tiny fingers, the solidity and straightness of Daddy’s big finger.

Take your baby back. Sing him a song that you make up as you go along, a song with few notes and few words, but which goes on a long time. Rock the baby as you sing to him.

Look into your baby’s eyes. Realize, suddenly, what your baby’s eyes are saying to you. He is asking why he has died. He is saying he had looked forward to meeting you. He knew your warmth and your voice from inside. He wanted to feel your arms and your lips once he was outside. He wanted to see you. He thought that coming out would be the beginning, not the end. You are his mother. He doesn’t know whom else to ask.

His mouth is covered with tape.

Loni Huston-Eizenga

T
he first thing they did after Aisley was officially pronounced dead was hand her to me. I’ll admit there was a split second where I was afraid. It pains me to think that for even a second I was afraid of my own daughter. In truth, it was death I was afraid of, the crippling reality of death. In that split second my daughter represented death and all the dread that comes with it.

They placed her in my arms. I stared into her face. I stared death in the face. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I couldn’t understand how I could feel anything other than anguish in that moment as I held her lifeless body. The sorrow was still present, but I felt slightly different. Having her near me gave me a strange solace. It was as if she were consoling me. I smelled her hair, stroked her cheeks, and kissed her softly. I stared at her features as hard as I could, willing myself to memorize every inch of her. She had my exact mouth: a round button nose and a prominent little chin, just like me. From the nose down it was like looking in the mirror. From the nose up she looked just like my husband. She had his cheekbones and his round eyes. The tips of her hair felt as soft as feathers and smelled deliciously sweet; that indescribably soothing scent that only babies can emit. Her fingers were long and elegant. They didn’t mimic average stubby baby digits; they seemed almost capable. She appeared long and sturdy yet simultaneously fragile. She was incredible. An overwhelming sense of peace and complete connection with her enveloped me. I never wanted it to go away.

I laid with her for what must have been an hour. I couldn’t tell you because time stopped. The world stopped. My husband came over to cradle me as I was cradling her. He sobbed uncontrollably, moaning in a desperate tone I’d never heard before. The moan of grief. My tears had stopped. I was in limbo between a state of shock and a Zen trance. I couldn’t comfort him like I normally would. All that mattered was my daughter.

Next thing I knew it was time for them to take her from me. The man was polite and apologetic, but I knew where he was taking her. He was taking her somewhere cold and sterile. They were going to cut her up like a science experiment. How could I hand her over to that? I felt like growling. I felt like ripping his arm off with my teeth like a wild bear protecting her cub. I needed to be with my daughter. I wanted to protect her. No one else could touch her. I never wanted to let her go.

But I did. I quelled my animal instincts and let the man take my baby. I collapsed in tears as he walked away with my heart.

A few days passed and we had the opportunity to see her again at the funeral home. I was very nervous but I longed to feel the comfort of being near her. I needed it. I had to pick out an outfit for them to dress her in. They told me to send them a hat as well, that I probably wouldn’t want to see her head. I tried to banish thoughts of them cutting into her from my mind as I sifted through the tiny caps I’d bought for her. Knowing this would be the only time I’d get to select an outfit for my baby was devastating. I wailed like an injured animal as I waded through tiny colored clothes. The bright bubbly colors mocked my pain. I finally chose an outfit. I placed her little giraffe next to it so we could give that to her as well. I thought it might have been her favorite, but of course I’d never know.

I was still in tremendous pain from giving birth, but I was determined to make it to the funeral home. In reality I probably shouldn’t have left my bed, but nothing could have stopped me from seeing her again. I rode in the backseat on my side, as I was still unable to sit. It made sense to me that my body felt destroyed. My outside reflected my inside.

After a short ride we arrived at the funeral home. We slowly made our way into the building. I’ve always hated funeral homes. I’d been to several, and they never brought me comfort. They were cold and eerie. They frightened me. Again I realize that it wasn’t the building that made me feel that way, it was what it represented. Death was cold and eerie. Death was frightening. The fact that my daughter was there was almost unbearable. Death had no business with her.