Three Minus One: Stories of Parents' Love and Loss (30 page)

At thirty-eight weeks, I went in for my weekly appointment. I told the doctor that I hadn’t been feeling my baby girl move. She quickly checked me with the Doppler—without hesitation, loud and clear, there was the heartbeat: 151. Nice and strong as ever. We even had an ultrasound to determine just how big this not-so-little one would be. Nobody seemed worried about anything, so why should I worry?

But within twenty-four hours of leaving that appointment, things went terribly wrong, and I had no idea. The little person who was growing inside me, whose life was my responsibility, was taking her last breaths, and I was oblivious. I would like to say that the events of the next morning were a total blur, but that is not the case. I remember every detail. I remember walking into the hospital, in labor, thinking I would be holding my little girl in a few hours. That part was accurate. I just did not envision that I would be holding her, but she would not be alive.

As I write this almost a year later, I can still picture the faces of every nurse in my tiny room in triage. I remember the look they all passed around the room when they couldn’t find our baby’s heartbeat. I remember the exact moment of seeing our baby on ultrasound as her heart sat still. I suddenly forgot about the contractions, and what felt like morphine ran through my veins; my body, my mind, and my emotions went numb. Little did I know I would spend months in this numb state.

After eleven hours of enduring an epidural that never seemed to last very long, conversations I never imagined having, and decisions I don’t wish on anyone, and pushing out a baby who will never experience any of the dreams we had for our new family, Elliston Rae Pitts was born at 10:06 p.m. As soon as she came out, I heard nothing but shock in the doctor’s voice as she began counting the number of times she had to unwind the cord from around her neck. Seven times. Something she said she had never seen in her entire career and never even heard of. Along with the seven loops around her neck was a tight knot. Although I would give anything for none of this to have happened, I am glad we at least know what the problem was. After the cord was removed, we were handed the most beautiful baby girl–six pounds, nine ounces of pure perfection. Long toes, which did not come from me or my husband. Long fingernails already in need of a baby manicure. Lots of dark hair. My nose. My husband’s ears. Lips so beautiful, they were made to be kissed.

As devastating as the day’s events were, nothing was as painful as handing our baby over to a nurse and walking away. The baby I had carried for nine months. The baby my husband had dreamed of taking on daddy/daughter dates. The baby who opened our hearts up to a whole new level of love in a way only a child can. I put her in the arms of a stranger, and we left. I am still completely frozen in despair when I think about that moment. We walked through the same hospital doors that for nine months we had imagined walking through with our baby. Now, however, we were empty-handed.

I see pictures of myself from years, months, even days before we
lost her, and feel as though I am looking at a different person. I see an innocence in my eyes that I will never have again. I think I am one of the few who does not find comfort in the phrase “Everything happens for a reason.” I refuse to believe that this happened on purpose. Rather, my husband and I have committed to giving her life purpose. We will be better parents to our future children because of our sweet Elliston. We will enjoy life to the fullest because we know we are not guaranteed tomorrow. And we will not fear what lies ahead, because we have one spunky, beautiful girl waiting for us on the other side.

It’s a crazy dance. I had a baby, who was more beautiful than I’d ever imagined. Even in her death, she brought us such joy. Balancing that with the hurt and the grief is complicated. It is a combination of feelings I never knew existed. However, somehow they can go hand in hand.

Adina Giannelli

Y
ou get to do intellectual work all day long
, he says. His voice is jealous.
I am never alone in my thoughts.

Well, you have your work and your other children
, I say,
and I have graduate school and a computer
.

And I only have this time
, I think to myself,
because Talya is not here.

But I don’t ever say these words aloud. I can’t bring myself to say these words aloud.

Still, somehow, through the noise of his other children and my weeping and his rage, in spite of our sadness and our anger and ourselves, he hears me.

I know you’d give anything to have her here
, he says.
We all would
.

We talk about her, sometimes, but these times are rare. More often, we say nothing at all. Silence is the hallmark of her absence, the truest feature of our presence. And the silence is impossible—cavernous, captivating, shocking.

I cannot retrieve our daughter, cannot will her tiny body back to life. Instead, I try to capture her father’s feelings. I want him to talk to me about his grief, but he cannot. His refusal reverberates; it is an echo that affects my own mourning. Its effect is silence. And everybody knows: silence begets silence, itself a sort of death.

We cope in different ways, to the extent that we cope at all. I cry and rage and read and convince my advisor that I should write my thesis on parental response to infant death. He works and makes music and focuses on his other children.

It’s not as hard for me
, he says,
I have other children.

It’s worse for you
, he says,
at least I have other children
.

I don’t know what I’d do
, he says,
if I didn’t have other children.

Fuck you
, I think.

He doesn’t like to talk about it. He is English, he is older, he has to hold it together, he says—for the sake of his other children.

I understand
, I remark, my voice thick with irritation.
She did not matter to you as much as the girls do.

Don’t be snide
, he says, but he does not deny it.

So I weep, and he snaps. I talk about Talya, all the time, to anyone who will listen and to many who won’t. He keeps her to himself. I beg him to talk about his grief.
It’s personal
, he says,
I don’t want to share it with anyone, not even you.
I go to her burial site regularly; he will not return.

We don’t know how to manage our grief; the best we can do is endure its jagged contours and pray that we won’t do too much damage to each other and everyone else around us in the process.

I write, and write, and write, while he commits himself to the yard, where he builds a gorgeous garden shed out of pine. He affixes a wooden cutout of a broken heart to the shed’s facade. The heart is painted red, and in the sunlight, it looks as if it’s bleeding.

That was all about Talya
, he explains, but I already know.

I am beside myself with sadness, crying in the car and in the bathroom and in my Sunday-morning yoga class. He does not cry—his grief manifests itself in other ways—in frustration, in anger, and in his ongoing work. Furious, he escapes further into physical labor, targeting the abandoned cabin at the edge of the property. With a smattering of tools and two strong hands, he tears down this hundred-year-old shack, ripping it down bit by bit, one board at a time.

And I realize: that was all about Talya, too.

I am not yet aware that I am pregnant with our second child, who will be a healthy, robust, spirited, and energetic boy that lives. I am not yet aware that he is involving himself with other women,
to cope
, he later explains,
because you are so sad all the time.
I am not yet aware that in time, I will fall deeply and headlong in love with another man—kind, generous, connected. But I am beginning to understand that our relationship is not going to survive this trauma; we will not be able to power on, to put the pieces back together in the aftermath of our terrible loss.

Really?
I ask him, incredulous and indignant, when he tries to justify his affair.
Our daughter just died. I did not realize that this was supposed to be a happy time for us.

But late at night, while I throw down words on my laptop, in the kitchen, aware that our relationship is disintegrating, he migrates from the backyard, where he gathers cabin wood, to the living room, where he tends the fire, and back again.

He chops the cabin’s pieces into firewood, and burns them in the woodstove, night after long winter night, leaving a thick, stagnant smell that never goes away. Its efficiency appeals to him; that is its catharsis. He is breaking his grief into manageable bits, and making it disappear.

But for me, the cabin is not his grief, but our relationship in the face of our daughter’s death. Where we once lit cordwood, what’s between us is engulfed in flames.

And cabin wood is not like cordwood; it never lasts for long. The embers glow, radiating a low burn long after the flame goes out, but it is not real fire—it gives no heat. The fire needs constant refueling, or you have to start all over again. And we try to keep up. I used to be so good at lighting fires and keeping them alight. My hand was always steady, and I was right in time. I lost my skill the winter after Talya died, the winter of the cabin wood. For in that final season, almost every time I’m near the stove, I burn my hand. And when I lift the latch to add another slab of wood, I can see: it is too late. But for the embers, there is nothing left.

Tiffany Johnson

Y
ou’re past the twelve-week point of a typical miscarriage, yet not to the twenty-week “stillbirth” mark. Somewhere in between. No name for what you’ve experienced so they call you a miscarriage, but that word doesn’t even begin to describe your loss. That word doesn’t give credit to your baby’s life. You’re too early to have been able to feel your baby kick much. You missed that. Your OB will not consider this a stillbirth or include it as a “para” on your chart. It’s your second delivery, but your chart will still say only one. If you didn’t make it to twenty, it doesn’t count. It didn’t happen. The photographers will not come to you, even if you ask; your baby is too young and doesn’t qualify. It would not be appropriate for you to have a funeral. People will tell you “at least you weren’t very far along.” Most will not want to see pictures of your baby because of her underdeveloped skin. You will keep them to yourself. Loving and missing your baby alone.

But your baby is fully formed and human, just a tinier version of all other babies who are recognized as stillborn. You go through labor and delivery and hold your baby. You name her and take pictures with your cell phone. You grieve like any other mom would grieve. You hurt the same and mourn the same. Brynn Erin Johnson lived for sixteen weeks before being strangled by her cord. She was a baby. Planned for, wanted, and loved. She was real, she was mine, and she is gone. She counts. My loss counts. Yours does too.

Kerry Ann Morgan

H
er name was Ava Grace, and she wasn’t meant to be.

The name had yet to embellish embroidered pillows or baby books—it could have been Mia or Julia or even Jack—but from the moment I felt her blooming within me, I imagined her every detail. Her strawberry-blond pigtails bounced as she giggled at tickly belly kisses; a smattering of inevitable freckles danced across her nose; dimpled hands grasped a pink blanket, her fingers working the silky fabric as she drifted off to sleep. She was radiant…and she was mine.

My beloved Cabbage Patch Kids, vintage Barbies, and antique Betsy Wetsy doll decorated her nursery. Below her ruffled dress, Band-Aids plastered her constantly scraped knees, for after she spent hours lost in magical storybook worlds, she tore through our garden searching for fairies hidden amid the sunflower stalks and rose blooms.