Three Minus One: Stories of Parents' Love and Loss (35 page)

It was the holidays, so it was easy to drink excessively, which was also out of character for me. I went to bed each night feeling the life in my belly grow. I called her Luna. I spoke to her each night, begging
her to only be born if she had both of us. I was too scared to raise her on my own. I thought I would be disowned if I told my father that I would be a single mom. The fear was intense, but so was my love for the life inside me. I wished for a miracle, because I really wanted this child. I pictured her dark hair and big blue eyes. I felt her spirit with me, speaking to me, and comforting me. She was pure love.

Two weeks after the miscarriage, I finally called him and told him what had happened. His first reaction was terrible, but he quickly apologized and became the caring friend that I had needed all along. It was too late, though. I blamed myself. He held me in his arms and told me that he had dreamt of our daughter, Luna. He described her exactly as I pictured her and said her name with the sweet intuitiveness that I had known for years. He assured me that everything would be all right. He was there for me.

The tide was coming in quickly, and the white heron would soon be carried out to sea. The seaweed that I had carefully unwound from around its body lay a safe distance away. I had hoped that the sweet young bird was simply caught up in the umbilical cord of the sea and would fly away when freed. Instead, the bird gathered its broken body carefully into a nesting position. The long graceful neck looked a little too twisted. The bird’s breathing calmed and the vivid orange eyes stared at me peacefully. The lack of fear was astounding. The heron had allowed me to unravel it and sit close enough for its sharp beak to pierce me. It seemed to understand every word, and as I looked into those eyes, a feeling of absolute love came over me. The symbolism of meeting this graceful dying creature was powerful. I wanted so badly to save it, but fate had decided to take the white heron. As I stood up to leave, the wind picked up, tickling my ears with what sounded like a child’s giggle. I knew that meeting this creature was no accident. I knew that the spirit of the white heron would guide Luna safely above the crashing waves. One day I would be ready, but the universe had made it painfully clear that now was not the time.

Luna’s father and I had a terrible fight two weeks later and stopped
speaking for years. I had a car accident weeks after the fight that left me with a crooked spine and a concussion. I had contractions that night and figured that I would have miscarried no matter what. I sat in my wrecked car at the intersection of Wilshire and La Brea in my beautiful blue Easter dress. Wasn’t Easter about birth? I wanted to die. The Smiths sang “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” on the radio. Perfect. A man knocked on my window telling me to get out of the dangerous intersection or I would get hit again. I was crying hysterically and shouted that I didn’t care. If that car hadn’t hit me, it would have barreled into a dozen pedestrians crossing the street. Technically, I saved a few lives that night, but a part of my spirit left me—it shot right out of me, leaving emptiness. A girl can only take so much. Holidays became painful reminders of loss.

I left LA in 2009, but the pain has been slower to leave me. As soon as my back allowed me to dance and run again, the emotions came rushing in, and I had a breakdown. I couldn’t believe that it was still so fresh four years later. I read recently that new studies have shown that mothers forever hold DNA in their bodies from every child they carry beyond a month. It makes so much sense. Think about that powerful fact for a moment. Is it any wonder that women often have a hard time letting go of the past? A man can walk away, but a woman carries the past inside her body until she turns to dust. If more people knew that, would it make a difference in how we respond to one another?

Whenever I walk along the river near my current home, a blue heron likes to grace me with his presence. He flies alongside me often, then lands to watch me pensively. It comforts me. It assures me that I am never really alone.

Patricia Dreyfus

My husband rubs his graying temples,
rests his thumb and little finger
on his eyelids, speaks softly into the phone,
consoles our daughter.
Are you okay?
Any pain?

Years ago, standing in my blood,
alone at our doorstep,
I held our child, perfectly formed,
torn from my body too soon.
I called her name, wept.

He turned away.
Still, he won’t speak
of this child.
If only he would
whisper to me,
Are you okay?
Any pain?

Carla Grossini-Concha

W
hen I am with Gina, it feels like home.

I met her in the summer of 2007. My outlook changed completely, because for the very first time, I felt like I had met my match.

A whirlwind romance began, and before we were dating even a month, we moved in together. We laughed as we took pictures of ourselves in front of the U-Haul, and we said that one day, we would show these photos to our children.

We loved, we laughed, and we lived. We wanted everything life had to offer. We couldn’t wait for our future together to begin, because the love we felt was so big.

We married. We traveled. We experienced. We planned.

I remember clearly the clipboards with Gina’s drawings, ideas of what we thought we wanted to do in the future, but hadn’t decided on yet, and choices of “yes” or “no” on them.

Europe…yes.

AIDS/LifeCycle…yes.

Baby…yes.

We decided we were finally ready to settle down and start our family. Inspired by dear friends and neighbors who were showing us how it could be done, and by seeing these sweet babies grow into little people, we wanted badly for one of our very own.

We went through the process of finding the perfect donor, and were thrilled to have found one that Gina felt a connection to. So we began trying.

We experienced the ups and downs of the insemination process—the weeks of preparation for the magic of ovulation, the testing, the ultrasounds, and then the waiting game, holding our breath for two weeks in the hopes that it would happen. Starting all over again the next month, and the next, until one morning at 3 a.m., I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Two lines. We were pregnant.

We were going to be mothers.

For thirty-nine weeks we loved him, we talked to him, and we planned for how life would be with him. Life was beautiful, and waiting for him to join us brought us so much excitement and joy. There are so many happy pictures of the belly and us. We sent out our first holiday picture with Luca and the dogs. We anticipated the arrival of this little man entering our lives. We wanted him so very much.

“Think about it, there must be a higher love

Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above…”

We had thirty-nine weeks and two days with Luca. He was born, and he never woke up.

We welcomed him into our world; then we hugged and kissed him good-bye into the starry sky.

All those plans we had, dreams of his first smile. His first laugh. His first steps. The first time he called Gina mommy. These dreams were going to remain just that. They were never going to come true with him.

My Luca was never going to wrap his baby arms around me and give me a hug.

Life went on for everyone else around us. But our lives stopped. Those first few months were a blur of tears and a constant feeling of being pulled completely apart, being split wide open at the heart.

“Things look so bad everywhere,

In this whole world, what is fair?”

How was this fair? Why us? Why him? There was no indication of his sickness, why did he have to leave?

These questions, the frustration of trying to make sense of that which is absolutely senseless, filled our minutes for days and weeks.

And the darkness became so evident and ever present. Losing him was like having the entire ground fall out from underneath us. How do you have faith in anything ever again, when your baby dies? How do you trick your mind into having hope?

But eventually, and little by little, I was reminded of the love that made Luca even come to be in the first place.

A love that felt like home, a love that was my family—my life with Gina.

This family, my family, that will forever hold Luca as our firstborn, our eldest son.

We try every day; we take steps forward. We live for Luca, honoring him. And we hold on to hope that one day, Luca will help us welcome his sibling into our lives, and into this world.

September 10 marks six months. I think of him every minute of my day. I get up in the morning and I pass by the altar we’ve created for him, and I talk to him. I tell him how much I miss him, and how much I love him. I cry. I sob. The tears flow, cleaning me out for that moment. And then a calm comes over me. Luca comes over me.

His presence is bigger than we ever could have expected. Even though he’s left our world, he’s present in everything we do, in everything Gina and I experience.

“Let me feel that love come over me

Let me feel how strong it could be.”

I do wish our story were different. I wish that I could write about Luca at five and a half months old and share his beauty, his laughter, and everything he loves.

But I cannot deny, nor will I ever take for granted, this higher love he has brought us.

Quoted lyrics are from “Higher Love” by Steve Winwood.
Our favorite version is sung by James Vincent McMorrow.

Susan Ito

T
he nurse from the women’s clinic said yes. “Congratulations!” News that she delivered daily, altering lives with one syllable. Yes. No. I immediately bought a book on pregnancy, and ran my finger along the due-date chart, counting months. Early January. New year, new life.