Death Before Life

 Yesterday should have been your “due date” it’s just now 2 years later, you should be here and turning 2 this Christmas. I should be filling your stocking and wrapping your birthday gifts. 

But I’m not. 

I don’t even really know how to “celebrate” this day, because it’s another day on the calendar, of a day that never came. It’s not the day you came, it’s not the day you died, it’s the day I had my D&C. It’s just a day. 

A really heavy, really sad, really hard day. 

Every. Single. Time. It. Passes. 

 

I don’t know why it feels so raw to admit that I still wonder who you would have been. What you’d look like, your personality. 

How do you rejoice on a day that should have been special when the joy has been removed by death? 

We tried for SO long to get pregnant with you, and in a flash you were gone. The trivial, and painful question of “Why?” Often echoes in my mind, on days like this, but I know that even if I had an answer it wouldn’t matter. You shouldn’t have had to die. That isn’t fair. It never will be fair. Babies shouldn’t die. 

You would have been our rainbow baby, after the chemical pregnancies, after the stress and struggle of unexplained secondary infertility, but your conception was just the eye of the storm and your death the thunderclap that shook me to my core. 

I still think of those days right after the loss of you. I can still hear the sound my own screams muffled by your dad’s chest as the door closed to our exam room and on our hopes of ever meeting you after we were told there was no heartbeat. 

I remember that it felt like someone took the rug right from under my feet, the air felt thick and it was so hard to breathe. 

The day of my surgery, I can still feel the tears as the ran down my face, the hand of the OR nurse as she held my hand steady because I was flicking my nails together. 

I remember closing my eyes, asking for my hand, placing it on my abdomen and telling you goodbye and waking up and proclaiming outright that my baby was gone, and falling back asleep from the anesthesia. 

The days following your death, are a complete blur, time lost by meditation, trauma, pain, and despair. 

A giant black hole, of grief and anger. 

Regret, Blame, hurt, sorrow. 

I remember medical professionals spewing their thoughts and feelings on me, telling me how they think I should feel and react. I remember being told I have “adjustment disorder” as if I was struggling to change the the new layout of my favorite grocery store and not the death of my child and the life I had planned as their mother, but now completely robbed of it all, and forced to live  a life without them. 

I remember the weeks of blood draws, tracking my hormones to zero, I remember that final result “Hcg is <5 which is considered zero” 

I remember losing myself, after losing you. 

All of it, still raw, and real in my mind, I can still feel the heaviness of your profound loss in my body. A weight that I will forever carry, an immense yet invisible reminder that I will never carry you. 

The before of you, and the after of you are so very different, i never really understood the pain of losing a baby i wanted so badly, in a season where i wanted them more than ever. The naivety and innocents of not knowing striped me naked like the harsh cold winter leaves the trees bare of their beauty, unable to bloom again until the seasons change. 

Being a mom of 4 living children, and having  children who are in heaven, makes me feel like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 

Feelings so empty when my arms are so full. 

Feeling so sad when the house is loud with laughter and giggles. Feeling so discontent when I wouldn’t give up what I have now. 

Longing for what I don’t have, but so grateful for what I do.

Feelings so isolated, when I know there are many more like me. 

If anything this past year serving as Bereavement Birth Doula has taught me that I’m not alone. There are so many of us that carry our babies in our hearts and not our arms, the secret heartbreaks of knowing death before life.

Before you left, I really thought I “knew” how to grieve, but tome has  taught me how to truly sit in grief and hold another though it. 

To hold them as I wanted to be held.

To have someone hold me, like I have held so many others. A hug, a hand on my shoulder or knee. The warm touch, and slightest bit of pressure as they stroke my back. The gentleness of their hands as the rub my head and run their fingers through my hair as I sob into their being. 

The peace and serenity of the silence for space being held without the need to fill it with small talk, as we sit with discomfort and acceptance that it’s okay to feel this way. 

All of that. 

Yet, in the midst of it all, somehow it hurts less when we talk about the babies we lost out loud. 

I will continue to grieve the pain of pregnancy loss because none of us should feel as alone in this, as I often do.