And [David] said, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I
said, “Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may
live?”
But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I
shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
2 Samuel 12:22-23 NKJV
To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under
heaven:
A time to be born,
And a time to die;…
A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
A time to gain,
And a time to lose;…
Ecclesiastes 3:2a, 4, 6a
________________________________________________________________________
Sometime
after 3:00 AM I regained consciousness in the operating room. Evidently I was
still alive. I choked on mucous settled in my airway and struggled to breathe.
No one seemed to notice. Great. I
survived the last four days and surgery, and now I’m going to suffocate in
front of a busy operating-room staff. A nurse finally noticed my gasping
and called it to the attention of the anesthesiologist, who promptly suctioned
my airway. My brief episode of panic subsided as they wheeled me into the
recovery room area.
Dr. Gordon
was notified of my alert state and soon came striding in to excitedly tell me everything had gone well. Well? Maybe the
surgery went so well that the baby miraculously survived. My heart pounded
with hope, but since I was too afraid to ask, and he didn’t offer any magical
commentary, I quickly slumped back into reality. I guess by “well” he means he didn’t lose me too.
“There’s someone outside who is
waiting to see you,” he said, patting my shoulder and smiling.
Chris
quickly appeared in the recovery room and leaned over the bed. “It was a girl!”
he announced jubilantly, a triumphant smile illuminating his face. He too
seemed thrilled enough to make me wonder if we had a miracle awaiting us in the
nursery. But further words like “She made it!” weren’t forthcoming, so I knew
better than to ask fantastical questions.
Chris must have been aching to convey that information, since Dr. Gordon
revealed the sex of the baby to him upon his midnight arrival at the hospital.
I’d been adamant about not knowing
the baby’s sex before delivery and reiterated my need-to-be-surprised to Dr.
Gordon, especially during each ultrasound. Dr. Gordon had honored my petition
and kept the secret. He’d actually seemed delighted at the request. Somehow
Chris had managed to keep the secret too.
Dr. Gordon
joined Chris at my bedside and instructed me to hold tightly to my pillow and cough
up more breath-arresting mucous. When I clenched the pillow and sharply
contracted my stomach muscles, the acute, stabbing pain of the new C-section
incision jolted my fragile senses. This
isn’t over, is it God? I have to endure more physical pain.
Turning my
head to respond to the recovery room nurse’s question, my eyes and heart were
assaulted by her swollen abdomen. She was pregnant. Very pregnant. Trying to forget my own abruptly terminated
pregnancy, I nervously launched into a distracting discussion about her being
able to continue working such long, late hours while carrying a baby. We
intermingled that topic with small talk. She was close to her due date, excited
about the impending birth and termination of the aches and pains accompanying the
third trimester. I felt happy for her. I needed
to feel happy for her. I wished her good luck when they pronounced me ready
to return to my room.
Once back
in the room and repositioned on a brand new egg crate pad – oh, why hadn’t they given me one of these
before; I might have managed to make it longer! – I felt weary, but
emotionally revitalized. Actually, I felt oddly, unnervingly euphoric. My neurons and endocrinology
system didn’t distinguish between postnatal happy endings or heartache. The brain
had successfully done its job and triggered the opioid chemical release right on
cue. Jubilant, post-delivery endorphins ran rampant through my body. But I
could tell Chris wasn’t sharing my blissful state when he suddenly clutched my
hand and desperately, emphatically blurted, “I want to try again, right away!”
I blinked
at him, shocked. During the nausea
therapy we both adamantly declared we couldn’t go through “that” again. Of course, neither of us, at any time, honestly
considered the possibility of losing the baby during pregnancy. But we had
vehemently affirmed our commitment. So convinced was I of our choice, that I
considered asking Dr. Gordon to perform a tubal ligation of my Fallopian tubes
during the C-section. Now Chris was changing his mind. He feels like a failure; he desperately wants to replace her. I
simply asked him if he were sure, and he responded with an almost-too-confident
“Yes!”
“Well…we can wait to see what Dr. Gordon
says about even having another baby.” I inhaled deeply and continued to stare
at him. “Did you see her?” I asked gently.
“Yes. I got
to hold her right after she was born. And she was so cute; she was perfect!” The nurse midwife said she was absolutely perfect.” He barely managed
to choke out the last statement. His eyes welled with tears, and he massaged
them vigorously with his fingers. “I want to name her Victoria,” he continued
categorically, as though making a monumental decision to which he wanted no
resistance.
“But I
thought you didn’t like that name!” I
was astonished. I’d selected “Cory” for a boy and “Victoria Lee” for a girl. Chris
had rolled his eyes and expressed a rebuffing sniff at my girl’s name
selection. “Too sophisticated and snooty,” was his immediate verdict. But I
couldn’t understand how Victoria Lee sounded any more imposing than our son’s “Parker
Prescott,” so I really hadn’t considered different names. And I thought there’d
be plenty of time left to make that important decision. Plenty of time...
“She looks
like a Victoria,” he replied. “I want to name her Victoria Lee.”
I studied
his watery, cornflower blue eyes and nearly drowned in their turbulent sea of
anguish. He was trying valiantly to portray steadfast determination and
self-control, to maintain a sense of manly composure.
“Okay…we
will name her Victoria Lee.” He gently squeezed my hand he’d been nervously,
distractedly massaging and nodded in affirmation.
“I better
go pick up Parker from Carol’s and try to get some sleep before I leave for
work,” he uttered after a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to leave him there all
night.” Torn between staying by his
wife’s side and watching over his son. His shoulders slumped as fatigue and
acute, oppressive, burdening grief gained the upper hand. The momentary
gratification and pride of naming his daughter rapidly evaporated.
“All
right,” I said, patting his hand. There was nothing more he could do there
anyway. I needed sleep, and I sensed his deep, unspoken desire to escape the
hospital confines, with its asphyxiating atmosphere of death. I didn’t think
his hanging around the room would help either of us.
Still
clutching my hand, he suddenly surrendered to his crushing sorrow; enormous
sobs convulsed his body. His fingers flew to his face again, and he viciously
stabbed his eyes with them. “She was so
little and beautiful,” he choked as his body collapsed, and his head found
a resting place on my breast.
There was
nothing more to say.
In the
quiet darkness of the hospital room, I held him and stroked his hair as he
succumbed to the weight of unbounded grief.
_________________________________________
NEXT WEEK: My turn to say goodbye to my
baby girl, Victoria Lee…
_________________________________________
Since I was
indisposed, so to speak, I didn’t witness Chris’s immediate reaction to seeing Victoria for the first time. Some time after her death, he was able to
relay to me his response. Initially he was shocked. Actually, more than shocked. He was shocked,
bewildered. Angry. When the nurse
midwife – weeping uncontrollably – brought his newly born and newly died, pink,
bundled baby into the waiting room to deposit in his lap – without prior
request from him or prior warning – his first, unvoiced reaction was, “How can
you be so cruel? I don’t want to hold her. What in the he _ _ do you
expect me to do with her?”
But what
they knew, and he quickly realized, was that he needed to see her. He needed to
hold her. He needed to see her, feel her, touch
her. She was real and she was his. Flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. His precious baby girl.
And he
needed to say goodbye, even while he said hello.
Saying
goodbye, I’m not sure he’s ever truly done. After all of these years, he tells
me he’s still not ready.
The words
he uttered to her that night are his own – private, pained, outpourings of his severed
heart.
Just as my
hello and goodbye would be hours later.
__________________________________________
Thanks so much for joining me.
Until next week!
Blessings,
Andrea
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