My heart
is severely pained within me,
And the
terrors of death have fallen upon me.
Fearfulness
and trembling have come upon me,
And
horror has overwhelmed me.
So I
said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would
fly away and be at rest.
Psalm 55:4-6
You and your husband were thrilled with the news of your
pregnancy, and you shared that happy news with family, friends and even
acquaintances. You visited all of your local stores and shopped on line for
just the perfect new baby items. You decided you needed a bigger place, so you
moved from your tiny apartment to a house and lovingly prepared the room you
selected for a nursery. You learned your baby’s sex and poured through and
agonized over baby names. You bought What
to Expect When You’re Expecting and What
to Expect the First Year so you were prepared. You relished every doctor’s
visit, to hear your baby’s heartbeat and see your miracle wriggling on the
ultrasound monitor. It’s your first baby, and you are thrilled and expectant.
Then one day you prepare for another doctor’s visit. You’re
within three weeks of the due date, and you’re tired, stretched and sore. But
something’s nagging you: you haven’t felt the baby move in the last twenty-four
hours. You’ve made it so far. What could possibly go wrong now?
But something has gone wrong. Terribly wrong. The heart
monitor remains silent as the nurse presses it onto your swollen belly. She
moves it to another location, then moves it again, and again. She can’t make
eye contact with you and pats your shoulder and leaves the room to get the
doctor. He returns to the room with a serious look on his face and wheels in
his ultrasound machine; (or, if your doctor no longer maintains one in his
office, you have to listen in shock to his diatribe about having to schedule
you for an ultrasound and see what the results show). After smearing contact
gel on your tummy, he flicks on the machine and begins to rub the head over
your baby’s location in your womb. You and your nervous husband are terrified
of looking at the ultrasound monitor, but your husband stares at it, eyebrows
knit together, concern inflaming his eyes. You stare at him, looking for any
kind of hopeful sign. But that hopeful sign doesn’t come.
The doctor turns to look at you, sighs, and says, “I’m
sorry, but your baby has died. The umbilical cord is wrapped around his neck.
There’s nothing we can do. I’m so sorry.” A scream chokes your throat. Your
heart pounds, tears flood your eyes as you listen, vaguely, to his instructions
and explanation about what will happen in the next thirty-six to forty-eight
hours: medicine to induce labor, scheduling the hospital delivery, what to
expect during the delivery. On and on it goes, and you feel yourself growing
numb. Your brain screams that this can’t be happening, that’s it’s all a
nightmare from which you’ll soon awaken. You want to go back forty-eight hours
to relieve the time when things were perfect—when you could feel the baby kick
and wriggle—and somehow change this hideous outcome. The doctor pats your
shoulder again as he leaves the room. You and your husband make wordless eye
contact. He doesn’t know what to do; after all, he’s supposed to take care of
his family, his unborn baby. And he’s failed. What went wrong? You hold each
other, cry and pray.
Then you quietly dress, go home to your new house, walk into
the empty nursery, collapse into the rocking chair your husband recently
surprised you with, and you cry like you’ve never cried before.
_________________________________________
Whether the above scenario sounds like yours, or your baby
died soon after birth, or in delivery you miscarried your child early in the
pregnancy, or the pregnancy was planned or unplanned, you probably feel as
though your world. Instead of receiving new life, you encountered cold,
heartless death. Your hopes and plans have collapsed on you, and you feel
buried—suffocating—in the rubble.
You feel failure, lost, hopeless, out-of-control. Nothing
seems normal; you drag—like a pre-programmed robot—through your day in a fog,
unable to get your mind completely wrapped around what’s happened. Reminders of
your agony confront you every place you go. The baby gifts from the last shower
line the nursery. Instead of happy announcement cards, you need to send out
death announcements and maybe plan a funeral or memorial service. You might
need to purchase a cemetery plot. Every new baby you see in the grocery store,
bank, shopping mall, or church reminds you of your loss, and jealousy may
infiltrate every fiber of your being. You feel physically ill and emotionally
crushed when you return to your obstetrician’s office for a checkup: the
waiting room is packed with women whose swollen abdomens signal healthy
pregnancies and impending birth, and arms tenderly hold newborn infants who
would be your daughter’s age. Your thoughts race ridiculously with
uncontrollable or shocking thoughts: Why
did this happen to me? Why do these women get to be happy while I grieve? Why
did their babies survive and mine didn’t? I’m angry at them for their joy! Oh, why did I take this baby and pregnancy
for granted, assuming everything would turn out perfectly? Just as oddly,
you may then be swamped with overwhelming compassion and love for them, hoping
they don’t have to suffer the grief you’re bearing. Or if your pregnancy was
unplanned, you might experience overwhelming guilt and berate yourself for
having cared so little or for having regarded your pregnancy, and this baby, as
a inconvenient nuisance or untimely problem.
You’re completely unprepared for the agony you now feel, and
most family members and friends will be unprepared to understand or appreciate
it, unless they have walked in your shoes.
As Ingrid Kohn and Perry-Lynn Moffitt write in A Silent Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss, “No
matter what your career orientation may be, your womanhood or manhood can be
powerfully affirmed by bearing or fathering a child. Pregnancy and parenthood
are passages into adulthood that bestow a special status on you, within both
your family and your community. Pregnancy even represents a chance to overcome
mortality, as you contemplate the continuation of your family line.”
In the 1970s, pediatricians John Kennell and Marshall Klause
performed research that indicated parents’ emotional attachment and bonding to
their baby begins early in the pregnancy. This is important for people to
understand: the baby that you or your friend or family member lost was probably
deeply loved, surrounded by expectations, hopes and dreams.
Indeed, the pain of loss can be overwhelming, frightening
and earthshaking. Some parents actually develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Syndrome following the death of their baby. “They respond to their tragedy with
the same intense traumas such as fires, plane crashes, or rapes. Parents
suffering from this disorder may display such disparate symptoms as reliving
the events in great detail, or forming a kind of amnesia about the loss of
their child.”
Mothers and fathers may experience pregnancy loss grief in
varying ways from one another, and it’s important for the couple to recognize
and appreciate these differences. This is something Chris and I had great
difficulty understanding. Each of us thought the other would, and should,
grieve in the same way. Consequently, our relationship suffered immeasurably
the first year following Victoria’s death, and our ability to really come to a
sense of understanding, resolution and healing as a couple didn’t occur until
April 13 of this year, twenty years later.
But before I delve into the mother’s and father’s unique grieving
experiences, I’ll talk next week about shock and denial, acute grief and
anticipatory grief, specific stages or reactions I haven’t yet addressed.
So, thanks again for joining me.
Until next week!
Blessings,
Andrea
Reference: A Silent
Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss, by Ingrid Kohn, MSW and Perry-Lynn Moffitt, with
Isabelle A. Wilkins, MD; 1992.
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