Grieving the Loss of A Baby—The Silent Sorrow Begins

“A voice was heard in Ramah,

Lamentation, weeping, and great

mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children,

Refusing to be comforted,

Because they are no more.”

Matthew 2:18; Hosea 11:1

            

           My hospital recovery days revolved mostly around warm, soothing showers and eating. I turned the hospital mealtimes into lengthy epicurean affairs: breakfast ran into lunch, lunch ran into dinner. The nurses satiated me with additional snacks throughout the day and night, helping me to fill the empty void in my heart with food. When things were slow at night, I visited with the on-duty nurses, who were physical caregivers and emotional ministers. I craved the reassurance of their physical touch and presence and welcomed their round-the-clock vital statistics audits.

           

            When I wasn’t gratifying my palate or socializing, I attempted to ambulate around the hospital, turning what might have been a ten-minute walk into a forty-five minute or more promenade. Often, I found it necessary to prop myself against a wall to alleviate the dizziness and exhaustion caused by the extreme blood loss.

           

            On one occasion, I became disoriented, got lost in the tiny hospital, and found myself wandering around the cardiac intensive care unit, smiling at staff and attempting to looks as though I knew where I was going. On the return trip to my room, I stumbled upon the hospital chapel, a cubicle measuring the size of a small walk-in closet, containing a single chair, and a small pedestal table offering a guest signature book. One wall displayed a beautiful stained glass cross, and I was greatly comforted by the presence of this familiar Christian icon. The cross always forces me to look up. I’d been studying the floor a lot during my brief sojourns around the halls.

           

            The miniature room’s subdued lighting provided a welcome respite from blanching hospital light glare. Sitting to rest and staying to thank God for my physical salvation, I also asked forgiveness for any unrecognized—or willfully ignored—sins that might have brought me to this arena of such severe pain and loss. Had there been a trespass following me like a shadow, looking for an opportunity to cross my path and break me? I sat praying and pondering undisturbed for what seemed like an hour. Eventually, reluctantly, I left the little sanctuary and its welcome seclusion, only because I needed to lie down.

           
             On another day, after collapsing into bed following one of my walks, my mother’s cousin and her husband surprised me with a visit and a beautiful red hydrangea, one of my favorite flowers. My spirits soared as she and her husband talked, shared, and reminisced. I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself or think about my abdominal pain. She knew what I was experiencing; she was a kindred spirit and had an empathetic ear. She was also much-needed company. When they departed several hours later, I regretted to see them go.

           

            Dr. Gordon maintained the frequency of his visits and talked about releasing me on Thursday—three days after my surgery. But I didn’t want to go home. To what did I have to go home? I was getting an inordinate amount of attention at the hospital. The nurses were caring, the food was plentiful and surprisingly good. Chris would be working and Parker was in preschool. The house would be an awfully lonely alternative to the ministration I’d become accustomed to receiving. A neighbor had told me weeks earlier that she couldn’t wait to be released after her C-section delivery of her daughter. But she took home a new family member; she had a nursery to fill. She had a reason to return home.

           

            Large arrangements of plants and flowers filled my room, sitting alongside flower baskets sent for Easter. No, “Congratulations. It’s a Girl” balloons, or pink porcelain boots filled with flowers, or boxes filled with delicate blankets in which to bundle a new

baby. My room was covered with plant arrangements and notes expressing sympathy and regret, delivered by courteous, smiling hospital staff volunteers and flower couriers.

           

            The blooms brightened the room, and the accompanying notes expressed love, caring and concern. I was overwhelmed by the compassion expressed by employees of the company where my husband Chris had worked for just two weeks, as well as the love expressed by our friends from his former company and my technical school co-workers. I thought surely something would arrive from the church: a card, a flower, a visitor…Something. But something, and no one came, until the final day of my hospitalization when my pastor arrived to visit. 

           

            Why doesn’t anyone call? I wondered. Chris relayed to me that a couple of our friends from church called him to ask about my condition. Why weren’t they contacting me directly? Did they think I needed rest? I did. Did they think I didn’t want to talk? I needed conversation as badly as I needed to breathe. Were they afraid to talk to me? Being alone and forgotten loomed as my biggest fear.

           

            As the hours wore on, my hopes and expectations disintegrated when I realized that the calls weren’t going to come. Additional visitors, aside from my cousin, weren’t going to emerge from the noisy hallway outside my door. Joyful, exuberant laughter shared in other, happier rooms floated into my silent space. Jubilant people, carrying grinning pink and blue Mylar balloon bears floated in and out all day. I finally had enough of other people’s joy. I asked a nurse to close my door, to blockade my senses from the joyful ring of congratulatory voices and celebratory, affectionate embraces.

           

           The mortician came and went—twice— to obtain the endless, pertinent information for his forms, and divulge information about the loss of his daughter’s baby in her fifth month of pregnancy. Although he projected sincere, patient understanding, I was numbed by the repetitive, cursory, clinical questions and shocked by the cost to cremate my tiny infant. I didn’t know what else to do. A casket and plot seemed so expensive, and we didn’t have the money. Chris should have been there with me to help make those decisions; the mortician should have called him to schedule an after-work appointment with both of us. I should have asked for it, demanded it. But I was numb, and I didn’t know, and I didn’t know what I didn’t know; and someone should have stepped in to be my advocate. Instead, I bumbled on alone in decision-making.

           

            Nature also seemed to be on an unforgiving rampage, dealing another cruel blow when my breasts engorged with the milk intended for Victoria’s sustenance. What would normally signal a glorious ability to nourish a life became a cruel physical assault of a fallen creation.

           

            Eventually the flower and plant arrangements ceased to lift my spirits; the casual, superficial conversations with the nurses decreased in frequency. Slipping into depression, I asked the nurse to redirect my calls to the nurses’ station the final day of my stay. Per my request, the room lights were extinguished, and the blinds over the window looking out onto the sun-drenched outside courtyard closed. Simultaneously, I craved both the gentle, caring embrace of a human hand and ached for solitude. My room became a darkened cell of mental anguish.

           

            I craved privacy for the frequent waves of sorrow that drowned me, for the times when my hands sprung reflexively to my face to shelter my weeping eyes. I didn’t want anyone to see me cry. I was embarrassed, always taught never to divulge my true emotions, to always maintain a sense of internal, and external control. Only weak people cried.

           

            The room was too big; the room was too small. I wanted to unleash the inhuman scream silently piercing my brain. Oh, how badly I want to cry, unhampered by guilt or the ghosts of judgmental, condemning voices. Control, control, control, Andrea, ! No emotion, remember? Emotion garners punishment: sit ups, push ups, laps around the gym. Disdain, disgusted looks. Just stuff it and get on with life. Pretend it didn’t happen; pretend your pain doesn’t exist. That way everyone will be proud of how well you’re handling all of this and handling yourself. My heart threatened to split and leak its contents all over my controlled veneer.

           

            I sank into a black hole of grief. Rhythmically rocking my body back and forth, I implored in desperation to the vacuous room, “Oh, Victoria, what happened!? Where did we go wrong; what did I do?” Over and over I begged for an answer that never came.

            The silent sorrow had begun.

           

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NEXT WEEK: Parker’s initial reaction to Victoria’s death and my home going…

(I said I’d have Parker’s reaction this week, but I decided to move it to next week’s post, since it seemed more appropriate to individualize that painful event for you.)

NOTE: There will be an additional post this week Wednesday where I will give you suggestions on how to say goodbye to your baby.

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Thanks for joining me.

Until next week!

Blessings,

Andrea

Keep Their Memory Alive—6 Tips For Remembering Your Deceased Baby

THE QUALITY OF A PERSON’S LIFE CANNOT BE JUDGED BY OUR LIMITED UNDERSTANDING OF TIME.

            You’re a broken-hearted parent. You’ve just lost your baby unexpectedly at birth, or soon after, and you’re reeling emotionally from your precious child’s death. Or you’ve just received news from your doctor that the baby you’re carrying in your womb has died, or will not live long after birth because she has a devastating, untreatable medical condition.

           

            The last thing you prepared for was this. You prepared a nursery—at least mentally—and purchased baby clothes, maybe had a baby shower or two, picked out names and made wonderful plans for the new addition to your family. But now all of that has to be set aside for your new reality. (All except the names, that is.) 

           

            But don’t lose sight of the fact that this baby is just as real and just as precious as your other children, or the children you might have or be parents to in the future. Because you are stunned into numbness at the news, you may forget or neglect to consider how important it is to create memories of your little one, even in the short amount of time you might have with them. You won’t ever want to forget this priceless little person because he was indeed a part of your life, if only while you carried him.

           

            Consider the following to help you create a “living” memory of your child:

1. TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR BABY

THERE IS ONLY ONE

BEAUTITUL CHILD IN THE WORLD

AND EVERY PARENT HAS IT

           

            A single picture will be something you can value just as much as the other pictures you have, or will take, of this child’s brothers or sisters. It will be tangible evidence that your baby was a part of your life, even for only a short time. Take a camera to the hospital with you for the delivery. Arrange for a hospital photographer, or a professional photographer to come in, if possible. (I have two blurry Polaroid pictures of Victoria. I wish I’d had someone take more professional shots. I regret that, but this was before digital cameras and cell phones, so I didn’t have a lot of options. Even one of those disposable cameras would have been better than what I do have. Also, I hadn’t considered taking pictures. The nurse suggested that. I was grateful for her suggestion. I just regret that I didn’t plan ahead for any possibility.)

2. SEEING, HOLDING, (AND TALKING TO), YOUR BABY

A PERSON’S A PERSON

NO MATTER HOW SMALL

Dr. Seuss

           

            Often parents are afraid of seeing their dead child because of what they might look like. Medical staff has found that when parents only imagine what the dead child looks like, they later develop distorted notions that may worsen the feelings and grieving process. Most parents are actually relieved and pleased when they do take the opportunity to see and hold their baby, like my husband Chris was when they brought Victoria out to him. The vision of their baby—as if in sleep—ends up being far more comforting than any ideas they would have mentally manufactured. (It was a great relief and blessing to be able to hold and feel Victoria, to examine her fingers, toes, and limbs. To “talk” to her, to bundle her, to caress her. To give her any physical love I could in the short amount of time I had with her. And she did appear to be simply resting peacefully in deep sleep.)

            Ask the nurse to bundle the baby like a newborn, and then don’t be afraid to ask the nurse to stay with you while you hold the baby, or to leave the room so you can have some privacy with your little one.

3. BATHE YOUR BABY OR DRESS THEM IN A SPECIAL OUTFIT            

            

         These might seem strange suggestions, but many parents find that doing these activities “may help to satisfy some of your intense desires to care for your baby, the same desires which you anticipated when you still expected the baby to be born alive. The fact that the child is dead does not automatically diminish your need to cradle, and speak words of love to him or her.” (One of the most shocking realizations for me was that my body didn’t know that Victoria had died and reacted just as it did when I gave birth to Parker. I’ll go into more detail in next week's posts, but your body and mind have the same desires to hold, nurture, and protect your dead infant as they do for a living one.)

           Take a special item of clothing with you to the hospital to dress your baby in. Take pictures of her in that outfit. This might be the clothing you would like to have the mortician dress her in too.

4. COLLECTING REMINDERS OF YOUR CHILD

            The following items may become treasured items providing sweet reminders of 

                      your little one.

            ~ a lock of hair (although not all babies are born with hair)

            ~ a set of footprints or handprints

            ~ a birth certificate

            ~ final ultrasound pictures or film

            ~ the plastic arm bracelet prepared by the hospital to identify your child

            ~ a record of the weight, length, head and chest measurements, like the ones

                        taken for all babies at their birth

            ~ the receiving blanket your baby was first wrapped in (I have a receiving

                        blanket, but it’s not the first one Victoria was wrapped in. I wish I had

                        that one. If I had thought about it, I could have asked Chris to keep it.)

5. NAME YOUR BABY

HUMAN BEINGS SHOULD NOT DIE

WITHOUT THEIR NAMES BEING REMEMBERED

           

            This may seem obvious, but parents don’t always name their babies, particularly if they die in utero early in the pregnancy. Medical staff experienced in this area strongly encourage you to name your baby, preferably the name you had planned to name the child. It will be easier to “connect your memories” to this special baby if you are able to refer to them by name and remember them by name. Resist the temptation to give them another name and “save” the name you had selected for another baby you might have in the future. Not giving your baby a name may leave you, and others, with the feeling that the baby didn’t count. Names have significance. Names identify people; they hold special meaning for family and friends. My little girl was as much “Victoria” in death as she was in life.

6. WRITE A LETTER TO YOUR BABY

            Some people, particularly the writer and journaling-types, find it helpful to write a letter to their baby expressing their immediate feelings. It can be cathartic to express your pain this way. in a personal letter that no one else sees, or one you share with others at a funeral or memorial service—somewhat like a eulogy. On-line forums are also available for you to share your grief, like Caring Bridge. Some sites allow you to share your feelings anonymously; blogs are available for fathers and mothers to share their pain and experiences. It was immensely helpful to me sit and write my manuscript about these events. My entire story encompasses two years; yours may encompass more, or less time.

           

            The danger comes in when you constantly relive these moments by frequently reading and re-reading what transpired, or pull out the keepsakes to look at and touch. Doing so will keep you rooted in the past, your pain, and your loss. It will deter the healing process. In next week’s extra blog post, I will cover ways you can say goodbye—memorial or funeral service— and celebrate the birth and death of your baby.

WE MUST NOT WALLOW IN OUR MEMORIES

OR SURRENDER TO THEM,

JUST AS WE DON’T GAZE ALL THE TIME AT A VALUABLE PRESENT.

BUT GET IT OUT FROM TIME TO TIME, AND FOR THE REST HIDE IT AWAY

AS A TREASURE WE KNOW IS THERE ALL THE TIME.

TREATED THIS WAY, THE PAST CAN GIVE US LASTING JOY

AND INSPIRATION.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

            I hope some of these suggestions are helpful to you. Some of them may initially strike you as being odd, but think about and consider them, then decide what treasures you’d like to have and keep. I know I would like to have more; and I treasure the ones I do have.

And now I leave you with this anonymous poem ~

BUT SOUVENIRS

Daughters may die,

            But why?

For even daughters can’t live with half a heart.

            Three days isn’t much of a life.

But long enough to remember thin blue lips, uneven

            gasps in incubators,

Racking breaths that cause a pain to those who watched.

            Long enough to remember I never held her

Or felt her softness

            Or counted her toes.

I didn’t even know the color of her eyes.

            Dead paled hands not quite covered by the gown she

Was to go home in.

            Moist earthy smell.

One small casket.

            And the tears.

You see, I hold in my hand but souvenirs of an occasion.

            A sheet of paper filled with statistics,

A certificate with smudged footprints,

            A tiny bracelet engraved “Girl, Smith.”

You say that you are sorry

            That you know how I feel.

But you can’t know because I don’t feel.

            Not yet.

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Until next week…

Andrea

*Some quotes/lines of thoughts and poetry were taken from when Hello means Goodbye: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Dies Before Birth, At Birth Or Shortly After Birth by Pat Schwiebert, RN and Paul Kirk, MD, 1985.

(This is an additional post this week to my blog. If you're looking for the continuation of my story, see the previous, Monday, March 4th post.)

Regrets: Missing A Chance to Say Goodbye to Your Baby Together

Hold close these moments

for we shall always live

by remembering

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            Chris arrived at the hospital on his way home from work, walking slowly, sadly into the room. He shuffled to my bedside, looking like a beaten man, a much older person than the one who left the hospital at three-thirty that morning. Clearly, something lay heavy on his mind and heart. He sighed first then clasped my hand. “I’ve been thinking about it all day…and I want to wait before we try again. I desperately wanted to replace her, and I can’t do that. I need time.”

           

            “I know. You’re right. You can’t.” Through God’s gentle mercy, Chris had come to realize that his daughter was lost to him, that another baby wouldn’t be a replacement for her. Another baby would be a new, different—unique— child. We needed time to heal and time to be with Parker, to grieve individually as well as mourn together.

           

            “Well, at least I wasn’t in labor for very long,” I commented, trying to lighten the conversation and eradicate the silence. “Only a couple of hours or so.”

           

            “What do you mean?” he questioned in a partially bewildered, amused tone.

           

            “I went into measurable labor around eight o’clock, then Dr. Gordon arrived at nine…and you showed up not too long after that.”

           

            “I spoke to him on the phone around nine, but Dr. Gordon didn’t call to tell me that I should come down until just before midnight. And that’s about the time I drove down here. You had been in labor almost four hours before he contacted me to come.”

           

            “Well, then it must have been soon after your arrival that I went into surgery,” I continued.

           

            “No, it was around two o’clock in the morning when they finally decided nothing more could be done.” He shook his head in disbelief at my confusion, appearing somewhat entertained at my erroneous time determinations.

           

            “Are you absolutely sure?” Chris nodded a vehement affirmation. “You mean to tell me that I was in labor for close to six hours before the C-section?”

           

            “Yes,” he restated. “They were working on you for that length of time before all hell broke loose around here.”

           

            “Wow, it certainly didn’t seem that long to me.” I settled my head against the pillow, the realization bearing down on me that Jesus had answered my beseeching prayer the night before. He’d carried my burden by removing from my senses all perception of time. The degree of pain I experienced had been a crucial symptom from which Dr. Gordon could make a diagnosis. Removing that pain might have lulled us into a feeling of complacency, masking the situation’s severity. Pain had been important to his assessment. I’d prayed for what I desired; Jesus responded immediately with what I needed.

           

            “What’s that?” Chris suddenly asked, pointing to the inside of my left wrist.

           

            “I don’t know, “ I said, shrugging my shoulders and lifting my arm to observe the deep, red indentation and rainbow of colors migrating into the area to form a large bruise. “Oh, I do know what that is! I had that wrist wrapped around the bed rail last night during labor. Before you arrived I didn’t have anyone to hang onto, and I couldn’t squeeze the rail with my fingers because of the IV in my hand, so I used my wrist!”

           

            “Wow, you must have been hanging on pretty hard. That looks terrible; it looks like it hurts!”

           

            “I guess it does,” I said, running my hand gingerly over the deep impress. It did look ghastly. “I must have been in much more pain than even I imagined myself to be. I must have clung to that bed rail the entire six hours.”

           

            (It took months for that wound to heal. During that time it became a poignant reminder of my suffering, and the compassion Jesus had mercifully extended to me when I appealed to Him for help. I almost regretted to see the mark heal and disappear. When it finally disappeared, it felt like the connection to the event had been severed.)

           

            Chris couldn’t stay long; he needed to pick up Parker from pre-school. Before leaving, he hesitated then asked if I thought he should look at Victoria again. I suggested he might not want to see her now, that he might be disappointed—with the effects of death beginning to transform her fragile body. He held her when she was new and delicate, still warm and tender. After expressing my reservations, he decided to forgo seeing her one more time.

           

            It’s a decision I now regret. I wanted to protect Chris, but we should have taken the opportunity to say goodbye together—as loving, grieving parents. We both said goodbye individually, and I don’t know if either of us could have uttered that word again, but in spite of our pain and fear, I suspect we should have tried. It could have been a precious, shared moment, and the experience might have added strength and understanding to our collective grieving process. Yet now I can only speculate and be content with the leave-taking we experienced individually—as a mother and as a father.

            

             Instead, I shared with him my goodbye experience, and he told me about his. As I wrote in an earlier post, he hadn’t wanted to see her. At least he didn’t think he did, and he was angry when the nurse midwife brought her to him immediately after her birth. But he’d held her, wept, and emerged so very thankful for the opportunity to see his baby girl; grateful for the staff who knew he’d have a lifetime of regrets if he didn’t say goodbye that way. While I had lived intimately with her for five months, Chris hadn’t been privileged to have that experience. He had been living on hopes and dreams.

           

            “I am so glad they did that. I needed to see her.” He nodded as he spoke.

           

            We should have taken one priceless moment to hold her again, to say goodbye.   

           

            Together.

Victoria Lee's tiny feet, April 13, 1993

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NEXT WEEK: Sinking into a black vacuum of grief, and Parker’s reaction to the news…

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SPECIAL NOTE: On Wednesday of this week, March 6, I will add a special post dedicated to helpful ways to say goodbye to your baby, including special keepsakes to consider.

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Thanks for joining me.

Until next week!

Blessings,

Andrea

(The opening quote was taken from when Hello means Goodbye: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Dies Before Birth, At Birth Or Shortly After Birth by Pat Schwieber, RN and Paul Kirk, MD, 1985.)