This blog entry is the fourth part of Lucia's birth story.
Here is the first part of her story. Winter Solstice.
The second part is The Word "Cruel"
The third part is Bringing Up Baby.
Merry Effing Christmas
Christmas came faster than I could ever imagine. Certainly, it was only three days after Lucy’s birth. That morning I was determined to make it a nice day for Beatrice, despite feeling completely traumatized and numb. I woke up with a vague stiffness in my breasts when I lifted my arms. Oh, shit. It occurred to me that I hadn’t escaped the cruelest of all parts of Lucia’s birth. My milk would have to come in. Still, I couldn’t be sure it was now. I had to focus on my Beatrice’s happy morning, pretending Santa came, and interacting with my mother who was sleeping downstairs.
For couples that experience their first pregnancy as a stillbirth, I imagine the grief to be all-consuming—a hellishly empty house with baby clothes, and expectation in every room. For my family, at least, it was also all-consuming, but we also had to be practical. We had an oblivious 21-month old running around. I needed to dress every morning, wash myself, eat, sleep. I am quite sure that if Lucy was my first, I would have not gotten out of my pajamas for three months, and drank myself into a silly oblivion for most of that time. But I had a child who needed me, so I had to do whatever I could to get through my everyday being at least semi-functional. I had set up Beatrice's room with a crib, integrated Lucy's clothes into Beatrice's drawers. When I got home, and tried to dress her, I opened a drawer to see all the little onesies for Lucy, the little socks. It felled me, and I crumpled on the floor sobbing. Not sobbing, howling. Sam and I grabbed some bins later in the day, and emptied everything, quickly. I asked my stepfather and brother-in-law to take the crib apart. It had to be Beatrice's room again, and quickly, or I wouldn't be able to put my child to bed. If I didn't have a child, I would have closed the door and not opened it again. ever.
In many ways, Beatrice makes me a strong woman. She needs me. She needs me to be whole. She needs me to get up everyday. She needs me to eat. She needs me to be present. It is a beautiful gift I have ever received—her needing me. I will try all my days to repay that little girl for the joy she brings to our life, and I am sure I won't come close. But I won't lie, it is also incredibly exhausting.
At the time, I was just so very afraid of traumatizing Beatrice with my sobbing. The first few days she just didn’t know what to make of me. She would look at me and run out of the room. I was surprised that since Lucia’s death, she never pointed to my belly and asked me about the baby. We spent a great deal of our days for the last few months talking about, preparing, talking to and singing to the baby. Bea often pulled my shirt up and kissed me, gave the baby a binky, or her sippy cup with water. My belly had become a member of our family, and yet, she seemed to know intuitively that the baby wasn’t there anymore. I spent those first postpartum days sitting on the couch with my laptop. Christmas eve, she crawled on top of me, and looked at me like she wanted to ask me a question. So I said to her, “Bea, do you know what is going on?” She nodded, as she did to most of my questions. “Mama went to the hospital to have the baby, like we talked about, but something happened. Lucy died and Mami and Daddy are really sad. That is why we cry, but we won’t always cry all the time.” She nodded again, and hugged me. I’m not positive she understood what I said, but I’m not sure that matters either.
Christmas eve, the funeral director we called came by our home for us to sign release papers for Lucia’s body. He told us he already picked her up, and forged our signatures. Bless that man. He knew we just needed this over with, and his empathy and love was palpable. I mean, he came to our home. He never made us come to the funeral home. He left us a catalog of urns, which literally made me nauseated to look at. I brought him a manila folder, asked him to put it in there. He told us the cremation was fifteen dollars. Fifteen. He said they don’t like to make money from this kind of death. He was clearly shaken up by our situation, and it being Christmas Eve. He told us to expect her ashes the next week. I was completely terrified of those words. They utterly floored me in every way. Ashes and baby should never be uttered in the same sentence. Your baby’s ashes are absolutely the worst three words in the English language.
I am constantly castigating myself for not being organized and prepared, and the year we were expecting the birth of our second daughter, I prepared for Christmas before Thanksgiving. I felt like a responsible adult. Yet as I stared at Lucia’s filled stocking, I felt like a fool. I jinxed myself, didn’t I? Beatrice was born without a hitch and I didn’t finish my Christmas shopping in November of that year. I suddenly was looking at my life like a typical Sunday football game, “The Eagles won against the Giants when I wore these grey sweats and drank Yuengling; hence, I will wear these sweats, unwashed, and drink Yuengling every Sunday for the entire season.” But these were lives. My daughter’s life, did it come down to Murphy’s Law? I didn’t know what to do with Lucy’s stocking. I decided to throw those gifts into Beatrice’s pile of toys and not fetishize them. They were toys, simply.
All the gifts that sat under the tree for my daughter were justified because we were having two girls. We were so conscious of not spoiling Beatrice that we often said things like “A little kitchen for Bea and Lucy.” or “It’s okay to spend so much on that, with two girls, it will get used for many years.” Maybe even more babies after Lucy...who knew? But now, I sat there knowing. Our daughter Beatrice will be an only child. I cannot do this again. I cannot sacrifice my heart for any more babies. I felt the same way I felt after my first major break up. My heart is broken. I am never dating again. That changes, sure. One day, a boy flirts with you, and you think about dating again. I was not there yet. Christmas was marked by this profound sense of “only”. Only one child. Only one stocking. Only if. Only us.
I am pretty sure we did a fantastic job of faking Christmas cheer. I think Bea had an amazing day opening gifts. We drove to my sister’s house. Driving through our neighborhood was like looking at the world through new eyes. Four funeral homes. Had I ever noticed that? Losing my daughter opened some portal into another dimension. I walked through the hospital doors and into a world that looked the same, but where death was on every corner, written on every face, where you only talked to people like funeral directors, crematory directors, grief counselors, high risk OBs. Where were the other people? Where were the birth people? The life people. It was Christmas. This holiday is about birth, and here I was mired in death.
At my sister's place, we opened gifts. Since Lucy died three days before, I had this sinking horrible feeling about one of the gifts I had bought. My sister and i wanted to give our mother a gift all about her grandchildren. They are truly her joy. So, we picked a necklace from etsy with all her grandchildren's names on it, and my sister and my birthstone in the middle. It is stunning. But that meant, way back in November, before everything, Sam and I decided we would make the final decision on Lucy's name. We always loved Lucy. It was second on our list after Beatrice, so we knew we wanted Bea and Lucy, but what kind of Lucy--Lucia? Lucille? Lucinda? We were stuck. Maybe it should just be Lucy? We went around and around.
Last week, while chatting with Molly, I told her this story about Lucia's name that I have been thinking about a lot lately. In October, I was feeling incredibly large and pregnant, and down, and decided I was going to treat myself to a day of pampering, and a real haircut. When I was getting my hair done, the shampoo lady told me her daughter was named Lucy. I told her that was the name we had decided on for our daughter.
"Short for Lucia?" I asked
"No, Lucille."
"Oh," I said. "I like loo-see-ah, or loo-chee-ah, because they are sexy names, while Lucy is cute."
"You want your daughter to have a sexy name?" She seemed a little put off by my statement.
"Well, one day, many years after she leaves my house, she will be able to change her persona by going by Lucia, instead of her kid name Lucy," I explained. "It can be cute and exotic, and she will be a beautiful exotic woman."
This conversation hit me recently. She will not be an adult. She will always be a baby. It incapacitated me to think of this.
Anyway, when I picked this necklace and ordered it, it meant we were set on Lucia. That's it. But now, what do I do with this gift? Give it to her? Hide it forever? Throw it out? I was reeling, and didn't know what people did with their baby stuff when their baby died. It hadn't occurred to me before coming home to a Christmas tree full of gifts, that there would be pain in every movement. We decided to give it to my mother, because these are her grandchildren. Beatrice and Lucia. When she opened it, we sat around her at her legs, and held onto her, like we did as children, and she cried. She has not taken it off since.
Showing posts with label birth story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birth story. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
socks
I randomly grabbed some pair of socks out of the drawer, sat on the bed to put them on, and then I realized they were the socks I wore during Lucy’s birth. I probably would never have remembered that if my midwife Megan hadn’t pointed out that they were Smartwool. Before Lucy’s birth, she pulled out those footsies they give you in the hospital with grippers on them. She told me I should wear the hospital footsies. “You might get blood on your socks.” Really? Like on top of everything else, she wanted me to save the socks. “It doesn’t matter if I get blood on these socks,” I said. She looked at me very seriously. “But these are cool socks.” I stared at the socks when she handed me the footsies. I began hating these fucking purple Smartwool socks. I mean, really hate them. Why do I even have these socks? Where did they come from, these ugly ass socks? Maybe if I hadn’t worn these socks, the day would have been different. Still, she said, “No, really, those are Smartwool. They are nice socks. You don’t want blood on them, do you?” Actually, yes, I did want blood on them. Iwant blood on everything. I am in a war, and I want everyone to know about it. I wanted these beautiful purple socks stained and ugly, just like me. “They are already ruined! I am already ruined!” I wanted to scream. These stupid purple socks will always be those fucking socks I wore the day Lucy died. They will always be ugly now. And I hated them. I hated everything Smartwool. I hated everything wool. I hated everything having to do with socks period. And now, I am pulling on those fucking socks I wore the day, more than two months ago, that my daughter died—the ones that Sam carelessly threw into the bag after I put on footsies and birthed my dead daughter without a drop of blood.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Lucia's Birth Story, Part 3.
This blog entry is the third part of Lucia's birth story.
Here is the first part of her story. Winter Solstice.
The second part is The Word "Cruel"
Bringing up Baby
My twin sister came in the morning to attend Lucia’s birth. My mother stayed with Beatrice. I hope she ends up being okay with that, because it meant she didn’t get to hold Lucia. I didn’t want my daughter there to see me in such a black place. As I reflect on that day, I wish Beatrice would have gotten to meet her sister, but it was the best decision for me at the time. I was in too much turmoil and couldn’t bear not being strong for Beatrice. In the morning, I met the nurse who would comfort us throughout the day. Debbie was a member of the Unitarian Church, the church that married my husband and I. She told us she could perform a blessing for Lucia when she was born, and she was an incredible source of serenity and peace throughout the day. She was like an angel, as was my beautiful midwife Megan. They seemed to know exactly when to give us space, and when to say some words of healing love.
Throughout the day, the television became this welcome space of distraction for us. I read the endless list of what was on what channel, mentally trying to match title with corresponding emotion. We searched for anything funny; if not this hour, then the next one. Finally, my brain latched onto one of my favorite movies, Bringing Up Baby. I kept telling Sam. “We need to watch that when it comes on. It is really funny. You will like it. Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It is really funny. We need to watch it.” I told the nurses, and my sister. “We need to watch this movie.” I must have seemed like an insane person. I began watching it, and laughing, trying to forget this bad place. I laughed like my 21 month old daughter’s fake social laugh. Suddenly, I felt her kick. A KICK!?! It can’t be true. “Come on, Lucia, do it again.” Can they miss a heartbeat after watching an ultrasound? Nothing. Please, baby, just kick once more. I laid my hands on my belly. It isn’t true. I turned to Sam and said, “I just felt something that felt like a kick.” He just held me as I sobbed. Phantom kicks. It happened for weeks after her birth as well.
I spent the day laboring, and finally got the epidural, which was welcome. It made me warm and tingly. I was thankful for the feeling. As I waited to birth Lucia, I decided to open a grief package they give to parents who have lost a child. In it was a pamphlet of what to expect after birth, and a local grief support group's newsletter. The newsletter contained poems written by parents who had lost children through stillbirth or miscarriage. On the front page, a piece entitled “A Letter to Alex” caught my eye. I had read this before. It was written by someone I knew. Mimmy. Tommy. Alex. Luke. And now their little Leia. They had lost their son four years ago. I wrote about this revelation before and thinking of the story of Kisa Gotami, but it reminded me that suffering affects everyone, in their own way. It calmed me. It made me strong to think that I was part of a very human experience.
Of course, I wasn’t completely enlightened and meditating on Buddhist stories throughout the day of Lucia’s birth, I was mostly overwhelmed with a paralyzing fear of seeing her dead, as though it were that which would push me over the edge and into the abyss. Every stage of this process seemed to grow crueler and more devastating. I just felt as though my cervix would never open and let her out, because I couldn’t accept this reality. I focused so much on empowering my body during my birth with Beatrice, and being positive. Birth is a natural process, and it suddenly became powerfully Other. Outside of me. Medical. I remember going through natural birthing classes, called Empowerment Birthing. We were to visualize opening our cervix, letting in the light. The hippie teacher made us imagine a labyrinth—every way in led to the same way out. I was afraid to leave this maze of emotional turmoil, because it meant my daughter was dead. Right at that moment, she was still warm inside me, there might have still be a chance they made an error, after I birth her, she will grow cold. She will be dead.
Now, I just wanted the labor and birthing to be quick, painless, and kind; that is, I wanted it to be the opposite of what I was already going through emotionally. They gave me Pitocin in the morning. I could feel some pain, but I still didn’t believe I would be able to birth Lucia. I was told that birthing a dead baby was different than a live baby. Babies help you. They wiggle, they compensate for your insides, and want to get out. It made me shudder to think of it. There was so much of the unknown in this birth. Debbie asked us if we wanted to hold Lucia, to see her. There were so many questions we were asked that afternoon which I simply was not prepared to answer. What were we going to do with the remains? Have her buried privately and hold a funeral? Were we going to have her cremated and added to a mass grave? Did we want a chaplain to come? Did we want her baptized?
I asked about arranging for a private cremation, so we could keep her ashes. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them, but I knew I didn’t want her added to a mass grave of lost babies. She was not lost, she was simply found dead. She was my baby. So, I had to call my brother-in-law with internet access and ask him to look up some crematories for their phone numbers. My husband was having trouble speaking about her death, so I had to call and ask people how much it was to cremate my unborn daughter. My husband decided it was too much for me. I hadn’t even birthed her yet. Bless him. It was too much. We called my brother-in-law to ask him to call funeral homes in the area and get prices and details. It was one of those little amazing things our family and friends did for us that we needed.
Despite my fears, around five, I knew I was dully dilated, because I wanted to birth Lucia. I wanted her to come out. So I asked my sister to pull out my Meditating Mama—a statue I made of a pregnant woman meditating. It was to be my birthing focus point, and I made her when I was about 24 weeks along. Molded out of deep red Mexican clay, she was cross-legged with hands encircling belly. She sat front and center in my house as I practiced prenatal yoga, as I meditated, and as I imagined birthing Lucia, and the amazing life she would live. Now, she was sitting in front of me in this hospital room; all my hopes gone. I could barely look at my statue which once meant potential, beauty, calmness. Megan and Debbie pull up chairs and sat peacefully. They didn’t sit below me to catch Lucia, or involve themselves in this process. Lucia was gone. There was nothing to protect her from now.
The lights were very low, and my husband and sister stood at each side of me, grabbing a leg. Megan told me to push when I felt the urge. So, I did with the waves of contractions. I said to Megan, “I don’t feel like my pushing is going anywhere. “ So, she stood between my legs, and reached inside of me, and said, “Feel this spot?” I nodded. “Push to that spot.”
I suddenly felt I needed to have a beautiful birth with Lucia. It is what I worked towards for 38 weeks. She was going to have a beautiful birth. I took some deep breaths, in through my nose, out through my mouth. My eyes searched for my Meditating Mama. And I stared at her belly, full of life. I imagined opening, and pushing Lucia through me, into the light. I waited to use the next contraction to help me. I suddenly felt strong and empowered. I was going to do this the way I imagined with intention, gently and easily.
When I think of my birth experience with Beatrice, it was chaotic. It was completely primal. I lost my rationale. This was the opposite. I was composed pushing with deliberate intention, and complete control. Lucia means light, and I thought of her entering the light. I focused on each muscle, and with my focus on the statue and Megan’s spot, I isolated each muscle, and push her through each of them. It didn’t take many pushes, and she came out. Peacefully. Gently. No tears. No soreness. She came. Simply.
There was no longer any fear. I put my arms out to her. I didn’t care what she looked like anymore. I didn’t care about any of those fears. I just wanted her. And she was beautiful. Though she was covered in dense vernix, I could see how simply lovely she was. Her hair was black like mine, and her lips were perfectly mine too. And red, so red. At the time, I just thought it was magic how red her lips were, how simply feminine and pretty she was. Now, I suppose I realize it was because she was upside down in my belly. But still, at the time, I just kept kissing them. Those red perfect lips. I remember her first ultrasound, I saw her face. It was so…pretty. That is what I kept thinking after the ultrasound. “She is so pretty,” and now, here she was. That face. I blushed at how perfect she was. While my daughter Beatrice is the exact image of my Sam, blue eyes, blond hair, I knew deep within me that Lucia would be my mirror, and she was.
I held her to me, and just said over and over, “My sweet girl.” I cried so much I soaked her. I kissed her nose. I lifted her eyelids, and the blues had no life. But her eyelids had peeled a bit and were a deep purple. I realized then that my baby had violet eyes. It was my dream. Did I know? I mean, deep down that is what we mothers who have stillborn babies think—did I know my baby was going to be the one that dies?
As I sat with her, I felt the injustice over and over again like waves. What a life she would have led, my beautiful daughter. We held her for a few hours between the three of us. Debbie washed her, and her skin was peeling. She had been dead since Saturday, or Friday night.
The midwife told us that the only thing she could see was that her placenta was smaller than it normally should be, and the cord was placed on the side rather than the middle. They called it a marginal cord insertion. It means that she might not have gotten enough nutrients, but she clarified, many babies are born healthy with this condition. Why was Lucia one of those that didn’t? No matter how enlightened I am one minute, the next I am asking why.
Debbie performed a beautiful blessing for us as we held hands and surrounded Lucia with love. We held hands and talked about all of those people who would miss Lucy. We named each of them. So many names I could have continued for hours of all the people that would miss our girl, and name all the things we will miss.
My sister left fairly soon after the blessing. I think she needed to be with her own babies, and honestly, we needed to be alone with Lucia. As I held her, I called Debbie over and asked her if she could do me a favor. She said anything. I asked if I could donate my Meditating Mama to the hospital’s Birthing Suites where natural childbirth happens. I couldn’t look at her again, and maybe another mama can birth life into this world with her. Debbie thanked me.
I felt like I could have birthed Lucy and then walked down the hall for my own cup of water. For protocol’s sake, they made me wait an hour before letting me stand and pee, which I did without problems. They let us leave five hours later. When the evening nurse took Lucia for photographs, I knew I didn’t want to see her again. But my husband asked for her back. He held her for a while, and I peeked over at her. She was deteriorating, and I was disturbed to see her body wearing away. But it was also important for me. She was dead, and I needed to see her that way. I couldn’t keep carrying her with me, or in me. I had to let her go and carry the memory of our short time together. In a twenty-four hour period, I had experienced an entire lifetime with my daughter. I birthed her, was angry, loved her more than the sun, kissed her, held her, cried on her, and buried her.
I woke up the next day in my own bed, next to my husband. I couldn’t remember if the birth and Lucia’s death was a dream, or my entire pregnancy was. Beatrice crawled into our bed, and I reached for her. She pulled away from me. She had never been away from me for a night, let alone two. I felt like she looked at me, and I wasn’t Mama anymore. I was a sad broken person. She shunned me for most of the day. I was teetering between absolute heartbreaking agony and furious anger because of it.
here is a picture of my meditating mama.
Here is the first part of her story. Winter Solstice.
The second part is The Word "Cruel"
Bringing up Baby
My twin sister came in the morning to attend Lucia’s birth. My mother stayed with Beatrice. I hope she ends up being okay with that, because it meant she didn’t get to hold Lucia. I didn’t want my daughter there to see me in such a black place. As I reflect on that day, I wish Beatrice would have gotten to meet her sister, but it was the best decision for me at the time. I was in too much turmoil and couldn’t bear not being strong for Beatrice. In the morning, I met the nurse who would comfort us throughout the day. Debbie was a member of the Unitarian Church, the church that married my husband and I. She told us she could perform a blessing for Lucia when she was born, and she was an incredible source of serenity and peace throughout the day. She was like an angel, as was my beautiful midwife Megan. They seemed to know exactly when to give us space, and when to say some words of healing love.
Throughout the day, the television became this welcome space of distraction for us. I read the endless list of what was on what channel, mentally trying to match title with corresponding emotion. We searched for anything funny; if not this hour, then the next one. Finally, my brain latched onto one of my favorite movies, Bringing Up Baby. I kept telling Sam. “We need to watch that when it comes on. It is really funny. You will like it. Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It is really funny. We need to watch it.” I told the nurses, and my sister. “We need to watch this movie.” I must have seemed like an insane person. I began watching it, and laughing, trying to forget this bad place. I laughed like my 21 month old daughter’s fake social laugh. Suddenly, I felt her kick. A KICK!?! It can’t be true. “Come on, Lucia, do it again.” Can they miss a heartbeat after watching an ultrasound? Nothing. Please, baby, just kick once more. I laid my hands on my belly. It isn’t true. I turned to Sam and said, “I just felt something that felt like a kick.” He just held me as I sobbed. Phantom kicks. It happened for weeks after her birth as well.
I spent the day laboring, and finally got the epidural, which was welcome. It made me warm and tingly. I was thankful for the feeling. As I waited to birth Lucia, I decided to open a grief package they give to parents who have lost a child. In it was a pamphlet of what to expect after birth, and a local grief support group's newsletter. The newsletter contained poems written by parents who had lost children through stillbirth or miscarriage. On the front page, a piece entitled “A Letter to Alex” caught my eye. I had read this before. It was written by someone I knew. Mimmy. Tommy. Alex. Luke. And now their little Leia. They had lost their son four years ago. I wrote about this revelation before and thinking of the story of Kisa Gotami, but it reminded me that suffering affects everyone, in their own way. It calmed me. It made me strong to think that I was part of a very human experience.
Of course, I wasn’t completely enlightened and meditating on Buddhist stories throughout the day of Lucia’s birth, I was mostly overwhelmed with a paralyzing fear of seeing her dead, as though it were that which would push me over the edge and into the abyss. Every stage of this process seemed to grow crueler and more devastating. I just felt as though my cervix would never open and let her out, because I couldn’t accept this reality. I focused so much on empowering my body during my birth with Beatrice, and being positive. Birth is a natural process, and it suddenly became powerfully Other. Outside of me. Medical. I remember going through natural birthing classes, called Empowerment Birthing. We were to visualize opening our cervix, letting in the light. The hippie teacher made us imagine a labyrinth—every way in led to the same way out. I was afraid to leave this maze of emotional turmoil, because it meant my daughter was dead. Right at that moment, she was still warm inside me, there might have still be a chance they made an error, after I birth her, she will grow cold. She will be dead.
Now, I just wanted the labor and birthing to be quick, painless, and kind; that is, I wanted it to be the opposite of what I was already going through emotionally. They gave me Pitocin in the morning. I could feel some pain, but I still didn’t believe I would be able to birth Lucia. I was told that birthing a dead baby was different than a live baby. Babies help you. They wiggle, they compensate for your insides, and want to get out. It made me shudder to think of it. There was so much of the unknown in this birth. Debbie asked us if we wanted to hold Lucia, to see her. There were so many questions we were asked that afternoon which I simply was not prepared to answer. What were we going to do with the remains? Have her buried privately and hold a funeral? Were we going to have her cremated and added to a mass grave? Did we want a chaplain to come? Did we want her baptized?
I asked about arranging for a private cremation, so we could keep her ashes. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them, but I knew I didn’t want her added to a mass grave of lost babies. She was not lost, she was simply found dead. She was my baby. So, I had to call my brother-in-law with internet access and ask him to look up some crematories for their phone numbers. My husband was having trouble speaking about her death, so I had to call and ask people how much it was to cremate my unborn daughter. My husband decided it was too much for me. I hadn’t even birthed her yet. Bless him. It was too much. We called my brother-in-law to ask him to call funeral homes in the area and get prices and details. It was one of those little amazing things our family and friends did for us that we needed.
Despite my fears, around five, I knew I was dully dilated, because I wanted to birth Lucia. I wanted her to come out. So I asked my sister to pull out my Meditating Mama—a statue I made of a pregnant woman meditating. It was to be my birthing focus point, and I made her when I was about 24 weeks along. Molded out of deep red Mexican clay, she was cross-legged with hands encircling belly. She sat front and center in my house as I practiced prenatal yoga, as I meditated, and as I imagined birthing Lucia, and the amazing life she would live. Now, she was sitting in front of me in this hospital room; all my hopes gone. I could barely look at my statue which once meant potential, beauty, calmness. Megan and Debbie pull up chairs and sat peacefully. They didn’t sit below me to catch Lucia, or involve themselves in this process. Lucia was gone. There was nothing to protect her from now.
The lights were very low, and my husband and sister stood at each side of me, grabbing a leg. Megan told me to push when I felt the urge. So, I did with the waves of contractions. I said to Megan, “I don’t feel like my pushing is going anywhere. “ So, she stood between my legs, and reached inside of me, and said, “Feel this spot?” I nodded. “Push to that spot.”
I suddenly felt I needed to have a beautiful birth with Lucia. It is what I worked towards for 38 weeks. She was going to have a beautiful birth. I took some deep breaths, in through my nose, out through my mouth. My eyes searched for my Meditating Mama. And I stared at her belly, full of life. I imagined opening, and pushing Lucia through me, into the light. I waited to use the next contraction to help me. I suddenly felt strong and empowered. I was going to do this the way I imagined with intention, gently and easily.
When I think of my birth experience with Beatrice, it was chaotic. It was completely primal. I lost my rationale. This was the opposite. I was composed pushing with deliberate intention, and complete control. Lucia means light, and I thought of her entering the light. I focused on each muscle, and with my focus on the statue and Megan’s spot, I isolated each muscle, and push her through each of them. It didn’t take many pushes, and she came out. Peacefully. Gently. No tears. No soreness. She came. Simply.
There was no longer any fear. I put my arms out to her. I didn’t care what she looked like anymore. I didn’t care about any of those fears. I just wanted her. And she was beautiful. Though she was covered in dense vernix, I could see how simply lovely she was. Her hair was black like mine, and her lips were perfectly mine too. And red, so red. At the time, I just thought it was magic how red her lips were, how simply feminine and pretty she was. Now, I suppose I realize it was because she was upside down in my belly. But still, at the time, I just kept kissing them. Those red perfect lips. I remember her first ultrasound, I saw her face. It was so…pretty. That is what I kept thinking after the ultrasound. “She is so pretty,” and now, here she was. That face. I blushed at how perfect she was. While my daughter Beatrice is the exact image of my Sam, blue eyes, blond hair, I knew deep within me that Lucia would be my mirror, and she was.
I held her to me, and just said over and over, “My sweet girl.” I cried so much I soaked her. I kissed her nose. I lifted her eyelids, and the blues had no life. But her eyelids had peeled a bit and were a deep purple. I realized then that my baby had violet eyes. It was my dream. Did I know? I mean, deep down that is what we mothers who have stillborn babies think—did I know my baby was going to be the one that dies?
As I sat with her, I felt the injustice over and over again like waves. What a life she would have led, my beautiful daughter. We held her for a few hours between the three of us. Debbie washed her, and her skin was peeling. She had been dead since Saturday, or Friday night.
The midwife told us that the only thing she could see was that her placenta was smaller than it normally should be, and the cord was placed on the side rather than the middle. They called it a marginal cord insertion. It means that she might not have gotten enough nutrients, but she clarified, many babies are born healthy with this condition. Why was Lucia one of those that didn’t? No matter how enlightened I am one minute, the next I am asking why.
Debbie performed a beautiful blessing for us as we held hands and surrounded Lucia with love. We held hands and talked about all of those people who would miss Lucy. We named each of them. So many names I could have continued for hours of all the people that would miss our girl, and name all the things we will miss.
My sister left fairly soon after the blessing. I think she needed to be with her own babies, and honestly, we needed to be alone with Lucia. As I held her, I called Debbie over and asked her if she could do me a favor. She said anything. I asked if I could donate my Meditating Mama to the hospital’s Birthing Suites where natural childbirth happens. I couldn’t look at her again, and maybe another mama can birth life into this world with her. Debbie thanked me.
I felt like I could have birthed Lucy and then walked down the hall for my own cup of water. For protocol’s sake, they made me wait an hour before letting me stand and pee, which I did without problems. They let us leave five hours later. When the evening nurse took Lucia for photographs, I knew I didn’t want to see her again. But my husband asked for her back. He held her for a while, and I peeked over at her. She was deteriorating, and I was disturbed to see her body wearing away. But it was also important for me. She was dead, and I needed to see her that way. I couldn’t keep carrying her with me, or in me. I had to let her go and carry the memory of our short time together. In a twenty-four hour period, I had experienced an entire lifetime with my daughter. I birthed her, was angry, loved her more than the sun, kissed her, held her, cried on her, and buried her.
I woke up the next day in my own bed, next to my husband. I couldn’t remember if the birth and Lucia’s death was a dream, or my entire pregnancy was. Beatrice crawled into our bed, and I reached for her. She pulled away from me. She had never been away from me for a night, let alone two. I felt like she looked at me, and I wasn’t Mama anymore. I was a sad broken person. She shunned me for most of the day. I was teetering between absolute heartbreaking agony and furious anger because of it.
here is a picture of my meditating mama.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Lucia's Birth Story, Part 2
This blog entry is the second part of Lucia's birth story.
Here is the first part of her story. Winter Solstice.
The Word Cruel
She was breathing one minute, and not the next. And then, they explained I had to be induced. I had to bring her into this room and into the world. Cruel world. “Can’t you just do a C-Section and take her out?” This was me speaking, I birthed my first daughter naturally. I would have birthed at home with a lay midwife if I could, and here I was asking them to take her out by Caesarean. What I was really thinking was “Just cut her out of me. Take her out.” Birth seemed so unbelievably cruel. The midwife explained that then I have to recover from major surgery. I had to deliver her vaginally.
I was terrified of this process and terrified to eventually see her. When I birthed my first daughter, someone asked me after a few weeks what it was like to be a mother. I said, “It is like watching your heart walk around in the world.” But what if your heart is not beating?
Everyone left us to talk about our options, which were really to be induced, naturally or with epidural. They transferred us to the labor and delivery area. The nurse came in alone after the doctors and midwife left, and gave me a huge hug. “Ah, honey.” And I cried on her shoulder. There is no measure of time, or space, during these times. I could have been in that room for three seconds or three hours. It was the same.
I decided to have an epidural with Lucia, despite my hippie nature. This was a different experience for me, and my husband said he couldn’t bear to see me in physical pain on top of everything else. I wanted to be home with Beatrice. I wanted to erase the last 72 hours, and go back to the time when I know she was alive and ask them to induce me then. I wanted to erase the pain. And yet, there was part of me that wanted the pain. I wanted to physically be tortured, for that is what I felt inside. Tortured. I looked at my gigantic, 38-week pregnant belly. Torture. I still feel pregnant. I still am pregnant. My womb is now a coffin for my little girl. Every so often, I would feel what felt like the baby shifting, and think, “They are wrong. They are wrong.” But I would just cry. They don’t get that wrong.
I think I have completely blocked the phone call to my sister and my mother. I am grateful to not be emotionally strong enough to remember that pain. I do know that saying the words for the first time were nearly impossible, and hearing their utter sorrow made me shudder. I kept saying to them I am sorry. I am so sorry. I was. I often said the safest place for Lucia was in my belly. But then, the worst thing that could happen, happened in my belly.
They put Cervadil in over night, and when I was ripened, as they said, they would begin with Pitocin in the morning. Ripened. I kept thinking about that word. “Get some sleep,” my midwife said. It was the darkest, longest night. It was winter solstice. I drifted off for a couple of hours, expecting to wake sweating in my own bed, but I woke in the hospital again. This day was certain to be the worst day of my life. If I can survive this day, I thought, I can survive anything. Just one hour at a time today. Just one minute at a time. One breath until the next painful breath.
Our night passed restlessly. I took a Benadryl to sleep. It barely touched my anxiety and late pregnancy discomfort, but the few hours seemed all I needed that night. Sam bunked on a cot next to me. His long body looked painfully cramped in the bed, and I was having trouble bearing the sight of him in such a painful position. Finally, we just decided it was morning at 5am, and Sam asked me in the morning if I wanted a coffee. I suddenly wanted a fully caffeinated coffee. Not just fully caffeinated, but something like a quadruple espresso. Maybe a shot of bourbon in a quadruple espresso. I had denied myself full caffeine this entire pregnancy. And then, like ticking off a checklist, it began occurring to me that I could drink alcohol, take ibuprofen, take morphine…that the epidural didn’t matter because I wouldn’t be hurting the baby anymore. She was dead. It always ended like that, suddenly every thought pattern ended with, “because she is dead already.”
I shook off the hundred yard stare and just said, “A half-caf, please.” And he left the room. I sobbed and watched the news. The world was continuing. The world was going on even though my baby was dead inside me. How can that be?
Sam bought a breakfast, which I simply could not touch. I had no appetite. How could I eat when I was no longer nourishing my child? I wanted to waste away. I wanted to be left bereft, starving. I didn’t need my strength anymore. I was simply a shell.
The nurse came in with a stunning arrangement of flowers from my beautiful sister-in-law and brother-in-law. I took one look and burst out crying. I just couldn’t see an arrangement of white lilies. Everything seemed so cruel to me. I ordered them out. I ordered them out harshly. I cussed. I became enraged. I wanted something to be angry about, someone to be angry with, and flower senders seemed as good as anything. I realized, quickly, how irrational it all was, and yet, I felt compelled to throw things, to upturn my IV machine, and trash the hospital room. I just sobbed instead, and let my anger turn into what it was. I was determined to call my feelings by their proper names, even if most of the time, I didn’t speak the language of this kind of cruel. And truly, the mantra in my head during my hospital time was, “This is so cruel. The world is so cruel. Cruel.” This refrain would eventually change, but for the first 24 hours, it was what echoed in my thoughts.
Here is the first part of her story. Winter Solstice.
The Word Cruel
She was breathing one minute, and not the next. And then, they explained I had to be induced. I had to bring her into this room and into the world. Cruel world. “Can’t you just do a C-Section and take her out?” This was me speaking, I birthed my first daughter naturally. I would have birthed at home with a lay midwife if I could, and here I was asking them to take her out by Caesarean. What I was really thinking was “Just cut her out of me. Take her out.” Birth seemed so unbelievably cruel. The midwife explained that then I have to recover from major surgery. I had to deliver her vaginally.
I was terrified of this process and terrified to eventually see her. When I birthed my first daughter, someone asked me after a few weeks what it was like to be a mother. I said, “It is like watching your heart walk around in the world.” But what if your heart is not beating?
Everyone left us to talk about our options, which were really to be induced, naturally or with epidural. They transferred us to the labor and delivery area. The nurse came in alone after the doctors and midwife left, and gave me a huge hug. “Ah, honey.” And I cried on her shoulder. There is no measure of time, or space, during these times. I could have been in that room for three seconds or three hours. It was the same.
I decided to have an epidural with Lucia, despite my hippie nature. This was a different experience for me, and my husband said he couldn’t bear to see me in physical pain on top of everything else. I wanted to be home with Beatrice. I wanted to erase the last 72 hours, and go back to the time when I know she was alive and ask them to induce me then. I wanted to erase the pain. And yet, there was part of me that wanted the pain. I wanted to physically be tortured, for that is what I felt inside. Tortured. I looked at my gigantic, 38-week pregnant belly. Torture. I still feel pregnant. I still am pregnant. My womb is now a coffin for my little girl. Every so often, I would feel what felt like the baby shifting, and think, “They are wrong. They are wrong.” But I would just cry. They don’t get that wrong.
I think I have completely blocked the phone call to my sister and my mother. I am grateful to not be emotionally strong enough to remember that pain. I do know that saying the words for the first time were nearly impossible, and hearing their utter sorrow made me shudder. I kept saying to them I am sorry. I am so sorry. I was. I often said the safest place for Lucia was in my belly. But then, the worst thing that could happen, happened in my belly.
They put Cervadil in over night, and when I was ripened, as they said, they would begin with Pitocin in the morning. Ripened. I kept thinking about that word. “Get some sleep,” my midwife said. It was the darkest, longest night. It was winter solstice. I drifted off for a couple of hours, expecting to wake sweating in my own bed, but I woke in the hospital again. This day was certain to be the worst day of my life. If I can survive this day, I thought, I can survive anything. Just one hour at a time today. Just one minute at a time. One breath until the next painful breath.
Our night passed restlessly. I took a Benadryl to sleep. It barely touched my anxiety and late pregnancy discomfort, but the few hours seemed all I needed that night. Sam bunked on a cot next to me. His long body looked painfully cramped in the bed, and I was having trouble bearing the sight of him in such a painful position. Finally, we just decided it was morning at 5am, and Sam asked me in the morning if I wanted a coffee. I suddenly wanted a fully caffeinated coffee. Not just fully caffeinated, but something like a quadruple espresso. Maybe a shot of bourbon in a quadruple espresso. I had denied myself full caffeine this entire pregnancy. And then, like ticking off a checklist, it began occurring to me that I could drink alcohol, take ibuprofen, take morphine…that the epidural didn’t matter because I wouldn’t be hurting the baby anymore. She was dead. It always ended like that, suddenly every thought pattern ended with, “because she is dead already.”
I shook off the hundred yard stare and just said, “A half-caf, please.” And he left the room. I sobbed and watched the news. The world was continuing. The world was going on even though my baby was dead inside me. How can that be?
Sam bought a breakfast, which I simply could not touch. I had no appetite. How could I eat when I was no longer nourishing my child? I wanted to waste away. I wanted to be left bereft, starving. I didn’t need my strength anymore. I was simply a shell.
The nurse came in with a stunning arrangement of flowers from my beautiful sister-in-law and brother-in-law. I took one look and burst out crying. I just couldn’t see an arrangement of white lilies. Everything seemed so cruel to me. I ordered them out. I ordered them out harshly. I cussed. I became enraged. I wanted something to be angry about, someone to be angry with, and flower senders seemed as good as anything. I realized, quickly, how irrational it all was, and yet, I felt compelled to throw things, to upturn my IV machine, and trash the hospital room. I just sobbed instead, and let my anger turn into what it was. I was determined to call my feelings by their proper names, even if most of the time, I didn’t speak the language of this kind of cruel. And truly, the mantra in my head during my hospital time was, “This is so cruel. The world is so cruel. Cruel.” This refrain would eventually change, but for the first 24 hours, it was what echoed in my thoughts.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Winter Solstice. Lucia's birth story,part 1.
November 27, 2008. I had a dream about Lucia tonight. I was on my grandparent’s back porch—a large redwood deck looking into the Pennsylvania wood. My hands were searching my belly, feeling her position, and I could feel her head under my sternum. Breech, I thought. But my hands searched her head, and continued to her shoulders, and then connected to her arms which wrapped around my middle. Then I realized she was holding onto my belly, rather than being inside me. I looked down to see her dark hair. Ah, she is beautiful. Simply gorgeous. When I held her up I could see these violet eyes, and a smile. Her nose was crooked, so I took my finger and pushed it straight. And her eyes were violet. Stunningly violet purple. But what stuck with me was her smile and the peace on her face. That is what she gave me—a sense of peace from her smile. It is all she did, smile. I held her as I once held my Beatrice, on the left, to feed from the breast…it wasn’t a long enough dream. After my dream, I wanted her middle name to be Paz, which means “peace” in Spanish.
December 21, 2008. I had predicted many months ago, that my daughter would be born on solstice. That day, a Sunday, there was something about the lack of movement that was disturbing me. Had it been one day or two? Did I feel her yesterday? I couldn’t remember. Chasing my 20-month old daughter means that I seldom pay attention to movement during the day. I had attended a baby shower earlier, and thought I felt some shifting, but honestly, that seems all I have felt for Saturday and Sunday—shifting. Her bum would suddenly be hard and in front. Maybe there wasn’t enough room. I was 38 weeks. She must be tired from all the contractions I had had Thursday and Friday. I kept justifying all these different reasons for not feeling her be squirmy, but the truth is Friday, I know she was wiggling, and Thursday, I was in the hospital being monitored for what was a slightly elevated blood pressure. She was there, and responsive, and her heartbeat was beautifully loud in the little room.
Sunday evening, after I sat for a while, I began prodding her, moving her head, trying to get a reaction from her, but her body felt limp in my belly. I searched my belly for a heartbeat with a stethoscope. Nothing. My husband told me that it is difficult with the stethoscope to hear the heartbeat. I called the midwife. She told me to come to the hospital to be monitored.
In my mind, I kept thinking that I was going to look like a fool to come in and be monitored for my healthy baby. But still, I couldn’t be sure. I was just so anxious at this point, so nervous of that which could not be spoken. I asked Sam so many times, “Is she okay, Sam? She is going to be okay, right?” And he tried to remain optimistic, but I think we were both scared in the same way. We didn’t want to speak of what could be.
To say this was completely off of my radar is an understatement. I had prepared myself for the most horrible possibility of, say, having to have a c-section, rather than natural childbirth, but the idea that she could possibly die had never even entered my consciousness. We sat in PETU waiting for the nurse to come check her heart rate. She was one of those nurses you want on your team. Loud. Brash. Endearingly maternal to those who are brave. She searched and searched. And I began to cry. She said, “Ah, honey, sometimes I can’t find the heartbeat, let me get the ultrasound tech.” The team came in, and when there were three, and my midwife, I think it began to hit me that something was really wrong. The tech and the doctors introduced themselves. They started. “Here is her head.” And I saw her head, and then the screen panned down to her little ribs. Nothing.
“There is no heartbeat,” I said it first, I think. And the doctor said those words that I never wanted to hear, “Your little girl has passed away.”
I held onto my husband and we wept and wept. There was something about that moment that was so incredibly primal. I just wanted to shave my head. No, scratch that, it’s not quite right. Shaving my head sounds like a nice process. Studying religion, I had read about Jain nuns who pulled each hair out of their head for fear of hurting the lice that might be peacefully residing in their scalp. That is what I thought of, quietly pulling each hair out of my head until I was bald. Suddenly, yes, even lice were someone’s kid. Then, I wanted to wrap myself in orange cloth and fall on the ground sobbing. I wanted a ritual right then. Anything.
After a minute, I asked all those questions, “Why? How?” And then they began saying that it is nothing I could have prevented or done. It was not my fault. And that I may never know what killed my daughter. How had I gone through my whole life not knowing this? How had I managed to escape this particular insight into how cruel the world is to some parents? As though I found out that God picks some children to simply draw the life out of, without explanation, I felt outside of myself. As though I was someone who just had their forehead branded with a symbol of their grief, I just simply spoke the obvious, “My heart is broken.”
December 21, 2008. I had predicted many months ago, that my daughter would be born on solstice. That day, a Sunday, there was something about the lack of movement that was disturbing me. Had it been one day or two? Did I feel her yesterday? I couldn’t remember. Chasing my 20-month old daughter means that I seldom pay attention to movement during the day. I had attended a baby shower earlier, and thought I felt some shifting, but honestly, that seems all I have felt for Saturday and Sunday—shifting. Her bum would suddenly be hard and in front. Maybe there wasn’t enough room. I was 38 weeks. She must be tired from all the contractions I had had Thursday and Friday. I kept justifying all these different reasons for not feeling her be squirmy, but the truth is Friday, I know she was wiggling, and Thursday, I was in the hospital being monitored for what was a slightly elevated blood pressure. She was there, and responsive, and her heartbeat was beautifully loud in the little room.
Sunday evening, after I sat for a while, I began prodding her, moving her head, trying to get a reaction from her, but her body felt limp in my belly. I searched my belly for a heartbeat with a stethoscope. Nothing. My husband told me that it is difficult with the stethoscope to hear the heartbeat. I called the midwife. She told me to come to the hospital to be monitored.
In my mind, I kept thinking that I was going to look like a fool to come in and be monitored for my healthy baby. But still, I couldn’t be sure. I was just so anxious at this point, so nervous of that which could not be spoken. I asked Sam so many times, “Is she okay, Sam? She is going to be okay, right?” And he tried to remain optimistic, but I think we were both scared in the same way. We didn’t want to speak of what could be.
To say this was completely off of my radar is an understatement. I had prepared myself for the most horrible possibility of, say, having to have a c-section, rather than natural childbirth, but the idea that she could possibly die had never even entered my consciousness. We sat in PETU waiting for the nurse to come check her heart rate. She was one of those nurses you want on your team. Loud. Brash. Endearingly maternal to those who are brave. She searched and searched. And I began to cry. She said, “Ah, honey, sometimes I can’t find the heartbeat, let me get the ultrasound tech.” The team came in, and when there were three, and my midwife, I think it began to hit me that something was really wrong. The tech and the doctors introduced themselves. They started. “Here is her head.” And I saw her head, and then the screen panned down to her little ribs. Nothing.
“There is no heartbeat,” I said it first, I think. And the doctor said those words that I never wanted to hear, “Your little girl has passed away.”
I held onto my husband and we wept and wept. There was something about that moment that was so incredibly primal. I just wanted to shave my head. No, scratch that, it’s not quite right. Shaving my head sounds like a nice process. Studying religion, I had read about Jain nuns who pulled each hair out of their head for fear of hurting the lice that might be peacefully residing in their scalp. That is what I thought of, quietly pulling each hair out of my head until I was bald. Suddenly, yes, even lice were someone’s kid. Then, I wanted to wrap myself in orange cloth and fall on the ground sobbing. I wanted a ritual right then. Anything.
After a minute, I asked all those questions, “Why? How?” And then they began saying that it is nothing I could have prevented or done. It was not my fault. And that I may never know what killed my daughter. How had I gone through my whole life not knowing this? How had I managed to escape this particular insight into how cruel the world is to some parents? As though I found out that God picks some children to simply draw the life out of, without explanation, I felt outside of myself. As though I was someone who just had their forehead branded with a symbol of their grief, I just simply spoke the obvious, “My heart is broken.”
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