Yesterday I got sucked into a conversation (my own fault, I should have walked away) about stillbirth/baby loss.
The comment was made that we are lucky to have a gravesite to visit. That early miscarriages don't have that place to mourn.
I was dumbfounded. Lucky?
I carried my son to a point where if he'd been born alive he'd have lived. I went through two and half days of induced labor. I pushed my son into a silent room, the heaviness of reality that he was gone... Up until that moment, as absolutely ludicrous as it sounds, I held out hope. I thought maybe, just maybe, he'd cry. He'd be alive and it was all a mistake, a bad dream. His weight would shift inside me and I'd - for a split second - think "see, he's fine".
I held his little body, the poor shape it was in, and loved him with every ounce of me. I couldn't fully comprehend how he could be dead. He was perfect in every way. His little mouth and nose.... His beautiful head of hair. He was gorgeous and perfect.
We had to chose a box to bury him in. A 2' box that had extra room. I don't consider that lucky.
Every time I visit his gravesite ... which I am "lucky" to have ... I fight the urge to dig with my bare hands to get to my son and run away with him. I do know it's only bones at this point and his soul is long gone, yet I just wish I could have him close to me.
I feel like such a horrible mother. Like I abandoned him or buried him out back like a pet. I feel like I let him down and every time I go see him I am reminded of all those feelings.
Every time I go by his nursery or sit in there I remember how close I was to holding him there. He wasn't an abstract ball of cells growing anymore. He was a baby, all grown and just waiting to join us. Everything was ready for him. Those things don't just go away. The room, his stuff, his headstone ... all there to remind me of how close I was before he was stolen from me.
I am not lucky to have those things. I am tortured by them. Though, without them I would probably feel the same torture. There is no luck in the death of a child.
I think all of us that have lost a child know that feeling of hope. When I was told at an ultrasound at 28 weeks that Samantha was anencephalic I was offered an immediate induction. I refused for two reasons. One, I knew she was happy inside and healthy and alive for now. Two, I did not want to face it...I wanted them to be wrong. I had Samantha in a bathroom, surrounded by midwives. I delivered on my hands and knees and when she was out, I would not turn around and look. I spoke one sentence, "Does she have what they said she did?" The quietly replied yes. We had discussed up front whether we would try to help her live (live so that she could die?) and had decided not to. But in that moment, when she was not breathing, I failed her again. I rubbed her and brought her back to life so that I could say goodbye. The guilt for the decisions I made will always be there. You are right, there is no luck in the death of a child and the guilt and pain are something we carry forever. I will pray for you, pray that you have more peace than I.
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