Perhaps They are Not Stars

Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.

      - Eskimo Proverb

A Leave Taking*

I, who never kissed your head,

Lay these ashes in their bed;
That which I could do have done.
Now farewell, my newborn son.
  

     - by Yvor Winters

 

 *Found on the website MoreShortPoems.

Bitter and Sweet

This morning I had coffee with a friend who lost her son a year ago tomorrow. R. was stillborn at full-term, and they don't know why. My friend blames herself for his death, thinks she did too much in the last few months, didn't rest enough, didn't pay enough attention.

She is learning to live with a broken heart.

And though I can tell her it gets easier, there is only so much I can do, for until you arrive at "easier," it is only . . . hard. Some days are better, some days are worse, but one day you find you are still alive, still here, you haven't quite survived it--not so you could leave it in the past--but you are surviving it, here and now, moment by moment.

As she learns to live with her broken heart, she is trying to look forward, to believe that the child she now carries will be born, alive and healthy, in about six more weeks. I remember the terror she feels now, the guilt for having another child, the longing for both of her sons to be healthy and strong and alive. Knowing that will never be possible.

While I sat with her I thought of an acquaintance, in labor today, right now, at this very moment. Hoping that her innocence will not be shattered today, that her boy goes home, alive and well.

How hard it is, some days, being alive, knowing too much, fearing the worst, wanting the best.

For 10,958 mothers in the world, today will be the worst day of their lives. And for them, my heart is breaking even as I continue to hope for the women I know waiting to deliver their own healthy miracles.

This is life: the bitter and the sweet, sometimes so closely intermingled as to be indistinguishable one from the other. This is what it means to be alive.

Stillbirth Outnumbers SIDS By 10 to 1

Midwifery Today has an article excerpt on their home page from Issue 74 of the journal of the same name. The article, written by Jeska Vannoy, discusses stillbirth, the lack of research into its causes, and the fact that the numbers of stillbirths are rising.


I find it so hard to accept that so little is being done to prevent and research stillbirth and its causes. Actually, I find it horrifying.

From the article:

"Unexplained stillbirth in late pregnancy is the single largest cause of perinatal death in the Western world. In the United States alone, approximately 39,000 babies of 20 weeks gestation or more died last year. Globally, 4.5 million babies never took their first breath. Sudden Antenatal Death Syndrome (SADS) has risen 20% in the last 10 years, despite "advancements" like 3-D ultrasound, increasing rates of labor induction and a rising cesarean section rate. These death tolls are estimates because stillborn babies aren't counted in any data on child death. Infant mortality rates in the US do not include stillbirth rates. Statistically, stillborn babies are not considered infants or children."


I also find it unfathomable that the 7 lb, 10 oz, 19.5" brown-haired baby boy who looked so much like my husband is not considered a real child. But I know that, for many people, Ben is simply a figment, a shadow, an almost.

But I did not feel him kick me for nine months, I did not hear his heartbeat, feel his hiccups, deliver him, to have someone tell me he was never real. I know differently. Had he not died, I would have carried him out into the world two days after his birth.

I wish the rest of the world knew that too.

Preventing Stillbirths

Light a Candle on October 15th

Friday is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day--sponsors encourage those who have lost an infant, or who know someone who lost an infant, to light a candle at 7:00 p.m. in their time zone to start a 24-hour wave of light.

I will be lighting a candle for Ben and Robertito, whose parents will be marking the first anniversary of his death the following day.

Who will you light a candle for?

How It Changed Me

I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I have wondered if those who knew me before Ben's death have noticed the change in me since. I wonder if that change I feel is pronounced or subtle, for though I feel the change to my very core, I know I've tried to hide it, to pretend as if I am better than I am.

For that is what I was taught to do.

And then I wonder how anyone could not notice the change in me, if they are paying the slightest bit of attention. But I also know how few of us pay attention, really, instead rushing about in displays of busy-ness that make us feel important, needed, useful. That fend off the loneliness.

Though I cannot begin to guess if anyone sees that I am different, I am.

I am older now, more weary. I have been someplace many people never go, for until you lose a child, there is no comparison, I think: no way to say, oh, my father died, so I know just how you feel. I don't think you do. You expect to lose your parents, just as you expect your children will outlive you.

Part of me died when Ben did. There has been some regrowth in that dead tissue, but mostly it is brown and hard, a scab and scar, tissue that will not heal. Never regrow. I suspect that if you sliced through my skin, near my heart, you could see that brown, mottled place inside; proof of damage done.

I am far more fearful of accidents and illnesses, of losing another child. There is almost nothing I take for granted any longer; an innocence has been lost, and I don't like it.

I am full of doubt. About God, fate, faith, what I believe. I've become a skeptic and, though I don't much like it, see no way out of uncertainty. And while I have my fair share of doubts about any kind of afterlife, I admit to jealousy of those I know and love who have died: why is it, I wonder, that they get to be with my boy now and I don't? It isn't fair.

Though maybe heaven, if it exists, doesn't work that way.

All my life, the only thing I will ever want again, is to be with Ben.

Can they see it on my face, the changes losing my son, birthing a dead child into the world, has made? I don't know. But they are there.