*This
blog may be difficult to read if you have lost a child during pregnancy. Reader
Discretion is advised.
I've relived your birth in my mind, over and over probably a thousand times by now, and yet your birth is the one story I rarely tell. I can talk for hours about what it was like to labor and push your sisters out of my womb, and yet as I begin to put the story of your birth into words, my hands shake and I feel like I could be sick.
Very few people know what it was like for me, to give birth to you.
Even fewer people have heard me tell your story out loud, but your story deserves to be told-even though it's hard for me.
I know the details of your birth are important even if they aren't very beautiful, so I'll continue to write through my tears.
Your story deserves to be told.
I hope you know how much I love you, and I'm so sorry that I failed you.
I was completely alone the night you were born, and the details of your birth will haunt me for the rest of my life. I had no idea that I would be completely alone when I delivered you.
Your birth was the birth I never planned.
I had never imagined you would
be born like that...no mother should ever have to deliver that way.
No one tells you the
decisions you will have to make once your baby dies in the womb. They
talk freely about natural birth, or epidurals when talking about birthing live
children, but never do people talk about things like these. No one tells you that sometimes birth stories involve words like d&c or medicine that is also prescribed for abortion. No one tells you that when it comes to birthing a lifeless baby, your choices are to continue to carry your lifeless baby inside of you (until your body realizes your baby has died and decides to deliver naturally) or to force the baby out in one way or another. Surgery, medication, or wait for your body to let go of your child.
My womb nor my heart wanted to let you go.
No one ever tells you that sometimes birth stories include times where babies are born lifeless, while mommies sit alone on the toilet and cry.
Your birth was the birth I never planned.
There was no epidural, no congratulations afterward for a job well done, it was just a cold lonely bathroom where my world came crashing down.
Some people wept with us after you were gone, while other people avoided me (and still do) because the reality of a life cut too short, is just too sad.
There are still times that it hurts me that people react the way they do about you, but I have to remind myself that I don’t need their permission to feel the way I do.
I love you, and your death broke my heart.
There's nothing that will ever fix that part of me that is broken. I've just learned to live with the pain.
If only they knew how hard it is to deliver a child that has died in your womb, maybe they would draw closer to us, rather than further away.
I’ve retold your birth story,
only a few times before, usually while trying to comfort another family that
has lost a child too, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it all
the time. I’ve relived it in my heart a thousand times by now.
I still wish I would have
held you. It was the only chance I had.
There are very
few people that can handle hearing about the way you were born, and how my
heart broke when I delivered your body that sunny evening in July. I want to share your story because I can't help but think that if I had only heard someone else's story before you were born, I wouldn't have felt so blindsided by this birth I never planned.
Maybe I wouldn’t have felt so lost, and alone, if someone told me what it was like, to carry a child in my heart instead of my arms. If I just would have known ahead of time, that I would have to make such difficult decisions about what to do with your lifeless body...maybe it wouldn't have been so hard for me that night.
March 11th was your due date and I was so excited to have a spring baby. Your big sisters have birthdays in the summer so the idea of a spring baby was completely new and exciting to me.
You never should have been born in July.
Never.
That was never part of my plan.
Your death and birth is where my faith in God became the most real. I had to trust Gods plan for your life and my own. This is where I had to trust that the Lord had numbered your days long before He ever created me. His ways are higher than my own, they truly are.
Twenty-seven of them Ruby, He gave me 27 days with you, and as much as I try to understand His plan, 27 days just wasn’t enough time for me.
I never got to hold you, or hear you cry.
I never got to see your face, or count your toes.
I saw your heart beating on an ultrasound screen a few times and that brought me indescribable joy. I saw where your arms and legs were starting to take form on the little picture they gave me, and then I saw your lifeless body on that same screen in that dark room, the day they asked me how I would like you to be born.
Your birth is the birth I
never planned.
Of course lifeless babies have to be born, but I had never thought about that until I became your mom.
No one tells you that you have to decide how your birth will go.
Why doesn't anyone ever tell you about things like these?
Why?
Moms should know.
Moms should be prepared.
Moms shouldn’t have to say goodbye to babies they never met.
No one tells you that the doctors office will usher you off to a small room in the corner of the building so you don't have to see the largely pregnant women in the lobby, or hear the sound of their babies hearts beating while you struggle to grasp your own birth plan.
The blood I saw for days and days, already told me that it was too late to save you...it's never good news to see that much blood, but I just couldn't wrap my mind around sitting in that cold little room planning the birth of a child I will never get to hold.
None of this is fair!
The doctor was telling me statistics, giving me options, and telling me she too lost a baby (like it was no big deal) but statistics don’t help one bit, unless you find yourself as the person who beat the odds.
Being 1 in 4 isn’t comforting, unless you are part of the 3 that got to have a live baby.
Being the 1 in the 4 is so awful, I don’t know how anyone could offer that as a comfort.
Sitting in that room listening to the doctor weigh my options, felt as though life was standing still. She was talking and I was supposed to be listening and responding to her, but it felt impossible.
My world stopped turning when they told me you had died so how can I think of anything but you in a time like that?
Why doesn't anyone ever tell you these things?
Why do they wait until your world is crashing down, to ask you how you'd like your lifeless baby to be born?
When I was preparing to give birth to the big girls, the doctors office gave me a new diaper bag full of samples, registries, and referrals for pediatricians.
When I was preparing to give birth to you I got a prescription to induce labor at home.
With the big girls, my birth plan included an epidural and your daddy, but with you my birth plan included privacy, tears and ibuprofen.
That's just not the way a birth should be.
No one told me what to expect, not even the doctor! "It's different for every person..." they said.
Google was my birthing coach when it was time for me to deliver you, and filling that prescription to induce my labor was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I didn't want to look the pharmacist in the eye when she handed me the little paper bag with two pills inside. I didn't want her to judge me, because I failed to keep you alive. I also know they give that medicine to the women that don't want their babies...I wanted you...more than I can ever put into words. Would she think I was there, because I didn't want you?
I was screaming inside as I stood at the counter to pay for those meds.
I wanted you so much Ruby, and I still do.
I had prayed for your life for years before you started growing inside of me, and I dreamed of you long before your life ever began. I always thought I was done having babies after we had Ava, but it wasn't until I started trying to get rid of the baby stuff that I knew how badly I wanted you. I couldn't get rid of the baby things, because my heart had always planned for you...just not like this.
I wondered what you’d look like, and who you’d grow up to be.
Would you have freckles like daddy, and full lips like me?
Would your hair be dark or light, or would it be bright red just like your name, Ruby?
Would you like to be swaddled or would you spread out like a star fish when you sleep?
I wondered so much about you before you came into my life, and now I'll never know anything about you on this side of heaven.
All I have left of you is that little picture tucked inside of my bible of when you were still alive, and the pregnancy test I saved and still look at, when I struggle to accept this is real.
I really was pregnant.
You really did die...and nothing could ever prepare me for what life would be like without you.
I still stare at that shadow box with the booties and pregnancy test inside, multiple times a day...because my mind likes to try and pretend that this is just a bad dream.
It's the nightmare without an end. So I look at the test again and again, still two lines...you still were real.
I imagined you would be born at the same hospital I was, and that daddy would cut your umbilical cord. I dreamed of holding you for as long as I possibly could, before the nurses put a hat on you, and I learned how much you'd weigh. I imagined daddy would follow you over to the bassinet as they measured you and made prints of your precious little feet...I never dreamed that your lifeless body would be born into the toilet bowl instead.
What an awful place to birth a baby.
Babies belong in bassinets, or the arms of their mom and dad, not cold toilet bowls.
This was never a part of my plan.
Instead of pushing your body out of mine, in a room overcome with joy because of your arrival, I delivered you alone in a bathroom full of sorrow.
I never got the chance to hold you or see you.
There was too much blood to tell which part of the mess was you.
I sat and stared into that bloody toilet bowl for what felt like an eternity, while struggling with what to do with your body. You are my sweet baby, the one I begged God for, for years, and now I'm faced with digging in the toilet so I can hold your body just once before letting you go, and flushing you down the toilet because your soul is already gone.
I knew you were in heaven with Jesus by the time I birthed your body, but the thought of flushing your own child down the toilet, is a hard one to grasp. Holding you for an eternity wouldn't be long enough, so with one flush I let your body go.
I sat on the bathroom floor and cried for a while, before letting your daddy know your body was gone.
Flushing you was the hardest thing I have ever done.
What kind of mom flushes her baby?
Your labor was the longest one I had ever experienced. I carried your lifeless body inside of mine for almost a week before you were born, and if that wasn't hard enough the nightmares lasted for months. It was hard to be awake because my reality means spending the rest of my life without you, but when I slept I dreamt of you (and awful things about your birth) and I’m not quite sure which was worse. It was hard to be awake without you, but it was also hard to dream of holding you, or delivering you, over and over again.
For the first time in my life, I understood why addicts numb the pain.
For the first time in my life the temptation came to me too. To dull the ache even for just a moment, was more and more appealing every second I spent without you, my love. I wanted a break from the misery, from my reality, but I had to let the Lord be the one to soothe my soul. I never gave in to that temptation, but I could finally understand the heart of an addict. I could understand why someone would want to numb the pain even if relief didn’t last.
Pain like this is unbearable at times, even though the Lord promised to bind up my wounds.
It's not supposed to be this
way.
Mommies aren't
supposed to flush their lifeless babies-and I did-and I'm so sorry I couldn't
keep you.I wanted nothing more than to love you and raise you, every day for the rest of my life.
I'm so so sorry I couldn't save you.
I'm sorry that the only thing I have to offer as your mom, is saying your name again and again even when it makes people uncomfortable.
I would much rather feed you, and dress you, and learn the ways that make you laugh. I would have loved to tell you about Jesus, and maybe meet your grandchildren.
Instead, all I have left is your name.
The only sliver of comfort I have, is knowing that sharing the story of your short little life, might comfort another woman facing a birth she never planned. Maybe knowing that I can understand her sorrow will help her feel less alone than I did when it happened to me, so I will keep saying your name, and start to be better about telling your story, because that’s all I have left of you.
That's all I have left of you, your name, and your story. All 27 days worth.
Love,
Mom
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