The day you find out your baby is no longer living is the day everything you thought you knew about life changes. Some describe it as having all your sense of security and safety crash down around you as you stand in shock in the rubble. Everything that I understood about myself, my spouse and THE RULES were shattered.
There is a tremendous gift that one going thru loss receives at this early point. They go into shock. Disbelief, everything feels so unreal. I remember that I was calm and collected externally and inside, I just could not believe that my baby had truly died within me. I kept trying to feel movement, maybe maybe just maybe it was all a nightmare and I would wake again.
Thousands of thoughts went thru my mind. Yet at the same time, my mind was clear as glass. I felt calm, terrified, safe, unsafe, shocked yet in some way, I always knew.
Driving to the hospital to give birth to my still baby was surreal. My husband and mother were with me. They were very sad and worried. I even made a joke in the taxi and I entered into this space of peace. I became very task oriented. I focused all my efforts on getting thru the next few hours. I needed to get to the hospital, go into active labor, give birth, then after all that would I truly feel the gravity and intensity of the loss of my little baby.
There was a rush of what to do when I arrived at the hospital, confirming the baby was truly dead, getting a room and the questions, the endless questions. Trying to figure out what happened. As the hospital staff came to ask me questions I began to feel defensive. They would ask about this test and that test and over and over again the same questions. I started to doubt myself; did I miss a test that could have prevented this? Was I negligent? For the safety of surviving the next few hours of labor, I could not examine this question, yet the seeds were sown of doubt. The doubt, the what if’s I feel are the hardest part of grieving.
The hospital staff left, the labor was started, all that was left was to wait till I gave birth. The night alone in the hospital room was the hardest. My husband slept on the floor next to me. I was alone in my bed, the blood pressure cuff and IV were my constant companions. The clock became my guide. I can not tell you for the life of me what time it was, yet I stared at that clock and the time was a comfort. Here I sat in a space of time suspended; everything in my life had come to a grinding halt. Everything in my world had stopped, yet here this clock was chugging away.
There was a changing moment in that cold dark night. I felt like I was dying. My soul was separating from the pain of my body, I felt tremendous peace and a great warm light. I saw my body on the bed below me and I was above everything in the room. My body looked like a jacket, me the true me was becoming absorbed in this light. I felt a question, I could go now, I could leave my body there on the bed and join this tremendous light and leave all this pain behind.
Such an emotion that I can’t even describe came over me. No, I can’t go! I need to have my future children. I haven’t had my babies yet! I have hardly lived at all! Then I was back, back with the blood pressure cuff, in the pain of labor, the IV and that still still baby inside.
Sunrise, one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen came. I became absorbed in the pain of labor, the crashing waves of contractions. Did I want pain relief? No, this was my pain, I was in pain in body mind and soul. I felt tremendous relief that my body felt how my heart did.
Then as the gates of heaven opened above me and my little girl came out. The relief! All pain ended. I sat up, there she was, still and stunning. She was so beautiful. She looked like me. There was a face to all those little knees and elbows inside. There was my daughter, perfect, small and oh so still.
I picked her up, there was no cry, she was floppy and heavier than she looked. She had all her fingers and toes.
The room was silent. To my side I heard my husband sobbing. Time stopped. I didn’t look at the clock but I am sure it stopped too.