Sitting up in that Labor & Delivery room was very surreal. It was eerily quiet in my room and I sat for a very long time just reflecting. Every once in a while a nurse or my doctor would stop in and check on me. During one visit I asked the doctor if she believed in miracles, because maybe when she went to deliver Ben he’d somehow still be alive. Stranger things have happened, right?
The compassion this doctor; this… beautiful human being; had for me was incredible. She replied that she’d honestly never witnessed such a miracle herself but she hoped if she was ever afforded the blessing it would be for my baby. Her words inexplicably comforted me a little and, even though I knew there was no chance, I pondered the minute possibility for a long while. I was sitting in a chair that faced the side of the room where baby would go after being born to get cleaned up and weighed. I don’t recall when this occurred but at some point I requested the partition be closed so I didn’t have to see my lost hopes and dreams permeating from that area of my somber room any longer.
As the hours ticked on I was prepped for induction and asked if I wanted an epidural. I only had to get to five centimeters but I figured why the hell not, I earned that comfort at the very least and I already felt numb inside anyway. As we moved through the process I was functioning on autopilot. No feeling or emotion coursing through me, just emptiness for the duration of my hospital stay. My family visited at some point, maybe as I was laboring. I remember that only my husband and I were in the room with the doctor when the actual delivery occurred. We wanted it that way.
When Ben finally made his appearance he was completely wrapped in his umbilical cord. We made the decision not to dig any further into the cause of his death because that was reason enough and no testing or speculation would bring him back, anyway. Plus, we’d been through enough and were still enduring the aftermath: the cute little tune played throughout the maternity ward when other babies were born, the paper leaf taped to the outside of our door so staff wouldn’t accidentally enter the room thinking there was something to celebrate, the deafening quiet at my bedside as the nurse took Ben to be readied for me to hold for the first and last time simultaneously.
One of the nurses prepared me for what Ben would look like because, even though he was a perfectly formed baby already, he was going to look almost alien-like and raw since his skin was still very thin and uncolored. She said that it could be unnerving but I knew that no matter what he looked like I was ready to meet my angel and keep on loving him. He was presented to me in a knitted blanket with a tiny hat on his head. And he did indeed look kind of like a raw piece of flesh with limbs and a face. He’d begun the decomposition process before I delivered him so he almost had a melted look to him. His fingers were perfect and I held them with my own. I stared at his face, looked into his eyes. I talked to him very softly for a while and rocked him until I felt ready to let him go forever. Nobody rushed me or pressed me to give him over, but if I’d held him any more than I did I may never have released his body from my embrace. Thankfully I somehow knew when it was time to say goodbye.
I spent three days in that hospital room. They graciously let me take an extra day because, like me, they knew what leaving meant. It meant getting myself dressed and out the door without also getting my baby dressed. Without packing up diapers, complimentary items, and necessities. And without putting him in a car seat to cautiously chauffeur him home. It meant taking a soul sucking, hellish, deafening, dreadful walk down the hospital corridors with only a thoughtful memory box that was given to me by the staff as a heartfelt gesture. This was absolutely a walk of shame in its own right and it was incredibly painful. I felt it throughout my whole body weighing me down. I had to force myself to keep walking and not run back to that lonely hospital room and just die there myself. I don’t really know what kept me moving forward but I imagine I thought about Sam and how he still needed me. Possibly also how going back wouldn’t actually bring Ben back. Or maybe I just thought of nothing; let my head be as empty as my heart was at that moment in time.
I don’t remember the days following, and I had help arranging most of the pertinent tasks like the pastor that had come to give Ben a Rite of Commendation, which is done when a baby passes away before she/he can be baptized. We’d also decided to cremate him because I couldn’t imagine leaving him in some cemetery all alone. He needed to be with me, to stay in some physical way a part of me. The funeral home was extremely kind and charged us very minimally for everything. I never thought I’d be in one of those facilities for my child. And after Ben’s ashes were given to us that was kind of it, life just had to move forward. Time had stopped for what seemed to me like an eternity but in reality it was only a couple of weeks. At first I just existed. One day ran into another. I stopped working and remained hollow for several months. Then, when I felt the pressure to, I masked my pain because the world expects grief to have an expiration date. But, eventually I did begin to find tiny sporadic pieces of actual happiness again. Sam would make me laugh, or friends would spend time with me. And I just… started living again. I haven’t been the same since Ben died and I’ll never be who I was before that, but I am in a very different place. One where I feel deeper and understand better. And most especially, a place where I can share my story with the world and be a resource for other loss parents who are just starting on this grief journey.
The Reinvented Mom 