25 September 2017
BABY YOU’VE BEEN ON MY MIND
six years ago i conceived you. you’d be five years old, six this June.
your younger sister, my eldest, asks about you a lot.
asks why we can’t have three girls.
three sisters in our family, three sisters, just like they do three doors down.
and with my best words, i tell her these things are out of my hands.
like wet noodles, slipping through my fingers, out of my reach, my grasp, my strength.
how this all is not my doing.
how baby, you’ve been on my mind.
how i would love another sister for her.
she asks about heaven a lot. maybe because she knows you’re there.
how will we get there, she asks. are there floors, and mama, God is the one with the long hair and Jesus’ is short.
and I wonder to myself, is your hair long or short? blond or brown? with curls like hers or more straight like mine.
and your eyes, are they blue or brown. your skin dark or pale.
cause baby, you’ve been on my mind.
another child would be my sixth pregnancy.
and would I carry that baby to term?
could i even go on for a seventh or eighth pregnancy.
my womb has housed so many.
you’ve come. you’ve gone. and left me.
but baby, you’ve been on my mind.
23 March 2016
My Dear,
You came just weeks after your sister, Lake, left us. She said goodbye on, of all days, Mother’s day. But then came you.
And deep inside you were growing, while on the outside, there I was, still grieving. Your new, precious life, beginning in me. Yet longing for Lake, I wept. But you began.
And you breathed. Blood coursing through you, through me, filling your lungs, your heart and mine. We grew.
I said goodbye as you, my dear, formed tiny fingers and toes to greet our world, hello.
And we waited. Autumn passed as winter came. Soon, my dear, soon.
Through moans and breaths, in and out, you were on your way. Hours passed, the moon said good-morrow to the warm, winter sun, and a gentle rain fell from above. Tears from the angels. A sweet cry was then heard.
Your legs and arms, your crown, my child. I felt every part of you leave my naked body.
And sweetly you cried as you found your way to mine. Reach, suckle, rest. Home, with me, at last. Ocean deep eyes and dark velvet hair. Skin so soft, so supple and tender, my dear, my tiny peach.
Mother and child, together again.
13 November 2015
Lake’s due date is today. She left us all too soon. Sitting the other week at a mom group I am a part of, surrounded by some other moms, conversation came to how our husbands reacted when they found out we were pregnant. And as they each shared their stories, all filled with joy and excitement and elation, I thought to myself, which time?
Let’s see, the first time, four years ago to the month, was truly exciting. We were like kids just off a roller coaster. With windblown hair, hearts still racing. Thrilled. Over the moon. In the clouds.
These feelings lasted about seven weeks longer. And then the pain, all of it, physical, emotional and mental, set in. And lingered. Still does to this day.
After losing Cordelia, our first baby girl, at ten weeks, finding out I was pregnant for my second, third, fourth and fifth times were never filled with that same wonder we briefly knew for those short weeks. In fact, tears mostly accompanied every subsequent pregnancy. “What’s going to happen this time?” we asked. “Will we meet this sweet child? Hold him in our arms? Kiss her soft cheek? Hear his cries in the night?”
Coming back to that couch, surrounded by my pregnant friends, listening to their funny stories, I chose to keep quiet. Wouldn’t want to be a downer.
How did my husband respond?
We held each other and cried. In fear. In wonder. In Thanksgiving. We hoped.
August 31 2015
Almost 16 weeks. It’s a very different experience when you share news with friends that you are pregnant (again) after you’ve had a miscarriage. A look of concern, or almost confusion, dresses the faces of family and friends I’ve shared with recently. Not one person has seemed to be genuinely excited for me. If they were, their response said otherwise. I don’t quite get it. You’d think others would get that this journey of getting pregnant and staying pregnant has been so trying and so full of joy and devastation.
I’ve lost three babies and hey guys, listen, I’m pregnant NOW. Things look good! They look great! I’m 16 weeks. Did you hear me? Can’t you rejoice with me? But then I remember, so few mourned with me. Oh, that’s right. So few. So I’ll continue counting my blessings, carrying this tiny, thriving miracle deep inside my belly, and I’ll just be happy for them as they skirt around me. “Do you see my belly? It’s definitely bulging! Can’t you see??” Rejoice.
30 July 2015
The morning after we returned from the beach I took a pregnancy test. Almost instantaneously, as I dripped my urine into the test well, two lines appeared. Brighter than on any test I’d ever taken before. Two beautiful, lavender lines, declaring to me and the world I was pregnant. Again, for my fifth time, I was with child!
The weeks passed. And this time we opted to wait just a while before telling our families. We hosted a July fourth party with both our parents and siblings but said nothing. I was in the throes of intense fatigue and had a tiny, bulging belly, but we kept quiet. Two weeks after the party, we vacationed with my in-laws, spending a week together. My fatigue was worse yet and my stomach even slightly larger, and still we said nothing. Finally, at 10 1/2 weeks we shared our exciting news. Responses were a smorgasbord.
It’s a unique place we find ourselves in, sharing five times about five unique pregnancies and not a single time receiving an ecstatic or truly happy-for-you response. Because three of those five times, we knew, even as we were sharing that I was pregnant, that we’d likely never get to hold any of those three little babies in our arms. And people just don’t know how to respond to news like that.
Being happy for someone and dressing one’s face with a smile comes easy. But saying something so simple as “I’m so sorry” seems like a foreign practice to most everyone. And extending arms to embrace a broken heart and body seems only to happen among the aisles of Hallmark, written prettily and neatly across the scores of sympathy cards, and not anywhere close to real life, where it’s desperately and achingly needed.
But today I have a growing, yawning, suckling, thriving baby, deep within my womb. I’ve even seen it wave to me at my first ultrasound and do a nice little celebratory jig for me at my second. Our baby is due in February, one of the last cold months before the newness, warmth and life that accompanies spring. Life.
15 May 2015
I was pregnant and now I’m not. Was with child and now my womb is empty. Crying over so much. Seeing new, little babies while I’m out in stores with Birdie. Quickly trying to look away while drying my tears. Avoiding pregnant friends, and yes, on some levels, isolating myself so I don’t completely lose it. I have to do this.
And they won’t understand. Yet if they each only knew how torturous it is to sit by their side, these women who carry babies that will be born when Lake should have been. How I just want to look away and not see their bulging, growing bellies. How all it does is shout in my face my completely empty one and how I won’t be celebrating her birthday this November and every November after.
And if they do find strength to talk, because so many just walk on past, they ramble about the weather and the new purse on their shoulder. Never mind the fact that I lost my baby. They’d rather discuss the wind and the rain and the sun that hasn’t shown in some time.
“How am I? Oh fine. I’m just fine. Just sitting on this couch, waiting for my rainbow.”
10 May 2015
Just as I put a batch of freshly patted, sugared and sliced, fig and ginger scones in the oven, a gush of blood leaves me. Warm, you ooze down my leg and onto the kitchen floor, and my daughter screams “Mommy!” from the other room.
I sop it up, I sop you up, with some napkins from the counter and spend the next sixteen minutes, the time it takes to bake a dozen scones, alone in the bathroom, washing myself of you.
And passing pieces of me, of us, between my fingers, these strong, blood stained beautiful and broken hands, you leave me. You slip away with no goodbye. And you’re gone.
It’s Mother’s Day.
4 May 2015
When a friend can only whisper, as if to hide, a two-second condolence, deeply in your ear, it makes you feel as if it’s a secret [when I’ve so publicly made it not] a sin, a shame. Something to brush in the corner and under a rug, to leave behind and never revisit. When in reality, this is my face, my heart, my aching body. I wear this child. I will carry her always with me. Day, night, in my gladdest days and most sad, she’ll still be cradled in my arms. My daughter, my beautiful Lake. So please, acknowledge us. Speak to us. Carry us. Mourn with us.
Lake.
I loved you so.
And like a pool of water, deep,
Overflowing, soon out of me,
Your blood, my blood, will pour.
Lake.
You were mine.
Stolen from my womb.
Your heart from my own.
Don’t say goodbye.
Lake.
We wanted you so.
A sister of your own.
Your father, mother’s love.
You were ours.
Lake.
We wanted you so.
Lake.
Never goodbye.
27 April 2015
My days are full of Birdie. Full of her cries and her laughter, her fits and her hugs, her impatience and her tenderness. Her needs that never end. Her sweet voice and her full spirit, her sense of adventure and wonder in the world around her. I’m so saddened this baby is leaving. Not to be her sister. Other women get pregnant and are home free. For me, the fight just begins. For a chance, a possibility. For life.
25 April 2015
Had a third ultrasound yesterday. Baby, my baby, still measured six weeks. No growth occured in the 10 days that lapsed. No heartbeat to hear. No projected date I’d be holding him or her in my arms. Instead, awkward and insensitive technicians and doctors informed me that my baby wasn’t growing and soon, in the coming days, would be leaving my body. But for now, today, baby is still with me. I’d like to think, still listening to my beating heart. My heart that beats for him. For her. That will keep beating till I hold the next baby, wet from my womb, screaming for air, rejoicing with the angels, tightly in my arms. These arms I’ve borne four babies with. These arms I’ve cradled only one, but will one day embrace three more. My three children I’ve yet to meet. Each with unique names. My womb, home to four babes. My family, my heart, still grows.
18 March 2015
Baby.
Please stay put. Grow and breathe.
Reach. Suckle.
Come.
Baby.
Your dada’s here. Open arms.
Great big beard. Songs for you.
Come.
Baby.
It’s mama now. I’m calling out.
Reaching out. Groaning now.
Come.
Baby.
Hear Birdie’s cries? She asks for you.
Please come.
24 April 2012
I knew when she said the doctor had to come in, that my baby was dead. I knew when she took pictures of my belly and the baby inside, and said nothing, that my baby was dead. I knew when I first felt that warm liquid slowly seeping from the lips of my vagina, just like last time, that my baby was dying. That faint pink coral rose. Our first, we named Cordelia. Our second, our son, we’ve yet to name. A boy and a girl. Siblings. They have each other, and all we have are empty arms and an empty belly.
The day after Thanksgiving. The day we cut down our Christmas tree, that’s the day I lost my baby. I took a picture that day of me and the baby’s father. Standing tall, yet scared, among the beautiful pines. We are holding one another, kissing, and if you look close, you can see the tiny baby, bulging, in my bloated belly.
So before I lost my second, I went to get my camera. I called again, to the baby’s father and had him sit with me. The three of us, before the baby was gone. I love these two photos, of the three of us, with our son and daughter. Such sadness, but such peace. You can’t keep a river calm. You can’t hold back the wind. You can’t keep the rains from coming.
SASH for Miscarriage 