It's Friday and usually that's cause for joy, so I am sorry to bring the mood down today with my topic, but this is something that has to be said, this can be extremely difficult to read and triggering so if you want to back out now, do so, I understand, I didn't want to write it, I don't expect you to read it.
Two and a half a years ago, in 2019, my partner was pregnant. We were at 20 weeks, and things were going great, the baby was a healthy weight and all the vitals looked fine, the doctors were unconcerned. Then the last week of March, when there was an abnormal amount of blood discharging. She went to the hospital and the doctor's investigated. Her cervix was too short and the baby was pushing against it to hard and it was opening up which would lead to stillbirth. At 20 weeks the fetus doesn't have lungs yet. They did a cerclage, basically a stitch on cervix to strengthen it and close up the hole so the pregnancy can continue on. The data said cerclage has a good chance of working, if done early enough.
They said that we had to be 22 weeks for them to have a chance of taking the baby into NICU and keeping him in an incubator, the longer we got the better chance of survival. The hope was to get to closer of 24 or 25 weeks. Partner was put on bed rest at the hospital for this entire time.
Twenty One and a half weeks, just a few days before it would have been "viable", March 31st 2019. The baby kept pushing the the bleeding intensified, the cerclage was failing. The doctors insisted it wasn't going to do anything and the best thing to do was to take the cerclage out and let the birth happen so they could save enough cervix for the next pregnancy.
Next pregnancy.
Oh because then they'd know to put a cerclage in much earlier and it would have a better chance of working. Because funny story apparently they have no way of seeing if a cervix is long enough until there's an actual baby pushing on it. All the check ups and appointments we had been doing for months they hadn't looked at it because there would be no way of telling. This isn't all that uncommon and yet our doctors have the same chance of knowing if this vital part of child birth is there as a crackpot snake oilman did 6,000 years ago.
But they had given up on this child and wanted to move on to looking for the next baby. They could do it right this time.
When I tell you that I prayed, barged, and yelled at God and Satan, understand I would have burnt down the world at that moment for some sort of "miracle" like you see on stupid tv dramas and movies, that genius doctor to come in and do something that is unbelievable and saves the day. This doesn't happen. I hadn't been religious in years, my family stopped doing the church things shortly after I turned twelve, but like most people in that moment of my entire world being pulled apart and there being nothing I could do I reverted back to what had been put in me at a young age.
Of course since I'm telling this story there was no miracle moment. April 1st (I know) 2019. It was about 5am. I was asleep on a rather uncomfortable couch in the hospital room. I was awoken and it happened. The ultimate April's Fools parody, the satire of birth, the mockery of life. I don't know how long it too, I don't think it was that long mostly what I remember is vaguely holding my partner's hand and each push felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest.
There were no lungs he couldn't breath, they didn't think it worth it to try and incubate him. So William was born, they said he was dead on birth. We got to hold him. I guess he was dead and maybe it's just my imagination but I swear I could feel something, like maybe a heart beat or the desperate gasp of breath that had no where to go.
Can you comprehend what it's like to hold your dead child, a child who never got to live, you never got to play with, to see grow up, to have a conversation with, to teach him all the things you'd want to teach a child? To stare at this little thing in your arms that is suppose to bring so much joy and wonder into your life, but all those potentials moments now lost, shattered down to this one moment, the only moment you'd ever have with them.
This isn't the worst part. It's what happens after. Because that is where you live now in your mind. You are stuck in your mind forever in that little hospital room holding something that was never to be, that is the moment you live in over and over.
Then everyone else gets involved. They all want to tell you how sorry they are, that it's so hard and then they ask one of two questions. Both are equally infuriating and useless.
"How are you doing?"—I don't know Jan I AM DYING A THOUSAND TIMES OVER IN MY MIND AND YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW I AM DOING?— But you can't say this, you can't yell at them so you say some stupid ass platitude like "Taking it one day at a time" but you aren't because you're trapped on that day. or "It's rough but getting better" (it's not getting better at all) "We'll make it through" (but we don't really want to).
The second question, with good intentions, sometimes formed as a statement,
"Can I do anything to help?"—Gee let me think, are you a necromancer who can bring him back to life? Can you turn back time ten weeks so I can force the doctors to put in a cerclage earlier even though they wouldn't believe me? No NO YOU CAN'T FUCKING HELP.—But you can't say any of that either. You say "Thanks for the casserole I'll let you know" "No it's okay, we'll get through." and just so you know "getting through" means mostly lying in bed or on the floor crying and occasionally eating a cookie or trying to get black out drunk like you're some sophomore at a college frat party.
It doesn't get better. You just remember how to put your mask back on and act like it's better, mostly for the comfort of everyone else around you. Because they don't want to be uncomfortable, they don't understand, and for them it was a sad moment and then life kept going.
Life keeps going for me too but it's more like I'm standing in one place and the world is traveling past me rather then me traveling with it. It all hurts, it always hurts, even when you think you're having a good day and distract yourself with, whatever, it's there in the back of your mind, holding that little wrapped up body that hasn't fully formed. It is simultaneously the most beautiful and horrifying face you've ever seen. It doesn't get better, you just learn to act like it gets better.
Then of course there's your partner who went through this with you. The only person who can understand, but your relationship has changed. Oh maybe you still love them and continue your relationship with them but you're both broken inside, you're both sad, you're both angry. You continue on but neither of you are really living, you're both stuck in that room forever, everything else is going through the motions.
Before all of this I though I understood pain and sorrow. I was that guy who would say stupid shit like "well just joke and laugh, if you can laugh about it it's not that bad". I made (can still if I muster enough of myself) snarky comments and nothing phased me. Because I thought I had seen enough stuff to make me understand things. But that was the thing, I had only seen stuff, nothing really bad had happened TO ME, just to other people who I was there to observe and be one of those "How can I help" people. Ugh.
Now the joke isn't funny anymore, it's not amusing. My son was born and died on April Fool's Day. Is that the joke? Is that funny? It's not to me. Now I am just sad, and angry. It doesn't get better, it just hurts. I don't want other people to hurt like this, nobody deserves to hurt like this, and so I do this, so that you know someone out there loves you, and wants you to have a good life full of joy. David Bowie said something to the effect of "Religion is for people who are afraid of Hell, Spirituality is for the people who have been to Hell." But what about those of us who are trapped living inside a Hell worse then they could have conceived? What do you do when ever moment is Hell?
Anyways the reason I'm writing all of this is because it's Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. This is a globally recognized day with "A Wave of Light" where you light a candle at 7pm your local time for empty cradles of lost children. So if you'd like to participate please do, either for your own family's loss or for William if you are so inclined.
If you'd like to donate you can go to the Star Legacy Foundation site (this is a US based org so for my international followers I'm sure there are organizations in your own countries, I just don't have the will to look them all up) and make a donation.
Also as my own thing any money I received through BMAC here from Friday to Sunday (American CST) I am going to donate to the Foundation so if you want to donate and don't wanna do it direct you can do it to me and I'll make the donation in a lump sum.
For the rest of this, the only thing else to say is realize that 1 in 4 woman experience this. So someone you know has lost a pregnancy or had a premature birth that didn't have a happy ending. We don't talk about it in our culture because it's not a topic we want to talk about. Life is incredibly hard, I know it doesn't seem that way since there are so many of us on Earth now and our morality rates have gone up significantly over the past century, but Life itself is hard and precious.
So I ask you just live, because so many do not get to live, and so many of us are trapped in a single moment screaming in our heads, angry, sad, and broken, live for us.
Stay hydrated, keep dreaming