Making Decisions You Never Imagined Making
It felt like there were so many decisions in pregnancy: circumcision or no, c-section or VBAC, what breast pump, what bottle, and nursery themes. So many decisions that feel huge and all without the possibility of them being ripped away. We drove to my doctor’s appointment discussing plans and the possibility that we could be holding him in our arms in the next few days. His clothes were washed, his swing and toys put together, books organized, and all we needed to start the next chapter in our life was him. Due to COVID, my husband couldn’t attend appointments, but he would often anxiously wait in the car. He never wanted me to drive alone because of our last loss, but I was fueled by false confidence that we were finally safe and went alone the past few times. We were right at the end, so by an act of God, I asked him to drive me to this appointment.
I excitedly waited in the waiting room to see how dilated I was, smiling at the other pregnant mothers through my face mask. My c-section was scheduled but I so badly wanted to deliver him VBAC. I went back into the room discussing doing a membrane sweep if my body was ready, making jokes that at least if it is c-section he will have an awesome birthday, “May the Fourth.” I laid back while she put gel on my stomach like so many times before. I waited for his heartbeat to pop right up like it had a dozen times by this point. It used to scare me when they checked because in my last pregnancy, they couldn’t find a heartbeat at twelve weeks. I had finally gotten to the point where the thought of something going wrong was so far out of my mind that when his heartbeat didn’t bound through the Doppler, I got excited thinking maybe he moved positions or dropped lower to get ready for labor. They checked with an old ultrasound machine but couldn’t get confirmation, so my heart started racing. Another practitioner came in and searched for what felt like hours but was only minutes while my midwife made an appointment next door with MFM. I don’t know how many minutes passed before the reality hit me. All at once I started crying and it felt like the entire office became eerily silent before I was snuck through the back into MFM to prepare for a thorough ultrasound. The office called my husband, who was completely unaware sitting in the car, and told him “She could really use your support right now.”
I laid in the ultrasound bed silently begging Calvin to move. To show me he was okay and to take this pain away. When they say stillbirth, I never considered the stillness. My stomach that was bouncing around the night before was suddenly eerily still. He had always kicked against the ultrasound probe, my little firecracker hated being bothered. When he popped onto the screen, his heart came into view and once again the stillness stabbed me through the chest. His body and even worse, his heart, were so still on the screen. He was once so full of life and now he was gone. Jack rushed in and I finally uttered the words “There’s no heartbeat.” He wanted to ask the technologist every question while she had to sit there apologizing trying to get through the measurements as quickly as possible. When she left to get the doctor, in came a manager. Apparently, after a loss they can’t leave you alone. I remember crying so hard I started puking, still silently begging him to prove them wrong and move inside me. She started giving me packets on grief and talking to older siblings and talking to me about going up to the birth center. That’s when it dawned on me that I had to give birth. The stillness inside me was so haunting that I just wanted him out. I told Jack I wanted to be put under and just have him cut out. The birth I so badly wanted was suddenly my worst nightmare.
“He had always kicked against the ultrasound probe, my little firecracker hated being bothered. When he popped onto the screen, his heart came into view and once again the stillness stabbed me through the chest. ”
In the birth center I was bombarded with so many decisions I never expected to make. In one conversation I was facing decisions on delivery and what to do with his body at the same time. In the same breath we were discussing his birth and death. My entire future we imagined, all the possibilities of his life folded in on itself and disappeared in an instant. They pushed for me to labor and give birth for my safety as well as the safety of any future pregnancies. Future pregnancies? How am I supposed to take into consideration more children when this beautiful child I wanted so bad has been taken from me before he even left my body? They ran through all the blood work they needed to take to run tests, they gave options on genetic testing and wanted to know if we wanted an autopsy. All these decisions need to be made with the full expectation that the majority of the time we don’t get answers. To make those decisions, we needed to decide what final arrangements we wanted because of how invasive autopsy is. We needed to decide on cremation or burial and if so if we wanted open casket. I haven’t even said hello and I need to plan my final goodbye. I was drowning in decisions with no one to answer for me. My parents were snuck into the hospital and a grief counselor came in to be a soundboard. Jack and I talked and faced so many fears together. They say bravery is being terrified and doing it anyway. If that’s the case, I summoned all my bravery and decided to deliver him. I wanted to share that with him, even knowing how it ends. We wanted to celebrate his birth and not run from it, no matter how badly I wanted to in the moment. I can truly say his birth was a celebration, but that is a story for another day.
The decisions were never ending. We needed to decide if we wanted to hold him and if Charleigh would visit him too, we needed to decide if we wanted pictures, what outfits or blankets we wanted to wrap him in, and what funeral home would take care of him when we no longer could. We needed to decide all the ways we wanted to remember him because this one moment was the only moment that we were gifted to spend with him. How do you fit a lifetime of love and memories into a few hours? The worst decision of all, was when to finally say goodbye to him. How can you make that decision when all you want, with every fiber of your being, is to keep him forever?
How as a parent, do you meet with a funeral director and decide how to honor him? How can you decide what to write in an obituary for a life that was never fully lived? What quote do you put on a memory card when you were robbed of making so many memories? How do you make any of these decisions when three days ago the thought of this was not even in the realm of possibilities?
Every day, I am faced with decisions. Every day, I make the decision to live my life in a way that honors him. I live my life being the mom to Charleigh that she deserves even when I want to hide away all day. I choose to use this to bring Jack and I closer than ever, instead of letting our marriage crumble among the anger and grief. I choose to live my life in a way that makes him, and his brothers look down on us from Heaven with pride. As if they are watching over us bragging to others, “That one is my mommy.” I chose not to let this grief break me even when it wants to.