To my sweet baby,
It was only a week that I knew about your life inside of me. The week seemed like years, though, and I still feel like your memory echoes through me, I have to remind myself that you aren’t there anymore.
At first the doctors thought you were just too small to see, and then they thought that I was losing you. Later they realized that I wasn’t losing you, and they thought again, maybe you were too small to see! Maybe we just needed to wait. My heart soared with hope. On Friday we saw you for the first time, on the sonogram. I saw you. You were perfect, I heard your heart beat. I knew without needing to be told that you were in the wrong place, knew from the way the technician cocked her head, caught her lip between her teeth. From the way she wouldn’t quite look at me. We looked at you together, not speaking, as she got all the pictures she needed, to be sure. You were so tiny, just beginning to form. And yet that heartbeat.
Things moved quickly after that, it was my Good Friday. I felt alone, I sat while doctors poked at me and took blood and I waited. They wheeled me away, into the operating room, and then I fell apart. I shivered and tears poured out of my eyes as I lay on my back under the lights. One of the doctors took my hand and I took some breaths and thought of sending you into pure beauty.
Since I woke up I have had peace. The first person I saw was your father, and I told him about where you had gone. My heart is glad, knowing that you are still alive, that you are in the Everlasting Arms. It was so hard to know that you were there and you were perfect, but that you couldn’t live. But life is all around and you are alive and we are alive and the big thing, the big loss, which is the potential in you, the potential of who you would become, is not really lost. You are all that you are meant to be now, I believe, I think you are more beautiful that I would ever have been able to see here. I can’t wait to meet you, to recognize you, to become all that I was meant to be when I shed this old self.
I know, without our loss being any less valid, that there would have been harder ways to lose you. I know many people who have lost children farther along, and in unfathomable ways, and my heart hurts for them. I pray for strength for all mothers and fathers who have empty arms. The doctors were afraid that I would be sad, being in the labor and delivery wing of the hospital, but they didn’t realize that life was what I needed. I needed to remember that you are alive, and to remember that I have three very alive children who were born in the same way as all those crying babies in there. I have been blessed.
I joked with the nurses, afterwards, about how I avoided cesarean birth three times but still ended up with a cesarean wound. This scar is all yours, little one, I remember you with this burning pain in my gut, I will always remember that you were here, you have not passed without making a mark. I will always think of you, my fourth child, when I think of heaven. Heaven means meeting you.
All my love,
Mama.
Chinua and I are so absolutely thankful and awed by all the love and support we have received through your letters and comments. Thank you for being such a great community to us. We will move through this into the Spring, and we are thankful for our friends being with us.
15 comments
Thanks for sharing these beautiful thoughts with us. They brought tears to my eyes once again, for you, for me, for all of us who have babies in heaven. It really does make heaven more real, having two there who are part of me. You are in my prayers….
You are so sweet and we are praying for you and your family. I am sorry you had to go through this but you have handled it beautifully.
Oh Rae,
I’m so glad that you are at home with your three other children. I’m greatful that you are blessed with the understanding that your beautiful baby is in heaven. I’m sorry that you were not able to spend more time with that child here.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
Love
Danielle
What courage, and faith!
I wish you a peaceful recovery, filled with love and devotion. I feel speechless, fighting back tears, I love you and the mother you have become, so tender, loving, honest, and devotional.
Last year a friend shared with me that she lost her second -unkown- twin during delivery.(they opted for no ultrasound and had no idea she was carrying two) during an emergency ce section he drowned,
Loosing a child is one of lifes deepest pains, and it is through these trying moments, that we can find God, and turn to him for guidence and love.
Strong faith and courage like you have reminds me that God with us allways, in so many ways. I honour your path, and feel strenghtened by your shared experience I hope you are feeling warmed by all the love pouring out over the net, and through prayer…
Namaste sister,
Menaka
I’m sorry….hugs…
Mary
rae,
everything i want to say seems so trite, but i couldn’t read this and not post. i’m so moved by your strength and your courage, also your raw sorrow. you have people all over the world thinking of you and praying for you and your family. draw strength from that as you move on when you’re ready.
{{hugs}}
katy
You are both such wonderful, strong people, and you touch the lives of all that read this blog.
((Rae and Chinua))
Eva
Been thinking of you Rae.
That was a beautiful tribute. I’ve been thinking of you.
I’m glad that you woke with peace. I’ve been praying for you and I’ll keep doing so. Hugs.
Rae and Chin,
I am so sorry for your loss. I feel deeply for you. YOou both have such strength and wisdom to look to God to carry you through. I love you both and i will be praying for you
I feel there is a very definite reason tonight that, after clicking on Crazy Hip Blog Mama’s “Random Site”, I was guided to your site.
I am so sorry for your loss and – ultimately – you family’s loss. A sentence you wrote in your April 3 post – It’s amazing how much sorrow I feel for a baby that I wasn’t planning on having. – struck such a chord with me. In mid-February of 2006, my husband and I went through almost exactly the same experience you are encountering now.
We have three wonderful boys, and felt our family was complete. Just after New Years, we discovered God had a different plan. At first a shock, later a delightful surprise, we had just started excitedly sharing our news and tentatively wondering if a little girl was in our future, when I miscarried.
The confusion I experienced really threw me, because, as you so eloquently wrote, it was amazing how much sorrow I felt for a baby I wasn’t even planning on having.
Find strength in one another and in your other children.
Best wishes and hugs.
I made you a collage card during this time and never sent it because I thought it was ugly and I was afraid to reveal it and yet it captured a little of what you wrote. It had in the center a beautiful picture of the natural world; bright greens, eternal blue and a then there was a gazing ball that revealed a house. This picture was placed a little eschew on the card and there was a lithe, beautiful fairie like dancer perched along the edge with her arms outstretched to heaven and above just departing the beautiful picture was a butterfly. Good bye, safe journery, we will see you on the other side.
I was looking through your blog archives today and found this post…I’m so sorry for your loss. I never knew about it. I have three babies in heaven that I will hold someday. (I have a post on my blog which tells the story.) The words you wrote about how you felt toward your baby echo the same thoughts I have had many, many times. Although the feelings of loss are great we are blessed that the hope and comfort God brings is so much greater.
I know that this is from a while ago, but the words you placed here for this unspeakable loss are not only well said, they speak beyond the pain to the all-encompassing loss that it truly is. We experienced this several years ago and the pain is still real. Thank you for sharing.
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