I spent a lot of time throughout my pregnancy reading others’ birth stories. I was astounded by the variety of the stories, and the strength of the women who told them so boldly brought me peace for the future. I longed for the day when I could write and share the story of my first birthing experience.
I didn’t know it would look like this. I didn’t even know it could look like this. After we found out that our son Oliver had died, I immediately cast aside so many of my plans: my plans for a low-intervention and natural birth experience, my plans to share his birth story, my plans for being a mother.
But I slowly realized, in large part thanks to our doula Jazmin, that even though our future would never look the way we imagined, I didn’t have to throw all of my desires away in despair. I am still a mother. I labored and birthed and bled for my son just like many others with live babies – why shouldn’t I share our story?
As the days passed, I felt the urge to share this story intensify. So many people are ignorant to the realities of stillbirth and pregnancy loss (as was I before it happened to me), and the truth of my trauma and experience around my own feels far too large not to disperse. It feels like one of the few ways I can make sure my son is remembered.
Sitting down to write everything out in a cohesive and linear way like I imagined has proved more difficult than I thought. I’ve decided to give myself some grace and to not worry about recounting the experience in a traditional way. It’s much easier for me to parse things out in little vignettes and visions. That’s the way things come back to me. Everything all at once is just too much too soon. I know that some day in the future I’ll be able to piece together all of the fragments, but for now, here are the parts that come back to me most fervently.
In the immediate aftermath after finding out Oliver had died, after our tears had slowed and our nervous systems had slightly calmed from the shock, I knew I needed to tell someone. Our pain was too enormous to stay inside that room. Outside of our doula, my best friend Ellie is the only one I had texted about us coming to get checked out for decreased movement. I hadn’t wanted to create undue worry.
I pull up my messages with her and start typing “I’ll call when I’m able, but…”
I stop and stare at the screen, dumbfounded. What do I say next? What string of words can convey what has happened – how suddenly and completely our lives have shifted since I texted her just an hour ago?
…but our son is gone.
That doesn’t feel right. Although the life has left him, he’s not gone; he is quite literally still within me.
…but our son died.
This feels too absolute. They didn’t say the words “he’s dead.” I can’t be the first one to verbalize those words. I just can’t. If I don’t say the words now, maybe they can still realize they’ve made a horrible mistake.
After several nauseating minutes of deliberation, I decide to tell her what the midwife told us.
“I’ll call when I’m able, but there’s no heartbeat. Waiting to see what’s next.”
When we get home from the hospital, we are exhausted in every sense of the word. We go to bed almost immediately, knowing that we need all the sleep we can get to prepare for the coming trauma of laboring and birthing a dead baby.
I walk into the bedroom and see the big pregnancy pillow that I’ve been nestled in nearly every night for the last 7.5 months and my first thought is Do I deserve to sleep in a pregnancy pillow anymore? I know the question is ridiculous. People use these body pillows all the time, pregnant or not. But I can’t help thinking it.
I have no idea if I’m pregnant or not right now. My body sure as hell sure thinks so. But the official definition of pregnant, according to the Oxford Language dictionary, is “having a child or young developing in the uterus.” What if you have a child in your uterus who’s no longer developing? What does that make you?
At home there are reminders of what should be everywhere. The unopened car seat by the door; his stocking hung between ours above the fireplace; the breastfeeding and diaper change cart in the living room; the glider in the hallway upstairs that the cats have usurped. Friends dropping off food notice the carseat and ask Dakota Do you want us to move that so she doesn’t have to see it?
I appreciate the gesture and offer, but the baby items strewn about don’t bother me the way it might others. Not yet at least. I know people worry about these “triggers,” but my entire body is a trigger right now. My body, which created and sustained Oliver’s life until it didn’t. I can’t escape my body, and I couldn’t forget about Oliver even if I wanted to, so there’s nothing to be “reminded” about. The joy and pain of his existence will be with me always, regardless of how I seem, or what our house looks like.
If anything, these physical remnants help ground me. They remind me that the last 9 months weren’t a dream, and that Oliver existed.
We arrive at the hospital around 9:30 am on Sunday morning, November 20, 2022; our second wedding anniverary. We don’t leave until Wednesday afternoon around 3 pm, about 16 hours after Oliver is born. During that time we are under the care of several different medical practitioners, from the nurses to the physicians and midwives.
I’ve since been reassured by Jazmin that the lack of communication about birth plans and details between shift changes is common in all hospital birth settings, and that most mothers find themselves repeating the same answers to the same questions.
But a question that most of these mothers don’t get asked is Have you considered if you would like an autopsy? Yes, we tell them each time we’re asked. We’ve thought about an autopsy being performed on our newborn son more than we ever imagined was possible. Please don’t ask again.
Before one of the nurses from the first shift leaves for the evening, she comes in and hands us a piece of paper. Authorization for Release of Body to Funeral Home. By this time I’ve had my second round of Cytotec to help soften my cervix and I’m experiencing some intense period-like cramps that don’t ease up with any regularity.
I don’t remember exactly what she says to us, but basically, we need to pick a funeral home to handle the burial or cremation of our son before we leave the hospital. The paper includes a list of homes in the area and their phone numbers. We are supposed to call around and figure out who we want to take responsibility for our son’s body once we’ve left the hospital.
I look up at her and can imagine the confusion was evident on my face. “What are we supposed to ask them?” I genuinely have no idea. I can’t even begin to comprehend what to say to them on the phone. Questions to ask a funeral home in case your baby dies was nowhere on any of my many birth preparation lists. To this day I’m still not sure what we were supposed to ask them.
We know we want Oliver cremated; neither of us has many ties to Virginia, and we hate the idea of burying him somewhere we might never return to once we leave. I send the list to my sister-in-law and ask if she and/or my brother could call around to a few of the homes near us and narrow them down.
My brother calls several homes and compiles a spreadsheet for us to help digest the information. Thankfully we’re able to go with the first home we call – my brother had good things to say about them, and it’s also one a nurse recommended. The director we speak to says he and his wife experienced a stillbirth 30 years ago and is extremely empathetic; he gives us his personal cell phone number in case we have questions on Thanksgiving. The home also doesn’t charge for the cremation of babies (how do any of them?). That’s all we need to hear to make our decision.
Tuesday morning, 11/22, marks 2 full days that we’ve been at the hospital. It’s been about 17 hours since they started the pitocin, but the contractions still aren’t coming with any force or regularity; they still feel like ultra period cramps to me. By 12 pm I’ve (begrudgingly) asked for and received the epidural.
The doctor on rotation that morning had abrasively asked me why I had denied one up until then, and I almost decided against one at all just to spite her. But truthfully, I was mentally exhausted from both the circumstances and the amount of energy I had to focus on natural pain management. The respite was welcomed.
6 hours after I receive the epidural, they break my bag of waters. I was reluctant to agree to this; I worried that if they broke the bag and labor still didn’t progress, Oliver’s deterioration would accelerate. But both the midwife and Jazmin reassured me that things tend to progress quickly after the waters have been broken, and that waiting for that to happen naturally was more of a danger to his condition.
They’re right. Within an hour I’m finally having noticeably strong contractions every few minutes. I call Jazmin and ask her to come back and then have the nurse wake Dakota. I’m lying on the bed on my right side clutching the railing as I breathe through the contractions when Jazmin shows up.
She reminds me that we need gravity for Oliver to arrive. If I’m not ready then I can keep lying down, but if we want to progress things then I’ll have to move to an upright position. It takes me a few minutes to muster the physical and emotional strength. I can never really be ready for what’s to come, but I need to move on to the next part.
At one point after I’m sitting upright, Jazmin asks me if I want to play some music. I had talked a lot about making music a part of my birth plan, and although my first thought is to decline, I think it might be a good idea. I had made 4 different birth playlists, all with very different vibes, trying to prepare for whatever mood I might be in during labor. Luckily one of them is a serene playlist comprised of some of my favorite orchestral and choral pieces.
Almost all of the times in my life where I’ve felt a deep sense of cosmic energy have been connected to music somehow, and I know that this moment will be added to the list. The songs, some of which I sang in choirs or played in orchestra in past years, help me control my breathing and allow me to redirect my focus.
Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitcare is one of these songs. The lyrics are from a Latin poem, but the lines are slow and drawn out, with some of the most exquisite harmonies.
Lux,
Calida gravisque pura velut aurum
Et canunt angeli molliter
modo natum.
I know we studied the translation of this piece when I sang it years prior, but at the time I didn’t remember what any of the words meant. I’ve only just now, while writing this, looked up the translation.
Light, warm and heavy as pure gold, and the angels sing softly to the newborn babe.
Oliver is born within the hour.
The second that I birth Oliver, I feel an immediate physical relief. At this point we’ve been in the hospital for almost 3 days, and for much of that time I was in pain. I don’t know how to reconcile this sudden physical relief spreading through me with the emotional agony intensifying every second from knowing my son is no longer physically tied to me. From knowing that although I’ve just laid eyes on him for the first time, I’ll soon have to say goodbye forever. All of these feelings move through me simultaneously in the midst of deafening silence as they carry Oliver’s limp body off to be cleaned, clothed and swaddled before he is returned to us.
I think I’m as prepared as I can be for when they bring him back to us. The nurse explained to us that his skin has started to deteriorate and peel in places, and that his bones have started to separate. I remember from my research the last few days that discoloration of the skin is common, and that hospitals often put some rouge on the lips of stillborn babies for reasons I still don’t quite understand. All I know for certain is that I’ve spent more time looking at photos of dead babies the last 5 days than anyone should in a lifetime with hope of softening the shock.
I’ve never been able to distinguish facial features well. Whenever people say “he looks just like you!” or point out similar elements in faces, I usually can’t agree or disagree. I can agree that certain people look similar, but I’m never able to explain why. It’s the same when they bring me my son. I can’t explain why he looks like me, but he does. Or maybe he doesn’t really, and my mind is playing tricks in grief, but I know that he feels like me.
After I’ve been holding him and we’ve cried over him for several minutes, blood starts to dribble out of his nose. The first thing I think is Oh, he gets that from me and my side of the family. Myself, my mom, and my brother have all been prone to nosebleeds our whole lives, and I know that this connection is a way for my brain to shield me from the trauma of what’s actually happening. I use his baby blanket to wipe the blood away, and all I can think is how this is one of the few acts of traditional mothering I will get to experience with Oliver.
Neither me nor Dakota says much while we sit with our son. We didn’t talk directly to him a whole lot when he was alive in my womb; it feels strange to change that now that he’s dead and outside of it. Besides, it’s difficult to talk while you’re crying. The only thing I remember saying in those few hours is his skin is so soft as I stroked his cold, purple cheek with my thumb.
At some point, I rest him between my legs in front of me and open up my phone to play the song Winter Bear by Coby Grant. The lyrics explain everything to him far more eloquently than either of us ever could; the hello and goodbye to our son that we couldn’t begin to verbalize at the time:
I knew you before I knew your name
I loved you before I saw your face
I longed for you for all of that time
And I held your heart in mine
I kissed you you a hundred million times
I tasted the tears that I cried
I held you my beautiful child
And I’ll keep your heart in mine
I love you to the moon and back my little winter bear
I know you know how much that is cause you’re already there
I never knew a love like this could ever possibly exist
I love you to the moon and back as long as I live
I see you in all of the stars, shine brightly right into our hearts
I look at the night sky above and wonder can you feel my love
I love you to the moon and back my little winter bear
I know you know how much that is cause you’re already there
I never knew a love like this could ever possibly exist
I love you to the moon and back as long as I live.
Later in the night, after Dakota has fallen asleep, I lie awake with panic. I know that hemorrhaging is one of the leading factors of maternal mortality in the US, and that you’re at increased risk the first several hours after giving birth. I keep having vivid visions of Dakota waking up and finding me dead. I don’t have any warning signs or symptoms, but I didn’t have any when Oliver died either.
The fear becomes so palpable that I press the button for my night nurse to come in. I know that the chance of postpartum hemorrhage is rare, affecting anywhere from 1-5% of birthers, but what does the word rare mean to me anymore? Statistics are no longer a comfort once you’ve become one. My body didn’t keep my son safe, and now I don’t trust it to do the same for me.
The nurse understands my concerns and massages my abdomen again. She reassures me that my uterus feels firm, as it should, that all of my vitals look good, and that she’ll be in to check on me every hour until the morning. I’m comforted enough by her words and care that I’m finally able to drift off to sleep.
We are in a rush to leave. It’s the day before Thanksgiving. We just want to go home and mourn our son in solitude. Physically I’m recovering well. I didn’t need stitches and was able to stand up and walk around a bit a few hours after Oliver was born. The team has agreed that we can go home that day.
The nurse who takes over that morning comes in every few hours. And every single time she comes in, she asks us if we want to see Oliver again. Sometimes she asks us 2-3 times in the same visit. We tell her no every time.
We’ve discussed it together already. Neither of us feels that seeing him again will help us process things. In the few hours we spent with him the night before, his body had already begun to deteriorate before our eyes. They have him in a cold cot to preserve his body as much as possible, but he had already been dead in my womb for 6 days before his birth the night before. We’ll never feel like we had enough time with him, and at the time we don’t have the emotional capacity to prolong our goodbyes any further.
I still feel an intense pang of guilt every time she asks. The thought of him alone in a room devastates me to no end, and still distresses me to this day. Babies aren’t supposed to be alone. But they’re also not supposed to be dead. We have to do what we can in the moment to protect what little sanity we have left. I can tell by the way she’s asking and the incessant repetition of the question that she thinks we should see him again. But she can’t possibly understand what we’re feeling. I still hold a lot of resentment against her.
Dakota takes most of our bags down to the car while I’m getting dressed. Soon it’s time for us to leave the room where we met and said goodbye to our first child. I pick up the box of mementos with the words Rachel’s Gift on the side. It contains some of the few physical reminders we have left of our son, as well as a handful of pamphlets about grief, pregnancy loss, and options for dealing with your milk supply.
I cannot express the rage I feel as I leave the hospital with a box in my arms when so many others get to walk out with their baby.
The last few days have been extremely difficult to endure, but I dread the next part even more: living the rest of our lives without Oliver.
This is so touching, heartbreaking and beautiful. Your love for your son shows through ever word. I am so sorry for your loss.
Thank you for sharing your story.
thanks for reading, love you
Thank you for sharing. Sending you, your husband, and Oliver so much love.
Thank you so much for reading. Means a lot to us.
Emily, thank you for giving us the gift of sharing your intimate story. I have been waiting for a quiet moment to really give you and your son the reverence you deserve, and your tender honesty touches my heart deeply. Oliver existed and he was loved. Although I know it is a very small thing, I want you to know that I will hold that truth with me. I am just an acquaintance on the internet, but I will always think of him, and of you – whenever I hear his name. Sending love your way.
Thank you so much for this, Shawna, and for reading our story. Grateful for you.
I read your story by way of grieving for Mahale and Kucheza. It is beautifully written and so incredibly touching. I suffered a miscarriage with my first child and went on to have a beautiful, incredible human being who is now a man of 27 yrs who will make me a Grandma soon, hopefully! I’m praying that you and your husband will one day share the joy of a family and I know you both will be such amazing parents. Hugs for you both…
I’m sorry you lost your first baby but so glad you got to bring your son home. I’m hoping we will be able to do the same eventually. Thank you for reading our story.
“They remind me that the last 9 months weren’t a dream, and that Oliver existed,” – yes. Yes. And never doubt that you are a mother.
Your experience is heart-wrenching; your writing honors it. It’s good for your well-being that you wrote this, and helps all the rest of us to better understand what you are feeling.
“I’ve decided to give myself some grace and to not worry about recounting the experience in a traditional way. It’s much easier for me to parse things out in little vignettes and visions. That’s the way things come back to me. Everything all at once is just too much too soon.” This is actually a perfect description of how the brain processes trauma, and it makes sense that you would approach it this way.
Big hugs for you and Dakota.
Thank you for sharing your story. So incredibly heartbreaking.
I am 36+6 days pregnant with my second baby. As I sit and write this comment one handed on my phone, my first born – my 3 year old boy, also named Oliver, is sitting on my lap watching Lego videos on his iPad. Moments ago I just had to deal with a melt down because he wanted an ice cream before his dinner and I said no. I had just finished reading your story before the melt down occurred. Even in that moment dealing with his crying and screaming, I could see how lucky I am. I will carry your story through the rest of my pregnancy and beyond, it will serve as a reminder to count my blessings and not take anything for granted. I will listen to my body if I think something is wrong too, thanks to your story. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this. It was raw and beautiful and heart breaking. I don’t know what else to say, but thank you for sharing him with us.
I am so very sorry for your loss. I cannot begin to imagine how hard this was for both of you but from one mother to another I know how much you loved Oliver from the very first instance. It is heart breaking that you didn’t get to bring him home. Thank you for sharing his story, sending you both much love.
Thanks so much for sharing! I can only imagine the pain as I’ve never been through that but I do struggle with
Pain and agony that I may never get to birth a child which I felt was gods passion for my life from the time I was a child! I’ll be keeping you and Dakota close to my heart! And I hope and pray you eventually find peace in knowing that Oliver will always be a part of you! ❤️