There's no way to ease you into the topic of this post. I am going to talk about the death of a baby- my daughter. On November 19th, 2011 I gave birth to my first child.
Her name was Adele.
I talked about her briefly in this post, where I discussed how medical neglect of mothers is a huge problem in the US. In my heart, I believe that had my voice been heard, my sweet one would still be here with me. Unfortunately, birth is a business. I experienced some of the worst of people during this pregnancy, and left with a burning passion for birth advocacy.
I woke up on this day 11 years ago and knew I was in labor. I had just turned twenty, and I was alone. It's crazy how alone I really was, because I was in a hospital already. You see, Adele was sick.
Her and I did something crazy, there is a scientific journal written just about us. I grew her with almost no amniotic fluid. My womb was primarily dry, I found out when I was 13 weeks pregnant. "You will lose the baby within a few weeks." the doctor stated, like I had ordered a pizza and it would be there in 30 minutes. He was so cold, that I never forgot his name or face.
Well, I didn't miscarry. I had to go in for weekly ultrasounds, and I would watch the technician absolutely lose it each week. "Hello Ms.Fakename, are you excited to see this baby?!" They would inevitably start off. I would try to just be friendly; they didn't know that my heart was broken. Then I'd watch their face drop when they saw what they were scanning for- was there still a heartbeat inside my dry womb? Would they have to be the one to tell me there wasn't?
Weeks turned into months, and soon I was six months pregnant. That is when they hospitalized me, following my decision not to have a late term abortion. There's a lot of misunderstanding about that here- this isn't a procedure that anyone can give you legally at that gestational age UNLESS they think your life is in danger. Even before Roe was overturned, it just wasn't a common thing.
They didn't call it an abortion, they said they would induce me. It meant the same thing, and I really had to sit with my choice. Did I want to keep carrying the baby that every doctor talked about as if she were already dead? Could I handle continuing this horrific pregnancy, which caused me great physical pain, just to say goodbye at the end anyhow? I am grateful that the choice was mine to make, that I was not forced to experience everything that came next.
They said I was in great danger, and that Adele would never be born alive. It was impossible.
I was in a hospital when I died, I had been in there for a few months. I woke up and knew, I just knew in some way that I could not put words to. I tried to though, frantically.
I was ignored. There weren't steady contractions on the monitor, the amount of blood wasn't concerning. They brushed me off for several hours, while I hemorrhaged under their watch. I know closed mouths don't get fed, so I harassed them mercilessly. Eventually I was humored with a scan.
I was in the operating room almost immediately, where I left this world for about six minutes. The nurses weren't seeing a lot of blood before because it was all pooling inside me. I was told I needed to be hospitalized for my safety, and then they watched me die- ironic huh?
Maybe Adele was always going to die like they told me, maybe it was medical neglect. She wasn't supposed to be born living, but she was. She was supposed to have hypoplastic lungs- a condition that basically means they weren't developed, because of the lack of fluid. She shouldn't have cried.
For one day, the greatest warrior I have ever met fought for her life in the NICU. The ignored hemorrhage had caused a lot of damage, my heart still feels this is why she is not here, on her eleventh birthday. Her brain was bleeding from the trauma, causing seizers.
How do I type out what it was like to watch a baby who wasn't even two pounds get resuscitated over and over again? To be unable to hold her, while she spent her short life in a plastic NICU box? To try and make the correct decisions right after major surgery. How.... I can't.
I'm incapable of seeing my computer screen through the sobs that have shook my body most of the day, because although I cannot type what it was like, I will forever see it in vivid clarity. It is a strange gift I suppose, because it would be much worse not to remember it all. I want to remember each small moment I had with her, no matter how awful.
I didn't have a cell phone, or any way to capture her image. Some kind nurses banded together a long time ago and started a program to address this in the NICU. Grieving parents don't think to take a photo oftentimes I guess, I can understand why. In that moment there is nothing but your child. There is no future beyond right there and then. It doesn't feel like there ever could be.
All the images here were captured and crafted for me, so I didn't have to think about it. Writing down the exact minute she was born, excitedly watching as they set her on the scale after birth and recording it... These are things that normal parents do, in normal situations. I didn't think about any of them for a second, how could I? Thank goodness someone thought of it for me.
I logged 2,000 hours on oblivion. I stopped eating, I stopped sleeping. I wandered around aimlessly late at night sometimes, hoping someone would attack me. I told all my friends that I hated them, and they needed to leave me alone (thankfully they knew I didn't mean it). I went absolutely off the deep end, and then I tried to kill myself.
I was convinced there had been a mistake, I shouldn't have been brought back. I guess it's called survivors guilt, and it is a pretty human way to feel. I felt like every smile that escaped past my grief was a betrayal of my daughter. How could I grin when she never would? I hated myself for living.
One day I got angry, really terrifyingly angry. I was ready to fight a bear, I was fearless. This was the beginning of another dark period, but a brief one. I can look back now and say this is the time I began to heal- in whatever way we are capable of healing from such things.
I started to react to the rage I felt, and in the process, I accidently started living again. It was a slow process, but eventually an idea was sparked in me. If Adele could see me right now, would she feel honored by the way I was acting? Probably not. I needed to live twice as hard, for her.
And I did, or at least tried really hard to. I lived in a car and traveled the country, I lived in a tipi, I lived wherever I found myself. I LIVED. I began to love myself as if I was setting an example for her, imagining I was teaching her, while I learned myself. I was brave, for the first time in my life I looked for trouble, to FACE IT. I imagined that my little warrior could see me honoring her in this.
And one day, I settled down. I felt ready to carry life once more, and set my intention to the universe. I would have a child who was strong, healthy, happy. I WOULD. I said it in the mirror every day, until I began to believe me. It wasn't going to happen again, I reaffirmed this in my head, as my belly grew.
It was time, I woke up one morning with my waters broken- waters I had KEPT for nine months! Breathlessly I rushed to the hospital, and it was really all a blur from there. Right up until the moment I heard it, Alethea's first cry. Shaking the foundations of my universe. They placed my pink and screaming daughter on my chest, where she immediately set to looking for milk.
She's known what she wants and has gone after it from day one. She is four now and is a big sister. In her, I find everything I prayed for, and more.
Today I told her about Adele, I felt she was ready to know. We hugged each other for a long time, and then she very sternly asked me for some paper. "I want to write a letter for my sister." she said.
Thea doesn't know how to write much yet, but it doesn't matter. Her work may look like scribbles to the untrained eye, but my daughter wrote an amazingly moving piece today. She is my favorite author, and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't celebrate getting to keep her.
