I think of this today because one of my dearest friend’s just became a grandmother last night around 3:00am. Her first grandchild, her son’s first child and on New Year’s morning no less. What a way to start the year! We spoke briefly on the phone yesterday as my friend and her husband were on their way to Greensboro where the breach baby was being turned by professional and skilled midwives, but there was bleeding and they had to hospitalize the mother and induce her to get things moving. She was term, so it was a good decision. The entire family (who lives in Asheville) all hopped in their cars and drove to be with the parents to be. Three siblings together and parents all holding the world around that birthing mom and the new little one who was ready to arrive. I was thrilled for their family, yet simultaneously my own heart was slipping down into some deep well of grief. I’ve touched the outside of that grief before, but it’s dark murky waters scare me off and I think if I go into that dark place, the grief will swallow me whole. I don’t have time for that.
Except last night, I decided to make some space for that deep cavern, to just hang out there with it all and not be so afraid of the dark and deep quiet of sadness that was stirring inside me. I find that the birth of children can bring immense healing and the emerging of those new little souls change the world inexplicably and immediately. They even change the ones who aren’t present, but far away and saying prayers for a happy and healthy birth for the mother and father and for the new one. Miraculous stuff, this business of having children.
So, here I am in a place of deep conflict. Feeling guilty and immensely selfish that while my dearest of friends was becoming a grandmother, I was feeling angry, grief-stricken and close to throwing up. It happens, you know. Your untapped grief gets triggered by life. You run into or run away from it. I wanted to run away from it, but I didn’t this time. Not all the way at least. I thought, okay, i’ll dip my toes in it for a minute and see if I really will die if I feel it. Guess what, I didn’t die. I did feel like absolute profound shit for awhile, and even writing this, I feel like my own heart is going to explode, but I’m going to keep writing it. Keep being with it and see where it goes, because emptying the well of grief will take a lifetime, but little by little, i think it gets less heavy, less watery and dark, less scary.
My first child was a girl. Her father was a smart, incredibly intelligent, handsome, athletic fellow, but he had no interest in being a father. He bailed the moment he found out and never looked back. I spent an entire pregnancy trying to figure out how in the world I was going to parent a child on my own. Me? For fuck’s sake, that poor kid! This kid would be stuck with just me.
I had the good fortune to have a birth partner who was absolutely divine. She became a quiet grounding force for me as I got closer to birthing. I was two weeks late. So typical of my little girl. It’s her timing or no timing. (She’s still like this, by the way!) I checked into the hospital late one Monday afternoon prepared to be induced and hunkered down for the long haul.
My OBGYN was an absolute nightmare and didn’t believe in medicated births. I spent a good portion of my birth dealing with her passive aggressive compliance with my requests and endured long long hours of no sleep, (wherein my birth partner and i watched Shark Week!) and felt as if I would die. (When you see those women in movies who are screaming that they’ve changed their minds and they quit, well, that's a real thing!) The whole process of birthing is like being in a 3 foot wide tunnel where it’s pretty much just you and the waves of contractions, and your guardian angels barely squeeze in there. If you’re lucky enough to have a loving and brave partner, they can fit their face in and assert themselves in that long tube of time and squished space, but even then, I wonder how much those partners make it in the door of a woman’s consciousness. What I remember is that I have never felt so alone in my life. So incredibly alone, with the awareness of this little human believing in me and asking me not to lose faith in myself. The amazing women who were nurses and doctors who were trying to help me were blurred and grainy and muffled. It was me, that baby girl and the bright light of God. Birthing is women’s work, but in those moments, I could see that a man’s energy could’ve changed the whole dynamic for me. Still, I birthed that beautiful child, and when I had her in my arms, I forgot about all that. Forgot about the immense aloneness of birthing, because in the end, maybe it was just about me and my daughter. That was ours and no one else’s. (excepting my sweet birth partner who is still so dear to me and my daughter).
My son’s birth was significantly more insane. I went into labor at 6am in the morning, and my birthing partner for this one was my earlier mentioned new grandmother friend! My husband at the time was to stay home and care of my daughter, because he didn’t actually want to be with me in the process. So, i prepared for another long, solitary birthing gig. I was already in labor when I arrived at the hospital, so there was no inducing needed. I had requested an epidural because after a long and traumatic pregnancy (which is another story for another day), I was exhausted. About 20 minutes after getting the epidural, my friend looks at me and says. “Your eyes are swelling!” I realized that i was actually itching all over my body so badly that it was unbearable. Turns out I was suddenly allergic to the caine family of drugs. Lydocaine, novocaine, benzocaine, etc. And I’d had a good dose of it. I was shot up with Benadryl and proceed to fall out completely. I kept waking to 6 faces speaking fast and hovering and sounding alarms but I couldn’t pull into the world enough to see or ask what was happening. Then I’d go under again. When I finally woke up, there was my friend looking pale but collected. I asked what had happened. She informed me they lost the baby’s heartbeat twice. Not lost as in couldn’t find with the monitors, but the baby’s heart was stopping. I don’t think I will ever be able to explain the panic, and the difficulty of the subsequent attempts at not losing my mind when there was still concern whether he’d actually make it into the world alive.
My little boy had ideas of his own, living being the main one, and that evening, he was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck three times. The miraculous thing is that he was born in his bag of waters. A mermaid’s purse baby! It saved his life. Because some doctor along the way had the good sense not to break my water bag, and it stayed in tact the entire process of birthing, he entered the world in his own little water cocoon, slightly purple, but completely healthy and thriving. The bag of waters was broken and the cord whisked from his next with haste and then the little baby boy’s wailing began. Hey look! I’m here, he seemed to say. Had my bag of waters broken at any point, little man would’ve strangled from the friction of the cord on his neck.
This birth was not an easy one. I also knew as I held that little baby boy that night and he stared me down and totally freaked me out because he was looking right through me, and I was in that hospital room totally alone with just that baby boy, I knew that this little one wouldn’t have a dad either. So, he and I had a little chat together, and I saw that when he looked at me, he was along for the ride, no matter what and he was happy to be here, with me and with his big sister. This time, I didn’t forget about being alone during that massive journey of birthing. It settled deep into my heart and stayed there. I’m not sure why it did on this one. Maybe because I had one glimpse at what it might be like to have a different kind of life for the kids with another person. When it wasn’t there, and when it was disappearing, somehow it shook up the grief, because it was big tease to what life could’ve been like. Then, it wasn’t like that at all.
So, here I am today with a nine year old and an almost 3 year old. Long past the days of their birth, and still the grief of that aloneness still erupts with unexpected force. Triggered by a simultaneously existing joy of new life and the changes that the new little humans brings to the world. You don’t get to go back and redo it, or try to recreate it to heal it, and doesn’t mend the loss.
What I’m left with is this.
1.) Grieve the loss. Really grieve it. Go into the darkness and feel it, swim in it, be held by it and be brave enough to let it flow out of your body and be replaced by something even better. Then Recognize the brilliance of a different story, ask for grace to embody it and really “get” that things happen exactly as they should, to show us exactly who we are and what we’re capable of, for better or worse.
2.) Some of that sadness doesn’t ever really go away because being alone isn’t just about loss of partners and loss of ideas of how you want life to look, how you hoped life would look for your kids (because at the end of the day, that’s the most difficult piece…what you want so much for your kids!) and see that perhaps we don’t know best about how life needs to be for them or for us. Maybe there’s a different way to do it and maybe it won’t destroy them or you because it’s a different story. Maybe they have more than enough of what they need today, and tomorrow or the next day, when they need more, it’ll arrive for them. And for you.
3.) These kids coming into the world are amazing. Absolutely, remarkably amazing. They’re going to change things, or they’ll die trying and they’ll figure out a way to do it better than we did…better than their grandparents did, just by being here. My kids have this deep well of awareness, kindness, love and brilliance that blows my mind every day. I think most days that there’s no way I could’ve deserved them…and no way I’ll ever be able to but, here I am. And here they are. With me. The new “Us."
So you see. I wasn’t actually alone when I birthed those humans. They were right there with me the whole time, and when I think about that, the memory of loneliness ebbs and what I see as one of my greatest gifts is the capacity to find the gift and blessing and wonder in a few place of heartache and loss, and perhaps my idea about how things should’ve been or should be just weren’t meant this time around or not meant to be for now. I don’t feel my life is any less in this moment because of what isn't.
Welcome to world, new baby girl out there! I’m glad your whole clan surrounded you and prayed for you and you arrived in a world full of loving hearts and arms and faces that will watch over you your whole life. I hope that they will remind you on every birthday what a gift it was to them that you were born and they had the privilege to be there when you entered the world. Thank you for giving me this too. Something somewhere inside of me found some new joy today because of you and your wonderful family, and your new little life light brought a lamp of grace to dark well of loss that seems to empty by the minute.
This is absolutely wonderful. I have re-read parts several times. This pool has a very deep end. Congratulations on being able to keep processing like this!
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