I break

Yesterday my husband and I were having a good morning. We woke up tired and worn, but we had plans and sincere motivation to fulfill them.

We started off easy with visits to cute shops with a mission to find special things to put in our son's memorial garden. We moseyed into a store selling board games and knick-knacks, aptly named Times Remembered. We picked up different games and reminisced about the memories they stirred up with the kind of excitement board games seem to bring out in people. 

Since the store was having a liquidation sale, there were a lot of random items on display, and no shortage of dusty, kitschy Christmas things for sale. The Christmas items pulled a sudden, unexpected, and very taught trigger inside of me. I couldn't bring myself to look directly at many of the items, but I also couldn't help but to sneak peeks. I was afraid of what seeing the things would do to me, even though I knew exactly what would happen.  But I just couldn't turn away.

Each sweet ornament and decoration I saw pulled me into dizzying flashbacks and flash-forwards at the same time. Last Christmas my husband and I were expecting our baby any minute, and talking daily about how this would be our last Christmas before our whole entire world would be changed.  We were expecting the change to be the birth of our baby, not of his death.

I saw a Baby's First Christmas ornament that I should have been buying this year, but won't be.  Palpable images flashed in my mind of how I would never be able to hold any of these ornaments in front of my son for him to explore with his curious eyes and slobbery mouth.  Last year I purchased clay with the specific intent to make tree ornaments out of our baby’s hand and footprints. We would make them after bringing him home from the hospital, and we would reflect on them year after year while trimming the tree as a family. We used that very clay to have the nurses make his footprints the day after he died.  Other than his ashes, they are now the only tangible form of his body I will ever have.

A figurine on one of the shelves has some lyrics to Silent Night printed on it. As I recall the lyrics the song takes on a whole new meaning to me.  My eyes well up in anticipation of the sobs that will heave through my body when I hear the song next Christmas. Will that happen while I am driving and the song comes on the radio? Will it happen when I am in our quiet home alone watching the Christmas lights twinkling on the tree? But the most vivid image of it happening is when I am in public, struggling to get away from everyone else’s Christmas cheer with the same success as a child blinded by panic in a terrifying and inescapable house of mirrors.

I try to escape the reality of the Christmas section by masterminding with calculated frenzy how I might be able to disappear this year for the holiday. Is it possible to get a free exit from living, even just for that month?  The dated, dusty Christmas things are hidden all over the store, startling me at every turn and making my heart beat as rapidly as it sinks. It reinforces my previous hunches that I won't be able to bear December. Last year that month was when the anticipation of our baby was building to its highest. Come January, it was all suddenly ripped away with a devastation I am still trying to wrap my head around.

I stop and stare at a fake Christmas tree.  It is right in front of my face but seems so far away at the same time.

I feel myself cracking.

I turn the corner, and there it is: a row of Batman onesies, all discounted 50% off. I feel another flashback of being an excited expecting mom who can't even bear the cuteness, let alone the discount. Ripe with pregnancy, I would buy it, vibrating with excitement from the anticipation of taking cute pictures of my baby in the cutest outfit.  My baby isn’t even out yet.  I don’t even know if it is a boy or a girl!  But I know it would be soooooo cute in this outfit! I can’t wait until it’s out! I just can’t stand the wait anymore! All these outfits are so adorable it makes me squeal!

Flash forward to an emptiness inside that is heavier than my body itself.  I will never see my big baby's fat legs kick in a onsie sized for a 12 month old. I only got to see his legs twice. Once when I held him for the first time, and once more when I saw him for the last time ever. 

I walk by more baby clothes. My heart isn't strong enough to look, but it longs enough to steal surreptitious glances.  Ballerina outfits.  A cowboy suit.  Everything is little, cute, and begging joy.

I start to split.

I don’t know why, but I walk behind it all to a shelf with baby shoes. I see it’s already too much for my husband and he leaves the area. I should have gone with him.  But like a person in a sick trance who doesn't want to burn the image of a brutal wreck in her mind, but feels a deeper possession to move in close to see the truth, I run my hand over each pair of shoes. They stop at a pair of yellow fuzzy duckie slippers. The orange toes look just like a duckling's webbed feet. Duckies were one of my son's themes while pregnant, and one of the images we use now to remember him. Earlier this month we got a new flock of ducks to add to our farm, a symbol of honoring his life among ours. We picked out a special duckling within it to honor him specifically, but it died very soon after we brought it home.  We imagined that duck was indeed a very special one and our son wanted her so badly that he took her soul to become his first pet heaven. We buried her body with some of our son's ashes under our son's memorial pear tree.  We wanted their bodies to be together forever and to continue to give new life, just like their souls.

I pick up the duckie slippers and imagine my son's feet in them. I have the perfect image of what they would look like, even though I will never, ever be able to see my son's feet again.

I stand in the corner of a musty store going out of business, holding onto a pair of small duckie slippers, yet barely hanging on.

I break.

These ashes are my baby

The first time I ever see human ashes, they belong to my only born child.  The first time I see my son's ashes are only the third time I have ever seen him.  I saw him soon after he was born.  I saw him again the next day.  One week later, he is brought home in a small plastic baggie, closed with a zip tie. A small amount of the ashes are placed into a separate bag to be made into a bead keepsake that I will continue to wear every day. Probably for the rest of my life.  The smaller bag had his name written on it.  I have held that bag so many times the printing has rubbed off.

These ashes are my baby.

I stare at his ashes and wonder which parts are his bones, which parts are his flesh, and which parts are the heart I used to love to listen to.  I wonder which ashes make up his eyes, and what color his eyes were.  I never got to see them.

How did it come to this?  He was so strong and so alive until suddenly he was not anymore. What happened that he wasn’t able to continue to live even one more minute?

When I met him for the first time he was so beautiful, so perfect, so handsome.  He looked like a solid, hearty, healthy baby. But he was sleeping so silently and peacefully. Angelically.  It was surreal, yet so real, holding him and trying to come to understand that my son's death would be his life.

He fit perfectly in my arms. What happened so that when I hold him now, I am wondering which of these ashes are his tiny, wrinkled fingers?  Which ashes are his surprisingly big feet? Which ones are his crooked second toe that looked just like his dad’s? 

I spend my days searching for signs of his spirit, for signs- of anything.  But on the few days when I can stand to stare truth in the eyes, I see my son has died.  What is left of him is what I am holding right now in this bag.

These ashes are my baby. 

These ashes are my son. 

My Baby's Song

My Baby's Song
October 2016

Cute little baby
You are so sweet!
From the top of your head
To the soles of your feet.
All ten of your fingers,
All ten of your toes,
Those bright little eyes,
Your soft little nose.
Those two sturdy legs,
Those two waving arms,
Your happiest giggle,
And all of your charms.
Each tip of each finger-
Oh my heart, do you touch!
All of it,
All of you,
I love you so much.

Henry Sean

Henry Sean Stewart, Born 1/12/17

My husband and I became pregnant almost a year after we miscarried our first baby, right about the same time we had pretty much given up on the idea that we would ever be parents. We miscarried right at the end of the first trimester, so the first several weeks of our second pregnancy were especially difficult and full of anxiety. But once our second baby had settled safely into the second trimester, the bond bloomed. Our hearts, every aspect of our lives, and our visions of the future flooded with hope, excitement, and expectation of our new lives as a family. 

We never found out if the baby would be a girl or a boy, but the whole time I just knew it was going to be a boy, and I knew he was going to be huge. My husband and I had picked out some possible names, but the one we liked the most for a boy was Hank. "Hank the Tank" was the nickname we privately called the big, sturdy son we imagined growing in my body. His full name would be Henry Sean Stewart; Henry had a more official ring to it, and to follow my husband's family tradition, Henry would take on his dad's first name for the middle. We kept his name private, waiting until birth for his formal presentation to the world. We picked out a couple girl names too, just in case, but I knew we wouldn't need them. It was totally going to be a boy. 

As the pregnancy progressed, the more vivid my dreams grew of what our son would be like, and the more I felt connected to him through every kick and movement. I was pretty miserable until the third trimester, but any ounce of misery was instantly replaced with bliss every time I felt him wiggle, roll or jab. The stronger he got, the more satisfied and complete I felt. My husband and I couldn't wait to personally meet whoever it was that was having such a wild time in my belly. We were so excited to finally get to know who he was and to be able to watch him grow, learn, and explore the world. 

I had a strange fascination with labor and was oddly looking forward to the pain. Though I didn't know exactly what to expect, I knew I would rise well to the challenge, and I knew the more intense it got, the closer I would be to meeting my sweet baby. Henry's due date was New Year's Day, and although I was originally hoping for a New Year’s baby, I was unexpectedly overjoyed when he was late. It was a relief to have some free time after the hustle of the holiday, and I was truly feeling fantastic and loving being so ripe with pregnancy. 

My labor started 10 days after his due date. The 29 hours of labor that followed were intense, but I was proud of how I navigated each wave. During the 29th hour while actively pushing, I was rushed by a team of nurses and doctors to an emergency cesarean section for reasons I am still not ready to understand. My sweet baby was removed from his safe haven, and the next 55 minutes were the most difficult I have ever had to endure as I waited to hear him cry. I couldn't see him behind the surgical curtain but I was told he was in fact a boy, he had color and a heartbeat, but he was unable to breathe on his own. After 55 minutes of intense resuscitation, my baby was still unable to breathe. He was taken to the NICU and I knew that after so long without oxygen my baby would either not survive or he would live his life with profound disabilities. There was no chance in my mind that an end result of this would be a healthy baby. After the c-section, when I saw my husband with a sorrow on his face unlike any I had ever seen before, I knew our baby didn't survive 

I held Henry in my arms and stroked his soft, smooth skin. Never have I seen a more beautiful, precious person in my whole life. His big, hearty size was a perfect fit in my arms. I had so much love for him, and I was already so proud to be his mom, and it was so confusing and unreal that he was not alive. Though time seemed to freeze while I was holding him, I still wish I held him and looked at him longer. I wish I could have held him forever, and that he was still in my arms. My arms, chest, mind, and heart ache without him. 

All the days since then have been a blur. As my body heals, my heart becomes emptier and the sadness grows darker and more profound. But despite my grief and pain, Henry continues to shine light into my life; my relationship with my husband has previously never had any shortage of love or affection, but the life and the passing of our baby has brought us even closer, led us to be more open, and has even given our relationship a sweeter, more precious quality. Henry has brought out a deeper level of support, trust, and generosity from those around us as well as from people we don't even know. Strangers have expressed being genuinely moved by the story of Henry, and over a bridge of compassion, some of those strangers have crossed into the intimate circles of our greatest support.  While the grief from my miscarriage felt incredibly lonely and isolating, since even the beginning moments of Henry's birthing and death, Sean and I have been wrapped up in protective blankets of sincere love, help, and caring from almost every person we have encountered.

Even though not having him physically here brings me unmatched pain, I do feel like his spirit is always with me, and that brings me a quiet sense of comfort.  I can't help but to fantasize how he would look and be as he grows older, and in a sense, I still have hopes and dreams for him and look forward to what he would have become. I will always love him, want the best for him, and be so, so proud to be his mom. Henry will always be my beautiful, precious son.