{ april 28, 2021 remembered }

I’ve been trying to say something for three years.

I’ve danced around the graphic truth with poetry and vagueness, sharing just enough to feel momentary relief. Some of you even recognized your own story in my eloquent evasiveness.

Now it’s been three years and I want to tell you about my son and us brokenhearted that walk around carrying stories so full of teardrops that we try not to leak on anyone.

I didn’t know I had a twin living inside me, a stowaway who stayed with me after his sister slipped away one evening months before. All I knew was that something wasn’t right. Here I own my ignorance, but after I miscarried and my partner left the following day, I couldn’t handle the thought of calling my midwife or seeing a doctor. I laid on the sofa and ate leftover Domino’s. I went on for weeks and weeks wondering how long before I’d feel like me again. Then one morning, I was shivering and burning up, my hands shaking so badly I couldn’t even type out a text asking for help. Finally, I was able to get help, and here I will be brief, because my day was scary and long, but that’s not the story I want to share today. I want to tell you the part that keeps me awake and breaks my heart in the middle of the day, brings me to tears as I walk the trail, the piece that requires ongoing healing.

Once I finally made it to the ER, I waited, teeth still chattering even hours after the initial fever. I sat with my friend, neither of us knowing what was going on or what to expect. I felt certain it was a complication from my miscarriage, as I said, I hadn’t felt right since. But nothing felt right, I was in such a hard place mourning the end of a dream and the end of an abusive relationship. Grieving something that brought so much pain is a strange thing, it left me feeling unsure how to take the next step forward, lacking faith in my ability to see if a person is good or bad. I wanted to shut the door to that hallway of my life story and never think about it again, but here was my own body screaming at me to examine the loss and maybe even face another season of healing.

I explained my intuition to a nurse and doctor, they made arrangements for me to have an ultrasound to see what issues may have lingered from my miscarriage. After hours of waiting, I was wheeled into the ultrasound room and spoke with the tech. He got very quiet and the room filled with a familiar sound, I knew before he even said what he saw, I had heard that sound three previous times before. That was a strong, rhythmic pulse of a heartbeat. It wasn’t a complication from losing my pregnancy, it was a baby boy who had continued to grow inside me even though his twin hadn’t been able to hang on. I don’t remember the tech’s name, I knew it that day, but I’ve lost it now. I’ll never forget how stunned he was, how apologetic he seemed, because he must have realized my baby was too low in my body for a little one who needed a lot more time to form inside me. Nameless tech was kind to me, he said “everything looks good, but a little low…perhaps. We will get you up to labor and delivery, they’ll know just what to do.”

Once I got a bed upstairs in L&D, they were concerned with the infection that was causing my convulsions, they wouldn’t comment on my baby at all. It was their mission to figure out how to stabilize me and then see what happened next. It made sense to me, the whole oxygen mask analogy from flying. But as my fever dropped, these shocking pains began to overtake me, originating in my abdomen and low back. These were as familiar to me as the percussion I heard in the ultrasound room, I was in labor, I was having strong and timely contractions. I couldn’t get comfortable, the nurse said try to relax and I crawled to my hands and knees and growled “mother fucking Christ almighty this hurts.” I cried. I had my friend try to rally the nurses to help me. I hemorrhaged and thought I had wet the bed. This went on far too long, I begged for it to just be over. I asked if my son had any chance of surviving. I didn’t want him to suffer, and I also confess that I didn’t want him to suffer the life ahead of a father who had proven to be the worst kind of person. I was scared of everything that was possible. Afraid I’d die and my girls would be left without their mama, with zero warning or time to prepare. I was terrified that all our lives would be tethered to this man I had worked so hard to start over from after the ruins he left us in. I couldn’t see any beauty as I clawed the hospital sheets and grunted in agony.

My friend eventually had success in convincing the nurses that I was in labor and needed help. One particularly strong nurse helped me stagger to the bathroom because I couldn’t handle my blood soaked bed anymore and I needed to push, the toilet made sense, dear god I wish I could take back this choice now.

In the bathroom I anguished for a little while, with the strong nurse holding me so I didn’t fall off the toilet when I crumpled and doubled over with each contraction. This was transition, I knew he was coming soon, I pushed, and then temporary physical relief. Looking down was difficult, but there he was. I can’t write this without bawling my eyes out, because this is the single most traumatic piece of the entire day. My tiny boy, as small as my hand and still so perfectly formed, he was right there still connected to me. I wasn’t allowed at that moment to touch him, the strong nurse held me back. Why was it taking so long for someone to come get him? Why were they just letting him hang there suspended from me by his umbilical cord? More crying, more begging “please listen to me, don’t leave us this way.”

It was probably not as long as it felt to me. I’m sure they were doing the best they could. But that would be the image of my suffering, that was the nightmare. Time stopped for me. For months and months I’d lay down to sleep and sob until well after midnight, only to wake up at 3am feeling anxious and unable to fall back asleep. I’d calculate the hours of sleep I could still get if only I were able to shut off my mind. I lay there having conversations in my head that I’d never get to have aloud. I’d cry for my son, wondering if this had all been my fault, if I could have saved him. I was conflicted, sad, and sleepless from this bathroom horror.

Beauty did find us there in that hospital though. When the nurses attended to my boy, cleaned him up, and brought him to me in a tiny crocheted basket, I held a weightless angel. This is the memory I want to hold, the one I’m afraid I’ll forget. In the moment, taking a photo felt morbid, but now I wish I could see his face again, even just once. He was pale, in some places translucent, which gave him a glowing aura. This perfect, tiny boy fit inside my hand, he looked very much like Evy, my youngest daughter. I was so struck by his beauty that I named him Ford, because he could have been a model.

I was speechless, words vanished and I felt so much I thought I’d implode. My friend put her hand on me and said a lovely, heartfelt farewell prayer for Ford. I cried and tried to express my gratitude, I fumbled with language. And then I had to give my son to the staff, I had to make decisions about whether I would buy a burial plot or allow the hospital to bury him. I had to notify his biological father and get rejected when I tried to tell him about Ford, but I knew telling him was the right thing to do, even though he didn’t get involved at all. I count it his biggest loss that he never saw that precious face and those long, piano-player fingers.

One night in the hospital and I was discharged the next day. Bleeding heavily, overweight, and empty armed. I felt like a mama who just had a baby, but I had no baby to make it all feel blurry and blissful. I was gross, abandoned, and lonely. But I was brave and strong as well. I diligently strapped my boobs down so my milk wouldn’t come in, I wore massive pads and net underwear because of the bleeding. I faced each day, packing up the once shared apartment to move into something smaller that I could afford alone, moving just one week after returning from the hospital. For three years I’ve been getting on with my life, and nobody will ever meet the sweetheart that I had to let go to get here.

In loving memory of Ford Norris Raun ~ 4.28.21