Time
for Healing
As I drove down the road on this cold, rainy February
day it suddenly occurred to me what had happened. I realized what month this
was, and that the anniversary had come and gone over a week ago without my even
noticing this time. It was the first time in exactly twenty years that the week
of February 13th had passed without me shuttered away in a
depressive heap in my room remembering the anniversary of losing my third
child. Time had passed without tears or incident and thinking on it at that
moment in my car, I was not upset or saddened by the realization. I was okay.
Not thrilled mind you, but I would be okay.
The winter of 1996 started out rough to say the least.
My husband at the time was laid off of work. We had a house, and two small
children, the youngest was just sixteen months old and I was expecting our
third child. The fact that we were having a third was a bone of contention
between us as well and had caused some arguments between us in the beginning.
But we would deal and I knew somehow it would all work out eventually. So the
holidays had passed and as I had made it through my first trimester well, we
had told the rest of our family about the baby at the Christmas Holidays. I was
sure I was having another girl and my husband and I settled upon a name for
her; Saffron, Saffie for short. Just after the New Year I went in for my
monthly check up and was excited to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first
time at this appointment. Everything went fine during the exam until it came
time for listening to the heartbeat. The doctor was having difficulty finding
one. Not to worry, this sometimes happens depending on the baby’s position I
was told, so let’s do an ultrasound and see where the little one was hiding.
Out comes the ultrasound machine, disgustingly cold jelly yuck on my belly. No
good. We’ll have to do an internal ultrasound. Yes, if you have never had one
done, that is exactly what it sounds like and not comfortable in the least.
Have you ever walked into a room and it suddenly goes
quiet. Quiet, silent, not a sound from either the doctor or the nurse as they
stared at that ultrasound screen. Even the simplest person in the world knows
silence is not a good sign. After what felt like an eternity but was most
likely a few minutes I finally asked, “What’s wrong?’ Well, I’m not exactly sure,
could be nothing was the response I got. There is a heartbeat. I sighed in
relief. “Ok, then what?” There is something else that I am not sure about and
we’ll have to send you for a more in-depth test to find out. It looks like an
Oomphalocile. I knew what that meant, but for those who don’t, it is basically
an area on the fetus that has not formed skin to cover the vital organs, nerves,
blood vessels etc. and almost appears as if it is a bubble of fluid and
internal parts bulging from the body. It is most common with the condition
Spina Bifida where it appears over the spinal column. It is not something you
want to hear in your 20th week of pregnancy.
I went home and told my husband what had happened and
that I needed to go for more tests. My son overheard us talking and said
something about the baby dying and I completely lost my shit at that point. The
next few weeks are a blur as I made my appointment for a level four ultrasound
and waited for the date of the appointment to come. Time was ticking. My baby
was still moving.
The day of the test finally arrived and my husband and
I went together. Of course no one said anything to either of us during the
actual test. Afterwards we waited to speak to the genetic and fetal specialist
doctor who was reading our results. The news was not good obviously. We were
told that the baby did not have an Oomphalocile. It also did not have a lower
half of its body at all. Apparently, the umbilical cord had not attached correctly
and my child was developed only up to the point of the cord. The heart was
beating, buds for arms, head all there. Lower extremities and abdominal organs
were not forming. I asked about fetal surgery. No, not in this case, there
simply wasn’t anything medically they could do to correct the situation. I was
given my choices, as if there really was any choice. Firstly, the doctors were
amazed that I had not miscarried before this time as so much was wrong, but,
since that had not happened I could either wait and would most likely miscarry
in the next few weeks. Or, if that did not happen, and I chose to wait the baby
would most likely die in utero and I would have to deliver a stillborn birth
which also put me at risk of dying from infection or complications. If the baby
by some miracle survived to term and was delivered (which could also put my
life in danger) it would most likely die an excruciating death moments after
birth. My last choice was to terminate the pregnancy. Since I was already at 22
weeks by then, it made it a late term abortion. Like I said, no choice at all.
The children I had already given birth to needed me here, alive and healthy. I
made the appointment with the doctor right then and went home to cry.
The day of the procedure my mother came with us to the
hospital. She is my Mom, my supporter no
matter what, my friend, my strength when I can’t find it in myself. I needed my
Mom. Also though, she understood. My mother had given birth to a baby girl
before my birth, a girl born stillborn who was only partially formed she was
told afterward. My mother never got to see that baby. At that time, they didn’t
do that, she was told to go home, forget it and try to have another child. So
my Mom was there for me, she knew. I think she was more of a wreck on the
inside then I was that day. I was prepped, stuck by some young nurse in the
wrong damn place in my wrist for a line, she actually struck bone. Did I
mention this was a teaching hospital? Then taken to the O.R. where for the next
20 minutes some young apprentice anesthesiologist poked my spine with a needle
trying to find the right spot to insert the spinal block I needed for this
procedure. I took as much as I could until I cracked. I jumped off the table
crying and shaking and shouted I was done, I changed my mind, I’m not doing
this, get me out of here and get this idiot away from me! The female head of anesthesiology
came in, calmed me down and inserted the spinal block herself, simply, easily,
I never felt a thing. The rest is fuzzy until the recovery room. I stayed there
until I could feel my legs again and a few hours later I was released and sent
home. A bit of advice here, one should never be sent home the same day you get
a spinal! You are supposed to rest for 24 hours after something like that. I
was told I might have a headache. UNDERSTATEMENT of the century!
I went home. I cried. I slept. I could not lift my
head physically from the pillow literally for the next 3 days. Have you ever
tried to explain to a sixteen month old why Mommy can’t pick her up, why Mommy
can’t move? Not fun. I spent the next month recuperating physically. I
experienced for the first time in my life a real migraine headache. I called my
doctor who said it was normal to have headaches. Really, a migraine that lasts
for days when I’ve never had one ever before? Please forgive me anyone reading
this who is a doctor, but doctors can be real assholes! I am not some number on
a chart, or some hysterical over exaggerator of symptoms. I can take pain but
this was something else and they should have listened and warned me properly
ahead of time. Anyway, I was able to go back to work and my life in a way in a
few weeks after. A few weeks after that I received a letter in the mail with
the laboratory results of the genetic testing that had been done on my baby. It
was a girl, with no discernable chromosomal abnormalities. No known cause of
malformation. The official diagnosis was Limb, Body, Stalk Anomaly and occurred
in 1 out of 250,000 pregnancies. Basically, they couldn’t find any medical
reason known for what had happened.
The migraines persisted for the next three
years regularly. Then tapered off to about six a year for the next few years,
then down to fewer after that. I still get them now. What I didn’t expect at
all was the emotional recovery being so difficult. I cried every day for the
next two years. This event was also one more nail in the coffin of my marriage
and the biggest wedge between us until our last trigger and the end a year and
a half later. I cried all the time, silently, privately, and my only sanity was
the support of my mother and a few close friends who let me talk about it with
them as much as I needed. That was a gift. Letting me talk allowed me to
grieve, to deal as best I could. When I couldn’t talk to anyone, I would shut
down emotionally and just go through the daily motions just to get by and
function. I did this for years. At some point it became just around the
anniversary that I would fall apart, privately and get melancholy. Thinking
about my baby hurt every time.
The last few years I have spent working on myself,
healing my wounds, accepting myself, pushing myself to create the life I want
for me. Doing this work has been very transformational and I noticed last year
at the anniversary I wasn’t as sad. I acknowledged the day, and lit my candle
for my girl, and went about my business. This year, was different. I didn’t
acknowledge it consciously at all. It came and went and my day and week since
were happy and uneventful. As I realized this in the car driving in the rain, I
felt peace. I thought about my girl, I imagined her now, as an almost 20 year
old woman. What she would have looked like, probably very much like her big
sister. I smiled to myself. Though she never took a breath in this world,
Saffie made a profound difference in my life. Her short life changed me,
changed my life, and was a huge catalyst for many changes to come from
conception to death. She changed things for my other children as well. Because
of her, the knowledge of a potential genetic issue in our family is known where
before it might have been overlooked as a fluke thing that would never happen
again. One anomaly pregnancy in a family line is chance, two raises questions, and
three; as I later found out of another family member who had a similar occurrence
with their pregnancy and birth, well that’s just something that needs to be
known and checked into for future generations. So now the conversation with my
now grown older daughter will include the topic of getting genetic testing when
she is ready to have kids of her own and my son should as well. If anything
maybe my experience will provide my daughter with enough information so she won’t
have to go through anything like it herself.
So, today I was driving through the rain, noticing the
grey, cloudy sky and thinking about the twenty year anniversary of the death of
my youngest daughter, and I didn’t cry. The healing continues.
