A few weeks ago marked 14 years since I was first introduced to the concept of stillbirth. My cousin Lisa and her husband Kevin's first child died on January 6th, 2006. I was 19 at the time, and I remember being confused about all the fuss they were going through for a baby who, in my view at the time, hadn't even really lived. They named her (Kaitlyn) and buried her and everything. I thought that was way oversensitive and just plain silly. And they had other children, and life seemed to go on just fine, so no harm, no foul, right? Right? Maybe some of you feel that way when I talk about Kyla - it's okay, I get it, I really do - I did that to my own cousin.
On May 3, 2012, our oldest child, Riley, was born. It was pretty much an amazing experience. For a first child, the labor was pretty quick (~9 hours or so, give or take) and there were no complications. Chels even got to follow her birth plan of not taking any pain meds. So all births must be like that, right? Right?
Then came January 15, 2014. Chelsea went in for a standard 30-week checkup and there was no heartbeat. Boom: dreams crushed, hearts broken, eyes opened. And we've never been the same since. There's nothing to say to a parent who's lost a child. People try - and often make things worse in the process - but there's really nothing to say. There's nothing to do. There's just ... nothing. And so the rest of the world moves on while heartbroken, confused, angry parents stand there not knowing what's supposed to come next. What do we do next? I thought we were supposed to be deciding a baby name ("finally" as Chels would put it - I was never ready to talk baby names until much later in the pregnancy than she was). Instead, we were trying to decide whether to bury our baby or have her cremated. Like, we didn't even have our own burial plots and funeral arrangements picked out yet - how the hell are we supposed to do that for our baby within 24 hours of learning that she was dead? And we're being handed a 9x12 double-pocket folder with flyers for support groups and funeral homes and brochures and booklets with information and comfort for grieving parents, but we're still just holding our breath hoping that the stark silence of her birth was a mistake and any moment now we're going to hear her crying because surely this is just some twisted dream that we're both somehow having together and surely the nurses will bring her in all freshly bathed and not cold to the touch and her little mouth will move in her sleep and there won't be a chunk of skin missing from her right hand and our parents will get to hold their granddaughter and cry tears of happiness not tears of double pain.
A couple years ago, we were at my parents' house for a reunion for my mom's side of the family. My cousin Lisa is my mom's sister's daughter, so she and Kevin and their living children were all there. One evening, several of us kids (well, we're all adults now, but still) were hanging out in the living room talking. The conversation had easily turned towards stillbirth between Chels and Lisa and Kevin and I, and the rest (my brother, sisters, and brother-in-law; maybe others, I don't remember for sure) had kinda filtered into the room to listen and occasionally add some thoughts. Turns out, it's really refreshing to talk to somebody at length about stillbirth and everything involved with our personal experiences with it. Each of our babies was different, each pregnancy was different, and each parent's personal processing is different, so we were able to share all of that together. I specifically remember asking Kevin at one point if he had felt like a father when Kaitlyn was born. See, asking a stillborn parent something like that is the kind of stuff people can't usually wrap their heads around. And yet it's often those conversations that are the most meaningful, when done correctly. I was interested in his answer because it was something that I hadn't had to personally deal with - since I already had walking, talking proof of my fatherhood (Riley), it was different for me. He seemed a bit surprised by the question and then came to the realization that no, he hadn't felt like a father at that point. And yet there had been a baby and a name and a burial. We fathers get lost in the mix all too often, sometimes even to ourselves.
Back in December, I put together a 2020 calendar for Chels like we've done for several years now; she sure loves her planning. We preprint special dates on the calendar every year, such as birthdays and anniversaries; e.g. May 3 this year says "Riley's Birthday (8)" - although I'm pretty sure that number is wrong, it has to be! This year, we decided to add all of the stillbirths we knew about. That list is getting too long. And after the calendar had been printed and written all over, we had to handwrite yet another one onto the calendar shortly before Christmas. The heartbreak is real, and it doesn't go away. Each dead baby is a lifetime sentence of grief for the parents, but it often reaches beyond that to uncles and aunts and grandparents and even friends who also never got the chance to get to know that baby like they should have been able to. We're now at the 6 year mark and I can't viscerally remember much of anything. I honestly wonder at this point how much is actual memory and how much is planted memory from my writing - but again, that is exactly why I write. To remember. And when 6 becomes 16 and then 26 and eventually 60 and beyond ... it's still going to hurt. We're still going to miss her. When we're putzing around in our old age together, there will still be moments that we'll look into each other's eyes and we'll just ... know. We'll know that we love her. We'll know that we miss her. And we'll know that we will never finish saying goodbye.
