We miscarried another baby this July. My D&C procedure was on July 26th and my recovery was brutal this time. I’ve decided this is the last time we’ll be open to pregnancy. I just can’t do this again.
We don’t know the sex of this baby so we named her/him Francis Weeks Emig. After my favorite, St. Francis of Assisi, and as a nod to my mother’s middle name, Frances. Weeks is my husband’s grandma’s maiden name.
I haven’t told very many people about this loss. It’s been so unlike my other two losses in that I was so public about my grief journeys with Gregory and Joy. I don’t want to announce this miscarriage on Facebook because, honestly, I’m tired of being known on Facebook as the mom whose babies keep dying. I’m just so tired of putting my body, my heart, my husband, and my living children through this. I oscillate between wanting to tell every person I see about Francis’ death (irrationally, even strangers whom I strike up a conversation with in the store) and wishing I’d told no one… even to the point of wishing somehow that my husband didn’t know. The contradiction drives me slightly insane some days.
I’ve not cried much (yet) over this loss but my intimacy with grief’s chaotic pathway lets me know that hurt is coming, eventually…or tomorrow, or in the next second, or in another year or so. Right now I’m just burying myself in busy work – figuring if I run fast enough, maybe I can outrun some of the pain for a bit. I know first-hand that one can only run fast enough for so long but I can’t seem to help myself. Seems as though this is the way I’m finding I need to cope with losing this baby. They say you love your children equally, but differently, and I guess the same goes for grieving their deaths – you grieve them equally, but differently.
I’m still trying to let it sink in that I have more children in heaven now than on Earth here with me. Two here, three there. I am the mother of 5 children. I never, ever thought I would want to bear more than 2 children as a mother. Being the mother of 5, even if I only get to raise 2 of them, is such a bizarre fact about me now that I can’t seem to wrap my mind around it. It’s like telling someone who’s only ever been a librarian that suddenly they’ve been made an astronaut, but they never have to do the full training and they’ll never go to the moon. Just have the official title.
Facing the end of my fertility and knowing I’ll never hold an infant in my arms that will be a product of my husband and me ever again… and that I’m purposely making that choice now… makes me both profoundly sad and relieved, all at the same time. The relief makes me feel a bit lighter (No more diapers! No more middle of the night breast feeding! No more potty training and constantly being tied to the house and temper tantrums and fighting a picky eater and struggling through the constant merry-go-round of playgroups! No more starting over – my husband and I can continue with our dreams to move to NYC when our youngest living child graduates high school in 6 years! And, best, no more possibilities for infant loss! No more buying tiny caskets! No more taking pictures of trinkets and love letters to be placed inside the caskets, no more funeral homes and hospital bills, no more sad ultrasounds, no more D&C’s and no more little vase markers with our children’s names on them! No. More. Infant. Death.).
And yet the relief also makes me feel guilty, too. I wanted another baby for my husband very badly and so I feel guilty that I just can’t do this again. (And often there are unbidden thoughts rolling into my mind that my body is now just old and stupid, that it kills my babies now.) And even though my husband is very supportive of my decision because he cares for me so and doesn’t want to see me go through this again either – either physically or emotionally… I wanted to place another baby in his arms. It’s like an ache I can’t describe. Because he’s so incredible with babies and little kids, he’s an amazing father… and it hurts me to know that we’ll end our baby-rearing days with 3 losses this way. That this will be our last impression of having babies – experiencing their deaths and burying them.
We’ve been discussing funeral plans for baby Francis – just a graveside service as Catholics believe that babies who don’t make it past pregnancy go right to heaven/ have no need of baptism (and therefore don’t need a Mass to celebrate end of life, which is like the “bookend” to infant baptism after a person is born). I tried to allow this miscarriage to happen naturally but my body was taking too long… I’m again both relieved and sad that we will be able to bury some part of this baby. The relief I feel is for the future-me, the one that I know will really appreciate having a place to lay flowers for Francis. And the future-me who would regret not having a burial for this baby if it was at all possible. Which it now is. But I’m also sad and a bit scared because I feel like I’m going to sink into the earth and never want to come home when I see one more tiny little box going into the ground with another of my children in it. How can I leave the cemetery again knowing that I’m leaving 3 of my babies there this time?
I wrote this poem after a recent text exchange with my husband, where daily planning/logistics wandered into the territory of planning Francis’ upcoming burial, which seemed to be cleverly and (sadly) seamlessly tucked into our laundry list of grocery shopping needs, coordinating extracurricular activities for our two living children, plans for an open house for my husband’s new office, and so on. I took it in stride as the texts were happening but when I had a moment to reflect on what was said a few moment after, this poured out…
the Unspoken
When you write
“the baby’s remains”
(in a sentence)
And realize you’re talking about your
Own
(precious beloved wanted)
The breath it steals is
never returned
-r.e. 8/5/19
Life Leveling 