10 weeks ago yesterday, after noticing that she wasn't moving, we heard the terrible words "There is no heartbeat." The doctor had turned the ultrasound away from me, so I couldn't see. I remember asking, begging really, "Can't there be some mistake?" But there couldn't be. There wasn't a mistake. 10 weeks ago today, just before 9am, my only child, Margaret Joy was born.
12 weeks ago we had toured the labor and maternity ward at the hospital. I was giddy. As we left, I grabbed my husband's arm with a smile and said "Next time we leave here, we'll be taking home our baby." I couldn't have imagined then how wrong I was.
People ask me how I am. I've realized I no longer have a vocabulary for describing how I am, no longer have simple words to answer an everyday question. My most common answer is "OK" or "Getting through it." That seems to be what people want to hear. But the real answer is much more complicated.
The reality of what happened is only now sinking in. Maybe it was too much to grasp in the beginning, the magnitude of what we lost. The mind can't handle so much at once, so it's coming to me in stages. The first 9 weeks were a blur of sadness and heartache. There were days that I could barely manage to get out of bed. This week, 10 weeks later, I get out of bed every morning, shower, go to work. I'm even able to make small talk again. But the only thing that's really on my mind is my little Maggie Joy. I'm able to get through most work days without crying openly. But in the car, in bed, the tears come freely and the despair is just as strong as it was ten weeks ago. That's something that surprised me. I thought that grief and sadness eased over time. Perhaps I don't feel the sadness every minute now, like I did before, but when it hits, it hits just as hard. My heart feels like it's breaking open. My body feels like it will melt away in sorrow.
I wasn't angry at first. But in the past week, I've been so angry at the world. We will never know why this happened, but that doesn't stop me from being angry that it did. Little things set off an anger that I didn't even know existed in me. I'm angry at the universe, for being the kind of place where a mother never gets to see her baby smile, for being a place where I woman has to go through labor for a baby who no longer lives. I'm angry at the people I work with, who pretend that I was never pregnant, who don't acknowledge the depth of my loss, or that I had a loss at all. I'm angry at my neighbor, who said that this must have happened because there was something wrong with the baby. I'm angry at my doctor, for not saving her, even though there's no evidence that anything could have saved her. I'm angry at myself, for not saving her as well, although if doctors couldn't have, how could I expect myself to be able to?
But I'm grateful too. I'm grateful for the friends who have asked the baby's name, and use it when they ask about how I'm doing. I'm grateful for the women that I've met who have also experienced losses, who have helped me know that even in my darkest times, I will survive. I'm grateful for my husband, who has endured it all with me and dried all my tears. I'm grateful for dogs, who provide snuggles and licks.
Ten weeks later, I am wearing a necklace I bought in her memory for the first time today. It is stamped with the word "Joy", and has her birthstone under it. Her middle name, Joy, the same middle name my mother game me. I feel connected to her through our shared name. And by calling her Joy, I hope to remember how happy I was for the 28 weeks that we had her. It was the happiest time I ever had. I hope that someday that joy will overshadow the sadness I now feel.
