The Unspeakable Spoken

This timing seems strange, but even as we drove away from the hospital just after our first son, Gibson, had died, both Dustin and I knew with full certainty that we wanted to try again. We knew it more than we’d ever known anything else before. We wanted to be parents together. I wanted us to be a family. I’d had a brief taste of it during those three days with Gibson and I desperately wanted more of it. To see him as a father and myself as a mother.

But making the decision to try again after losing Gibson was scary. I am, to put it delicately, not at an age where time is on my side. I guess I’m not “old as f***” as one of my friends recently joked about how she felt having a baby in her early forties. I am very nearly there though, and, if we ever hoped to have more than one, we couldn’t guarantee having time to spare.

My first delivery had been a c-section so the recommendation was to wait at least six months before trying again to let my scars heal. I told myself, “Well then, you’ve got six months to get yourself together.” So, I decided that I would spend that time getting help. I started therapy. I faced the trauma. I joined a support group. I created space for healing. I learned to live alongside my grief. I felt like I was “doing grief pretty well” overall. I was sad, but I managed it. I knew how to cope.

Six months rolled around quickly though, and I did not feel ready. All the work I had been doing didn’t change the fact that I felt absolutely paralyzed with fear at the thought of trying again and ending up back in the same broken place. I realized that I had two choices. Either, I could try to wait out my fears (which I acknowledged likely would never go away) and potentially live with the regret of never having tried again. Or, I could gather up my courage and maybe, just maybe, this time we might get the outcome for which we were hoping.

So we tried again.

And just like the first time, I immediately got pregnant. 

The morning we found out, I laid in bed crying for an hour. Not because I was unhappy with the result, but because I was just so, so, so, scared. Dustin held me close and let it all come. At this point, he’d long realized that all I really needed in those moments was just his presence. He stroked my hair and reminded me that no matter what, we were in it together.

Opening myself up to the possibility of what this current pregnancy held brought on an immediate wave of anxiety. It was a battle living in that heightened state all the time. You really can’t function like that though for very long, so my body adapted by simply disconnecting. If I kept it all at arm’s length, and prepared for the worst, then I would be protected should it happen.

At some point, my therapist deftly pointed out to me that I seemed to be operating under the assumption that by staying distant I would somehow shield myself from the pain I felt after losing Gibson should we experience another loss. She asked, “Is that really the case?” Could I truly avoid feeling that same hurt and sorrow again? Could I avoid the risk and vulnerability of what I was going through?

Damn her insightfulness.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Each milestone I found myself on more steady footing. With every good report, I felt my heart opening to possibility. I was feeling more courageous and surprisingly, I found myself taking little intentional steps that, for me, felt like moving mountains toward living with hope.

I started a pregnancy journal. I planned a public announcement. I browsed nursery themes. I bought maternity clothes.

With every action, I felt that same familiar anxiety. But, step by step, I forged ahead. As time moved on, I felt the walls I’d built up crack and crumble a bit more each day. 8 weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks, 14 weeks, 16 weeks… time kept marching, her little heart kept beating, and my love kept winning.

Our anatomy scan arrived. I was 18 weeks and 5 days. I’d had a normal check-up only two weeks prior and everything had been fine. I was feeling cautiously optimistic.

Dustin had to work that day, so my mom joined me at the appointment. We were going to video him in. They took my blood pressure. It was a little high. I remember telling them, “Yeah, I’m pretty anxious.” It was at our anatomy scan where we’d been red-flagged during our pregnancy with Gibson. The first time, I hadn’t even known how critical the milestone was for any pregnancy. This time around though, the importance of the scan was not lost on me. And given that we were only a few short weeks away from the 1-year milestone of Gibson’s birth and death, I was nervous about getting another bad diagnosis.

And then the doctor spoke those four words.

“There is no heartbeat.”

There is no heartbeat. And that was that. It was all over. I had lived on a tightrope of fear and hope for 131 days and just like that, my worst fears had materialized. Again.

In losing Gibson, I thought I’d suffered the worst. Just days before, I had even said to a friend, “I’ve already lived through the worst nightmare imaginable, so if something happens again, at least I know what helped me the most and what resources were important for survival.”

What I naively miscalculated was that the first time around, I never truly lost hope.

Weeks later, we found an accidental voicemail that I’d left on Dustin’s phone as we were calling each other back and forth during those initial moments after receiving the news. All you could hear through the muffled speaker was an intense, guttural wailing of my voice saying, “How could this happen to me again?” Even though I had lived the moment firsthand, hearing the utter devastation captured on the recording in all its rawness rattled me. What is even more unsettling though is knowing that all that pain still lives just under the surface.

After the initial shock passed, I had a sudden awareness that none of this was over. My body did not know that our baby had died. And I had absolutely no idea what would come next. But I would quickly find out.

They scheduled me for an induction of labor. It’s a special kind of cruelty to be required to go through the entire delivery process knowing that your baby is not alive. It was an extra level to be doing so in the shadow of all my past birth trauma, exactly a year before.  

A friend from my loss support group came alongside me and helped bring focus. I appreciated that she didn’t sugarcoat it. She said, “You’ll have to make a lot of hard decisions. You’ve had to make hard decisions before, so this isn’t new to you.” And she gave me a list of things to consider. This directness was incredibly helpful, because yes, I’d been through this before, but you are never truly prepared.

Her list was as follows:

• You are going into labor. What do you want your birth experience to be like?
• Do you want minimal interventions during the birth or do you want to expedite the process? Do you want pain medications or an epidural? Do you want to deliver naturally?
• What do you want to take to the hospital with you for comfort? For Dustin? For her? For Gibson?
• How will you want to spend time with your daughter after she is born?
• Do you want to parent your daughter? Meaning do you want to sing, read a book, talk to her, snuggle with her, etc.
• Do you want any specific memorial practices like a baptism or blessing?
• Do you want an autopsy?
• Do you want to preserve the placenta?
• What do you want to do with your breast milk? Donate it? Discard it?
• You might want to prepare yourself for what she might look like in advance. So that you are not surprised or taken aback by what she will look like at this stage.
• And lastly, take lots of pictures, even if it doesn’t feel natural. Of her. Of you and her. Of her and Dustin. Of you three together. Her and something symbolizing Gibson. You may not want to look at them now, or ever, but you will be grateful that they are there.

Brutal as this list might be, it was now our reality. And if I didn’t confront it, I would miss the opportunity to do this the way that I wanted. We talked the list through and made very intentional choices that felt right for our family.

On March 15^th, after about 13 hours of less-than-ideal labor (that’s a story all its own), I delivered our daughter Elaine Kay Miller into this world sleeping. And we did it our way. We spent hours with her afterwards. We spoke all that was in our hearts. We prayed over her. And we said goodbye. Despite the circumstances, I momentarily set aside my pain and my grief to focus on Elaine. The only thing that mattered in the world was fully living into the brief moments we had left together.

After Gibson died, there was nothing really left for us to do but pack our stuff and leave the hospital. Finding out that Elaine had died was only the beginning of the journey. Knowing I still had to face a full delivery meant putting my emotions on hold to focus on what was in front of me. Going home, however, meant confronting everything that had been building.

This time, instead of feeling comforted by all the things that had helped after losing Gibson, I felt betrayed by those same things. They were triggers for my past trauma and harsh reminders of an entirely new one. Nothing was safe. I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. And so we did.

Coming out of that hole isn’t easy.

Compounded grief is complex. All the feelings, all at once. I can barely make sense of what is happening in my brain. It’s sheer chaos at times. I move from one feeling to the next so fast that I can hardly register the first before it is overtaken by the second. Waves of anger, bitterness, sadness, despair, hopelessness, and frustration move in and out in seemingly endless crashes. More violent and more irregular than before. It simply feels like too much.

Of course, there is the question of why? The most dangerously infuriating question of all.

The short of it, is that we have no idea why we lost Elaine.

The autopsy revealed no obvious signs of structural malformations. The genetic testing came back negative for any issues. There was no infection present in either me or in Elaine. There was no issue with my uterus or the placenta. My body performed as it was supposed to, and therefore, there is nothing they can point to as the culprit or even try to fix for the future. In so much as modern science can tell us, we do not have any infertility issues and we do not appear to have any genetic complications.

“There is, unfortunately, nothing left for us to pursue at this point,” my doctor said.

We are left with only the cruelty of coincidence and chance.

On one hand, this all is supposed to leave us with some level of comfort. There is no obvious indication or reason to believe that this will continue happening in future pregnancies. If this was all simply bad luck, at some point, that luck might change. On the other, what are the odds that you can simply be this unlucky?

Not knowing is a difficult pill to swallow.

I’ve had a hard time knowing where to put all my frustration with this uncertainty. Where do you aim it? Out into the universe? Towards God? At yourself? At those around you?

Being forced to relive your worst traumas, over and over and over again, on the exact same timeline as the loss of your child the year before, is too much. It does not feel random, it feels intentionally acute and deeply personal. I had just started opening myself back up to hope when life slapped me down again. That kind of torture is hard for your brain to reconcile. So I go from chaos to numbness, back and forth and back and forth.

A friend sent me an email with this quote in it, “If we suffer deeply, there is no explanation, no reason, no answer that can ease our heartbreak. The only comfort that can do anything – and probably the most it can do is help you endure… – is the comfort of feeling yourself loved.”

Right now, I am struggling. More than I ever have before. But I am taking it one day at a time and I am surrounded by so. much. love.

Love from my family, my friends, and most importantly, my incredible husband. Who fully loves me, even when I’m a hot mess. It’s honestly what keeps me going every day.

Here are the things I am currently telling myself:

• It took an immense amount of courage to try again after all we went through with Gibson.
• It takes an even greater amount of courage to get up each day and face your losses.
• You have and will continue to show up for yourself and for Dustin.
• You are loved beyond measure.
• And lastly, the only way through it, is through it.