Dad and I put together your photo album yesterday. You are so beautiful. Then we watched a very sad movie last night about a woman who has a stillbirth at full term. I could barely handle some of the scenes, it was almost like an exact snapshot of my life. Everything, from the doctor appointment during which there’s no heartbeat detected, to the emotional agony of the delivery, to the silence right at birth (where was your cry?), the photos and the tears afterward, and then the after struggle with all the grief and hollow feelings…. the rest of our lives. The times when everyone else seems to forget and move on, except for us. When others will catch me laugh or smile, and hold onto that and take it for a sign that I am better, that everything is ok, when it’s not at all.

We have to keep going, mostly for each other. I say and think often that if it wasn’t for your dad I would not be here, alive today. The times when he is gone at work at the hardest times for me. I feel like nobody else understands me right now. It’s the grief, but it’s also so much more than that. We are going through what is undoubtedly the hardest time in either of our lives up until this point. Life has been a complete wreck for both of us this year, and I was looking forward to meeting you and being your mommy. I did meet you, and I will always be your mommy, just not in the way I’d like. It’s a very hard time for us, and we miss you so much. My heart is broken, and it’s hard to feel hopeful about anything anymore without you to look forward to. I pray for better days ahead. I know you’re watching over us.

I remember going to Walmart a week after they released me from the hospital. I needed sports bras, Kleenex, and a new journal. And I remember walking through the aisles and thinking as I dodged a little old lady, these people have no fucking idea what I’m going through right now. I’m not sobbing uncontrollably, and I’m responding to all of the social cues. I said hi back to the greeter, excused myself when I accidentally bumped into a shelf, and I remembered to look both ways before stepping into the hazardous crosswalk. I even smile occasionally. Yet every part of my body throbs with the pain of losing her. And these people have no clue. They don’t know that I gave birth a week ago, that my daughter was silent and beautiful. They don’t know that my breasts leak through these pitiful bras. They don’t know that I cry when I step in the shower, blood running down my legs, my arms cradling the empty skin of my stomach. No one in the store has access to these intimate moments. My grief is my own, to bear privately. -CM

Oh, how strongly I relate to this from the book I sit here reading. I had the same thoughts at Target when I had to go buy tight sports bras to minimize swelling, nursing pads to soak up the milk leaking from my breasts, and pads for all the bleeding. This, just days after I delivered you. And I especially relate to sobbing alone in the shower and cradling my empty stomach, aching for you.

I made the mistake of looking at my social media accounts today and truly every other post was about young children, enjoying time together, or being pregnant, the joyful anticipation of one day soon meeting the love of your life. I remember that. Now I live a life of emptiness, surrounded by people with healthy babies, healthy pregnancies, no worries. WHY???!!!!!!!

Noa, my pregnancy with you went perfectly! I remember the first ultrasound confirming that there was a live, moving, baby with a beating heart! Your dad was there with me. The first time I saw you on that ultrasound screen, I cried. I finally at that moment believed it to be true and real. Actually, from the moment I saw the 2 pink lines on my pregnancy test, I knew it was real and I was so so so excited. But there was something about seeing on the screen that you were actually in there.

I actually knew I was pregnant before I took the test. I was in NYC visiting 2 of my best friends and one night when I laid down to sleep, I noticed my breasts were tender. Could be PMS, but this time was a little different, they hurt very badly. They hurt each night I laid down to sleep and I thought quietly to myself with so much happiness, I must be pregnant. I told nobody. It was our little secret, you and I. And I kept it that way for many days. There was one night in NYC, several nights into my stay, that I stayed with my other friend. I actually was up for several hours that night with breast pain. It had gotten so bad that I couldn’t even sleep. That was the night I really knew it. I had never felt breast pain like this before, this was definitely not PMS. On top of that, where was my period? Wasn’t that supposed to start soon? Hmmm…

You see, I had surprised your dad not too long before this, by taking out my IUD. He was already wanting to conceive with me since basically the first night we spent together (not an exaggeration). It was kind of always up to me, as to when we would actually start “trying.” We had just returned from the most fabulous, adventure-of-a-lifetime, 3 1/2 week vacation in Nepal, where we spent 15 of those days hiking to Mt. Everest Base Camp! I thought, I just conquered the Himalayas (and believe me, Noa, this was no easy feat for me. I struggled! I thought I was in good shape until the Himalayas kicked my butt!), I’m 31 years old, I am with the absolute love of my life soul mate, he wants my children, I have always wanted children “some day,” I definitely want children with him (oh how beautiful they would be! Your dad is gorgeous!), maybe I will never feel totally ready, so why not now? And that was it. At my next doctor’s appointment, I was feeling spontaneous and happy and hopeful, so I just asked them to take the IUD out. Just like that. So they did.

At that point, we still weren’t actively trying to get pregnant, but we were definitely not preventing. We knew it could happen at any time, but I honestly thought it would take a while – several months, a year at least. I was 31. Not old, but not young. And like I said, we weren’t specifically trying to have sex on fertile days. I have friends who’d been actively trying to get pregnant for years — yes, years — calculating ovulation days, and doing who knows what else to maximize their chances of conceiving during each cycle, and month after month with no success, I knew, it’s actually not that easy to get pregnant. But just a few cycles later – (2, I think?) I found myself in NYC with aching breasts, lying awake at night, mind racing, heart pounding, I was pregnant. I knew it. I felt it.

The morning after the night when I returned home, I took a test very early. 2 pink lines. I knew it! And just like that, there you were, inside my belly, growing away.

Your dad was so excited when I told him! He gave me a big hug and we couldn’t stop smiling at each other. He ran upstairs to look at the pregnancy tests (I’d actually taken 2, as if I needed any more proof that there was a baby growing inside of me). I’d waited until he came home from work that day to tell him. At first, I wanted to go to the hospital and meet him on a lunch break because I was about to explode from the excitement I felt at knowing this secret. The anticipation of telling him was killing me! But as I was getting ready to leave to go meet him, I couldn’t find my car keys. Turns out he had them and I was left stranded at home with no vehicle. Whoops. The news would wait until he got home that night. But it was worth the wait. It was such a special moment for us.

You kept me sick for practically the whole pregnancy, Noa. I had nausea from the second I woke up, and it lasted all day long. I would wake up to take a sip of water, and immediately get sick. Soon I began eating saltines in bed before I even got up to settle my stomach. It was the only thing that worked. And eventually I moved on to oyster crackers. We always had crumbs in the bed. Dad ate them with me every morning and yelled at me for getting crumbs in our bed. It was pretty comical. Every morning, the same. And sometimes I would still throw up my breakfast. It took me a half hour to get breakfast down and I was often late to work because of it. Oh, and coffee. It made me so sick. But I had to have it because I was having exhaustion like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Just one cup in the mornings to get me going.

Mornings I had to work were the absolute worst. The dread of knowing I had to get through 13 hours of work that day with no energy and the constant urge to throw up was awful. And that was on top of the daily struggle it was for me to even get out of bed and put some food in my body, throw up, and then eat a little more.

I would give anything now to be so sick and so exhausted if it meant you were still growing inside my belly. I should be 29 weeks and 1 day pregnant with you today. Third trimester! Home stretch. But I’m empty, in every sense of the word. All I have left are my memories. I have your pictures, your memory box from the hospital with your birth announcement, your footprints, your hospital bracelet that you never wore because you were too small, the tiniest clothes and hat I’ve ever seen, and your blankets, which we sleep with every night. Meanwhile, the rest of the world got to take their babies home from the hospital.

I know that I am not alone, because I spend the majority of my days reading about other people’s stories of stillbirth, infant loss, miscarriage, neonatal death. It is a morbid way to spend my time, but it helps me feel a little bit less alone, knowing that there are others out there who have gone through what we are going through. I read stories on the internet and books about death and babies ALL. DAY. LONG. I am becoming obsessed with this. I don’t know what else to do with myself, I feel like I’m slowly dying inside.

There was a light inside me and it’s gone. Losing you has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with in my life. It’s not getting easier. I fear it never will. There was life before, and now this is my life after. I wouldn’t even call it a life, I am merely existing. Waiting. For what? The pain to lessen? Will it ever?

And it feels like a lifetime ago, but some parts feel like yesterday. Sometimes it feels like a nightmare that I’ve yet to wake up from. Is this real? Is this my new normal? Am I a mother? Where is my baby?

My new normal is hardly normal at all. I am a stranger to myself these days. I don’t feel joy anymore and I don’t look forward to much. The only thing I look forward to is seeing your dad because he is my greatest source of comfort in all this. I love him very much and he is the reason why I get out of bed and push myself to attempt to function as a fraction of the normal human being I once was.

I still wake up in a panic. You’re still my first thought when I wake up, I think of you and then I remember you’re gone and I feel the pain all over again. Actually, I never stop feeling the pain. Though sometimes I feel numb and I don’t cry, that’s been happening more often lately. Like yesterday.

Your daddy and I went to see a therapist together to help us cope with the grief. I told her your story, and for the first time talking about you, I didn’t cry. I feel guilty and sad for that because I want to cry, because crying makes me feel close and connected with you. If I’m not crying over you, I can’t feel you as close to me in my heart and that makes me very sad. My greatest fear is that one day I’ll just be talking about you as if you were another person’s sad story, and that’s not who you are to me at all. You are the most special part of me and I want to keep your memory alive forever. I want to always remember our time together like it was just yesterday. I never want you to become a distant memory even though there is so much pain that comes with remembering you. The pain is worth it because I love you so much. They say numbness is part of the grieving process, maybe that is what I was experiencing yesterday.

But most of the time, I find that I am re-living moments from our time together, and the times before that, like when I was pregnant with you. I still can’t believe I held you for just 18 hours, it felt like only minutes, it went by way too fast. I wish I could focus on my memories of our time together, but sometimes I have intrusive flashbacks of the moment when I found out your heart wasn’t beating anymore. I try to work through those difficult memories and I try not to push them out when they invade my thoughts. I don’t want to live in fear of those memories because they are never going to go away, I will always have them and I know I need to accept them. So I let them in, and I deal with them, and then I move on to the memories I have of you after you were delivered. Those memories are painful too, but they also bring me immense joy. How could they not? Remembering the details of your cute little face, remembering the bond I felt to you, oh it’s priceless!

I love you, Noa.

Through her, I have glimpsed the vast perspective of the universe, which gained new poignancy as I reach middle age and my parents’ generation begins to recede: In the context of eternity, there really is no difference between a life that spans ninety years and one that lasts five days. The distinction is in the impact that life has on others. -LBC

Had plans to go to dinner with my mom, aunt, and uncle last night and it took us forever to decide on a place. Finally we came to a decision, and what do we see when we walk into the door of the restaurant? A girl having her baby shower for her baby girl. Opening presents. Balloons and decorations. Smiles all around the table. My heart sank. My aunt chose a table in the back, but I should have just walked out the door then and there. I sat down and immediately got up to go to the bathroom and cry. I took 10 minutes or so try and compose myself, but shortly after I sat down at the table again I lost my appetite and started bawling and I fell apart and I left the reataurant. They took me home.

I should be helping to plan my baby shower, I should be picking out all of your things. I shouldn’t have to be grieving this devastating heart wrenching life altering loss of my baby girl whom I love so dearly. Why did this have to happen? I can understand why the Jewish religion doesn’t do baby showers, I understand the superstition all around it. I was so guarded about you at first Noa, we didn’t even announce our pregnancy with you until I was 19 weeks along after the anatomy scan confirmed you were perfect and healthy and normal. After that good news, I felt “safe” to announce you to the world, we were just so excited about you, Noa! We also found out that you were a little girl at that appointment, we were so excited! And we knew we could use the name Noa that we both loved so much for a baby girl, it’s a name I’ve always loved!

Now I know that there’s no such thing as “safe.” I know that anything could happen, at any time, and it’s beyond my control. I have no control over anything. I feel powerless, like I’m just a pawn in this life. I don’t know why G-d took you from us. I don’t know why we have to suffer every day over your loss. It’s so hard Noa, so so hard. But there is still joy, when I look at our pictures of your perfect little face.  Dad and I laugh together over this one picture of you, my favorite, because it’s just plain old ridiculous how cute your face is!!! So yes, there is joy amidst all the pain. I am so blessed to have been able to hold you and cradle you for those 18 hours after delivery. We have those memories forever. Those memories are all we have left, baby Noa. It’s not enough, it’s not even close, but it will have to be because G-d didn’t give us a choice. He took you from us and we’ll never find out why so long as we are alive on this earth, in this body, in this form. We pray one day we will see you again and understand why this happened, why you died, why you were taken from us before we even got to hold you.

My pain over seeing that girl having her baby shower was a painful reminder of all I will miss out on with you.  Dressing you, diapering you, feeding you, comforting you when you cry, falling asleep with you, waking up to you, seeing your first smile, hearing your first laugh, watching you fall head over heels in love with your wonderful daddy (Noa, one day soon I will dedicate a post to telling you about your daddy and how much he loves you and what a wonderful man he is! He is my strength through this and he is the reason why I put one foot in front of the other on days when I can hardly breathe because I feel so suffocated by my grief.)

It would be easy to wish this never happened, that I never got pregnant with you, but I don’t wish that at all. Can you imagine a love so strong that it makes all the pain and suffering worth it? I would rather know you in the way that I did, for the short time I did, than not know you at all. You have brought so much joy into my life! You have opened my eyes to what it means to love someone! Your dad says I am different person since you, he says I’ve changed for the better and he loves me more now. I love him more now, too. My days are hard, and they often seem meaningless and empty, but I just have to remind myself that my pain and suffering are worth it because I got to have you and love you, and I always will. There is nothing that can ever take that away from me, from us.

 

 

Your candle is lit and it gives us comfort and let’s us feel close to you. But you are gone forever, at least in this life, in the world here on earth as we know it. We sat and cried together as we often do, longing for you, wondering if and when we’ll ever see you again.  I said to your dad, that in my version of Heaven, I am holding you and the three of us are together once again, and you’re breathing and your heart is beating. That is really all I want. He believes this will happen for us one day, and I pray to G-d every single day that it does.

I wish I knew where you were right now and what kind of existence your spirit has, in what form? I just long for you, Noa. My pain is so big and I don’t understand the purpose of going through this. None of it makes sense. Your dad and I, we were brutally robbed. I’d give anything and everything up to see you, hold you, feel you, kiss you, smell you, cuddle you again. What pain is bigger than this? What hole is deeper? And what love is stronger?

You carved a space in my heart greater than anything I’ve known. Now that I’ve lost you, that space just sits empty and I’m broken. It’s too big to fill with the trivial aspects of my former life as I knew it. I come up with ways to waste time and pass the minutes of the days. My hope is that the days turn into weeks, the weeks into years, and then we are old and tired, and we can finally enter your world, be with you, have peace, and be whole once again, the three of us together, that is my Heaven.

You’re all around me. I saw you today in a leaf blowing in the wind on a tree, the way it was waving, directly at me, I just knew it was you. I was crying but I was smiling inside because I knew it was you. I just knew! Other times, I’ve seen you in a ray of light when it hit the ground and cast shadows on the earth. I’ve seen you in the corner of my eyes when I turn my head just ever so quickly to make shadows appear, and then I look again and nothing.

Thank you for being with me today, especially.

Because in just a few short hours we will place your body with the earth and rest your soul, and I will fall apart. I will fall apart, just as I’ve been doing all day, every day, at the most random times, since we said hello and goodbye at the same time 6 days ago. But I will remember that you were with me today, giving me strength and offering me peace, on the kind of day that no mother, no person, should ever have to endure. I love you.

 

Waking up is the most painful part of my day, even though all parts are painful. Now that you’re gone, I wake up in a cold sweat and immediately a wave of anxiety and sadness hits me and paralyzes me. I feel my longing for you all over my body. My heart hurts, it throbs for you, and it doesn’t quit. I think of you all the time and that’s ok because what else is there to think about? It’s only you, now. There is nothing else. Noa, I miss you so much. My whole body heaves when I cry for you. I want to turn back time so badly and all I want is to have you in my arms again. I miss your smell so much. Your delicate little skin. I want to kiss you all over. I don’t know if I can go on like this without you, Noa. I only got to hold you and be with you for 18 hours, but you have changed me, you have changed my life forever.  I don’t want to stay here on this earth in this body anymore because I don’t have you. I want to free myself from all this pain and suffering and I want to go where you are. Please, Noa, can I just come be with you? Tell mommy where you are, give me a sign somehow, tell me what I need to do, and I will come to you.

Noa Eve,

You were the most beautiful thing that I have ever laid eyes on. I have never known a love like this, and you have already changed my life forever. I am not the same woman I was before meeting you. Everything is different now.

Right now, I just can’t stop thinking about how perfect you were when I first met you. You had the cutest little face I could have ever imagined! And a full head of hair, already! I saw your eyebrows and your fine little eyelashes and it melted my heart. Daddy and I laughed because we both saw that you had his nose. I love daddy’s nose and I’ve teased him about it before, but you just wore it so perfectly on your round little beautiful face that I could not stop smelling and kissing and loving on. And the shape of your lips were perfect, they were so full and so beautiful, as was your tiny little pink tongue! We were in awe at your beauty, baby girl, and I will never forget every perfect little inch of your body that I studied when I held you in my arms.

You had all 10 fingers and all 10 toes and the cutest little nails I have ever seen. You had mommy’s collar bone for sure, you wore it just as mommy does, very proud and pronounced. And your legs were so long, also from mommy! You’d have been such a tall girl my baby Noa, and I’d have taught you how to rock it and how to exude confidence like the little beauty queen you are.

I couldn’t stop smelling you and kissing you and I miss you so much. The ache in my heart from missing you is a sting like I’ve never felt before. When I met you on July 1, I learned what it was like to be a mom and to love a child, and let me tell you baby girl, there is nothing like it in the world, in this life, that even remotely compares. Daddy often described to me what a parent’s love for a child was like while you lived in my belly for those 27 weeks. He said “one day soon, you will know.” I couldn’t have even imagined it if I tried, Noa. Because it’s not something that you can describe to another, it is only something that you can experience one you feel it for yourself.

I felt, and still feel, so honored to be your mommy and I feel so lucky for the gift you have given me. My time with you was vey short. I met you at 5:25 in the evening on July 1, and we had to say goodbye the very next afternoon. We will set your soul free soon when we lay you down to earth to rest in peace, but I know your spirit is with us for eternity. Daddy and I have beautiful memories of our brief time with you and we will never forget you. We can’t stop thinking about you, Noa. Your memory consumes my every waking moment! And though it brings me such pain to miss you like this, I want you to know that it also brings me so much joy because I got to meet you and hold you, and oh what a gift! Daddy and I fell so deeply in love with you, and because of you, we fell more deeply in love with each other throughout all of this.

We feel so lucky to have been chosen by G-d to be your parents. G-d has taught us that your soul was so special that you never actually made it to our world outside mommy’s body while you were alive, before you were called back to Heaven. You see Noa, we have learned that some souls, like yourself, are so special that they finish their mission on this earth before even entering our world, and then they get called back to G-d. Though it is painful for us in ways that are indescribable, we know this was done with hands and a will much bigger than ours.

One of the first questions mommy had was, “why?” I just wanted to know what happened. Why did your heart stop beating? Was there something wrong with me? Was there something wrong with you? I wanted tests and I wanted answers and I definitely did not want to have to go through labor and delivery because I already knew you were gone. Some day soon I want to recall every detail of my labor and delivery of you because I never want to forget. Even though it was the most emotionally painful experience I’ve ever had to endure, it was still very special to me because at the end, we got to meet you! You are my greatest gift, and every part of the journey is special to me. Some day, I will recount those 20 hours of labor for the purpose of my own healing, and for other mommies out there who will inevitably be forced to go through the same, a still birth. But for now, I just want you to know two things.

First and foremost, there was nothing wrong with you! Noa, as I have said, you were perfect!!! Absolutely perfect. As soon as you were delivered, it was apparent that it had been a cord accident that caused your death while you were inside of mommy, and that there was nothing mommy could have done to prevent it or protect you from it. This was simply G-d’s will, Noa. I am unbelievably heartbroken, but I just have to accept that this was G-d’s will. I wanted to tell you this, because as I repeat it, it is a source of comfort to me as I grieve your loss. Mommy did everything that she was supposed to do to keep you safe. The doctors and nurses have told me time and time again how I did not cause this, how I could not have caused this, how this was an accident. I don’t know why this happened to our beautiful little family, but I am trying not to blame myself for this loss, even though sometimes I can’t help myself from thinking that somehow it was my fault.

The second thing I would like you to know is that there is nothing medically wrong with mommy. I was tested for clotting conditions and other complications that my doctors at first thought could have led to your death, but this was before we discovered what happened with the cord once I delivered you. Everything about my ability to carry a pregnancy to term turned out to be normal and healthy. The fact that the cord got wrapped around your neck was not your fault, was not my fault, was not anybody’s fault, Noa. Even if it could have been discovered on ultrasound before your passing, there would be nothing that anyone could have or would have done to change it. My doctor has seen babies with cords wrapped around the neck five times with no adverse effects on baby, and she has seen cords wrapped just once that have led to a fetal demise, as what happened in your case. But regardless, there is no way to go inside the womb and unwrap it or change baby’s position or the cord position.

Oddly, part of discovering this after your delivery was reassuring to me, in the sense that a) we learned there was nothing we could have done to prevent this, and b) daddy and I made the most perfect, beautiful, healthy little girl. At first I had wondered whether you had a genetic condition that led to your demise that maybe was never detected. You see, daddy and I had chosen to forego any genetic testing throughout pregnancy. We chose this because we had faith that G-d would handle things the way He saw best, and we would just trust in G-d that everything would turn out how it was meant to be. Noa, there was nothing wrong with you. What happened was a very rare cord accident. But even if there had been something wrong, it would not have changed how much your daddy and I love you. Looking back, I don’t know why I was so focused on the “why’s” of what happened, because now I know that nothing could have changed how much I love you and nothing could have changed how much pain we are in as we grieve your loss, no matter the cause.

Yes, I did get some answers, which seem futile now, but the part that I still struggle with is why G-d chose to take you from us too soon in this way. Why did this accident have to happen to you? Why did I have to leave the hospital empty handed? I just want to hold you again, Noa. Because above and beyond all the “why’s” and “how’s” and details of what happened, the fact remains that it happened, and now I just miss you. I miss you like crazy, Noa. I feel it in every bone in my body, in every ounce of my flesh. Daddy and I both miss you and love you and think of you every second of every day. I stare at your pictures and I study your face all day and all night. What I wouldn’t give to hold you again in my arms, on my chest, skin to skin, to kiss you again, to breathe you in again! I don’t want to bury you Noa, I want to hold you in my arms forever and smell your sweet baby smell! But I know that we must put your soul to rest, and I know that we must now leave the rest in G-d’s hands, just as we’ve always done.

My time with you was too short, but the memories of my brief time with you is forever, and for that I am so, so grateful. I will always miss you, I will always love you, and you will always be right here with me, though not in the physical sense. May your soul rest in peace, my beautiful, perfect, sweet baby Noa Eve.