Preface: I never do this sort of thing. I write aside from this blog for personal reasons. Sometimes important topics like faith and family creep in because they're an integral part of my life, but I mostly reserve this space for my hobby. This one is different. I just feel the need to get it out there. So sports fans, I apologize. This has nothing to do with sports or cards or anything else you might expect to see.
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He would be five.
Five years. Has it really been
that long? One thousand, eight hundred sixty-five days. I haven’t
seen him for 1,864 days since then. And
yet, there have been but few days in which he hasn’t crossed my mind.
April 26, 2014—the day our angel baby was born.
The story really begins
the day before. We had gone in for a routine prenatal doctor’s visit.
At almost 17 weeks, we were getting an ultrasound in hopes of learning
the gender of our new little one. We even brought our two sons—who were
five and three—with us. It was
exciting. They wanted to be there when
we learned if they would have a little brother or a little sister. I
don’t remember who the technician was. I
don’t remember what she looked like. I
don’t recall her facial structure or features.
But the concern, growing to anxiety, and finally morphing to panic,
showed on her face and burned in my mind as the ultrasound remained still and
silent. The tension seeped into the room.
Kelly’s grip on my hand tightened continuously. I could feel her breathing picking up as her
eyes darted from the screen to the technician to me. I’m not certain, but I may have been
squeezing, too. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” she asked in a barely
controlled strain. Even the boys started to feel it. Then the technician stepped out of the
room. I wasn’t long. It couldn’t have been long. But the time dragged for a couple of minutes
before she returned with the doctor. It
didn’t take the doctor long to confirm.
“I’m sorry.
There’s no heartbeat.”
Miscarriage. I
guess we were aware of the possibility. Kelly’s own mother had suffered
through it multiple times. But we far along. Far enough to learn the gender. I’ve done the research. Roughly 80% of
miscarriages occur in the first trimester.
By the time you get to 17 weeks, the chances drop to around 1%.
And yet, here we were. I removed
the kids from the room and made some calls.
I don’t remember calling my mother-in-law, but I must have, because she
came and picked up the boys. I called my mother. I remember how cheery she sounded when she
picked up the phone. It was so difficult
to croak, “We lost the baby.”
I stayed in the waiting
room while the doctor explained the next steps to my wife. Typically, a
miscarriage involves a procedure called a D&C. It's more a surgery than anything, sterile,
impersonal, and with nothing to see when it was over. For us, that wasn’t an option. Because
of the late term and the size of the baby, my wife had to deliver. Still in shock and trying to process the
grief, we scheduled an induction and a delivery for the following day.
“Oh, and would you like to know the gender? It’s a boy.”
We drove home alone,
mostly in the silence forced by the choked sobs blocking all other noise from
our throats. About two blocks from the doctor’s office, I choked out,
“Benjamin Glen?” Kelly just nodded. It’s two family names. My family has a
line of Bens in some form or another, and my grandparents had been disappointed
we hadn’t used it. Now it just seemed
appropriate.
We spent the evening
with family and tried to prepare for the next day. How does one prepare,
though, to welcome in a life that will never take a breath? He was
born. He was tiny. I got to touch the fragile body. Someone came in and took photos for us.
We got the typical footprints in ink and plaster casts of feet and
hands. In some ways it seemed so
normal. But in the end, that was
all. Counselors came in to talk to my
wife. But it wasn’t going to make things any easier. And when they left, there was no crying, no
cooing, no sleeping in a bassinet next to the bed. Just a stifling aloneness.
I’m not entirely sure
that I got a chance to grieve. Reality set in pretty hard after
that. You see, the aftermath of a
miscarriage is not much different from a birth. There’s post-partum
depression. There’s caring for the
recuperating mother. And, oh yes, there
are bills. We paid in every possible way
for this baby. Yet there was no baby there for us. In the midst of it all, I was back at
work. I was running interference from
all the people who wanted to talk to my wife. She didn’t want to talk to
anybody. A friend who understood brought
a poem to my attention that helped me process.
Pardon that I don’t cite the source, but I don’t know the author.
“It must be very difficult/to be a man in grief. . . .He dries her tears
and comforts her/But ‘stays strong’ for her sake/It must be very difficult/to
start each day anew . . . . He lost his baby, too.”
And now, years have
passed. I’ve found some understanding in the difference between grieving
one who passes from mortal life and one who never passes into it all. I
would never want to lose one my living children. I’m not saying my burden is any heavier. But I do realize a key difference is that I
have no memories to hold onto. No memories at all—except for the pain of
loss. I imagine that I’d be teaching him
to play tag and catch. Maybe he’d be
riding his bike and getting ready to take the training wheels off. But I
don’t have these memories of him. My
little boy came and left, and the sting of death is the only memento. I heard a song recently by one of my favorite
bands, Yellowcard, that touched on this very subject and resonated to my core.
You would be ten and I'd be
Driving you to school
You would tell all your friends
That you thought I was cool
You would be out in the sun
Until it was gone
You would be watching Star Wars
With your PJ's on
And you would have
All the love in my heart
I have a ten year-old.
He loves Star Wars. I have an
eight-year old. I’ve done my best to teach them to play ball. We’ve laughed and worked together.
There’s a three-year old girl in the house, too. She’s the light of her daddy’s life.
But I have a five year-old, too.
That one is not with me, but they all have “all the love in my heart.”
Now we have a perfect
storm of emotional fallout from the miscarriage. Today is his fifth
birthday. And we have another boy on the
way. We’re 17 weeks along. In
fact, his due date is almost the same as Benjamin’s. The similarities and the anniversary are a
potent emotional force in combination. Pregnancy is an amazing, fragile
miracle. Somewhere between 10% and 15%
of pregnancies end in miscarriage, mostly in the first trimester. So many expectant parents hold their breath
for 12 weeks and exhale in relief when the most perilous time has passed.
The thing is, once you have experienced a late-term miscarriage, that
apprehension never passes. I will be
nervous until the new little one joins us.
While I’m looking
forward, hoping and praying for the safe arrival of another little boy, I’m
taking today to commemorate the one who came and left. Sometimes I pull
out those ridiculously small plaster casts.
The hands remind me of the hands on my kids’ Lego people. The feet are barely the size of the nail on
my pinkie finger. They’re so delicate that I fear the trembling of my
hands will rattle them to pieces. But I
take them out. I remember the past. I imagine a present and a future. Five years ago, he entered my life, only to
leave it directly. But he impacted it forever. He took a little piece of it. Somewhere out there, I have one more son who
is waiting to make things complete. My
faith tells me I will meet him one day, and he will give back that part that is
missing. In the meantime, I'll hold on
to the little of him that I have in return.
Across a veil of mortality, we'll be holding each other.
