Bear, you're still my first child
Jul 01 '00
I'd always dreamed of the wonders and joys of motherhood, so my husband and I started trying to have a baby after our first year of marriage. In just two short months we succeeded, and I got pregnant. I knew even before the home pregnancy test came back positive. I felt that glow.
Those first weeks I was simply giddy. My husband and I would just look at each other and laugh for pure joy. We nicknamed the baby Bear, not caring whether we had a boy or a girl, just thrilled at the little life growing inside me.
A month after we'd found out about the baby, I went to a friend's son's birthday party. We watched the children at the party play with the expectant joy of soon-to-be parents, not a worry to spoil the evening. It was magic, it was beautiful.
Three days later, I noticed a rash on my arms and chest. I had a slight fever, but nothing extraordinary or frightening. Still, my husband took me to the urgent care clinic, since with the pregnancy we wanted to make sure everything was okay. It wasn't.
The doctor who saw me looked devastated as he examined the rash and asked how far along I was. I told him it was very early, six weeks or so, my voice dropping to a whisper as I saw the sadness on his face. Quietly he told me the diagnosis. I had scarlet fever, a mild illness for an adult, but a death sentence for a first trimester fetus. I'd probably picked it up from one of the children at the party. There was nothing that could be done except to wait and hope for a miracle.
As it turned out, there was no miracle for Bear. Two days later, alone while my husband was at work, I started to pass large clots. I phoned him in tears. I have little memory of anything else that night, I was in shock and hysterical, but my husband told me what happened later on.
He arrived home to find me in a fetal position in the bathroom, completely incoherent. He picked me up and rushed me to the emergency room when he saw how much I was bleeding. He left me in the car while he ran inside to get a wheelchair, wondering himself if he was going to lose both his baby and his wife.
On the way into the obstetrics and gynecology bay of the emergency room I was bleeding so badly that they had to lift me from a pool of blood in the wheelchair. My husband watched in horror as the blood continued to flow so quickly that it poured off the end of the table, then was escorted out to wait for me. I was told I needed an emergency D&C, but in my confusion all I could think of in relation to that procedure was abortion. I didn't want to abort my baby, I wanted Bear to live. I started screaming uncontrollably. I couldn't understand that they were trying to save my life, that Bear was already dead. My husband was allowed back in to convince me to authorize the procedure, and only the sheer terror in his eyes made me sign the papers.
The next week was absolutely nightmarish. I only ate when my husband insisted. I barely spoke or slept. I just stared at the t.v. and hugged the teddy bear we'd gotten to celebrate Bear when we found out I was pregnant. Worse yet was how uncomfortable it made others feel. The death of a child that's been born, who's real to more than his parents, is tangible in its tragedy. The death of a fetus whose existence wasn't even confirmed yet in changes in her mother's figure is a nebulous cloud of unrealized possibility that confuses those who seek to comfort the parents. Some of them acted as if nothing had happened, some of them gave a hurried and awkward "I'm sorry." Only those who had been through the same experience could understand. They offered hugs and tears of shared pain.
I've been lucky. Since Bear I've been pregnant two more times and have two healthy daughters. But nothing will ever fill the hole created by the loss of my first baby, a child without even gender, never named officially, but always loved. I know one day, that day that I get to see my mother, my aunt, my friends who've passed from this life to the next, I'll see Bear, and get to hold my first baby in my arms for the first time. Your mommy loves you still, Bear.
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Epinions.com ID:
QueenLyssa
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Member: Lyssa Jaraba
Location: Riverside, CA
Reviews written: 64
Trusted by: 19 members
About Me:
It's good to be queen.
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