email to Luana

April 1996

The Death of a Baby

Dear Friends,

I was planning to print a birth announcement about now, but instead I find myself sharing the sad news of our loss: our baby girl died at home during labor at about 10 am, Friday Dec. 22, and was delivered later that day in the hospital. I think it is the most difficult thing I have experienced in my life, and yet I cannot help but ask to see the blessings and lessons that have come from this loss. I am no stranger to tragedy and loss, and I have learned over the years that there is always something to be gained from a loss, if you will ask to receive it. You don’t have to understand it. You have only to be open to receiving whatever part of it is available to you in the moment. I am now moving out of the heaviness of grief - the hormonal shifts and the physical body’s longing to hold and nurse a baby. I am now feeling like I am back in my body again, feeling like it is safe to inhabit the physical world once more.

Hanna died from a very rare complication: a prolapsed cord caused by a rare abnormality in the placenta. The cord hung down low beneath her head into the pelvis, and when labor forced her head down into the pelvic opening, the cord was pinched and she died very quickly. We were told by the hospital staff, the OB’s and nurses, that even if we had planned a hospital birth they would have expected the same outcome. Even if they could have rushed in to do a C-section, there would have likely been brain damage. I have heard different versions of how rare it is, (1 in 1500 births, 1 in 3000 births) but the bottom line remains that ... it happened. And, there’s really nothing you can do about it. It doesn’t show up on ultrasound because the problem is in the pelvis, and ultrasound doesn’t go through bone. The only way it could have been avoided was if we had gone in for a planned C-section before labor started, and there just wasn’t any reason to do that.

Hanna was 2 weeks overdue, it seemed because she had not dropped down into the pelvis. (which starts the cervix dilating, from the weight of the baby.) Of course now we know why she had not dropped down. There is a sadness, realizing that during those last 2 weeks when I was in such a hurry to get her out, it was our last 2 weeks together.

Just before she died I noticed a lot of violent movement, and later realized it was her last attempt to back off of the cord. I am glad that I had that extra 2 weeks now, despite the physical discomfort of carrying such a large baby. She stayed with me as long as she could.

Even though I was rushed to the hospital, it was evidently too late even before the ambulance arrived. The midwife had requested that they be ready to do an immediate C-section, but when we arrived and there was no fetal heartbeat, the hospital staff determined that there was no point. When I realized that I would have to labor to push her out still, I had to give in to all the medical interventions that I sought to avoid by doing a home birth. I just didn’t have the strength to deal with the pain of her loss, plus the pain of labor. So, from 11 to 6, I labored under an epidural to erase the physical pain, and pitocin in an IV to speed up contractions. I just couldn’t comprehend at that point that I had lost my baby. I never wanted to be pregnant again.I was in shock.

When I was fully dilated and the OB said it was time to push, my friend Wendy (who specializes in bodywork for pregnant and laboring women) was there to talk me through every contraction, every breath. She held my right leg, and Paul held my left leg. Mason, my 6-year old son, had insisted on watching the delivery, and was at the OB’s elbow. My mother, friends and the 2 midwives joined in... including the staff there were 10 people in the room cheering me on, encouraging me and talking me through it. Pushing a normal sized live baby out on an epidural evidently can take 2 to 3 hours. I pushed out a 10-lb dead baby in 25 minutes. They talked about how powerful I was, but I know I was just focusing the tremendous power of those 10 people. We did it together.

Hanna was so big that her clavicle broke as the nurse pushed her through my pelvis, pushing on her bottom from above my pelvis. (I still have traces of bruises just above my pubic bone.) When she came out, Paul lifted her and put her on my chest. I guess we weren’t prepared for how alive she looked: she was pink, soft, warm and glowing. I just couldn’t comprehend that she was dead. She looked absolutely beautiful and perfect. As I held her, put my lips to her forehead, touched her soft wisps of wavy dark hair, the reality of it, the grief hit me. I had left my body all that time, just to cope - to get through the awful job of birthing a dead baby.

As I held this plump, beautiful little body; as I felt it’s weight on my chest, smelled and tasted her, I was pulled back into my senses, into my body, and I felt the grief of a mother’s body that wants to start being a mother.

We all cried together, including the OB, who had volunteered to work with us. We all were there in that moment for a reason, whether we understood it or not. As I handed Hanna to Paul, another layer of grief became apparent.. the grief of him losing his first child, of not being able to see him as the father of my child. And yet, as he held her I saw him become that father, and more importantly, it was dawning on me that maybe I, we could do this again. That this was not the end, but that I could have another baby. It filled me in a rush, made me so happy that they had let me hold her so I could remember what it was all about.

We all held her, we all cried together, we all spoke to Hanna and loved her. Mason couldn’t touch her at first, but finally he came up to Mom, holding Hanna in the rocking chair, and said, "I’ve decided I want to hold her." He sat in the rocking chair and insisted they be left alone as he rocked her, stroked her and touched her, and talked to her. "I love you sweet Hanna." he said softly. It had been a long day, since he saw the ambulance take me away.

Paul and I have been counting our blessings from the first day I was home: grateful that I was okay, and that we can get pregnant again. It could have been a much greater tragedy, so easily. We have spoken many times about how there is always someone better off and worse off than ourselves, and our life is our own: it is what it is and we must rise to meet the path before us. In the meantime we also have the blessing of this experience deepening our connection in our marriage, and in our family.

This is not the end of the story, it is just a beginning, a piece of it. But, it is a piece I wanted to share with you. It is a piece that may help you to understand what has happened, and how we will all go forward from this experience. It is a way of sharing this wounded but healing piece of my heart with you, because we all experience some kind of loss in life.

In sharing my grief process with you perhaps it will help you to support others in their experiences of loss. Perhaps it will even help to give you permission to go through your own grief process when that time comes.

We have had incredible support from friends and community. I am learning a lot about the grief process as I take advantage of the programs and counseling available through Hospice. I know that friends are relieved when I say I’m doing ok; and sad or even fearful when I am having a tough day. Fortunately, I have only had one person say, "Oh that’s okay: You’ll have another one." I take it one day at a time, and every day is different.

Many people have asked me if I know why it happened. It strikes me as strange that I could even try to comprehend why. Wanting to know why seems the antithesis of surrender. Knowing why won’t change what happened or take away the pain. Whatever karmic purpose this loss has, I will be lucky to understand part of it in this lifetime. The little that I do know - the obvious blessings one can cull from surviving a tragedy - only magnifies what I don’t know by contrast. I will spend the rest of my life learning from this experience.

•••••

5 days before I went into labor, I was driving along Jay Road near my house, when my eyes and attention were strongly pulled upwards. I stared incredulously up through my windshield at a magnificent Bald Eagle sitting on the top of a 200 foot tree next to the road. I couldn’t believe it. When I came back from the grocery store it was still there. When I told my friend about it the next day, she suddenly realized that she had dreamt about a bald eagle the night before. We both got goosebumps, wondering what it meant, knowing that it had something to do with the birth.

Five days later, as one of my birth team waited out front to flag down the ambulance, she looked up to see the eagle soaring over her head. Hanna had just died.

The following weekend the eagle was on the front page of the local paper, with comments about how rare it was for an eagle to be in this area.