Meeting Baby Samuel

I’m sitting at my laptop, finally. Finally made it out of bed. Kids and hubby gone to church and the house is quiet — except for some sad taps on my laptop and some sadder notes from Norah Jones singing Rosie’s Lullaby to my empty heart. This mango-orange scented candle sitting to the right of my laptop seems to be anchoring me down in some way — its warmth; it reminds me of a summer evening filled with life.

But to the left of my laptop sits a sad blue box. One that reminds me how quickly life can be lost. It is round, with flowers hand painted on its top. In tiny white cursive letters — I would have missed them had I not inspected every inch of the box — there is a name: Judith A. MacLavey. She is the artist who cared before my sweet baby was ever conceived. Just inside the box, sits a card: “This memory box has been painted with heartfelt sympathy by a member of the Decorative Artists of Southwest Florida.” I cried the first time I read it. And every time after. I’m crying now.

Just beneath that little card is a tiny, hand-crocheted onesie. It is blue and white and a mango color, almost the color of my candle flickering its warmth and sympathies my sad way. And then there is this tiny, tiny white hat. Too small for any fully formed baby. And there are my white hospital armbands stamped with my name, my doctor’s name and the date I found out my tiny baby had died: 10/26/2011.

At the very bottom of my blue box, there is a picture of him. I insisted on having a picture — something tangible — to carry with me out of that hospital. It’s all I have of him that I can hold in my hands.

Just four days earlier, when I made it to the hospital, in great pain, what I carried with me was my fifth child, whose life I couldn’t wait to watch unfold. I couldn’t wait to see where this child’s journey would go. And I was so grateful for being his mom.This one was special for a reason I did not understand. I just knew that my sister, who passed at 24, had come to me about this one. She told me there was a connection with them. And so I couldn’t wait to meet him. Had he been a girl, I would have named him Yelena at birth.

That was always the plan — to name this child after my sister had it been a girl. I guess she knew what I did not as I made it to my doctor’s office. In my mind, my body was most likely trying to go into pre-term labor. I fully expected them to give me a shot and put me on bed rest.I fully expected baby to be OK.

With that thought in my mind, I told hubby to take the 3-year-old to our sitter because he was all over the place. Hubby had been gone about 10 minutes when they called me back. The nurse asked for a urine sample and when I slipped my panties off, I bursted into tears. Blood. It was all over me. Bright red blood. During pregnancy, it’s what we consider the BAD blood.

I called to the nurse and showed her. We both knew. Something was very wrong. She whisked me back to the sonogram room and I still believed that baby was OK. He had to be, right? Hubby was still gone, so it was just me and baby and sonogram lady. She placed the jelly on my belly and pressed against it hard. I was so scared to look, and when I did, I saw the  baby. Not moving. And no heartbeat. He was dead. I didn’t even have to ask her. I just started sobbing. When she left, I picked up my phone and called hubby. He didn’t understand a word I was saying between the sobs, so finally I just shouted it. “THE BABY DIED. BABY DIED. THE BABY ….

Sobs.

A nurse wheeled me to Labor and Delivery. Yes, I know that place. I know it well. I’ve given birth there three times. I dropped my head and when I finally looked up, through the tears, I could see the sign, “New Beginnings.”

Ah, new beginnings. Bitter irony.

The nurse put me in a back-corner room and quickly gave me drugs. Hubby came shortly after that. The look on his face: confusion and hurt. But more hurt for what he saw in my face. The nurse fed me these meds that were supposed to help me dilate. They expected that, after having four children, I’d deliver the tiny being quickly.

Every time she asked my pain level, on a scale of 1-10, I’d think something like 257,000. That wasn’t my body. That was my heart.

In between newborn-baby cries and lullaby music that comes on every time a baby is born, I lay in a cold room in a sloppy blur of tears, sleeping, pain, forgetting. I woke up once at the sound of a baby’s cry somewhere down the hall and forgetting what was happening, I scanned the room for my own baby. And then I remembered. He had died. And he was still in me.

Around 4 a.m., doc came in. He couldn’t believe it was taking this long, but after checking me, he knew how close I was. He called me a warrior. And I thought, I am not. It’s just happening. That doesn’t make me a warrior. I have no choice. If I had a choice, I would choose coward and run the other way — with my living baby safely wrapped in my arms.

At 6:37 a.m., baby came. Doc explained that, at this point, they’d send baby down to pathology. And I just melted. I couldn’t stop crying. “Well, can you tell me — was it a boy or a girl? I don’t know anything about my baby.”

I was half begging, but half angry.

He rubbed my foot and said, “If that’s what you want, we can look.”

Yes, I was sure. I wanted to see my tiny baby. I was so connected to him. And so, together, we looked: Me, hubby, Dr. Marichal and Nurse Marygold.

Silence.

[To be continued. It's a lot to write all at once.]