My daughter is 7. I am so proud of her. I look at her lovingly…she has delicate cascading dark brown hair, wavy like my own but not so fine. Her’s are soft and shiny and frame her lovely face quite adorably. She laughs and plays and tells me many stories..she’s very talkative, shy on the outside but in reality, very engaging and fun to be with. She says ‘mama I love you’ quite often and I am not complaining. I love being her mama. I love to be loved. She’s amazing to her little brother and she’s fiercely protective of him. The two of them between themselves are too busy to miss the outside world. They are each other’s best companions and playmates. I am a proud mama with a full life. Something I dreamt of since I was myself a kid that one day I would have my own little family of four has come true. What else could I ask for from life?
I am snapped out of my dream.
The cool air feels like ice on my skin and I wrap my arms around myself to stop me from shaking.
My heart feels heavy and half empty at the same time.
I reminiscence about my first pregnancy and how it all ended for us.
My daughter never made it alive out of my womb.
She is long dead.
7 years have passed since we said goodbye.
My heart aches with the big hole her absence has made in it ever since.
These days,
whenever I look at my 3 year old son, the miracle of my life,
more often than
not, I find myself drifting off to a parallel world where my daughter is alive
and very indulgent to her 3 year old brother . I start day dreaming about
having two lively, healthy, full of life, mischievous children and I can’t help
but feel sorry for myself because in reality my daughter is dead, I don’t even
have a decent picture of my dead daughter, I am very doubtful of being able to
give a sibling to my son because of various reasons, a big one being that I am
nearly 40.
Told me that she could not check the baby’s vitals properly as the baby was lying in a certain position that was making it difficult for her to do so. She told me to get up take a walk and have some water to induce the baby into changing position. The mother’s instinct in me kicked up and I knew instantly that all was not well with my precious child. I remember feeling numb and my heart starting to race…why did she need to check so thoroughly if she didn’t see a problem? I looked immediately at my husband who was sitting at the foot of the bed and he would have sensed the panic in my eyes as he gestured for me to relax. See our baby’s little hands and feet he told me with a smile, pointing at the big screen right behind my head. She’s probably sleeping. It’s probably nothing; the technician just wants to do her job and have a look at all the vital organs properly. Relax, the baby will move and then they will see all is ok.
My husband constantly offering words of affirmation and trying to calm my nerves as I nervously paced up and down the hall outside the ultrasound room. My mind in a whirlwind but I was pining myself to all the positive words from my husband.
Later, after two more unsuccessful trials to make the baby move, our baby did move and as I lay on the bed for the fourth time, my heart racing like it had never done before and me praying with all my might for all to be ok, the technician confirmed the doubts she had all along (but had not told us until then). Our baby’s brain had enlarged ventricles. Off course we did not know what it meant at that time except it sounded very grim and drained us both immediately of all the joy and excitement the first time expecting parents feel.
Blurry days that rolled into one another followed this diagnosis. Our baby’s ventricles were found to be getting bigger and bigger at every ultrasound that followed thereby cementing our fear that our baby had Hydrocephalus. Our RE suggested we undergo Amniocentesis to determine the cause of it. The probabilities being, the baby either had a faulty chromosome or baby had acquired some infection in utero.
The memories of those dark and hopeless days still haunt me to this day. DH and I waiting hours upon hours in the corridor outside the office of some specialist or the other that we were referred to, other times outside the ultrasound rooms for the umpteen scans that I had to undergo. The depressing long forms that we had to fill before every appointment and crossing check-boxes on the same questionnaire again and again, just for ‘routine’ which was apparently mandatory prior to seeing any doctor. I remember tears would start flowing randomly from my eyes as we would be sitting outside awaiting our turn. Wondering, hoping, wishing, praying, weeping. Why us or why our baby? being the one foremost question in our minds while we tried consoling each other.
The day of the Amnio was extremely scary but I had a lingering feeling that the results would be in our favor and we would receive good news at the end of it. I remember feeling paralyzed with fear before my turn came and then again as I lay on the bed in front of the doctor waiting for him to pierce my belly with that big needle. My fear was not for myself but of losing my baby due to the risk associated with amniocentesis. The doctor was amazing and very gentle with his craft. I did not even feel the needle go inside, my baby was monitored very well throughout the procedure and it ended like a cake walk. Unfortunately, that was the last time I felt anything positive about this pregnancy. A few days later while in office I received a call from my husband who sounded thrilled as he told me the chromosome results had come and all was well with the baby genetically. No faulty chromosome there. I was relieved too. I was ecstatic. I ran into the arms of my co-worker also a dear friend who followed my pregnancy during all those trials as closely as her own. Half the battle was won. She congratulated me and I accepted gladly not letting the other half still awaited results dampen my spirits. The next day I received yet another call from my husband, this time the happy note missing from his voice. Informing me that our child had actually been diagnosed with Rubella (German measles) infection.
I knew not what it all meant at that time except that something was very wrong. Seriously wrong with our child. Later we were told on our faces that it meant really grim consequences for the baby in the womb. The rubella infection in unborn babies meant serious birth defects and very slim survival rate in infants. If survived, the quality of life would be acutely compromised. The rubella had caused the hydroThat our best bet was to terminate the pregnancy and save our child the curse of a vegetative life.
A few days later I was admitted to the same hospital I had undergone fertility treatment in and had my IUI done but for a very different reason. Just four months after my IUI and a confirmed pregnancy test, I was admitted to terminate that precious pregnancy both DH and I had always dreamt of. I had been over the moon after our bfp and considered myself extremely lucky that our very first IUI was a success. Alas, the season of unprecedented joy did not last long for us. It turned ominous and the season of doom far too quickly.
I had felt my baby move for the first time in the days that followed the first ultrasound that had given us our grim prognosis. How I died a thousand deaths as they put my lovely, sweet angel to sleep forever, still inside of me.
Labor pain was bone breaking and breath stopping but in retrospect it was nothing compared to the pain and trauma I felt within of letting my darling go. The labor pains did let me scream and lament the anger, frustration, and immeasurable pain of the loss that I was mourning. My body was supposed to provide nourishment and a safe haven for the growing little life inside of me and it had failed me completely. I was angry with myself. I was angry with anybody and everybody and I was angry with the world. I had zero motivation for pushing; I would not be taking my baby home at the end of it.
But I endured it all. Only because there wasn’t any choice I was left with. 11 hours later my angel was delivered and we came to know that she was a girl baby. The nurse later cleaned her up and brought her to show us…I will never forget that moment. My world stopped as I looked down at her angelic face. She was beautiful. Her face looked so peaceful, she resembled me totally. I could tell how she would look if she had opened her eyes. Then they took her away and everything around me turned pitch black.
February was the month of my actual delivery date, seven years ago. This would have been her birthday month. This month always brings back the deep seated pain of loss of my precious child and I am transported back in time.
My little angel, 7 years old today would have made the perfect little big sister to her brother S. I know it. Her memory lives on in me and one day I will tell S all about his big sister and I will teach him to love her as he loves us.
On earth we were separated, my sweet child but in heaven we will be reunited. I live with the hope of seeing you on the other side one day.
Flying with Broken Wings 