losing a Baby
Be Not Afraid losing a Baby
Chapter 4 losing a Baby
The birth of a baby is one of the greatest miracles of creation. After months of waiting and hours of painful labor, a new being comes into the world. Since time began, the gift of new life has been celebrated with great joy. As the Gospel of John puts it, "When a woman is in travail, she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world." Yet there is wisdom in the old saying that a woman in labor has one foot in the grave. Even in our day, every birth is attended by some anxiety for the health of both mother and child, and there is always the chance of something going mortally wrong.
Writing about the conflicting emotions that surrounded the birth of her first child, Dorli, the wife of one of my nephews, writes:
Be Not Afraid losing a Baby
Stephen was born seven weeks premature in a university
hospital. The miracle of his little kitten cry will always
stay with me. That was the only time his voice was
heard. I only caught a glimpse of my son as he was
whisked away to be examined.
Two hours after his birth I was wheeled down to the
neonatal ICU to see and touch my firstborn. He was tiny,
less than three pounds, with a shock of dark hair. He was
attached to every conceivable monitoring device, and
the ventilator was breathing for him. I was filled with
joy and thanks for the miracle of our son, sure that he
would live. My husband, Eddie, later told me that he was
not as sure as I about Stephen's future. As a volunteer
in Armenia following the 1988 earthquake there, he had
seen firsthand the fickleness of life and the suffering of
countless people.
Stephen lived exactly twenty-six hours and two
minutes. His prematurity compounded several serious
medical conditions that could not be corrected. I
remember the tears that would not stop when a group of
doctors brought us into consultation six hours before he
died and told us that they suspected a genetic condition
that would mean his early death. I held on to Eddie and
tried to grasp what we had just been told.
Our family doctor came to stand by us in those
difficult hours. It was obvious to everyone that Stephen
was dying. Hard is not an appropriate word for that
Be Not Afraid losing a Baby
moment, but I knew that if I let go, Stephen could be
released to a future better than we could have given him
here. I took my son into my arms while his soul was
delivered to God.
It is not only the death of a living child that has such an impact on a parent. In counseling couples that have experienced the trauma of a miscarriage, I've come to realize what a deep hurt and sense of loss this leaves, especially in the mother. Alice, a neighbor who lost a son, says:
We have had seven children. With our fifth, Gabriel, we
never reached the moment of joy that accompanied the
safe arrival of each of our others. Just less than halfway
through my pregnancy, we found that his chances of
survival were very slim. How we longed for this dear
child, and at the same time how we knew we needed
somehow to let go of him. I was not ready for that. This
kind of thing only happened to other people. How could
it be happening to us? We saw him several times on the
ultrasound, lively and all there, it seemed – our baby,
and a real little somebody. How could he be taken from
us? And then one day his heart no longer beat. Another
check, and still no heartbeat. Our little one had died. He
was no longer to be.
Be Not Afraid losing a Baby
After the birth, Alice and her husband were able to farewell their son. That was an unforgettable sight, to see her hold Gabriel's beautiful little form, then wrap him tenderly and put him in the coffin, lovingly made
by a friend. We then accompanied the parents to the cemetery and sadly buried the baby. Reflecting on the experience, Alice later wrote:
I think it is important to allow and even encourage
parents to meet their grief head on. If this does not
happen, it will take years to find healing, or perhaps
healing will never take place. Don't be surprised if it
takes time to find peace; you have to be ready to really
hurt. The grief will always be with you, but you need to
reach the peace.
The death of an infant is not only a painful event, but a particularly hard test of our faith. We wonder, "Why did God create the child at all, if it was to live so briefly?" My mother, who lost two children, said she never found an answer to that question. But she did find comfort in her faith that God does not make mistakes, and that because every life bears the stamp of its Creator, even the shortest one carries a message from the world beyond.
Be Not Afraid losing a Baby
Clearly, death is a mystery that no one can satisfactorily explain. But that does not mean we should avoid it. Our culture shies away from death, especially when a body has been mangled in an accident or has
been autopsied. Many in the medical and religious field suggest having a closed casket so that family members are saved from facing the cruelest aspects of their loss. But such advice can backfire. After all, death is final, and no pains taken to soften its impact can change this. Jane, a woman who, unlike Alice, never saw her baby, writes:
Our only baby girl was stillborn; we buried her on her
father's birthday the next day. The saddest part in it all
was that we never saw her or had a chance to hold her
in our arms. She was born by C-section after a long,
hard, labor. I was very ill, and my husband was all alone.
The doctor asked him if they could send our baby to a
medical center for an autopsy, to which he agreed. It had
been a normal pregnancy, so we wanted to know why
our baby died just before birth. However, they never
could determine the cause of her death, and we never
saw her after she came back. The doctor recommended
that we not see her, since her small body was all cut up
and falling apart. I myself was in critical condition in the
Be Not Afraid losing a Baby
ICU for two weeks. As a result I never had a chance to
see or hold our little one.
Although it's been twenty-two years, my husband and
I still can't talk about our loss. Both of us carry it with an
aching heart. We could tear our hair out that we allowed
this to be done to our little girl. We realize now that this
was the craziest thing we ever did.
From such experiences I have learned how important it is for parents of stillborn babies to be allowed to acknowledge that their baby did live and does have an eternal soul, no less than a baby who was safely delivered. In either case, to have the confidence that God created these small souls for a purpose can provide reassurance even as parents grope to find meaning in the brevity of their child's existence. Giving the child a name can also have an important healing effect, as can talking about the baby with the other children, taking photos or measuring height and weight, or keeping footprints – things to remember the child by in future years, and to know that his life was not just a dream.
Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist, wrote the following after the death of one of his own children:
How often have I asked myself, and many ask themselves,
"Why do children die?" And I never found an answer.
Be Not Afraid losing a Baby
But just recently, when I wasn't thinking about children
at all any more…I became convinced that the only task
in the life of each individual consists in strengthening
love in himself, and in doing that, transmitting it to
others and strengthening love in them also.
Our child lived so that those of us who were around
him would be inspired by the same love; so that in
leaving us and going home to God, who is Love itself,
we are drawn all the closer to each other. My wife and I
were never so close to each other as now, and we never
before felt in ourselves such a need for love, nor such an
aversion to any discord or any evil.
Still, pain over the loss of a child won't automatically bring parents together. In fact, it may severely test their relationship. Dorli remembers:
The hardest time was after the funeral. I would go up,
often alone, to Stephen's grave and cry and cry.
People are quick to rush in with platitudes. One is the
belief that suffering and grief will bring a couple closer
together. This should never be assumed. It can be the
case, but a child's death can also bring great stress to a
marriage. It did to ours.
I couldn't figure out how Eddie could go back to work,
stoically (I thought), never shedding a tear. I, the volatile
Be Not Afraid losing a Baby
one, wept buckets for months. It was our church and
community rallying around us in prayer and practical
support –as well as the time factor – that eventually
helped me to accept the fact that Eddie was grieving in
his own way.
I don't know that our marriage would have survived
without this gentle counsel, at times unspoken. It is a
work in progress. I still often surprise Eddie with an
unexpected rash of weeping.
The death of a child cannot be "fixed." I have come to
accept this grief as part of me. I hoped for closure with
each of our children that followed Stephen, but though
the pain is duller, it will stay until we are reunited.
Each time a baby or small child dies, we are reminded that the earth is not yet fully our home and that our life here is short – like a flower, like grass, like a butterfly. No matter how young the child, no matter how many hours or days or months we were given to love and know that child, the pain seems unendurable; the wounds never quite seem to heal. What else can we do but trust, with the grieving parents, that in Jesus healing will be given, even though slowly, almost imperceptibly.
In a newborn we see innocence and perfection, and we look for the day when the whole universe will be
Be Not Afraid losing a Baby
redeemed and all creation made perfect again, the day when there will be no more death. We believe – the Bible assures us of it – that this will happen when Christ comes again. Writer George Macdonald, who
lost children of his own, once wrote:
If the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and He
said so who knew, our children do not drop haphazard
into this world, neither are they kept in it by any care or
any power of medicine; all goes by heavenliest will and
loveliest ordinance. Some of us will have to be ashamed
of our outcry for our dead.
Beloved, even for your dear faces we can wait awhile,
seeing it is His Father, your Father, our Father, to whom
you have gone. Our day will come, and your joy and
ours, and all shall be well.