While some people appear to sail through life, others (continued)
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.