In the trenches

Shortly after we moved from the city where we'd lived eight years, the city where our children were born and one died, I started to realize that our baby was gone. Forever. After months of waiting to meet him, he was gone. We'd held him and loved his lifeless body, but he's not going to part of our lives the way we thought he would.

This thawing out of my brain and all the memories of those wretched weeks is painful. One of the most intense pains I've ever felt, one both physical and emotional. And yet, wounded and feeling broken on the inside, I have to try to keep things going for our other four children. Even if Mumma would rather lie in bed and cry, there are four little people who need loving and structure and routine. While my appetite is only just returning, they need and want their three meals and snacks. One of the grief books the social worker at the hospital gave to us said that, "Children's grief is random. They grieve and then they play. They grieve and then they play." This is exactly what I've found.

I navigate through my days like a drunk trying to walk a straight line. I've lost my focus, grief dulling all the edges and making me scatterbrained and fuzzy. I have caught myself putting milk in the cupboard, starting to make a meal and then getting lost in thought, or taking ages to complete tasks that ordinarily I'd speed through. My strategy has been to focus on the necessary: Feed the children. Take time to cuddle and read. Try to get us out to play somewhere. My husband, too, needs to be fed and loved as he struggles through his grief and the demands of his stressful work environment - and the new commute there and back. I remind myself that this is their summer break, that each day we're making memories. But it has been hard.

One night in July, after a day of trying to keep things normal when I feel anything but that, Morris and I took our sheepdog puppy for a walk. And here is Providence, serendipity, whatever you wish to think of it, but what I think is God giving me the help I needed at a moment I felt so hopeless: I met people, grown ups, who understand. A few houses down the road are a nice couple, grandparents, who came to meet our loopy Albert dog. Morris announced, in rapid succession, that we had just moved in a few houses over, that our dog's name is Albert, and that our baby George had died and was in heaven.

I smiled wanly, used to strangers being surprised by the candor of my children in discussing their baby brother's death and making quick exits. But this couple didn't. They smiled and asked Morris about our baby. I felt my tears come and they were okay with that. We talked about what had happened and then while the wife kept chatting with Morris, the husband talked to me. He's an Anglican priest and a psychologist whose specialty is trauma counselling. He has kindly offered to talk with me whenever I feel ready. He said that having a stillborn baby is akin to a soldier losing a buddy on the battlefield; the shock and horror of this baby's unexpected death is the maternal equivalent of being ambushed, unable to control events and stop the death of another, and coming out the lone survivor. To cope, our brains shut off a bit to protect us and let us only experience some of the reality in the moment. So that's why I felt on auto-pilot in hospital and during George's visitation and funeral. It was all so surreal.

I have to say it was a relief not to feel crazy, because honestly, I've had moments where I've thought I was losing my mind. He said that he feels, just from how I'd described my thoughts and feelings, it's post traumatic stress syndrome. That until I've dealt with these experiences, just like a Vietnam war vet, I'll relive them as vividly and fully as if I were back in the moment they occurred. And that is how it feels. Some things trigger the memories and they are as real as when I had no choice but to live them. Sights, smells, tastes, textures. It's all so real and sharp. Of course I've felt traumatized by having a stillborn baby, but on some level it was so very reassuring to have a healthcare professional tell me it's okay and normal to feel this way. I had felt as if I was struggling against this wall of emotion and that if I were stronger and more competent I'd be able to just fit all of this bereavement into our lives in a nice and tidy, socially acceptable way.

He has suggested EMDR therapy to help my brain store these terrible memories in long-term memories, not keep them in the forefront. Naturally with a husband who works long hours, no support system in our new city, and four children to watch over I don't have a lot of time at the moment. But I will take him up on his kindest of kind offers when I feel as though I've waded through all of these events and circumstances on my own for a bit.

As I've mulled this over, a friend from university days called to check in and I told her of meeting this reverand and his recommendation for EMDR. She mentioned another mutual friend had just called her to say she'd undergone EMDR after finding the body of her housemate, who had committed suicide in their shared home. The EMDR has helped this woman to still remember the awful events, but not with the same intensity. Again, it was one of those moments where it seems the hand of God is at play because what are the odds that I'd have met this psychologist with this particular specialty and then had a call from someone with anecdotal praise for this therapy? I guess some will say coincidence, but I believe in saints and angels.

I can't help but wonder if, as they say there are no atheists in foxholes, if there are no atheists in the bereaved mumma trenches? Because I cannot imagine coping if I didn't have my faith, if I didn't have hope that my baby is safe in the afterlife, and that one day I will get to hold him again.