There are certain events in life that carry in themselves the innate ability to permanently alter your course. The death and birth of our daughter, Emma Carter, was one such event. I list them in that order, because that is how they happened, first her death, and then her birth, and with them, our three lives forever changed.
Some backstory:
In 2014, my husband Rene and I, along with our son, Lukas, moved back to the Austin area from the Bay Area of California, when Lukas was 9 months old. The Bay Area is horribly expensive, and most of our stateside family lives in Texas. Most of Rene's family is still in his home country of Guatemala, where we met and married. Now that feels like a lifetime ago; it wasn't really that long.
When Lukas was born, I felt the call and urge to stay home, so even though Rene was only pulling a part time salary as a youth pastor, we took a step of faith, trusting that God would provide, in one way or another. I have to admit, as much as I had truly enjoyed my full-time job as a school bus driver (no sarcasm here, I really did like it! We had an awesome family of coworkers, and I was getting paid pretty will to work with kids and had the summers off. Plus, how cool is it to get to drive a huge yellow bus around town?!), I felt freed then to bask in the fullness of mothering, homemaking, and future career possibilities. And we did see God provide, albeit differently that how we expected. I wonder at vastness of all of that which I do not know, understand, or have the full pilot's view perspective. I know I do not need to defend God and His sovereignty, love for His children, or ability to provide, but it feels wrong to say "we took a leap of faith, and it didn't work out." Maybe it is wrong. Maybe not. Maybe it's ok that it didn't work out. Maybe the jury's still out on whether it truly worked out or not. I tend to think the last is the closest to the truth. We do not yet have all the information, though I'm not sure we ever truly will.
From September to January, we lived on Christmas gifts and savings, MediCal, WIC, and a part-time income that just about covered our rent. We ate through our savings, incurred a "little" more debt, and enjoyed a lot more quality time together as a family. But in February, our lease came up for renewal (and an increase), and we decided the cards were on the table: it was time to move.
We had made this exodus from San Jose to Austin once before, in 2011, and had stayed for about 9 months, before returning when Rene received a job offer. At the time, I had also be offered my old job back-a huge provision! This move to Austin felt very different, with 2 solid job prospects already in the processes of courting Rene, family nearby to lean on, and our old community generously offering to host our things while we got settled. On top of these factors, we faced a much more palatable cost of living in Texas, and with our budding family, it seemed the wise thing to do. Our motives were different this time around, based on practical planning and "grown-up wisdom" of choosing what's best for our whole family and in Lukas' best interest. We were making sacrifices as parents, rather than simply giving in to the longing for greener grass that had fueled our first CA to TX move (and if we're really honest, that had played a heavy role in our return move to CA, as well.)
Things don't always go how we plan. (If you've lived at all, you probably don't need to me to tell you this.) Sometimes even the best-made, "grown-up wisdom"-based, practical plans don't wind up gelling after all, and we're left holding each other's and God's hands, with all our stuff in suitcases and either a storage unit in California, or our friend's garage in Austin, and nowhere to land. Thank God for family.
The short of it: we ended up moving in with my parents for a couple of months. It was great for Lukas-grandparent bonding and making up for lost time, but a bit too much of a strain, for the long-haul, on relationships and roles, not to mention kind of a downer on the local job prospects front and the pastime options available. It's a little tricky to job-hunt long-distance, but a couple of temp gigs later, God provided a full-time job for Rene in Austin, with housing. That housing turned out to be "housing"; I'll spare you the nitty-gritty, but it was a helpful stop-gap. Financially, that temporary company housing was a huge blessing, and it taught us to be more flexible and grateful for even little things we have now, like our own apartment. We relocated our family 4 times in 2014; thankfully the bulk of our stuff only had to move once, and we settled into our apartment in late September.
Over that summer, I began working for my grandmother, as I had when we'd lived in Austin before. I learned very quickly that I could not, as it turns out, effectively care for both her, in all her 94 years, and our 1 year old son. The need for daycare quickly dampened my stay-at-home-mom plans, and I began exploring other options. During my hunt, I regularly passed a billboard on the way from Lukas' daycare to my grandmother's place, bolding asking: "Want to Teach? When Can You Start?" It got my mind rolling about the career that had always seemed so logical for me, yet I had never truly pursued. With the month of June already underway, I carried out some speed-research on the alternative teacher certification program behind the billboard, as well as a few others, enrolled in the shortest path to certification [let's just call it the "Billboard Program"] and began my training. As a side note, I would NOT recommend my qualifier for choosing a program. It is NOT the best OR most supportive program, and I ran into many headaches with them over the next school year, but they did help me get hired, and I was, indeed, able to earn my full standard Texas Teaching Certificate through their program. So, hey, at least they made good on those promises. Plus, with my added income, we got to move out of the motel. Yes, the company housing perk for my husband's job was a 1 bedroom apartment in a company motel. (Trust me, I'm still sparing you the nitty-gritty.) You might say I was a bit motivated to get hired for the 14-15 school year! But anyway, I did, we moved, and time marched on.
2014 was a bit crazy, to say the least. Transition out the wazoo, tons of new, but by Christmas, we were just happy to be settling down and within close proximity of much of our family again. I don't know if 2015 just didn't want to be left in the dust or outshone by its predecessor, but it came out the gate running. We got pregnant with Emma on January 2nd.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
A New Beginning, Right in the Middle of Everything
It's September 1st, the start of what was supposed to be the first full month back to work (teaching) from summer break and the last month of my second pregnancy. But like so many other times in life, things haven't gone as planned. Oh, and let's be clear: I had everything planned out! I am a planner, if there ever was one, analyzing every piece of the puzzle down to the last detail. Reflecting on all the planning I did during the first two weeks of August, before we were due back for training, I wonder at the expenditure of that time. Did the priorities I set prove worthy? Were my choices wise? If I'd had an insight into how things would play out, would I have done things differently? And of course, the application: how can I learn from this going forward?
The Week Before
At nearly 35 weeks along, I was crazy enough to be changing practitioners. The appointment on August 18th was to be my last scheduled appointment with my OB. I had been receiving my prenatal care from this large-scale health care provider, with whom my OB practices, although due to scheduling conflicts (mostly mine), this was only my third appointment to actually see her, and not another doctor or nurse practitioner. Tired of this issue, and after enduring one changed appointment time after another (some of which I was not informed until I either arrived for my appointment or was 5 minutes away), I was fed up with being treated like a number. Over the past couple of weeks, I had painstakingly researched our options and had chosen a quiet, intimate-feeling birthing center, located a good 25 minutes closer to our home. A few days prior to the 18th, I had gone in for my first appointment, and our baby girl Emma seemed strong with a heart rate of 130BPM. Unfortunately, she was breech, so I had been working on the inversion exercises the midwife had given me and was going to the chiropractor, praying she would turn, so we could go through with the natural birth we wanted, just as we had done with our son, now 2 years old. That was Thursday.
Over the weekend between those two appointments, I'd finally had some time to journal and really pray about my fear of the C-section that might result from her not turning. The Lord had opened my eyes to see from His perspective that it doesn't have to go as I have planned. There's a lightening bolt from the sky for the ultimate planner here! Ah, the things I know in my head, yet fail to carry as truth in my heart! He reminded me that, even if she didn't turn, and I ended up going in for a C-section, that He would take care of that outcome too, of her and of me, and basically that I could relax and trust everything to His hands, even if it wasn't how I planned. I walked away from that time of prayer with peace, humbled and reassured that God is in control, and He is good, as are His ways. A few days later, as I reflected on that time in prayer, I realized God's love and mercy in a new way, that He was preparing my heart for something so much greater that I could have understood.
The Day Of
On the afternoon of Tuesday the 18th, I found myself quickly working to set up my desk after our professional development for the day. Our third day back, and I had already moved classrooms, but was thankful for my new placement, shared with two other Special Ed teachers, and happy to finally have the chance to set up my area of the room. So involved was I with this task, that I stayed later than I should have and was racing out to my 4'o clock appointment at 3:45pm...25 minutes away, with no traffic. For anyone familiar with the greater Austin, TX area, you know that I-35 is basically evil and should be avoided at all costs, but the toll roads are also pricey, and despite my great aversion to this awful section of interstate highway, it was still my best bet for the shortest travel time, thank you very much Siri. I pulled into the clinic parking lot at 4:10pm, knowing the cutoff time for late arrivals is 15 minutes, and raced (well, let's be honest: I was 35 weeks pregnant, so it was probably more like a speed waddle...) into the building and up the stairs. (Yes, I took the stairs, and no, being pregnant does not equal being disabled. A soapbox for another day.) I made it in time and miraculously, my blood pressure was still low...things I don't understand.
The Appointment
The doctor came in quickly, and noting my gestation, commented that I'd be full term in a couple of weeks. I wasn't really phased by this, as I was holding out hope baby girl would hang on until her September 24th due date, which would work out well with holidays for maternity leave, winning me 3 extra weeks home with her, before returning to work in the spring. I just agreed and climbed up on the table. All I was really hoping to confirm was my suspicion that she had actually turned head down, so when the doppler didn't register her heartbeat, I figured she was still breech. While the doctor stepped out for a minute, a nurse brought in the ultrasound machine. I don't know what compelled me to share this with her, but I mentioned how it was "funny" that from the beginning of this pregnancy, I was afraid something was wrong, but then the baby had been strong all throughout, "so I guess it's just a mother's worry," I told her. I had noticed Emma hadn't been moving as much, so in truth, I was a little worried, but I'd mostly just chalked it up to her running out of room as she grew.
As soon as the doctor got baby girl's image up on the screen, she said, "oh she's breech, that's why I couldn't find her heartbeat." I was a little bummed, but not too surprised, since the doppler had already clued me in to her presentation. She continued to look at the screen and move the sensor around on my belly while we talked for a few minutes, and I really didn't think anything of it, distracted by our conversation. Finally, she gently, sympathetically, said the words that still haunt my memory, that still break me down to recall, "Virginia, I'm so sorry, but I've been looking for the last few minutes, and I don't see a heartbeat."
The world just stopped.
To quote the movie Spanglish, "There was a crack in the planet. WOW...that was noisy!" I have played those words, that scene, back through my mind a thousand times since that moment, but at the time, as the truth and meaning of them slowly sunk in and seemed to hit me in the chest like a ton of bricks, all I could do was break down in disbelief, into this strange hysterical cry that had me thinking, in the middle of all that, "it sounds like I'm laughing...why does it sound like I'm laughing?" It's like this weird shock and disbelief, coupled with denial and rejection of the truth that's just been shared, all at once, so I guess it's not surprising that it comes out sounding like a hyena getting attacked. All I could think was that I wanted my husband, and I wanted my son. In my sobbing and loneliness, I asked the doctor to hold my hand, which she graciously did for a few minutes, while she gently consoled me, then went to call another doctor to check, a second opinion. Fortunately, he was very kind and gentle as well. Unfortunately, his second opinion confirmed our baby was gone.
It is something uniquely strange and unreal to realize your child's life is gone from this earth, while simultaneously holding her tiny body within your own.
Grief, by the way, is a funny thing. It often leads a person to strange and unexpected actions and responses, irrational and impulsive behavior. In the moment, once I had let it soak in a few minutes, my analytical mind began racing with questions, the most pervasive of which were "how?", "why?", and "what now/next steps?" I didn't ask why, maybe somehow knowing that was a question for the Lord only, and even then, He may not share that with me, according to His wisdom. I think I asked how, in disbelief that she was fine on Thursday. "She had a heartbeat of 130 BMP. I know I remember that number, and I heard it myself on the doppler," I probably repeated this a few times, in total disbelief and part denial. (I would later begin to obsess over the details of that Thursday appointment: "Did they miss something? The ultrasound was just a flash...was something wrong that they could've seen if they'd looked longer? The midwife seemed a little off her game...was she competent? Could she have missed something that could've saved my baby's life?" And so the questioning goes, for things that probably cannot be answered. I did receive the record of that appointment, and it revealed nothing more than a confirmation of the data I already knew from that day--130 BMP, Breech presentation, everything else looks fine.) But there in that moment of utter reality shift, the question on which I, the planner, chose to focus: "What happens now?"
What Now?
You should know, or maybe you shouldn't, there are two particularly cruel and fairly unavoidable realities awaiting the parents who've just learned they've lost their child so late in a pregnancy. The first: the mom must still endure labor to deliver the body of their child, or she can wait for nature to take its course, according to timing outside the parents' control, while carrying the body for another several days. The second: they must make arrangements for the body. (I warned you, this wasn't for the faint of heart.)
The doctor tried to advise me to take my time before we addressed any "what now?" issues, but I assured her that it would help me to have some of those questions answered and be able to focus on what I could do, something over which I could have some sense of control, while I felt the whole world was being pulled out from under me.
The whole thing is truly a total, permanent shift in reality. From "we're having a baby, a daughter, our second child, in just a few weeks" and "those kinds of things happen to other people, not us..." to "we're burying our daughter" and "we are one of the families...it happened to us." It rocks your world, takes it on a roller coaster ride, drops it from the top of the tower of doom at lightning speed, to crash into the pool at the base, soaking you through and through. Then every time you move to begin processing what just happened, you feel the car clicking ominously back up the tracks for another round. It does get better, it does slow down, it does get easier, but it takes a lot of time, and a lot of love and support from those around you.
On August 18th, I went in for a routine prenatal appointment, with no inkling of the forces that lay beyond those clinic doors, and how our lives would be forever changed. 24 hours later, my husband and I left the hospital with a memory box in our hands and our hearts full with incomparable sorrow, unanswered questions, hope for how God would redeem this horrible reality, and a hole left by our daughter that only Jesus can fill.
The follow is a narrative of the events just before and those in between. I dare not sugar-coat it: this is not for the faint of heart. It is, however, part of my story, and if you have, God-forbid, lived through the same awful events or have someone in your life who has, I pray this will validate your emotions, bring you comfort and some kind of consolation, or perhaps help you better understand those who've experienced child loss at any stage. Mostly I pray, as you read my story, that you will see Jesus, there in the middle of both the horrific and the beautiful. Because I am witness to this fact: He was there, every step of the way, and He is still here now, walking with us in each step of the "everything after."
The Week Before
At nearly 35 weeks along, I was crazy enough to be changing practitioners. The appointment on August 18th was to be my last scheduled appointment with my OB. I had been receiving my prenatal care from this large-scale health care provider, with whom my OB practices, although due to scheduling conflicts (mostly mine), this was only my third appointment to actually see her, and not another doctor or nurse practitioner. Tired of this issue, and after enduring one changed appointment time after another (some of which I was not informed until I either arrived for my appointment or was 5 minutes away), I was fed up with being treated like a number. Over the past couple of weeks, I had painstakingly researched our options and had chosen a quiet, intimate-feeling birthing center, located a good 25 minutes closer to our home. A few days prior to the 18th, I had gone in for my first appointment, and our baby girl Emma seemed strong with a heart rate of 130BPM. Unfortunately, she was breech, so I had been working on the inversion exercises the midwife had given me and was going to the chiropractor, praying she would turn, so we could go through with the natural birth we wanted, just as we had done with our son, now 2 years old. That was Thursday.
Over the weekend between those two appointments, I'd finally had some time to journal and really pray about my fear of the C-section that might result from her not turning. The Lord had opened my eyes to see from His perspective that it doesn't have to go as I have planned. There's a lightening bolt from the sky for the ultimate planner here! Ah, the things I know in my head, yet fail to carry as truth in my heart! He reminded me that, even if she didn't turn, and I ended up going in for a C-section, that He would take care of that outcome too, of her and of me, and basically that I could relax and trust everything to His hands, even if it wasn't how I planned. I walked away from that time of prayer with peace, humbled and reassured that God is in control, and He is good, as are His ways. A few days later, as I reflected on that time in prayer, I realized God's love and mercy in a new way, that He was preparing my heart for something so much greater that I could have understood.
Do you see Jesus here?
The Day Of
On the afternoon of Tuesday the 18th, I found myself quickly working to set up my desk after our professional development for the day. Our third day back, and I had already moved classrooms, but was thankful for my new placement, shared with two other Special Ed teachers, and happy to finally have the chance to set up my area of the room. So involved was I with this task, that I stayed later than I should have and was racing out to my 4'o clock appointment at 3:45pm...25 minutes away, with no traffic. For anyone familiar with the greater Austin, TX area, you know that I-35 is basically evil and should be avoided at all costs, but the toll roads are also pricey, and despite my great aversion to this awful section of interstate highway, it was still my best bet for the shortest travel time, thank you very much Siri. I pulled into the clinic parking lot at 4:10pm, knowing the cutoff time for late arrivals is 15 minutes, and raced (well, let's be honest: I was 35 weeks pregnant, so it was probably more like a speed waddle...) into the building and up the stairs. (Yes, I took the stairs, and no, being pregnant does not equal being disabled. A soapbox for another day.) I made it in time and miraculously, my blood pressure was still low...things I don't understand.
Did you see God's hand there?
The Appointment
The doctor came in quickly, and noting my gestation, commented that I'd be full term in a couple of weeks. I wasn't really phased by this, as I was holding out hope baby girl would hang on until her September 24th due date, which would work out well with holidays for maternity leave, winning me 3 extra weeks home with her, before returning to work in the spring. I just agreed and climbed up on the table. All I was really hoping to confirm was my suspicion that she had actually turned head down, so when the doppler didn't register her heartbeat, I figured she was still breech. While the doctor stepped out for a minute, a nurse brought in the ultrasound machine. I don't know what compelled me to share this with her, but I mentioned how it was "funny" that from the beginning of this pregnancy, I was afraid something was wrong, but then the baby had been strong all throughout, "so I guess it's just a mother's worry," I told her. I had noticed Emma hadn't been moving as much, so in truth, I was a little worried, but I'd mostly just chalked it up to her running out of room as she grew.
As soon as the doctor got baby girl's image up on the screen, she said, "oh she's breech, that's why I couldn't find her heartbeat." I was a little bummed, but not too surprised, since the doppler had already clued me in to her presentation. She continued to look at the screen and move the sensor around on my belly while we talked for a few minutes, and I really didn't think anything of it, distracted by our conversation. Finally, she gently, sympathetically, said the words that still haunt my memory, that still break me down to recall, "Virginia, I'm so sorry, but I've been looking for the last few minutes, and I don't see a heartbeat."
The world just stopped.
To quote the movie Spanglish, "There was a crack in the planet. WOW...that was noisy!" I have played those words, that scene, back through my mind a thousand times since that moment, but at the time, as the truth and meaning of them slowly sunk in and seemed to hit me in the chest like a ton of bricks, all I could do was break down in disbelief, into this strange hysterical cry that had me thinking, in the middle of all that, "it sounds like I'm laughing...why does it sound like I'm laughing?" It's like this weird shock and disbelief, coupled with denial and rejection of the truth that's just been shared, all at once, so I guess it's not surprising that it comes out sounding like a hyena getting attacked. All I could think was that I wanted my husband, and I wanted my son. In my sobbing and loneliness, I asked the doctor to hold my hand, which she graciously did for a few minutes, while she gently consoled me, then went to call another doctor to check, a second opinion. Fortunately, he was very kind and gentle as well. Unfortunately, his second opinion confirmed our baby was gone.
It is something uniquely strange and unreal to realize your child's life is gone from this earth, while simultaneously holding her tiny body within your own.
Grief, by the way, is a funny thing. It often leads a person to strange and unexpected actions and responses, irrational and impulsive behavior. In the moment, once I had let it soak in a few minutes, my analytical mind began racing with questions, the most pervasive of which were "how?", "why?", and "what now/next steps?" I didn't ask why, maybe somehow knowing that was a question for the Lord only, and even then, He may not share that with me, according to His wisdom. I think I asked how, in disbelief that she was fine on Thursday. "She had a heartbeat of 130 BMP. I know I remember that number, and I heard it myself on the doppler," I probably repeated this a few times, in total disbelief and part denial. (I would later begin to obsess over the details of that Thursday appointment: "Did they miss something? The ultrasound was just a flash...was something wrong that they could've seen if they'd looked longer? The midwife seemed a little off her game...was she competent? Could she have missed something that could've saved my baby's life?" And so the questioning goes, for things that probably cannot be answered. I did receive the record of that appointment, and it revealed nothing more than a confirmation of the data I already knew from that day--130 BMP, Breech presentation, everything else looks fine.) But there in that moment of utter reality shift, the question on which I, the planner, chose to focus: "What happens now?"
Did you see Jesus there? 'Cause I promise, He was.
You should know, or maybe you shouldn't, there are two particularly cruel and fairly unavoidable realities awaiting the parents who've just learned they've lost their child so late in a pregnancy. The first: the mom must still endure labor to deliver the body of their child, or she can wait for nature to take its course, according to timing outside the parents' control, while carrying the body for another several days. The second: they must make arrangements for the body. (I warned you, this wasn't for the faint of heart.)
The doctor tried to advise me to take my time before we addressed any "what now?" issues, but I assured her that it would help me to have some of those questions answered and be able to focus on what I could do, something over which I could have some sense of control, while I felt the whole world was being pulled out from under me.
The whole thing is truly a total, permanent shift in reality. From "we're having a baby, a daughter, our second child, in just a few weeks" and "those kinds of things happen to other people, not us..." to "we're burying our daughter" and "we are one of the families...it happened to us." It rocks your world, takes it on a roller coaster ride, drops it from the top of the tower of doom at lightning speed, to crash into the pool at the base, soaking you through and through. Then every time you move to begin processing what just happened, you feel the car clicking ominously back up the tracks for another round. It does get better, it does slow down, it does get easier, but it takes a lot of time, and a lot of love and support from those around you.
Get ready, because, even if you haven't seen Him yet, you will see Jesus here.
The Hospital, the Nurses, and All the Little Details
*01/11/2021: When I first sat down to draft this post, it had only been around a week or two since these events. It was fresh, I was processing, grieving, aching, and everything was a blur. Writing it out gave me a sense of order and peace. Given the obviously heavy nature of the content here, I took a break, but I found every time I went back to it, I just couldn't go back to that raw moment to finish recording the events of those 24 hours between finding out she was gone from this world to going home without her. Even as I sit here now, with the yearning to finally finish this post, 5 1/2 years later, our rainbow baby 2nd daughter now almost 8 months old, and even after multiple sessions of counseling, I cannot bring myself to go back to the raw account to find closure there. I will say, in briefer fashion, that the rest of the events that night and into the next afternoon, before I was discharged, were filled with the most intense, fastest, and painful labor of all 3 of our kids, but they were also filled with the caring gentleness and support of the nurses, who stood by the bed while I labored and prayed with me. They were filled with our gentle, compassionate doctor, who caring delivered our baby girl's body and gently laid her on my chest. They were filled with my parents planning the funeral we could not fathom and taking care of every detail on our behalf, and with my parents driving 5 hours that night to be with our son. They were filled with a wonderful friend from work coming to our apartment to stay with our son until my brother could get across town, so my husband could be with me sooner at the hospital. They were filled with my brother, friend, and parents loving on our son, so we didn't have to worry about him. They were filled with the kindness of hospital volunteers who made the baby clothes for times such as these, and the nurses who so lovingly photographed Emma in the sweet handmade outfit, so we could have a picture of her when the shape of her face faded from my memory. And the hospital volunteers who knitted the blanket the nurse gently laid around my shoulders while I held Emma in those dim hours of the early morning to say goodbye, the blanket I would take home and put under my pillow for the next few weeks and finally place in the closet with the memory box they made for us, her sweet, tiny foot and handprints included. And they were filled with several "me too" stories from nurses who dared to be vulnerable in their compassionate care, and who showed me I could give myself permission to feel whatever feelings came and to process however was best for me, for us, and to throw to the wind any ridiculous or no-thought-be-spoken comments that would come (which they did, and so I did--usually). There was much grieving and healing left to come, but we left the hospital that next day with hope and the beginnings of healing, owed in great part to the role of all these friends, family, and hospital staff who cared for us in our darkest hour. They were to us, indeed, the hands and feet of Jesus. Gentleness, compassion, lovingkindness, and the love of God.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)