I sat on the cold, damp park bench next to my husband on that chilly morning. We were overlooking a man-made pond in what was supposed to be a serene rose garden, but on a November day everything was barren and lifeless. Just like me.
We’d come to this place — the final resting place of our miscarried baby, Pio Anne– to pray and mourn. But I didn’t feel like praying and I didn’t want to mourn. I just wanted to sob until the pain in my guts stopped tearing me apart inside. Instead, we settled for sitting side by side in silence and in our sorrow, missing the same person we’d never met but longed so much to be with.
“Like a million miles away from me, you couldn’t see how I adored you”
When I was six weeks pregnant with our fourth child in July of 2018, my husband and I were together for our first ultrasound and witnessed that miraculous little flicker of a heartbeat. We were pros at this–having 3 living children we’d seen this before and it was good news. The ultrasound tech called him our little grain of rice, so that’s what we started calling him, too. I bought rice pudding and we exchanged knowing glances as I served the grain for dinner, anticipating the day when we could let our other kids in on our little secret.
But never got the chance to share the good news. I got a call that my progesterone was dropping so I was immediately prescribed injections and was given an ultrasound appointment for the next day. By the time I lay on the ultrasound table, it was already too late. There were all the appropriate hushed voices and “take all the time that you need,” but my baby was dead and it crushed me.
Since my youngest was not yet in school, he was with me for my pre-op appointment for the D&C that would be necessary to remove the baby’s remains. My son quickly caught on to the fact that I was pregnant after a doctor I’d never met said they’d remove the “products of conception” from my uterus, which I sternly corrected her that it was my baby she was talking about. (I hate that euphemism as it is, but it is heartbreaking when a healthcare professional is so cavalier about the death of my child.)
When I picked up the girls, my son told them that I had a baby in my belly but it was already dead. I was relieved to have the news out, honestly, but it hurt to know we were letting them into the reality they had a new sibling but that it was already dead, and telling them all in the same breath.
“So close, so close and yet so far”
The day came for the procedure, and we dropped the kids off at school and made our way to the ambulatory surgery hospital, an old building in a busy part of town that stands across the street from fairgrounds where we’ve made family memories in happier times.
They had a priest administer Anointing of the Sick, which I appreciated. He prayed with us, and gave me a rosary to keep. The doctor assured me, as per my request, she would do a conditional baptism just in case. They wheeled me into the operating room to take my baby from the only place he had ever known. Quickly, the procedure was all over and I was in recovery.
They brought us the remains in a box covered in a blue sheet. My husband and I took turns cradling the box, which seems macabre thinking about it now but made sense then—this was the first and last time we’d ever get the chance to hold our baby.
Months later, I got a postcard explaining that the memorial rose garden where they’d spread our baby’s ashes had been under renovation, but now it was done and we were welcomed to come visit.
That’s what brought us to that bench that day, to revisit our grief and our lost child in that garden. There are no head stones and God only knows where the ashes scattered, but that’s the last earthly place we have to be together.
Frankie Valli’s Words
Even though the Frankie Valli 1974 hit, “My Eyes Adored You” has nothing to do with miscarriage, the lyrics put into words exactly how it felt from that first ultrasound to our final goodbyes. As anyone who has experienced this type of loss knows, it never goes away but it does get buried deep down inside. At least until I hear that song again.
In memory of our babies lost to miscarriage, Pio Anne and Rita Gerard
