Oh, October

Maybe I haven't gotten much better at dodging the curves that life has thrown at me over the years...but I can say that I have grown to appreciate them more than I would ever have thought possible. October, my birth month, seems to be a catalyst for joyful, devastating and enlightening changes in my life.

Long ago on October 1, my day began with a prenatal appointment. My doctor said the baby was breach, but that was nothing to worry about at this point. Then he said “I always like to see an uneventful pregnancy”…but the pregnancy had not been uneventful at all. I lost a terrible amount of weight and, early on, had nearly miscarried while traveling alone through Oregon. 

Later that evening, something wasn’t right…terrible pain every so often. We called the doctor’s office and were told “don’t worry, that is normal”. As the pain started to come more frequently, we called again…whoever answered the phone seemed irritated and, again, said “don’t worry about it.”

This wasn’t a planned pregnancy, in fact, we had been in the process of separating when I learned I was pregnant. My husband had quit his job months before and he did other things with his money even when employed. My business had always been our main income…but at that time, insurance premiums were outrageous. I was a healthy, non-smoking 23 year old with no plans to get pregnant…so when the unplanned happened, we were uninsured.

My husband and I lived about a block from St.Luke’s hospital in Denver…so, when things got worse a few minutes after the second call to the doctor’s office, we went to the closest ER. After a quick exam, the ER docs started preparing me for an emergency C-section. Typically, they’d use a local, but the situation was so dire that they were going to knock me completely out. Things happened really fast from that point on.

As they prepped for surgery, I thought about stories that had been recently in the news about uninsured patients dying under anesthesia and started getting worried. The anesthesiologist drew a sharpie line on my throat and explained that he would tap me on that spot and I’d be out. The last thing I said was “am I going to wake up?” He assured me I would…then a throat thump and everything went dark.

When I woke, they wheeled my son by for a moment before taking him by ambulance to ICU at Children’s Hospital. I was only able to touch him for a second.

When I woke the next morning, he’d already died…a short life of about nine hours. I am grateful that someone talked us into holding him. He was beautiful, perfect, a head full of dark hair. The doctors said his lungs were not developed quite enough to survive. 

A cheerful nurse arrived to take down his name…she did not know he was dead. Then my doctor called and, I kid you not, chewed me out for not driving to his hospital 45 minutes away. As it was, we were an emergency at a hospital one block away…I shudder to think what would have happened if we’d tried to drive across town. 

In hindsight, I think the doctor’s bullying was because he was afraid of a malpractice suit…and, considering the way we had been treated by his office the night before, we probably had a good case. At the time, though, that wasn’t what we were thinking about.

Like the cheery nurse coming in for the name, the “celebratory” steak dinner before I checked out was also surreal.

I was a Mom for part of a day.

It was a 24 hour period filled with fear, confusion and ultimately grief. There are no words to express the feelings associated with the loss of a child. There was sweet sympathy expressed by friends and family afterwards over the death of our son. 

One friend touched our hearts, though, when he very insightfully said "you were parents even if only for a short time"...and thus shared with us a celebration of a life, even if it was a terribly short one. 

The years have eased the hurt and I occasionally wonder what my life would have been had things gone differently. It would be wonderful to have my son beside me...but I truly believe that our paths (his, mine, his father's) were as they should be.

Over time, I have come to believe that we are here to learn how to love one another unconditionally. That means loving...and losing. Trusting...and being betrayed. Holding back...and letting go. Giving your heart...and having it broken. Opening your soul...and having door after door slammed in your face. 

For how can one truly understand another's grief/pain/sorrow/loss if we have never experienced those things for ourselves? How can one know love if they've never felt it? How can you truly value love if you've never lost it? From these lessons come the empathy that ultimately, hopefully, gives us the potential to feel true compassion. From these experiences comes the strength to stand above and look beyond the trials that come our way and find the trails that lead to something better.

There are myriad experiences that shape who we are...but it is the choices we make about the path through those experiences that shapes who we become.  I am grateful for the loves AND the losses that have forged my life...they have given me the grace and grit to, hopefully, face anything.

(Originally posted October 1, 2012)