Listen to Your Mother

LTYM was an amazing experience. Words cannot describe how validating and thrilling it was to stand before a sold out audience of 700 people and share my story of mothering both Zoe and Nora! If you are interested, I have shared what I read below. 

Thank you to Listen to Your Mother and the producers for believing that the bereaved mother's story needs to be included and heard in the quilt of motherhood story telling. 

Invisible Motherhood

“He had forgotten,” I thought as I opened the Mother’s Day present at brunch.  Inside was a beautiful blue sapphire necklace on a slender silver chain. Gently running my fingertips over the smooth stone, I turned to my husband, said thank you and asked, “Why a blue sapphire?”

Proud of his purchase he replied, “It’s Zoe’s birthstone.”

Looking at our eight week-old baby girl sleeping soundly snuggled in her car seat next to me, a sad obliged smirk quickly came and went upon my face. Tears formed in my eyes but I held them back as I thought, “Where is Nora’s birthstone on this necklace? Why is her name missing from this card? Have you forgotten about our daughter that died just 15 months ago?”

Instead of yelling these words of discontent across the table at my loving husband, who was so pleased with his procurement of what he assumed was a thoughtful gift, I instead simply smiled and said, “I love it! Can you help me put it on?”

And I did love it. I mean I do. The keepsake is a reminder that I birthed yet another beautiful baby girl into this world and I should have a necklace of just hers to cherish as I do her older sister.

But at the same time I hated it.

I hated that Nora was not somehow represented on that chain. I hated that there was only a newborn sitting to my right at this table and a toddler missing from my left.  I hated being an invisible mother to one daughter with the world only noticing and acknowledging my motherhood to the other.  I hated the inflexible and confusing truth that without Nora being stillborn there would be no baby Zoe here in my arms. I hated having to live daily on this bridge between being a bereaved mom and a mother to a living child.  I hated the fact that I even say phrases like “living child.”  I mean who says that?  Most moms just get to say, “Hi.  My name is so-and-so and I’m a mom to three beautiful children.” But there is another thing I hate, that seemingly simple question so many ask innocently when you first meet, “How many children do you have?” has now become a challenging conundrum to answer. “Ugh, one, I mean two.  Do dead children count?”

 

I hated all of it, but what I hated most was the fact that he forgot to put her name in the card just like my parents also forgot to put Nora’s name in the card that they sent the day before, “Happy Mother’s Day honey! We are so proud of you for being Zoe’s mom,” it read. 

I wanted to scream, “But I’m not just Zoe’s mom; I’m Nora’s mom too!”

It seemed as though another fear of mine was coming true.  She had been forgotten, replaced. Overshadowed by the living, breathing child that came after her.  Not even those closest to me, that had lost her too, seemed as if they wanted to remember her. My heart was shattered.  I thought that somehow this thing called grief would get easier.  I guess some days are, but those days ill prepare you for and make you foolishly think that all days will be better. Boy was I wrong. Moments like this one just seem to add salt to a wound that will never heal, no matter how many F-ing times you try to bandage it.

But if I’m being honest, my greatest fear was that I would forget her too. That somehow among raising Zoe, memories of Nora would fade away along with my love for her.  You see it’s getting harder for me to remember her now.  The demands of raising a living child take away from the time there is to mourn the dead one. Dinners need to be made, chores need to be done, diapers need to be changed, and so the act of living must go on. With so much to do, it’s easy to forget her, not intentionally, but slowly, over time, as she slips silently into the background of life.

So how am I supposed to parent a child I cannot hold?

My answer?  I write her name on the glass shower door every morning.  As the steam rises and the water droplets form into fog on the glass entrance, I ritually carve the letters of her name out of the dew upon the door. Four letters, short and sweet, like her life was, appear every morning on the window pane because I place them there. While the water from the shower head beads off my back I decorate her name on the glass with hearts and sometimes retrace the lettering over and over again. Taking a moment to remember her, if only for a minute so that I can be with her once again.

The other morning as I stepped out of the shower and was dressing for the day’s events my husband, holding Zoe, turned to me and asked, “Can you wear Nora’s necklace today too?”

“Sure honey, but why?” 

He shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I just like it when you wear both.”

I smiled. He hadn’t forgotten her, and neither will I.

Just remember to always…..

Why I Don't Want to be Pregnant After a Loss Again Right Now

Photo by Kerry Kresl Photography

When I was six months postpartum with Zoe my mom during one of our once a week phone conversations would say, “Maybe you’re pregnant again” when I would describe some kind of physical alignment that I as a hypochondriac often feel on an hourly basis.

I would huff, “ugh” into the receiver and say, “I am so not ready for that!”  

Then mom would let me know that her friends and others had started to ask when “we” meaning Nick and I were going to start trying again.

Being pregnant again was the farthest thing from my mind.  I had just gotten MY body back!!!!  I was done breastfeeding because I went back to work and the milk dried up the longer I went without pumping, due to this my weight was finally falling off and I was getting back to my pre-babies size. However, due to Zoe getting colds every other week so was I, as Zoe and I were introduced to the germ factory known as daycare. Also it was the first time in 15 months that I wasn't suffering from extreme perinatal and postpartum anxiety due to starting on meds after I stopped breastfeeding. Most importantly though, it was the first time in 2 years, yes 24 months that I hadn't been pregnant or worried about becoming pregnant.

I was free!

So when I started hearing that the low rumbles and soft whispers of the rumor mill were asking questions about our timing and plans for another child I got annoyed.  I was another one of those things about grief, life after loss, and pregnancy after loss of a child that I don’t think people get.  You don’t have to want to rush creating your family just because one of your children died.

Now I did feel that way after Nora died.  I think that’s normal.  And I do feel this way now at times as Nick and I often begin asking each other, “Do you think we are ready to try again?” as each month comes and goes since this past December.

Maybe we come back to our question each month because of our loss and that our plans for starting a family were derailed and pushed back 18 months when Nora died or maybe we ask this question because I am in my early 30’s with my fertile time running out and Nick is in his mid-thirties and is starting to believe that his window for being an active dad is shortening?  Probably, and most likely it’s both.

The thing is, now that Zoe is here I want to spend as much time with her as I can. I hear the first two years of a child’s life are important for their development and yes, because of the loss I am afraid that if I were to get pregnant again while Zoe is under two, that my anxiety and fear would take me away from being present for her.  

I already have mommy guilt that I’m not present enough. I already feel guilty that I wanted for this child so much, that I worked my ass off for her to get here and then there are days when I drop her off at daycare a feel a relief that I can go to the coffee shop without having to carry a diaper bag and juggle a toddler. I already feel mommy guilt that in some way Zoe was a replacement and that if we rush into having another baby that child would be a replacement too.

Mostly, I feel guilty because I know that Nora's death pushed back our plans to be parents and that we feel the tugging of time at our side urging us to try again, because we know pregnancy and parenting aren't guaranteed and even knowing all of this, I still feel guilty because ALL I want is to have my body back.  

To NOT be pregnant.

Because I want to linger just a few days and weeks longer in this place of contentment with the small family I have and with a being - body, mind, and heart that finally feels it has shed it’s weighted layers of grief, sadness, pain, suffering, pregnancy after loss, anxiety, hope, fear, pounds, and breast milk.
 
Life is a little lighter these days without the layers.  

Photo by Kerry Kresl Photography

I want to linger here just a little longer.

And that is why I don’t want to be pregnant after a loss again right now.

You are one.

You are one.

I never thought this day would come.

Your life from the very beginning has been over shadowed by death.

Not yours, but by your sister’s.

You, my beautiful life filled Zoe, with sweet tooth filled smiles and wrinkled nose giggles, were born out of the shadows of darkness and brought me into the light, like a lotus flower reaching for the sun through the black mud.

You. Zoe. I have feared for your life since before you were even conceived. From the day your sister died I was afraid you would too.

I also worried that you would be a replacement.  A child whose identity would be tainted by loss and forever live in the shadow of the older sibling never to be.

Oh but my sweet, sweet jovial Zoe!  I know now that this was my story and no longer has to be yours.  You may have been the life that sprouted from death but my dear darling daughter that does not define you.

You adoring daughter, you! You are ZOE! Not your sister.  Not Nora.  Not a replacement and not a shadowed life lived tainted by loss. 

No.  You are LIFE, not the result of a death that happened before. 

There is so much to you. 

You are the girl who laughs through her teeth when her daddy chases her around the furniture in the living room. 

You are the girl who smiles at me with a crinkled nose and bright wide hazel eyes when I tickle your toes.

You are the girl that gives hugs and kisses to those she knows and stares with a watchful eye at strangers who have not made their loved deserved.

You are the girl who steals socks from her doggy George and babbles with mama and dada when you walk across the kitchen floor with knobby knees and a stick waddle.

You are the girl who put back together the pieces of my heart when they were broken, shattered, and thrown widely across the hard wood floor of life and scattered beyond repair.  

You Zoe girl!  You are the girl who brought colors back to life again.  Who made the days less dull and the nights full of laughter instead of tears.  You Zoe girl!  You are the girl who made hugs feel fuller and kisses seem sweeter and my life beautiful again.

You Zoe girl!  You! You are the girl who brought me out of the depths of darkness and back to life.

You. Zoe.  You are life.  You are you and only you.

And today…

You are one.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl! 

Love Always & Forever,

Mom

The Birth Stories After Loss Blog Roll

Writing both of my birth stories was extremely healing for me and there seems to be many places around the internet where we can share our birth stories of loss.  But here, I have decided that I would like to start sharing our birth stories of our babies after a loss.  These stories are just as important and healing to tell. 

So I'm looking for submissions of your birth after loss story to share on my blog.  If you are interested in sharing your birth story of hope or loss (because not all pregnancies after loss result in rainbows) please e-mail your story to l.mariefritsch@gmail.com or send me your story through the Still Breathing Facebook page.   

I look forward to having the honor of sharing your story on Still Breathing.

Giving Birth to Life: The Birth of Zoe Nicole

Zoe's healing birth story can now be read on the front page of Pregnancy & Newborn Magazine's website. You can read it by clicking here.

When we started this journey I never really believed we would make it this far.  I am so grateful that we have.

“That was a nice long shower,” my husband groggily says to me as I step out of the en suite bathroom while he still lay in bed. “What time is it?”

“It’s 4:30 a.m.” I respond as I dry off my big belly and proceed to squeeze into my maternity clothes one last time. “I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep.” I say out loud as I think about the last few hours spent tossing and turning in the late periods of the evening that turned to morning as I spent my final night of pregnancy constantly feeling for her, waiting for her to move, praying she was still alive in my waterbed of a uterus.

I feared she would too die in there during the moments before her arrival like her sister did 15 months earlier. I couldn’t let that happen again, so I spent the night and the many nights in the week before lying awake waiting and counting her kicks. They were the only thing that brought me periods of reassurance and peace from the overwhelming fear that it, the death of my baby in the womb and the delivery of a lifeless child, might happen again.

“Do you mind if we get going to the hospital early?” I ask my husband as I keep one hand on my large belly, continually vigilant of the baby and her activities inside of me in those final hours of pregnancy as we begin to venture to the hospital for the scheduled C-section that is to be performed in a mere five hours.

Nick nods and answers my question by throwing his sheets off to the side and stepping out of bed making his way to the shower. As we continue to get ready to leave for the hospital, a twinge of hope floats into my heart and pushes away the overbearing fear and anxiety that has lived there during most of my pregnancy. I listen to this voice and out of my mouth I hear myself asking Nick as he finishes getting dressed to do the unthinkable. I ask him to put the baby’s car seat in the car.

Now, this is a big deal. You see, coming home with an empty car seat after my first daughter died was torture. I swore to myself that I was not going to do that again, no way, no how. So for the entire pregnancy I told everyone and especially my husband that we were not going to bring the car seat to the hospital the day of her delivery. To me the car seat was a symbol of failure and defeat and a reminder of the pain of losing a child. I didn’t want to jinx myself by bringing it with. But in that moment, I had a change of heart. Maybe this time around taking the car seat was a symbol of hope and belief that baby No. 2 would come home.

After Nick packed up the car we were off to the hospital. During the ride my hands never lingered from my swollen belly. We would slow to a stop and I would notice a kick and proclaim, “I felt her.” Nick would turn a corner and drive over a pothole, which would wake baby inside and I would say, “She just moved.” Nick was not annoyed by my play-by-play broadcasting updates of baby’s activities during our 30 minute drive, instead he always lovingly responded with, “Good” or “Keep kicking little girl.”

We arrived at the hospital early and knew exactly where to go as this was probably our 20th time to Labor and Delivery in the last nine months as my over anxious self visited for every aliment and worry under the sun. They knew me by name and upon arrival a few nurses even waved and said, “Nice to see you again. Today is the BIG day!” I nodded back with a sense of half pride and disbelief that I made it to this day, half fear about the events of the day ahead and with a twinge of embarrassment that baby and me were famous among the nursing staff in the maternal assessment department we had been there so much.

“Sorry we are so early. I’m just really anxious.” I unnecessarily apologized to the receptionist upon checking in. She smiled and reassured me that even without having had a loss like mine, it’s pretty typical for parents to arrive early on the day of a planned C-section. “Everyone’s naturally anxious on a day like today,” she states and eases my heart a bit.

After checking in, Nick and I settle into our assessment room and I change into my surgery attire. While doing this I am pacing around the small room, trying to make jokes about my ginormous paper gown with air pockets in the arm pits to distract from the real elephant in the room—fear and PTSD setting in. This is the moment Nick and I have been dreading. The moment I was more afraid of then the birth, the moment when the nurse comes in on the day of delivery and tries to find the baby’s heartbeat with the Doppler. You see, this is the moment, 15 months earlier where parenthood stopped with the words, “I’m sorry” and “No Heartbeat.”

The nurse, Greta, who I have met before, smiles and says, “Remind me, what is the baby’s name?” in an attempt to calm my nerves. “Zoe. It means life” I curtly reply as I am focused on getting through the next two torturous seconds of hearing or not hearing Zoe’s heartbeat.

“I love the name.” She says and then along with Nick and me she holds her breath as she places the Doppler on my belly and turns the volume on the machine up to ‘high’ so that baby’s heartbeat will be loud and clear, if there is one.

With our breath still held we hear “blub, blub, blub” break the deafening silence of the room and the next noise to be heard is the loud exhale of relief all three of us let out. My face lit up with a smile of delight and liberation as I reach for Nick’s hand as slight tears form in his reassured eyes.

That was the hard part.

That was the true test for us to pass. The baby was still alive and I think to myself we might have a shot at delivering a live child and bringing her home this time!

The next hour and half pass quickly. Family comes and goes to wish us luck before the big moment. My doctor visits, the anesthesiologist stops in, other nurses come to prep me for surgery, and my doula sits with Nick and I as we begin to prepare for the big event to take place in less than T-minus 10 minutes. That’s when our doula, Nicole, starts to review the plan for the birth with us. She reminds Nick that he will be the one to first hold Zoe and meet her at the warmer in the operating room. As Nicole continues to talk to Nick about his first acts of fatherhood the realization of being a dad to a breathing child must have overwhelmed him because he started to cry.

“What’s wrong?” I asked Nick gently.

“Nothing. It’s just… HAPPENING. It’s really happening.” He said with a smile through tears mixed with emotions of bittersweet joy and grief.

“Yes.  Yes, it is.” I smiled proudly back at him as I held his hand while loving him more and more with every passing moment.

And then everything happened so fast. The nurses declared it was time and whisked me away to the operating room leaving Nick and the doula behind where they were to dress for surgery. I proceed to walk into the operating room with a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Up until that moment I hadn’t thought about the possible risks to my body during the birth of baby No.2. Not until I sat on the operating table facing the nice calm nurse who was trying to get me do to breathing exercises with her as the anesthesiologist was poking my spin with an epidural. My worry shifted from the baby to me for a moment as thoughts of my demise flooded my head and I started shaking in fear. By the time the numbing agent started to work below my waist, the rest of my upper body was trembling uncontrollably and I remembered back to my first labor and the horrible shakes that had set in that were accompanied by the fever and infection that had stolen my other daughters life.

I didn’t have much time to go back to that dark place of dread because just then Nick and my doula walked in cloaked from head to toe in blue hospital scrubs with masks and hairnets as accessories. All I could see were Nick’s greenish-brown concerned eyes locking with mine. He made his way right towards me and took his father-to-be seat beside my head and his eyes never left mine until we heard the most beautiful sound a parent will ever hear.

We heard our baby cry.

And with her wail we both looked up, Nick at our screaming baby over the blue drape raised above my shoulders and me over the curtain as they lowered it. I could see her face and her body! There she was flailing her arms, moving her legs, and screaming her lungs out.

She was ALIVE!

She was ALIVE!

We had an ALIVE baby!

This thought was hard to process and my mind was perplexed with a multitude of emotions as I watched her like a hawk as the doctor raised Zoe up in the air in a sense of triumph in the middle of the operating room for all to see and then handed her to the nurses at the warming station. The three nurses seemed to play hot potato with Zoe over the warmer as I watched Nick look on in amazement at our precious moving, screaming, bundle of joy. He was so gentle, so cautious, as I stared at him starring at her in sheer new dad amazement combined with being awe struck that she was really ALIVE.

“Can I touch her?” He asked the nurses that were taking turns juggling our baby and they all gently laughed and replied with, “Of course.”

The nurses placed her in Nick’s arms and he brought her to me as I kept asking and repeating the phase, “Is she OK? Is she OK?” I must have asked this question 100 times in the span of time it took to weigh her, wipe her down, and wrap her up. I was still asking the question as Nick brought Zoe towards me for us to meet for the first time outside of the belly. As he approached with our beautiful baby girl I finally stopped repeating my question as Nick placed her on my chest and said, “She is perfect!”

As soon as the weight of her little bundled body touched my breast, a piece of my heart forever melted and the hole in my soul that was missing my first daughter deepened a little, while at the same time was filled in with this new found love. Looking at Zoe, my mind initially searched for her sister and a part of me hoped it was her, but this baby was a whole new and different life form with her own legacy of love to fulfill in our hearts and the world.

“We did it!” I said to Nick as I turned to him and kissed my beautiful husband as he brushed the hair on my brow and I held our warm, living baby Zoe in our arms. “We did it!”

“Yes we did.” Nick smiled through tears of joy as he replied. “And she is beautiful, just like her sister.”

The rest of Zoe’s stay in the hospital wasn’t easy. When we were in the recovery room right after the surgery we soon found out that Zoe’s temperature was dropping as she was having a difficult time breathing.  The nurses and Nick took our new baby girl to the nursery to see what the issue was and brought her back to my bedside in an incubator with a plan of admitting her to the NICU. They let me hold her one more time as I watched tears of joy turn to tears of fear on Nick’s face while the nurses explained that Zoe would be separated from me and be placed in the NICU to assist with her breathing. As the nurses spoke, their voices seemed to drift off into silent whispers as my heart began to sink in my chest and fill with my old familiar friend, fear. My whole body began to convulse and I could see my legs and arms shaking as I thought to myself as I cried over my new baby girl in my arms, “Not again! Oh, please, not again!”

And we were lucky. It didn’t happen again. Zoe lived. She did need to stay in the NICU during her whole time in the hospital because she had immature lung syndrome.  Basically, since she was born three weeks early and her lungs weren’t fully developed she needed added oxygen through a cannula to help her breathe.  The stay in the hospital was difficult as Nick spent the entire time in the NICU with baby Zoe and I had to recover on my own in the maternity ward. Being separated from my little girl was trying and I’m sure as it would be for any new mom, but with me there was the added trauma of not being able to bring my first daughter home for good that made the separation from my second daughter so scary.

But somehow we made it through the next few days in the hospital with the support of both our parents, my sister, and brother-in-law, we managed to once again get through the demanding moments of bringing a new being into this world. We couldn’t have done it without all the support from family, friends, and the wonderful care team of doctors and nurses along with the many positive thoughts and prayers from complete strangers to our closest friends.

Then on the fifth day after our initial arrival to the hospital, the doctor in the NICU woke me from my slumber at 8 a.m. that morning. “Is this baby Zoe?” he asked as he placed his stethoscope to her chest.

“Yes.” I replied through new mother exhaustion.

“Good, because baby Zoe and you will be going home today!” The doctor proclaimed.

“Really?” I asked just to double check my ears were working correctly. I mean I couldn’t believe that the unthinkable was going to happen. We were going to bring OUR baby back to our home.

“Yup.  Tell your husband to get the car seat ready. She is discharged as of now.” The doc said as he left the room.

Nick returned just after the doctor left and I told him the good news. He immediately went to pack up our things in the vehicle and bring the car seat in to take her home. It took us a few more hours to get baby ready to go. We gave Zoe her first bath in the hospital, fed her one more time, and bestowed our gratitude on the nurses in the NICU.  After all this we finally placed our living, breathing, baby in her car seat. The dreaded, haunting car seat that I couldn’t look at for months after our other baby died, but this time we buckled in our snoring little girl into it and made our way out of the hospital.

As Nick and I walked down the halls of the hospital, back tracking the way we had arrived a few days before with him carefully carrying our baby girl in the car seat I asked him, “How does it feel? You know, to be walking out of the hospital with a LIVING baby this time?”

He slowly stopped right before the exit door to the parking ramp and turned to me with the biggest smile on his face, the same one he wore on the day I walked down the aisle towards him to say our “I dos.”

“It feels wonderful! How about for you?”

“It feels amazing. There are no words to describe my joy.” I replied as I leaned in and kissed him right before the three of us walked through the exit with a full car seat in hand making our way towards home with our breathing baby girl.

Send us your birth story! Whether you had a home birth, hospital birth, 37-hour labor or emergency C-section, we’d love to read the tale of your little one’s grand entrance. Write up your birth story (click here for tips on getting started) and email it, along with a few photos, to birthstory@pnmag.com. We’ll share it on our Birth Day blog and may even print it in an upcoming issue!