There isn't any accommodating information to be found. Nowhere says whether the child's death was an accident, whether it was a birth defect, whether it was a terminable disease, whether one or the other was at fault. Was the child grown? Was the child born yet?
You don't know if she became cold and angry, or if he became abusive. You don't know if it's within a year of the death or twenty years later. You don't know if they tried therapy. All I can find is that 4/5 bereaved couples let their marriages crumble.
I can't remember the person who gave me this statistic, but if you're reading this and it was you, I want you to know you quietly lit a fire in my heart that day to strive for my marriage and fight for it to the end, no matter what. I don't know your motives but I hope that was one of them.
There in the birthing suite, as I was delivering our daughter, I saw tears streaming all the way down my husband's face. Of course, I'd seen him cry before, but I'd never seen tears make it further than his cheeks. He was holding me-one hand grabbing my foot and the other supporting my swollen arm. He and my mother were working together to help me.
Eden was born and his tears kept flowing. I heard him keep saying, "thank you, thank you." I watched him cut her cord and feel her pulse. He talked to her the whole time through her dedication, we couldn't actually hear the prayer or the blessing. He took her from my chest and she hadn't been wiped off at all, he wrapped her against his shirt in a thin blanket and just held her there. She breathed there, and reached closer for him. He was in awe of her, and I was in awe of them together. I'd never seen such a beautiful sight, the two people I love most in the world just embracing each other.
I struggled to hum her the lullaby, and then he struggled to read her our bedtime story.
We told her that it was okay to go, and so she went a few minutes later.
The time between our baby's birth and our baby's death was the shortest length of time I've ever experienced, though they say it was 40 minutes. However, it was all the time it took for me to love Ryan in a new way, a way I'd never thought possible.
The time between our baby's death and now has been the longest length of time I've ever experienced, though its been two weeks and two days. The days have seemed to make one big one, and sleep won't come. At the same time, I wish that it would slow down and it didn't keep moving away from that day so fast.
Our love has evolved in this time, and it's changed thanks to the daughter it created.
We spent the rest of Friday and that night in the hospital room with Eden Olivia. Neither one of us ever left, and she was never put down. We took turns rocking her and talking to her, we laid down together in my bed and napped holding her. We kept admiring her beauty and crying over the perfection that she was. I was the one who held her to sleep that night, and Ryan held her all the next morning before our family came back to tell her goodbye.
Together we put her in the gown made from my wedding dress. She was wrapped in all the love we felt on our wedding day and all the love we felt for her. The funeral home came to pick her up, and we took her downstairs. My dad helped Ryan carry the bassinet, and we got to walk our baby out of the front door just like everyone else. We took turns kissing her and saying goodbye.
Knowing this may be the last time I saw her face, I couldn't watch her being covered so I turned away. Ryan wanted to be the one to cover her, so he went up to the car and did that for her. This is where our difference in grief began.
We left he hospital after she did. I was brought nearly to my knees when we got to the car and I realized there was no carseat, because we didn't buy one, because we knew she wouldn't be coming home with us. That's when Ryan almost had to scrape me off the asphalt to put me in the passengers seat. He drove to get food, and we took it home where we were alone for a minute as everyone had stepped out for errands. Chick-fil-A (my favorite) tasted like plastic. We finished, I took a pill for pain and went to bed clenching a stuffed bear given to us "to ease the ache of empty arms". Ryan fixed a hole in the fence and did other things around the house before he joined me. I woke up and he was the one wrapped around the bear.
The rest of the weekend is a blur to me, as I mostly stayed in bed. We got our family to the airports Monday morning, then it was us, alone. I was ready to spend another day asleep, but my husband knew there was much we had to get done. So together we parented our daughter that day by making arrangements for flying her and us back to South Carolina, by going to offices to register her birth, by packing her letters and other things to send with her in a bag.
We were at the airport Tuesday morning, able to watch from the window as they put the most precious cargo on the plane. I cried the whole ride in physical and emotional pain, just holding on tight to that bear. There was a baby girl in front of us who was extremely upset most of the way. Her cries were no bother to me, just a reminder that my little girl was also on the plane, in the wrong seat. I could tell from Ryan's face in the times that he wasn't smiling at her that he was jealous too. I was just thankful that the check-in counter was able to put our seats together since the airline couldn't guarantee it. I was just thankful I still had Ryan and he was holding my hand. Later we heard her mother tell the people beside her that the girl's name is Olivia, and I figured God wanted us in those seats all along.
The thing about my man's heart is that he loves by "doing". Once we landed at home, I wanted to immediately go lie down and hope all the arrangements would be made on their own. But instead we went to the cemetery and picked out Eden's plot. Then we went to the funeral home and decided on the program, finalized the viewing, and planned the funeral. Ryan contacted the Reverend and did all the talking, because my mouth was cotton balls and because it's how he loves. He was sure to ask me how I wanted everything, but more times than not just had to read my mind.
They told us that it would be more than appropriate to have an open casket for the viewing, and relief washed over me. Already, I had regrets about not watching her be covered. Already, I had resented Ryan a little bit for being the last one to hold her alive, and the last one to see her dead.
The next morning we went to pay the cemetery. Together we decided on a stone and I decided what it would say. I think he was growing weary of all the decision making by this time. We had breakfast and ordered some white roses for our daughter. We went to buy her a pearl bracelet, but it was gifted to us. We took it to the funeral home and there we were finally able to see Eden again. Holding my hand, Ryan walked me up to the casket in the visitation room. I expected to see an unrecognizable face, a cold looking body. Instead, she looked just as beautiful as when we last saw her. I was afraid, but I touched her hand. That's when he was able to touch her too. I wonder how afraid he was, because neither of us had mentioned fear and I know I felt it. I wanted to talk to him, but I just didn't know words. He noticed right away that her headband was missing, so he went to ask if they still had it. He came back with it and I placed the band on her head. I tried so hard to clasp the pearl bracelet on her wrist but I was shaking and tears were clouding my eyes. So he took the clasp and calmly fastened it, holding her tiny hand in his palm. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, then I did. Then we left the funeral home, knowing we could see her again later.
The next few hours are the most vivid to me. I kept watching the man I married try on suits appropriate for receiving visitors and burying his daughter. It broke my heart every time he came out of a dressing room, looking much older than he should have. It made me relieved that I picked out and bought dresses when I was 8 months pregnant, because I could not have handled the pain of needing to try on clothes for such an occasion. He chose shades of turquoise, for CDH awareness. His face was grim when he told attendants that the suit was for "a funeral". No parents should ever need to buy clothes to bury their children in.
Then, we were dressed and ready, heading to the funeral home with my family. I remember arguing with Ryan over something very trivial at the beginning, the guilt of letting anything outside bother me on a day like this one stabbing at me as we stood in the hall whisper-yelling. I don't know if he knew I knew better, but couldn't help it. It was our first argument since she'd passed. Then, we were thrown into the room where people kept pouring in to talk to us and see our daughter. We were separated and overwhelmed. Immediately, I missed him... but I was too prideful to stop people from talking to me so I could find and stand next to him for a long time. He eventually just ended up next to me, our hands finding each other as different people hugged us.
About 400 people came to pay their respects that night. Many of them had comforting things to say, and some of them had stupid things to say. But they all cared and we were shocked at just how many lives Eden affected. The evening wound down, and people stayed about 30 minutes over time.. then we were left alone in the room with our daughter. Standing over her again, I told him I was sorry, that I needed him and that I didn't want to fight. He just said, "Who's fighting? I love you." And we kissed our girl, then each other and headed back to my mom's house.
We woke early the next morning and went to pay the funeral home. This would be the last time we'd see her. We went in, afraid again. I put her letters at her feet, her book next to her side. Ryan placed her little stuffie next to her head and we stood there together touching her and talking to her. I kissed her one last time and told her that I love her. I walked away weeping. Ryan followed a few moments later. He was the last one of us to see her anyway. I wasn't bitter this time.
We drove away quietly to go get ready for the funeral. I saw a much older, but still handsome man in the suit he'd bought, and I felt much older in the dress I was wearing. "You look beautiful." He'd taken a single white rose from the two dozen we'd bought her and gave it to me so I could place it on her casket.
The family car arrived at my mom's at 1:15. All of Eden's grandparents rode with us to the cemetery. Though it was a cloudy morning, the sun came out and it was beautiful and breezy few hours. I remember a blur for a funeral. Though it was private the only ones in attendance were family and close friends, those people were too many for just under the tent. I looked back behind me once but I didn't recognize a single face.
I remember they sang, "You are my sunshine". They sang, "Farther Along". They sang "When We All Get to Heaven". I couldn't sing. I heard voices all around me, but not Ryan's, so I didn't feel so alone.
He clenched my hand the whole time. Once he turned my face to his and wiped it, though the tears kept coming. I felt so selfish, needing him so badly. I wondered if I was stopping him from needing me.
We were each given a red rose, in addition to the one Ryan gave me. We walked up to the casket and I remember wondering "are my breasts leaking?" and I was reminded that it hadn't even been one week since I gave birth to this child and thats when my legs gave out from under me. I was using him for support, I was moaning through my cries. The cemetery was silent, and it was as though the only other person there was the one next to me. We took a single petal from the white rose to save. I handed it to Ryan and somehow found my way back to the chair between our parents. A final prayer and then it was over, all of the people coming through to hug us.
We were leaving to go eat at my best friend's church, and I looked beside me to realize Ryan wasn't walking there. I turned around and saw him lifting a bit of the rug covering the grave, harvesting the dirt that she'd be covered in. He put it in a vial like the one we would later put the rose petal in, like the ones that hold a lock of her hair, a cut of a blanket that was around her, and the oil used for her dedication. I was watching him be intentional in fathering our child, even in his pain.
Later on that night we were making rounds to visit family before leaving, and it had begun to storm. The clouds held off and gave us a beautiful funeral, but the weather was appropriately dreary for the rest of the day. We were fighting again. After a while, I wondered if that was to be our new normal, since we never really fought before. Thats when I remembered the ugly statistic given to me in the beginning. And I was finished with fighting. All I could say was that what it was would never be as important to me as us. And when he agreed, that was it.
When we made it back to the cemetery after dark when the storming had stopped, and we walked to her grave holding hands. My heart was in literal pain as I just sat in the damp ground at the bottom of her flowered plot. I wept, and felt his hand on my back. He was kneeling down. I whispered to him that I could have just crawled up underneath her and stayed, and he told me that he knew. I believed him.
We flew home the next day, thankfully on seats next to each other again. Then we were in our bedroom, all the "doing" over and only "feeling" left.
It was a long weekend of us trying very hard to get out of the house. We ended up going to the grocery store and I'll always be proud of us for making it there, even though it took talking about it for two days and going on Monday. That's when we'd paid the Colorado funeral home, and then Tuesday we registered her death. How unreal it was to receive both her birth and death certificates on the same day.
Ryan went back to work on Wednesday, and organized our upcoming move. I stayed in bed all day, glad for a minute to myself but also missing him. I was happy that he had tasks to fill his day. The rest of the week I tried to be productive too, while he tried to slow down. We've both had to respect the way one another is grieving- we're each dealing with this beautiful, awful thing in different ways and at different times. He said to me the other night, "We're going to feel and act differently, just know that however we are feeling and acting is perfectly okay."
These past few days, I'm feeling a mix of things. I feel insecure, I credit the birth process for that. I feel numb, like I just don't have the energy to handle all of my emotions. I feel guilty, thinking that if Ryan hadn't married me and picked me to carry his children, maybe none of this would have happened to him. I love him so much that I'm sorry to have given him this grief.
Last night as I was trying to voice these things but struggling to find the words (people keep saying how important communicating is right now but they don't seem to have any idea how difficult communication turns out to be), this man looked at me so intently and said, "I am so grateful you are my wife and the mother of my daughter. No one else could do what you've done." And then we went to sleep with that comfort bear between us.
I've forgotten now exactly what it was that we fought about those nights, but it has not stopped bothering me that we fought. Now my fears focus on if we can keep our marriage from crumbling, if we can keep from blaming each other for our hurt, if we can be the parents we'd hoped to be without hindering one another with bitterness. My fears were calmed when he said those things to me, because I know that he does not blame me in this immediate aftermath just as I do not blame him.
You see, CDH has no known cause (yet) and that may be our saving grace... But I like to believe that even if we knew what exactly was the explanation for our daughters severe birth defect and death, we would still not fault one or the other. I know that Eden's life taught us more about our love than her death can tear us apart.
When we asked for a baby, we prayed that if there was one that would be sick or one who's life would be short, it would be ours as we knew we could love this baby better than most. I didn't realize how drastically that would change our marriage, as it would definitely change us individually. I think we forgot to pray at that same time for grace and wisdom to see each other through the kind of situation we asked for, but it is coming to us gradually. Every day I am sorry that our marriage has been born into this grief, but more grateful that this is the man God gave me to grieve with. I pray that we will make our daughter proud.
"Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down,one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
