I learned of the death of Adrian before we knew he is was a boy, while he was still unnamed and waiting in the dark waters of Paige’s womb. I got the email from Paige’s sister-in-law Molly, on my iPhone while I was sitting in a parking lot. I cried off and on the entire way home as I wove my way along a windy mountain road with my two kids in the back.
Paige assisted with the publicity for my book. She already had a miscarriage a few years back. And she was passionate about helping women—other women—through this critical threshold. Although it is hard to admit this, for some time I have been clinging to the myth (despite much evidence to the contrary) that those who do such great work, and so lovingly, will be spared this kind of suffering.
Years ago, I had a conversation with my friend Troy, Paige’s brother-in-law. He was telling me how he had nearly been killed by a car racing down his road at top speed while he was unloading his four kids from their van. He said, “But you know what Jenny? God is not going to take me now because I still have work to do…I have four kids.”
He said this to exactly the wrong person—I had just attended the funeral of my friend Jarrod Voltz, who was married with a two-year-old son, and a seminary education which he intended to use in his future ministry as an Anglican Priest. Jarrod’s death came on the heels of the death of my dear friend Nate Schroeder, also married and not yet thirty, with plenty of good work still ahead of him as well.
So I just shook my head sadly and said, “Troy. I don’t think God follows those rules. Sometimes, we are mysteriously protected, yes. But many, many people die who still seem to have work to do.”
And this brings me back to Adrian, who was buried yesterday. Over the last few months, Paige and I have had many meaningful conversations about infant death. I am kind of embarrassed to admit this, but as many words I have poured into this subject, when it was time to call Paige, I was completely tongue-tied. I had nothing to say. I was terrified.
But I made that first call, and Paige picked up immediately, as if she’d been expecting it. She was her gracious self. She told me that reading my book had increased her awareness of all of the strangeness surrounding those moments when they learned that her baby’s heart had stopped beating.
Her midwives, upon confirming that the baby’s heart had stopped beating, immediately changed the language they used to talk about him. They replaced the word baby with fetus. They tried to turn the ultrasound screen away from her so that she could not see him. But Paige insisted that they turn it back so that she could see. So she could see her baby, her son Adrian, to be precise. Without asking what she wanted, or presenting her options to her, they scheduled a D & C.
As I went about my daily chores, a thought kept coming back to me. The thought (and it made me angry) was that Paige’s midwives were trying to take something precious away. Not on purpose, of course. Many doctors and midwives believe that a D & C will be easier on the parents. Sometimes they are medically necessary. And I also understood, from talking with so many mothers who had delivered stillborn babies that this kind of labor is excruciating. It is like nothing you can imagine unless you’ve experienced it yourself. But I also sensed that Adrian still had gifts to give, gifts that would come through his birth.
I called Paige again, and I told her that many women I spoke to while I was working on Naming the Child told me that they felt like their bodies had betrayed them, like they couldn’t trust them anymore. But I said, “Paige, you can trust your body. Your body knows just what to do. Your body is not to blame for your baby’s death. He just died. His death is part of the mystery of his own unique existence.”
Then Paige told me that she was feeling some cramping, that she was beginning to bleed. I could hear a hint of hope in her voice. I understood that as frightening as this all was, Paige wanted to deliver.
And then I headed out…I was planning to spend two days on retreat in a little Japanese-style cottage in the rainforest, in Volcano Village, a quaint little town located just above the world’s most active volcano. This is one of my favorite places in the world, but I went with a heavy heart.
I settled into my cottage, nestled among the glistening ferns. I set up my icons and lit a candle. I could only stare at the icons and cry, “Oh, Paige,” I would say. That was pretty much the content of my prayers. But God knows what I was asking for: I was asking for the birth Paige wanted. I was asking that she and Bobby would have an opportunity to hold their son.
And I understood during those days of vigil that when a baby dies in the womb, this kind of death does not erase the very real birth that follows. My heart was breaking incessantly, my face was puffy from crying. And yet, there was a sense of anticipation. I wanted to hear about their baby. I wanted to learn his name, to see his face, to discover the person they had created together.
Paige and Bobby were going to have an encounter with their child. The fact that he had already died would make this an agonizing experience, but the agony would not cancel out the reality: they were going to meet him, and nobody could ever take that experience away from them.
When I got the news that labor began late Saturday night, that Paige and Bobby had delivered a son that they were able to hold and photograph, I cried some more, but this sadness had just a touch of joy. A hint. Kind of a Holy Saturday morning hint: the church is still dark, the horrible, horrible casket remains, but somebody has been sneaking bright white lilies into the church. You smell them before you see them. And you know in the deepest part of yourself that no matter what you do or do not do, Pascha is coming. It will find us.
And so, Bobby and Paige have a son, Adrian. He has been named, held, cherished. They have initiated a relationship that will stretch into eternity. That is the other thing nobody can take from them: a future—far off as it seems now—a very real future with him.
In that dark, dewy rainforest, the air trembling with birdsong, a place where the world is still being born, I kept returning to this prayer from the funeral service:
“Oh Lord on that day when you create the new heavens and a new earth, there will be no need to gather to mourn the loss of a child. On this day, we come with sadness to seek your comfort. We mourn the loss of this child, Adrian, known to the mother who carried him, to the father who generated him, and to us in our hopes and dreams.”
Sweet, sweet Adrian. May Your Memory Be Eternal!
Molly Sabourin
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Oh Jenny,
I was so hoping you would write about this. Hearing others’ perspectives on this very significant experience only fortifies my faith and makes me marvel even more at God’s mysterious goodness. I love, love how you compare Paige’s delivery to a Holy Saturday morning “hint”:
“… the church is still dark, the horrible, horrible casket remains, but somebody has been sneaking bright white lilies into the church. You smell them before you see them. And you know in the deepest part of yourself that no matter what you do or do not do, Pascha is coming. It will find us.”
That’s beautiful, Jenny.
On another note, this website: WOW!!! It is fantastic. : )
Julia
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Dear Jenny,
It is great to hear this full, complete story from your perspective in Hawaii. I thought of you a lot during the funeral, as if I was representing you as well as myself because I knew that you wanted to be there so badly but could not possibly be.
I miss you and could say much more. Thanks mostly for being you and for your insights which compelled you to write your book. It is obviously bearing fruit and filling a void, and will probably act as a catalyst for change in unforeseeable ways.
Love Julia
Jenny Schroedel
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Julia,
How many funerals have we shared now? How many heartbreaks have we borne together? You have always been a reassuring presence in these moments, especially. I am so moved by what you said, about feeling like you were standing in for me. I love you.
jane g meyer
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beautiful, jenny…
Patty Donohue-Carey
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I am so sad to read how the midwives behaved — even though unconsciously. This sounds too reminiscent of what my aunt experienced in 1975 when her firstborn died — just hours before his birth — of an acute infection that began just hours before her labor.
Myriad decisions were made on my aunt’s behalf by people who never talked to her about her preferences — decisions based on assumption and aversion and a desire to mitigate intense emotion, both hers and those “taking care” of her.
After his birth, her son was set on a lone table at the far side of the delivery room, beyond the reach of her eyes. She has told me that she knew he was there, but since no one offered to show him to her, she took that to mean, she shouldn’t ask to see her son. No photographs were taken, no lock of hair trimmed from his little head, no footprints made.
She was moved to a private room on the maternity floor where her nurses focused all their attention on the clinical care my aunt needed. (She had been affected by the same infection that had claimed her son.) She became a mere medical patient, and not one nurse in four days mentioned her birthgiving or her dead child.
The written post-delivery instructions given to her as she left the hospital were marred by heavy black ink obscuring all references to the baby. “As if I wouldn’t be able to guess what words were underneath”, she told me years later.
So thorough was the conspiracy of denial by the hospital staff that our extended family followed suit and carried on the pattern begun by the “experts”. Family and friends decided to speak little of his birth and even less about his death.To this day, my aunt cannot recall which day in August he came into the world.
Besides being able to give birth, the one act not stolen from my aunt was to call her son Jeffrey. It is because he was named that I can talk about my cousin as a real person. Because he was named, I could and eventually did begin talking to my aunt about him, about her labor about Jeffrey’s birth. Somehow, even as a young teenager,I knew that though Jeffrey’s short season of living was hidden from us all, his longed-for arrival was no less important than if we’d seen him alive in our arms. He had been among us. He had suffered and died and he deserved to be remembered by name.
In college, many years later, I wrote a paper summarizing the new approaches to nursing care in situations of perinatal loss that were based on an understanding of what mothers want and need. This survey of the literature (done in the mid-1980′s) defied nearly every aspect of the hospital care my aunt had received some 9 years earlier.
To learn that any of this disempowering approach still happens breaks my heart. I am so glad that Paige had you, Jenny, to help her be strong. Strong enough to choose to give birth to her son Adrian.
jenny
2
Dear Patty,
Thank you for sharing this story with us. May Jeffrey’s memory be eternal! The details of your aunt’s story are devastating. I can not believe that doctors actually thought this approach would be better for the parents.
My feeling is that part of why midwives and doctors might still attempt to “protect” parents from the reality of what has happened is that they actually want to protect themselves. I think that people are only able to walk beside mourners when they are willing to engage the mystery of death in their own life.
My parents had a very similar experience after my brother Garrison was born. It breaks my heart whenever I think about it, and all the more when I consider that Jeffrey and Garrison were just two of the thousands of babies born into this kind of hostile hospital environment.
I was also disheartened to hear that the midwives responded in this way. But I was (and am) so proud of Paige’s courage and resolve.
jenny
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And Molly,
Thank you for your kind words! It was so helpful for me to be able to read your and Julia’s accounts of the funeral. The photo you took is amazing.
About the website, John felt I needed to “aggregate,” I wasn’t so sure. I kinda liked having my blog floating out there in la-la land. I love the design, he created, though, and I think i am warming up to it, now that I am slowly learning how to use wordpress.
Patty Donohue-Carey
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Jenny,
I agree: caregivers can only engage with and process such loss if they have learned to face it in their own lives. They cannot pass along to another that which they haven’t cultivated in themselves. It simply isn’t there to transmit.
I am also reminded of a significant passage from “Birth Without Fear” by Grantly Dick-Read where he says to the next generation of obstetricians (I’m paraphrasing): You are not taught to realize the great priviledge of attending women in childbirth.
I think there is great truth in this and great consequences to women and families as well. In a paper I read in the literature review
(mentioned above) the author speculated that the specialty of obstetrics is often chosen by individuals who want to avoid death in their professional work. Obstretrics, being about new life, makes it first apprear a refuge in that regard. That is, until there is a loss.
Anna J
2
Dear Jenny,
Though I did not know Adrian’s family, I wanted to read your take on it after seeing Julia’s post. And I was struck by the power of your insight. Especially when you wrote:
” I just shook my head sadly and said, “Troy. I don’t think God follows those rules. Sometimes, we are mysteriously protected, yes. But many, many people die who still seem to have work to do.” ”
See, before we left for Zambia the last time, my father wrote a will out, deciding on who of the relatives would take the 4 of us if something were to happen to my parents. He teased my Uncle as he did so, saying that he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon as he had “2 daughters to walk down the aisle someday” . . .
I have always clasped onto that statement, grateful for the family member who remembered his words. And I know that I will have a hard time walking down the aisle dry-eyed, if I do get the privilege of doing so some day.