I've been really haunted the last few days after watching Zinnea's film offering in the International Infertility Film Festival. After struggling with infertility, Zinnea finally got pregnant in 2004, only to discover that her daughter had a fatal birth defect called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH). Instead of terminating (as her doctors recommended), Zinnea and her husband decided to go to term. Mia Marvelle passed away six days after she was born.
In her film, Zinnea includes the incredibly private and deeply wrenching images of her holding her daughter and weeping. And photos of she and her husband holding their daughter after she's passed and saying goodbye.
After watching the film, I found myself gasping for air and sobbing inconsolably. This isn't a shock; many, many things have made me cry here on the internets. So many of us have suffered and lost, and I've cried right along with many of you.
But I couldn't stop thinking about those photos. I couldn't sleep that night; they kept drifting into my mind and I would start to cry again. The strength of my reaction took me by surprise.
It wasn't until about 3am that I finally figured it out.
I was jealous.
Every time I think I've done all the processing I need to do about losing the boys, I find a new area that I haven't dealt with yet. Of course I'm not jealous of the horrific loss they suffered; what I'm envious of is the fact that they got to see their baby, to hold her, and to say goodbye.
I've had inklings about this before. A few months ago I allowed myself to wonder what, exactly, had happened to Nicholas and Zachary's bodies. But as soon as I had the thought, I shut it down. I wasn't ready.
And I'm still not ready. I don't have any desire, whatsoever, to again probe the grief that surrounds the loss of my sons. There's a lot of shame there, and anger, and guilt. Oh, God, so much guilt. But God doesn't agree, apparently. I am supposed to deal with it.
Not long after I lost the boys, I expressed my rage and anger here in this blog. I hurt some people in my anger and one person pointed out that others had lost "live babies" after all, so I shouldn't be---well, honestly, I'm not sure what I wasn't supposed to be. I guess I was being reminded to keep my grief in perspective. But I still feel pissed off that things went the way they went. I still feel ripped off. I feel like the randomness of the universe, the luck of the draw, or worse, "God's plan" doesn't make any fucking sense and is completely and utterly unfair. I don't care what others suffered. My "lot" in relation to the boys SUCKED.
Thinking about the day we lost the boys now, all I can remember is that it all happened so fucking fast. Remember, I went from going in for a routine anatomy scan to having to terminate the pregnancy in less than 24 hours. I was so ill that I didn't get to participate much in the decision making process. No one at the hospital said to me, "Yes, delivering your sons will be more risky, but at least you'll get to see them and hold them and say goodbye." No one said, "Do you want to make arrangements with a funeral home?"
Instead, they just said, "You are dying." This was all Charlie could hear--that not only was one son dead, and the other was dying, but so was his wife. No one came to him and said, "Have you thought about what you want done with their bodies?" All they said was "We have to terminate. NOW."
We were alone, afraid, and sick. Options weren't offered. I was the patient, not the boys. No consideration was made for Nicholas and Zachary.
Instead of getting to say goodbye, to look at their faces, I was just knocked out and the boys stripped from my body. I'm left with the shame and guilt of--God forgive me--treating my sons like standard medical waste. My sons. My boys.
I wish, oh, how I wish, that I'd done things differently. That I'd gotten them cremated and been able to scatter their tiny ashes. That even if it would have been awful, the worst pain in the universe, that I would have been able to see their faces just once.
I wonder if Zinnea sees reflections of Mia's face in her (living) daughter Naima? I often wonder if the boys would have looked like Tori does; if they would have scrunched up their noses like I do when I laugh, like she does, or if they would instead use their eyebrows like Charlie does. I know I wouldn't have been able to tell that from their tiny and unfinished faces at only 22 weeks gestation. But, oh, god. I wish I'd tried.
I know I'm one of the lucky ones, now. I do have a living child. So many of us don't. But this--this sadness--will never leave me, I'm afraid.
It's never over, is it? Even while I was sitting on my front porch last night, holding Tori, watching her extend her hand as she tried to reach up to the wind chimes Anne gave us, I felt the deep wound that the loss of the boys caused. Even while I find myself sinking deeper and deeper into joy because of Tori's magnificence, I still find myself the owner of a bruised and battered heart.
I guess I always will.
