Tuesday, December 5: Stillbirth, Part Two

Tuesday, December 5: Stillbirth, Part Two

Sometimes my stillbirth dream (described in the last post) means something else altogether.
It means there is something I need to bring to life. For some reason, I cannot do it. Perhaps it is a poem I am afraid to write. A story I am afraid to tell. Something I need to say to someone, or do for someone, that I’ve kept putting off.

This takes longer. I end up full of deep grief because I can see the long, hard road behind me, the fires I’ve set and walked away from, the mistakes I can’t undo.

Perhaps birth—stillbirth or not—is always about self-love.

My body is not going to look the way I want it to look.

My body is not going to do the things I want it to do.

I will have sensations and urges I’ve never had before.

Even after nine months, the baby may not be alive. Or OK. Or maybe he’ll be OK then, but not later. We let our minds imagine worst case scenarios, if we’ve lost loved ones in the past.

Once, in a dream, my mother said, “After two miscarriages and a stillbirth, all those dead babies, I was so afraid to lose you all my life. But instead you lost me.”
   
And I said back to her, “I didn’t lose you. You are talking to me now, aren’t you?”

And then we both laughed, hard and long, and ran out into a snowstorm and slid down the old hill in front of the elementary school in my hometown, sleds appearing like miracles beneath us.

The world is slippery. Nothing is certain. But also, nothing is lost, ever.

So when I have the stillbirth dream, I write the poem, tell the story, reach out to the person I’ve hurt. I ask for what I need and accept the response, whatever it is, and go on.   

Sometimes this dream makes me ready to do the brave and crazy thing that opens up before me, like switching careers, adopting a teenage girl who lives across the country, marrying someone 12 years younger than me at age 43, or naming our home Petalouda House and opening it to people in need of healing—and walking that path with resilience and hope, even in its darkest times.

The world is slippery. Nothing is certain. Birth is about risk, and love, and grieving.


Nothing is lost, ever. 

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