A Sad Story (and a Poem): Coping when Grieving the Loss of a Child

The Death of my Baby and the Rebirthing of Myself

Dear Readers,

When I started this Substack, I thought I was going to have a very different birth story to tell. I thought I was going to be living a very different life, with my beautiful baby boy.

He didn’t survive the birth, he was stillborn. It was at home and we didn’t make it to the hospital on time to save him. He was brought back and kept alive in the NICU for six days before he passed away…

… in my arms, while Dad cradled his sweet little fuzzy head, with his favourite song playing.

The one I constantly hummed to him in the womb.

I’m no stranger to grief. I’ve had a difficult life with many losses, complicated feelings and resulting decisions, but this is a different kind of grief.

The weight of my decision to birth at home is what I am now grappling with. Honestly, it was the most beautiful birth I could have hoped for, until it wasn’t. 

I must continue to carve a life of meaning out of this rocky road, in the hope of a future with another little soul someday, and still, Substack is one of those stepping stones. 

In the weeks leading up to the birth, I was so inspired by the wonderful writers in this space, such as

Emily Charlotte Powell

Kat River

or

Hunter Burgtorf

.

I had envisioned writing about the joys of Motherhood, DIY foraged plantain nappy rash lotions, my baby’s milestones viewed through astrology, or the slow and gorgeous process of coming to understand my baby’s expressions, and starting our EC journey. 

My life’s direction has been profoundly altered. The bounds of my experience now encompasses a different genre of writing. 

This might find some other grieving Mothers out there.

I would like to share with them, and with you, some of the things I have been doing to cope with this grief, this process of rebuilding and rebirthing myself.

1. Writing, Writing, Writing

It’s coming up to a month after that dreadful day. I have written the birth story out countless times, numerous versions. 

Twenty thousand words, and some more.

I might publish it all here someday, but for now, it’s still too raw and I’m still too vulnerable.

I’ve written the story in prose. I’ve examined it through research. I’ve looked through the astrological lens, from his conception to his passing.

I can go a whole morning, immersed in the details, without shedding a single tear. Then my analytical brain switches off, the emotional brain takes hold, and I weep.

Then I write and weep some more. 

I can’t stop writing because it is my primary means of processing, and sometimes escaping, the grief. 

I remember hearing birth giver’s stories about their postpartum creative surges and imagining what that would look like. How my whole world would become a co-creative experience, just me and my baby.

I have never really been a creative writer, preferring a discursive style. However, I have noticed in times of great grief, the prose veer into poetry - The Rosemary is Dying:

The Rosemary is dying.

Your Father relentlessly digs 

The root vegetable bed,

Burying his grief.

But how could we forget you?

I wake every morning,

Searching between the sheets

Tearing apart my soul,

Searching for you.

I felt the coldness of your cheeks,

I saw your purple hands,

Thin fingers,

Drained of any life.

Rosemary is for remembering,

And remembering consumes me.

The Rosemary is dying.

Is it the high ground,

So exposed,

Like you and I,

In those first moments,

Of birth,

And death.

The Rosemary is dying.

Is it the damp, clay soil,

Cold, and stagnant,

Like that cold cord,

That hung between my legs,

As I watched you,

In the ambulance.

The Rosemary is dying.

For how long,

I don’t know.

I never noticed.

Until now.

Rosemary is for remembering,

And remembering consumes me.

A new Rosemary sits on our dirty windowsill, I might keep this one safe inside for the Winter.

2. Floral Womb Healing 

Part of the birth story is a long, slow labour, which caused his distress. I was so angry with my womb in the weeks that followed. 

I was so healthy, I drank the Raspberry Leaf Tea, I had set the perfect environment for a physiological birth... 

Why were my contractions so… Inefficient? How could my body cause such distress for my baby?

I felt so very betrayed, by my own womb.

How could She? How dare She…

But, I have tried to forgive her, knowing that She also nourished him incredibly well throughout the pregnancy. He was just such a beautiful, gorgeous little chunky boy.

The kitchen was full of the most stunning flowers, sent by friends and family, but they were starting to wilt. 

So, in acknowledgment of her work, I made her a giant womb from all the flowers, and left it on the kitchen table for a week. 

Then I defrosted all the vials of my frozen milk, gathered them in a large glass and admired the great works of nature that no artisan could parallel. 

The greatest work of all, my boy, is gone, but as I poured my milk into the Earth of our garden, I remembered that I will meet him there, in great Mother Gaia… As long as I live on in Her, he lives on through me.

I found this to be an incredibly soul-soothing way to honour the works of the womb, and a meaningful way to hold space for the grief. 

(Also… I hate waste, especially when people so generously spent their money on the most beautiful flowers, so I pressed a few for future crafty things too). 

3. Knobbly Knockers

Expressing milk has to be one of the most profoundly sad experiences of a Mother grieving the loss of her child.

I can still get a few drops if I try, but my breasts graciously gave up quite quickly.

In the early weeks they leaked often, as though they were crying on behalf of my eyes, when they had run out of tears, and they would leak even more while I cried... 

That flood of longing, that rush of oxytocin. 

Literally flowing with love. 

It came to my attention this week that knitted boobs are a thing, or knitted knockers, and there is another group of women grieving a loss who need them.

Some women who have had mastectomy or lumpectomy surgery prefer wearing knitted boobs than a heavy, sweaty and expensive prosthesis.

There is a dedicated Knitted Knockers community you can read about here!

I don’t knit but I (kinda-sorta) started crocheting back in April. My dinosaur had fallen by the wayside… But now I’m crocheting boobs, with a terribly novice technique, hence my “Knobbly” Knockers.

We will get there, one day at a time. 

Where To Go From Here?

I can’t really answer that right now. 

I know that I will probably be here a lot more than I had planned, even though I’m still struggling to accept that this is the story I am telling.

In moments of grief, it is suffocating.

In moments of serenity, it is utterly surreal.

But those moments of grief pass, and those moments of serenity still exist, and on and on the cycle continues.

I will leave here for all who struggle, and there are many given current events, a prayer my Mother taught me when times were tough.

(With a few of my own minor alterations)

Gods and Goddesses, grant me the Serenity

To accept the things I cannot change; 

Courage to change the things I can; 

And the Wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; 

Enjoying one moment at a time; 

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; 

Taking, as We always have, this Mysterious World

As it is, not as I would have it; 

Trusting that We will make all things right

If I surrender to Love and Grace; 

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

And supremely happy with All,

Forever in the next. 

Amen.