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An angel in the Book of Life

wrote down my Baby’s birth

then whispered as she closed the book

Too beautiful for Earth

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TODAY is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, and I’ve only just written these words and my eyes are already wet with tears.
I don’t know how this article will turn out, but I will give you my thoughts as they come.
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Last night I wasn’t able to fall asleep. I was thinking about that day, what it meant, what I should share with you. In the night, while the kids were already asleep, I started to cry.
I thought about my medical termination. I thought about the screams of the babies being born in the delivery rooms next to mine (number 1). I knew I was carrying a dead baby in my belly, and I was thinking that it was so unfair. So unfair because I was a good person, generous, kind to everyone, helpful… why was it happening to me? Why did it happen to me? Why had it been so brutally taken away from me?

It was impossible to articulate my thoughts at that time, waiting for the epidural to take effect, but I knew there was a reason for this injustice. There had to be, or I would go crazy.

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There is something unspeakable in this pain, and yet, when I went through my medical termination, I knew that I would have to put words to the pain, to the lack, to the absence, to find a cosmic explanation for this ordeal, and perhaps also a path to healing.
If you follow me on this blog, you know that I wrote with my guts my novel on perinatal grief, Poussières De Toi. I’m not going to talk about it. I’m going to give you my non-fiction, personal version of what I went through, and beyond me, what every woman goes through when she loses a child.
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First of all, the first thing that comes to my mind, as a word, as an emotion, or as the absence of a word or an emotion is: emptiness.
Emptiness.

There is nothing but a huge emptiness surrounding every mother who loses her baby. And there are so many different voids that they clash with each other… But it doesn’t make any noise, and that silence is terrible. Really, terrible.
We are wandering, there, on Earth, with this emptiness in us, and nobody sees us, nobody understands us, nobody realizes what we have been through. We, mothers without children, are just alone, as if lost in limbo, and no one hears our voice, our suffering. No one takes it into consideration.
First there is the emptiness of this body. The baby is gone. There will be no life, no birth.
Then there is the emptiness of the mind, because the beautiful thoughts of seeing ourselves holding our baby are gone too.
And finally, the emptiness of words, because there are no words, nothing is strong enough.
There is only nothingness left after this loss. And no, I’m not exaggerating.
Only nothingness and this immense, infinite, icy solitude remain.

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When I lost my baby, I felt like I was sent into space. In weightlessness, floating above the world, no sound, far from everything, infinite pain, darkness despite the stars. There was nothing left but this emptiness.
It was all the stranger for me to feel all this because this baby had arrived by surprise, without us expecting it.
I wasn’t ready for it. I was terrified. I was working part time, the house was still under construction, we weren’t really financially stable… it was the worst time to get pregnant.
And then the idea took hold. A baby… after all, why not… A baby! Yes, of course! This idea filled us with beautiful images.
And just like that, we saw light, hope, family, joy. And for a brief moment in the universe, we were happy.
And then, everything followed, ultrasounds, malformations, the appointments, exams, until the medical termination.
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Afterwards, I closed everything inside me to move forward, not to think about it, I didn’t want to have any more children. I get a tattoo to remind me that I had been strong, I took dance classes to reconcile myself with my body, which had just been deserted. And I managed to hold on with those thoughts. Not for long.

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I felt like I had a huge hole. That’s how I visualized it, a hole in the middle of my chest. You could now see through me. I was missing a piece, a piece of heart, a piece of life and I didn’t know where to find it, where to get it back.
The emptiness very quickly gave way to an immense void. The image of the family I had imagined had been stolen from me, and nothing could replace it in my mind. It was so ironic. This baby that I hadn’t planned for, had completely changed my perception of the world. I couldn’t imagine going back to the life I had before. It was no longer possible.
And that void was calling to me, terribly. All the time.

Every day that went by took me further away from the loss, but brought me closer to my due date. And nothing was happening. Nothing more would happen.

The loss was violent when I came across a mother with her baby. And I’d look at her, and I’d think, yes, it must have been nice to have a baby. And in the baby’s face I’d try to see the face of my baby girl.
The void was also in me when I saw my flat belly and nothing growing inside, like a seed of life taking all the space little by little in my heart and thoughts. I had carried a baby, a little girl, but of her there was nothing left. A small dead body, a dry, abandoned earth, a tiny pile of ashes.
Despite everything I was not in pain at that moment, I was numb, in shock at what had just happened to me. I observed this ordeal, its repercussions, and everything I was thinking from a distance, as if separating my mind. Despite everything I had to move forward, I had to find a way to fill that gaping hole in my chest.

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So I decided to have another baby. It was a desperate decision. And that’s the tragedy of us moms of angels. No matter what we do, after losing a baby, the clouds will always be there. There’ll be no lightness, no totally blue skies, no dazzling sunshine. Everything, everything, everything is tinted, with a veil impossible to lift. There are days when the veil is less opaque, but in truth it will be there until the end of our days.
When many couples decide to start a family, they do so out of love, out of happiness, out of delight. For me, it was to fill my loss, to find a solution to this void that was destroying me.
And I didn’t experience my second pregnancy by making plans for the baby’s room, or looking on the Internet to see what clothes to buy. The thought of losing my baby didn’t leave me for 9 months. I was filled with anxiety. This baby that I had wanted so badly to fill me up, I couldn’t give it any attention or love. I was too afraid that I would be told that this child too would not be born.
I didn’t watch my belly grow, I didn’t buy my first maternity clothes until I was six months pregnant, I was working, running around, trying not to think about this baby. I was too afraid to get attached.

This is also what must be understood in everything that surrounds perinatal grief. No pregnancy can be experienced as if everything is going to be fine. This anguish of loss is always there.
Arthur arrived and obviously, since I had spent 9 months not paying attention to him when he was put on my stomach, I didn’t recognize him. I didn’t love him right away. I was petrified. Petrified of loving and losing him.
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This fear lasted two weeks. Fifteen days until this dream I had. A terrible dream where, in a village assaulted by soldiers, I had to abandon my baby to protect him. I woke up sobbing in bed. It was early morning, I was alone in the room. Arthur was still sleeping in his little crib. An immense relief, a wave of love and suffering then struck me violently. I jumped out of bed, and I took Arthur in my arms and I cried, cried, cried all the tears of my body, tears of relief to hold him in my arms, that he was against me and alive, and of guilt also because this baby, my little Arthur I had not loved him like other mothers who have not experienced the loss must love their baby. I had not mourned my little girl, I could not love my little boy.

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And that’s when I started to feel pain. Very badly, infinitely badly, just holding my living son in my arms, his warm little body against me. That’s when I became aware, in the flesh, of everything I had lost. It came to hit me. And that hurt has never left. And I know it will never leave me.

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Regularly, Alicia, my daughter who died in 2011, comes to visit me in my sleep. In my dreams, she grows up. I used to see her as a baby, then as a little girl. The last time I saw her, she must have been 8 years old, and there were teeth missing from her smile.
Not a day goes by when I don’t think of her. Not one. I swear to you. And it’s not because I want to hurt myself, or because I’m sensitive, it’s just that this loss, this absence has a presence that is impossible to forget. It is part of me.

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Perinatal grief is more than grief, it is a cataclysm in life, it is a piece of us (literally), a piece of our soul that goes away, and never comes back. And it happened to me, but one in four women goes through this ordeal. They are your sisters, your aunts, your cousins, mom, your daughters, nieces, friends.
They need your support, even if they can’t talk about it because it’s too hard, it’s important to break the silence, and to show that when they’re ready to put the words down, you’ll be there to hear them. A small question is enough, “How are you feeling? does the trick for many of us, it shows that you recognize that our babies have existed, and that’s already a great comfort.