Like several of the talented guest-authors featured on this site, Angela Mobley stood out to me initially when I discovered her work under the pen-name of angterese13 on Bubblews.com. I was struck by how varied her articles are, dealing with everyday life events through writing. Her work ranges from poetry to writings inspired by making banana muffins for her large family. |
So with thanks and a big welcome, enjoy Angela's story.
Until then...
When we married, my husband and I had talked about the possibility of children and agreed that we’d have one, maybe two. After a couple of years, we began to wonder if that was not to be for us. We weren’t alarmed, but that possibility began to be a quiet thought in the back of my mind.
And then it happened! I was pregnant with our baby! I carried her with no difficulties, though she was born weighing under 5 pounds and remained in the hospital after her initial weight drop for a week until she reach 4 ½ pounds. We took that tiny bundle home and cherished her. Another baby girl was born less than two years later, two years after that a baby boy and three years later another baby boy. |
I also helped out at my church during the middle of the day whenever I worked 3rd shift, pulling weeds, planting flowers, and general work with the plants. In 2000, I was again pregnant. We had not planned another child, but we welcomed the pregnancy. I was 4 months pregnant in May, and this time, for the first time, I knew beforehand that I was having a boy. We were very excited!
One beautiful day in May, while working in the landscaping at church I encountered a root that was in the way of some flowers I wanted to plant. I tugged and tried to remove it - to no avail. I stubbornly tugged and tugged and never did entirely get it removed. I gave up for the day on it.
Later that day, I felt a little odd and slightly crampy. The cramping didn’t alarm me as I had had that often in my other pregnancies. But later, early on in my shift that night at my job, I began to experience spotting. I called the doctor’s office, but they just chalked it up to being dehydrated. I went another couple of hours and the spotting changed dramatically. It began to be a bright red gush. I knew something was terribly wrong and drove myself home. My husband drove me to the hospital right away.
I was ushered right in and taken to an exam room immediately. Some part of me still hoped that a doctor could fix what appeared to be going terribly wrong. I just couldn’t comprehend that people were telling me that I was going to have to deliver my son. I was somehow wildly hoping that they’d be able to stop what had begun, or he’d somehow be okay, but just very premature. I did not want to push him out of my body - maybe he’d still have a chance! I was not thinking rationally.
I was prepped to deliver. I was sobbing harder than I’ve ever done in my life, pushing out the child who was now dead in the same way that I was used to doing when bringing forth a new little life. I felt my soul was wailing and crying out to heaven.
I need to pause. Writing this is tearing at a raw place inside that I normally keep tucked very deeply away…
Deep breath...
In a somewhat short time, I delivered our baby. He was perfectly formed, but very small. I was allowed to cradle him for a few minutes, to say my goodbye and then I was gently coaxed to hand him back. I would not ever get to know this child as I had dreamt I would.
Earlier in the day, when I began to suspect what might have been happening, I had called my friend, Sherry, who I knew had suffered several miscarriages. She was also a former nurse before becoming an at-home-mom.
When I was wheeled into recovery, she came in and sat next to my bed, just holding my hand. I was in a state of shock and disbelief and incomprehensible sorrow. I would not stop bleeding, and passed large clots one after the other. Sherry had to return home to her family. Because it was in the middle of the night, I had varied caretakers who did not realize the amount of blood I was losing. My OB-GYN came in very early in the morning and recognized right away why I was weakening and beginning to pass out. There was still part of the placenta that had not detached and was causing the profuse bleeding. She scheduled an emergency DNC and deftly took care of the problem, saving my life.
When I awakened from the surgery, I woke to the hard realization of the finality of what had happened. I could not stop sobbing, as I thought, seeking the answers to why such a thing had happened. And then I remembered having tugged on the root earlier in the prior day. What had I done? I not only had an incredibly hollow place within my heart and soul from the loss of this child who I had been coming to increasingly love with each day, but now I had the realization that I had actually caused this terrible, terrible thing to happen.
I was inconsolable. I quietly cried for hours and there was no depth to the abyss of sorrow. I had lost my father a couple of years before and it was a deep sorrow, but somehow very different from this. A nurse stopped in later and asked why I was so sad - she knew of my other children. I was blessed to have them! I knew I was, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t feel the loss of another!
I was given this beautiful rose bush after this event, and planted it. Every time it blooms it gives me loving memories of my sweet lost child.
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I went home the next day, my uterus and arms empty, still trying to make sense of everything. It was years before I could forgive myself. I know that what happened was not intentional on my part. Doctors have told me that a woman is much stronger than you would think, and this could have happened for any reason at all. But I still have to wonder.
Life did go on and I have been blessed with three more girls since then. We ended up with quite a large family after all - larger than we had ever thought we would have! But, though the sorrow has become an old scar that I bear within, a part of the person I am becoming as I continue on through the years, it sometimes still hurts when I least expect it. I know in my soul, though, that I will one day happily meet Kolbe and all of those whom I have lost and there will be no more sorrow and no more scars. |