I had a nurse ask me recently how I continue to work as a nurse on the Maternal/Child unit after losing two of my babies. My answer has always been the same: If I can help at least one mama during my time there, then it won’t all have been for nothing, their lives and our pain of losing them wouldn’t have been for nothing.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Those simple words are filled with storms of emotions and with all due respect to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, I can attest to the fact that there is no standard of movement through each one. Grief is such a personal journey. Sure, there are 5 stages but no two people will ever progress through them the same way. I will not pretend that I don’t bounce around through all of them, even now that it’s been almost 3 years since I held my last sweet baby. It only takes a comment, a sound or smell to send me right back to Heath’s last day, Zoe’s baby shower the day before we lost her, or the memory of telling my two other children about the loss of their brother.
This brings me back to my job. It is physically tiring to work night shift, it’s taxing to help a new mama breastfeed for the first time (babies don’t always cooperate – no matter how much you beg). It’s mentally exhausting going over doctor’s orders and making sure that I didn’t miss something after having numerous interruptions to my charting (it’s just part of the job).
The part that wears me down the most is the emotional exhaustion. I can’t count the number of times that I have swallowed tears to get through the night, only to lose it in my car after clocking out or had it hit me days later walking around Target. The hardest part of their loss for me is that I know the pain that they feel. I know what’s it’s like to hold your baby for the last time, to watch my husband with tears running down his face while he’s trying not to make it worse for me, to not believe that you’re own heart is still beating when your sweet baby’s has stopped.
I have said to several moms over the years that I wish I could take it away for them and I mean that to the core of my being. I would shoulder their grief along with mine if there was any way. There was a morning that I was able to spend some time with a mama that knew her baby wouldn’t survive. I hope that I was able to bring her a little comfort in those minutes we talked. I’ve held the hand of moms as they held their rainbow babies, expressing their anxiety over their baby after the one they lost in the past.
I have had the privilege of meeting and working with some of the most caring, compassionate, loving, brilliant nurses. Some of them have had their own struggles with conceiving or carrying their babies to term. Some had the honor of holding their baby but didn’t have the opportunity to take them home. Some never had the chance to look at their baby’s face and may always wonder who they would have been. Other’s didn’t lose their children during pregnancy or right after, but months or even years later. Those nurses have made me better in my nursing practice and I will always be grateful for the knowledge and experiences that they shared with me.
I think one thing that I have learned is that you don’t know what someone has gone through to get her babies or what she is currently doing to try to conceive or carry them. Those that were gifted with their babies more easily have no idea what it’s like to worry and struggle every single second of their pregnancy, at least not in the same way the rest of us do. That’s okay, it doesn’t make them better or us worse. It doesn’t discount you as a mother. It doesn’t make them more of one.
I’m not sure where I was really going with this in the beginning. This was just all wearing on my mind and heart for all the moms that I love that have struggled, for all the moms that I hope I have comforted with the story of Zoe and Heath and how our family has coped with their loss. For all the moms that feel like they aren’t enough for the babies they hold or feel like they should have been able to save the babies they hold in their hearts instead of their arms.
Don’t worry, mamas, you’re not alone in any of that.
Sending all my love your way.
Life Inside Looking Out 