How Old is Your Baby?

One of the hardest questions for me to ask another mother is, "How old is your baby?" My eyes are always drawn to babies, especially if they look around Isabella's age. At the end of every day, I could tell you roughly how many babies and strollers I passed.

I'm both drawn by babies and terrified of seeing them. Every time I see an unfamiliar baby, I want to know how old the baby is and I don't want to know if they are Isabella's age. 

In airports, restaurants, coffee shops, etc., I choose my seat based on where the babies are sitting (not in my line of view). Apparently this heightened awareness and avoidance of certain situations is related to the traumatic element of Isabella's death. 

Until I was pregnant, I never cared to ask the age of babies. I certainly did not anticipate it would become a difficult and anxiety producing question to ask. I've gotten up the courage to ask unfamiliar mothers how old their babies are twice. Both times, I had to talk myself into having the guts to approach them with the question. 

The first time was three weeks after Isabella was born and died. My husband and I were at a coffee shop in Washington state. I had seen newborns everywhere. Each time I saw a mother cradling her child or rocking a car seat with her foot, a part of my heart ached with the emptiness of my arms. My husband told me it was not strange to ask moms their child's age, especially since I'm female. 

In this coffee shop, there was a beautiful African American woman with gorgeous twin girls. After surreptitiously watching and avoiding them for almost an hour, my husband encouraged me to talk to her instead of agonizing. 

I finally approached the mother and asked, "How old are your babies?"

 

She smiled and replied, "They're 10 weeks old."

While gazing at the infant in her arm I said, "Your daughters are beautiful. Most people I know who are having kids this year are having boys."

She looked at me and asked, "Do you have kids?"

Swallow. "I do. My daughter has born three weeks ago."

She gave me a huge smile. "How are you all sleeping?"

My lip began to tremble. "Unfortunately, she also died three weeks ago." 

Her eyes welled up with tears and she asked me if I wanted to hold her daughter. I did. If I was face to face with a woman who had just buried a child, I don't know if I would offer her my newborn to hold. But she did, and it felt so good and so hard to hold this precious girl. She asked if she could pray for me. Shortly after she prayed, my husband and I left. 

The second time was at an airport last week. I had positioned myself so I could not see this newborn boy being held by his mother. As I walked by to refill my water bottle, I worked up the courage to ask her the question. 

With my heart hammering in my chest, I asked, "How old is your son?"

She smiled and said, "He's two months."

Part of me breathed a sigh of relief that he was not five months, as Isabella would have been. "He's a beautiful baby."

We smiled at each other and I walked away. She does not know that I have a daughter. No one on my flight knew that I would/should have been holding an almost five-month baby on my lap. These days I often wonder what invisible scars others carry daily that I cannot see and how that impacts their interactions with me and those around them.