Trauma Scars – What We are Doing Differently

People are formed over time. Traumatic events tend to act like an earthquake, quickly changing the landscape of a life, changing it forever in a few moments of upheaval. My mother’s suicide almost a year ago has altered how we interact with people when they lose a parent, my compassion for those impacted by suicide, and I know personally the gaping hole left by the death of a parent. In different ways, Isabella’s birth and death shaped us irrevocably. The trauma scars left by meeting and saying goodbye to Isabella impact how we approach pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.

Throughout this pregnancy, we have made several different decisions due to these scars. 

We did genetic testing at about 10 weeks. When I was pregnant with Isabella, we chose not to do any genetic testing because we knew that we would carry any child, regardless of whether he or she had genetic anomalies, as long as possible. We also decided we could wait to find out the gender until the 20ish week ultrasound. This time, I wanted to both know if there were any genetic conditions and we wanted to know whether this child was a boy or a girl. I knew I needed to know early if it was a boy in order to prepare myself since I desperately wanted another girl. By God’s grace, our child looks healthy genetically and we found out that it’s a boy.

We named him. When Isabella was born, we had narrowed down our name choices to two – Isabella and Iona. We had decided to wait to name her until we saw her, hoping we would know what name suited her best. By the time we named her, we did know. My husband and I sat next to her bed in the NICU the afternoon she was born, after she had already been resuscitated twice since birth, and knew we needed to name her. We did not know her story yet, but we trusted that she was held by God, whether she lived to be 90 or died that day. Isabella means devoted or consecrated to God and we knew it was her name. This time, we knew we wanted to start using our baby’s name early. We’ve chosen one and begun using it, but are not ready to share it online.

I (generally) treasure the discomfort of pregnancy, knowing that this time with him is precious. Many families would give their right arm for the aches and pains of pregnancy. If this is the only time we get with him, we are going to enjoy it as much as we can.

My husband more intentionally gets to know him. While much of pregnancy is spent eagerly awaiting the arrival of our child, never getting to raise Isabella has highlighted the fact that not every parent gets to know their baby outside of the womb. My husband’s opportunities to get to know our son are certainly limited, but we both want him to get to know our child as well as he can during this stage. Although he spent time holding my belly and talking to it while I carried Isabella, we set aside time each morning and night to enjoy the fact that our son is with us and alive. If our baby is really active, I will tell my husband so he, too, can feel the movements. Although most dads say that they fell in love with their children as they held them after birth and got to know them, that stage is not always an option. Neither of us want to have regrets about not spending enough time with our son if the unforeseen happens again. If we take him home, this time with father and son will not be wasted either.

We will likely not unbox the car seat until we get to the hospital. With Isabella, we bought the car seat a couple weeks in advance and put it in the back of the car on our way to the hospital. We never, ever pictured leaving the hospital with an empty car seat and aching arms. I asked my sister-in-law to put the car seat in her car on the drive back to our house because my heart could not have an unfilled car seat in our car on the drive back from giving birth to our daughter. Since we had expected to use the convertible car seat for several years, we had recycled the box. The car seat was an awkward shape and I vividly remember my husband and my father piecing together cardboard boxes to return it. While I have no reason to think we will not bring our son home, I would rather not even open the car seat box until we know we will use this car seat and not have to return it.

We are not having any baby showers while pregnant. Over the last several years, I’ve been blown away by how many people love us well. While I was pregnant with Isabella, we had four baby showers and were overwhelmed by people’s love for our daughter before she was even born – my work, my husband’s work, Bible study, and church. As a result, we have most of the basics except for the diapers I gave away after Isabella’s death. The last baby shower was less than a week before Isabella was born and I never finished the thank you notes. Some mothers who have buried children choose to have a baby shower for their new baby, holding onto the hope of new life and celebrating their next baby with loved ones. In Jewish tradition, women don’t have baby showers before their babies are born because there is a recognition that bringing a healthy baby home is not a guarantee. I first heard this while sitting next to a Jewish coworker at the baby shower for another coworker. At the time, I did not understand. Now I do and can never go back to who I used to be. Instead of a baby shower in anticipation of his arrival, we will have a “meet and greet.” I read about this online in a group for moms who have experienced a loss. Since baby showers are often triggers for families who have buried babies, the idea of a meet and greet is that friends and family get to meet the new baby and celebrate the new life. We want people to meet and love our son, see that he arrived safely, is healthy, and that we are okay. Thus, we plan to have a meet and greet, or belated shower, once he arrives.

We will not set up the crib ahead of time. My husband set up Isabella’s crib around 3 o’clock in the morning while keeping track of my contractions. Since she decided to arrive at 38 weeks instead of 40, we were still not quite ready for her. Coming home to an empty crib was brutal. Friends offered to take it down for us, but we needed to disassemble it as part of the grieving process. It sat in our bedroom for about a week until we knew it was time to take apart the pieces and put it back in the garage, in hopes of using it again for another child. Since then, friends gave us a bassinet their baby outgrew. We plan on using it for the first while. At some point, we will reassemble the crib, but my heart cannot handle putting it together before we bring him home.

We are planning on a repeat c-section. I’ve researched the risks of attempting a trial of labor after a cesarean as well as VBACs (vaginal birth after cesarean). Although I’m an ideal candidate to try for a VBAC, we’ve decided as a team (us, midwife, OB, perinatologist) that we will plan on a repeat c-section. Had everything with Isabella turned out perfectly and we brought her home, the discussion would have looked different. But our story includes the trauma of an emergency c-section and neonatal death. For us and with the input of our team, we are all comfortable with this decision. And I wish that babies could just be born in an easy, labor-free, trauma-free, surgery-free method, but that is not an option in this world, regardless of the circumstances.