The Missing Piece
It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig.
Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me.
When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic.
No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell.
And of course, no theology, no metaphysics.
Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.
So throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage,
not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.
- Aldous Huxley , Island
***
“This is not what you were expecting,” said the doctor.
Of course, it wasn't.
I came for an uneventful 20 week’s scan. How could I possibly be expecting to hear those words that didn’t even make sense.
“I can’t find his kidneys,” she said.
“Look again,” I wanted to say. But instead, I asked “Now what? How do we fix it?” I couldn’t make sense of it. What was happening? How do I- How do WE come out of it? She put both of her hands in my arm and said, “I am sorry.”
I immediately knew. I understood. WE were not coming out of it.
***
“River,” I said to Jorge as we got ready to go to the scan appointment. “It's either River or Rio. That is his name.” He smiled and said he would think about it. We had been debating for weeks over his name. It wasn't so hard when I was pregnant with our now almost two-year-old daughter, Luna. I gave him a list and he said ‘Luna’ and that was it. Not this time. This time was different. Everything was different.
We had a miscarriage before this pregnancy. “It’s like the innocence of being pregnant was stolen from me,” I said to Jorge at some point. How naive. I wonder if that wasn’t a warning. I wonder if this hadn’t been a warning for future pregnancies. “Don’t go there,” I hear myself say. “Lightly, my darling.”
In the days that came after, Jorge said, “I think we should name him River.”
***
When I was pregnant with Luna, I was terrified of stillbirth. I had absolutely no reason to believe something would go wrong, but I was still terrified, almost certain that it would happen. Even before knowing I was pregnant with River, I had nightmares of blood and kids with special needs. “They are my own fears,” I repeated to myself over and over. It’s not that I didn't worry, it's that I did such a good job the first time around convincing myself that dreams DO come true, that I forgot that so do nightmares.
I have no other word to describe the following days. To describe the feeling when I knew I had to birth him. Birth him knowing he wouldn't survive. Suddenly, the fear of birthing itself was so insignificant compared to the fear of his suffering. It was a nightmare. I was a walking nightmare. A horror story. One that one wouldn’t dare whisper to pregnant women. They kept me in private waiting rooms, away from happy expectant mothers. And in every room, I prayed for a miracle. I prayed that it was indeed a nightmare and that I would wake up. But it wasn’t. And I didn’t. Every waiting room had the same outcome, and every day had the same headline: He will always be dead and I will forever miss him.
Those days that followed that routine scan were sad, dark and filled with questions. I felt like I was in another universe. I could feel him move, clueless, inside of me. I would explain to him tastes and sounds I was experiencing. “This is what bread tastes like. This is what the sea sounds like,” I shared with him. He would never get to experience these things.
We had to keep functioning for Luna. We didn’t have a pause button. We didn’t have anyone to come help take Luna for a walk (nor did we want to; we wanted to be together). We went to the wuyai (the park) and the beach and we cooked and ate. I saw him in everything we did. I saw him not there. I saw the hole that will be forever there. The hole he was supposed to fill. During those days (they are all merged together now) I went alone to the beach. I held my belly and cried “my baby” over and over to the waves that swallowed my voice. I swam in the sea, wiped my tears and headed back to make dinner. Luna needed me and I needed her. I knew I had to explain to her what had happened. I said, “Can I tell you something, Luna? The baby is not going to make it home just now. Maybe, when you are older, we will have another baby. But this baby inside mom's belly won’t come home.” She said, “Mama cry. Baby, ouch. Bye-bye baby.” Gave my belly a kiss and kept playing. I don’t know how I would’ve survived if it weren’t for her.
After the birth there were some things no one asked about. No one asked who he looked like or how long the birth took. Not once did someone ask those annoying routine questions about his weight or if I had had an epidural. (Actually, one person did - my friend Susie who went through something similar). I don’t know if my before self would’ve asked these questions, but I so needed those questions asked. I wanted so much to talk about him, but no one would mention him. Not even my family or my close friends. And it hurt so much. I received tons of calls, messages, flowers, beautiful nourishing food, broths, quinoa, a face mask, a veggie box, take away dinner, a reiki session, my favourite cake and every single one of those things helped. I needed them all. All the comments, even the crazy ones helped. While they were not talks specifically about River, they made his existence more real. And for that I am grateful.
“Everything happens for a reason,” or “It’s part of God’s plan,” I heard people say over and over. He had no kidneys. He had no lungs. He had no amniotic fluid. Nobody knows why. He wouldn't have survived more than an hour (if at all) if we would’ve let him get to term. He had no lungs. There was no choice. But there was: to terminate now or let him die later. Later, when his senses were better developed. When he would be ready to take that first breath and couldn't. He had no lungs. When he would've been 4 more months inside of me, feeling my sadness, hearing me cry.
No, we had no choice.
Was it something I said? Was it something I ate? Was it that joke about him being a Gemini? Don’t go there.
“Lightly, my darling.”
No, we had no choice. I had no choice. I did it out of love. I birthed him and I would do it again. I felt the pain and I thought it would break me. And it did. And then it pieced me back together (in a different form). Out of love. Out of the love I feel for both of my children. And nothing will ever be the same. So, then no, some things happen for NO reason. And I have to live with that. And now, how am I supposed to answer when people ask, “How many kids do you have?” “I have two. I’ve been pregnant three times. Only one living child.”
I was scheduled for induction on Thursday, 4th of Feb. My doula, Jackie, the same person who was with us during Luna’s birth, had come with me in the morning. When Jorge arrived, I was starting to feel the contractions. They offered an epidural, but I’m terrified of needles in weird places so I declined. I had morphine and PCA instead. They didn’t seem to help much, but I’m glad it turned out that way. While I was making guttural, visceral sounds I caught Jorge with the corner of my eye, that big man who seems that nothing can get through to him, twisting and grabbing his head in despair, helpless. And I knew that the physical pain was far easier than the emotional one.
After a couple of hours, at 5pm, River was born, still. Jorge cut the cord. He kept saying, “Don’t look at him. He’s beautiful, but don’t look.” I didn’t know what to do. I know he was trying to protect me, but I needed to hold him, I needed to be his mother. So, the midwife covered him in a blanket and I held him, I felt his weight, I felt his warmth. I told him I love him and that I was sorry. I told him a million times I loved him. And gave him back. Jorge held him, and for maybe the third time in my life, I saw him cry. I stayed in hospital and Jorge went home to Luna. I was numb. I can’t say I was alive at that moment. I was just suspended in time, in space. I was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t sleep. I needed to see his face. I needed to hold him one more time. I heard in my head the words “lightly, my darling.” I googled them. They belong to a book called Island, by Aldous Huxley. The quote made perfect sense. I knew I had to feel everything lightly. Not let myself succumb to the darkness, to the nightmare. I felt vulnerable and fragile, knowing that everything can be taken away from me in one second; but I also felt powerful and strong, I felt like a mama wolf, doing whatever it takes for their children. So, I knew I had to see him. If I was to mother him beyond his life, I needed to see his face.
The next morning, I woke up and asked the midwife what state he was in and if it would be too much to see him after all those hours? She said, “He’s perfect, you won’t regret seeing him.” And I will be forever grateful to her. She brought him in. All his 408grams and his 25cm. I held him and cried “my baby” but there were no waves to swallow my voice this time. He was just perfect. He looked so peaceful. He looked like Luna and like Jorge. His ears, his little lips, his closed eyes. I told him I loved him a million more times. I told him that I was his mother, and I will always be. I asked him to forgive me. I said goodbye to his beautiful tiny body. And knowing that it would be the last time I saw him, I asked the midwife to take him away.
Luna was coming to get me. I wiped my tears and smiled wide when she and Jorge came through the door. I was so happy to see her and hug her. We left as a new kind of family. We left with a baby in our hearts instead of our arms, which would ache from feeling so empty. A broken family. Like a puzzle with a missing piece. A beautiful family. Our family of two children, one living, one in our hearts.
~Ale Munoz