I have heard a lot recently about
rainbow babies. Babies born after the loss of another through various
means. It's an interesting term and not one that I heard being used
twenty or even ten years ago.
Although in some ways is seems a
beautiful concept, it is also kind of disturbing. Disturbing that the
subsequent child is saddled with the responsibility to fill a hole in
the lives of their parents. Also that parents seem to be
romanticizing the lives of their new babies.
Admittedly, if I had heard the term
many years ago, I too may have clung to it, considered that
perspective a gift. I was, however, given a different gift and a
different perspective which I would like to share.
At 26, I was nine years into a
relationship which included two years of marriage. Together we felt
ready to reproduce. Two months into the decision when the home
pregnancy test I took came back negative, I somehow still believed
that I was pregnant. It would be three weeks later that I had the
pregnancy confirmed by a Dr., which, ironically would be the same day
that I found out that I was losing my first chance at motherhood.
Nine weeks is what they told me I was.
Like a lot of miscarriages, mine involved a lot of poking and
prodding and appointments crammed into a short period of time and a
lot of guilt over what I could have done differently. For me, it also
involved a lot of raging at the universe for choosing to bless so
many parents who I felt were more reckless and less dedicated to the
craft of family creation than I was. It didn't help that the
miscarriage took place a few days before my birthday or that I chose
not to share it with most of my friends but rather suffered through
it virtually alone.
Fast forward 18 months and, low and
behold, lucky me! I am19 weeks into what most believe is my first
pregnancy. It is April 18th... the day of my first
ultrasound and I have arranged to arrive at my public service job
late to accommodate the early appointment.
In the ultrasound, however, I was told
that there was “something wrong” and that I should “speak to my
Doctor.” Luckily, the Dr.'s office is kitty-corner to the hospital
where I had the ultrasound so I booked it across the street and
waited for her to arrive and provide clarification. Though she was
surprised to see me sans appointment, she left me to call diagnostic
imaging and get my diagnosis.
An hour later I left her office armed
with a genetic counseling appointment and the news that my baby was
“not viable.”
In the week between the diagnoses and
Matthew's stillbirth, Anencephaly was a term I became uncomfortably
familiar with as were the “you'll try agains” and the “it
doesn't always work the first times.” To make matters worse, I was
making arrangements with the funeral home for his cremation when I
felt I should have been making shower arrangements, the platitudes
all evaporated in the heat of anger and injustice.
Fast forward thirteen months I was
holding my first healthy child in my arms. Zoe, I named her, LIFE –
what we had each given to the other.
Fast forward another 22 months and I
was holding a baby boy. I would go on to have two additional healthy
children.
What's my point?
When my second child was
three-and-a-half, I did something I had heard about others before me
doing, I asked him what it was like to be born.
As we sat talking, my son told me an
incredible story of how Zoe had been in my tummy and, wanting to be
born first, he pushed her out. He went on to say that he then got in
me and she then pushed him out. That was when he decided to let her
be born first.
Although there was no way of knowing
the gender of my miscarried child, my stillborn had been a boy.
At that age, my son had no earthly way
of knowing that I had been pregnant twice before I birthed his older
sister.
I now talk about it openly with the
kids and they sometimes mention their “missing” brother. I hear
today's prolific use of the term Rainbow Baby and ask myself if I
believe Zoe is the rainbow after my stormy beginning to motherhood or
if things are as Antonios told me, my kids inadvertently causing me
pain and grief as they played their juvenile game.
Either way, as I type this, I think of
the photo below which I took the morning after we buried Matthew's ashes under an
olive tree in Greece and the unexpected rainbow which appeared when
it was developed.
