[Author’s Note #1: This is a story about miscarriage. It’s ugly and harsh. I did not hold my punches. You are free — and even encouraged — to refrain from reading this piece. Alas, I was not free to refrain from writing it.]
[Author’s Note #2: The spiritual backstory for this post is provided in Faith is the Substance of Things Hoped For — but that piece is not prerequisite reading. Here’s all you need to know, for the purposes of this piece: after years of prayer, we were convinced Occidentalis was a boy in the same way that we were [correctly] convinced of Borealis’s and Australis’s sexes. However, unlike with those children, we have no material evidence of Occidentalis’s sex — which, of course, makes my perception unfalsifiable (and therefore, less robust). Alas, I can do nothing about it now, and I’ll not know on this side of eternity whether my perceptions were correct. Nevertheless, I’ll continue to refer to Occidentalis using masculine pronouns. He was, and will continue to be, my beloved son — even if he’s no longer here on earth.]
[Author’s Note #3: A lot of story happened before the events described herein. I had initially intended the scope of this post to include our endeavor to conceive Occidentalis; however, I quickly realized that I was trying to cram too much into a single post. If Faith is the Substance is Part O (like, a prologue), then our fertility struggle would be Part I, and this post would be Part II. I’ll eventually come back and draft up Part I; for now, however, I need to put down in writing how it all ended.]
On February 7, 2021, we lost our third baby, Occidentalis, at ten weeks of pregnancy.
It’s hard to write this. It’s harder to go through it. But it’d be even harder without God.
The Bible gives a rich, complicated look at godly grief in the book of Job. After losing his children and worldly possessions, Job doesn’t run away from God. Instead, he doubles down with this famous prayer:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
— Job 1:21
And naked shall I return there.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Like Job, we’ve doubled down.
Act I: The Events Preceding February 6th
To understand this story, you have to know a bit about my feelings toward Occidentalis — or, as I called him, “Occi” (sounds like “Oxy” — yes, I know I pick the worst names for my children).
I yearned for Occi even before Borealis was born. In the course of discerning God’s will for our family, I had had a strong sense of my third child: a boy who would break my heart. My perception, however, didn’t extend to the nature of that heartbreak, nor to my reaction thereafter.
In short: I’d never gotten clarity about how our story ended. I longed to meet my son and to begin our relationship, and I chose to trust that God would continue to transform me into the mother that Occi needed: a mother who — after having her heart broken — could win her son back, rather than pushing him further away.
And yet, 2020 crawled by without a positive pregnancy test.
Every month without my son was freshly devastating. It felt rather appropriate: 2020 sucked in so many ways — why not add temporary infertility to the mix? Even my industrial-sized box of pregnancy and ovulation tests was beginning to look sparse.
On the last day of the year, an internal war waged within me. I was overdue for my period by several days, but I was also so incredibly discouraged. Finally, I decided that I had little to lose. If the test was positive, it would make up for so much of the ghastliness of 2020. But, if it was negative, then it would be a fitting conclusion to a perfectly awful year. I fully expected the latter.
But then — oh, happy day! That telltale faint pink line sent an electric shock through me. Suddenly, 2020 was actually the best year on record: in only a matter of months, I would meet my son! I brought the test into the dining room, where the rest of my family was eating breakfast. My husband held me as I sobbed with relief and joy, while my two other kids looked on in mild alarm. I tried to explain to them that Mommy was ok — I was just feeling sensitive right then. They continued to eye me suspiciously.
As a matter of course, we shared our news with very few friends or family. I didn’t want a repeat of my pregnancy with Australis, when an excited family member shared a picture of my belly on Facebook before I was ready to publicly announce. By that point, thankfully, our risk of miscarriage was minimal, and my announcement post was ready soon after.
All told, not a big issue — but still, I had a niggling sense that I should keep my news about Occidentalis close to home.
However, Taylor and I disagreed on this approach — which is absolutely hilarious. Who would have guessed that my virtually nonverbal husband would be the one pushing increased transparency and communication?
At one point, he asked, “Don’t you want your friends to know, so they can be excited for you? And wouldn’t you want their support if you miscarried?”
I shrugged in response. “I mean, yeah — some friends. But what if I told everyone, right away? Then, if I miscarried, I’d have to tell them all — and even worse, I’d have to bear through the awkwardness of their having no idea what to say.”
Taylor: <grunts unconvincedly>
“No, seriously. Do you remember when Samara miscarried?”
Taylor: <grunts in acknowledgement>
“Well, do you also remember that, like, I considered sending her a picture of me crying — because I had absolutely no idea what to say?”
Taylor: <grunts begrudgingly>
“Would you know what to say if one of your friends miscarried?”
“Um… ‘I’m really sorry’?”
“Yeah. Exactly.” <pause> “Look — I will tell people… when I’m ready.”
But that wasn’t the only time that miscarriage came up.
In mid-January, as Taylor and I drove to the opening night of a friend’s hotel, I looked up the statistics for miscarriage. “At this point, we’re pretty low,” I told Taylor. “But still non-negligible.”
My husband glanced away from the road for a second. “Babe. Why are you dwelling on this?”
I thought for a few seconds, then answered, “I’m not really sure.”
He sighed. “What’s going to happen is going to happen. Were you this anxious with Bo or Aza?”
I looked out at the city lights and frowned. “I don’t think so… at least, not until the end, with Aza. Do you remember how I thought maybe she would be stillborn?”
Taylor: <grunts in grim memory>
I recalled the several days before my daughter’s birth. I had firmly believed that she would be born in October — hence, our Halloween “baby introduction” party. However, when the calendar changed to November, I was flung into what could most accurately be described as “a crisis of faith”. (Notably, this emotional turmoil did not make it into Due Date Update: No Halloween Baby.)
Long story short, I was faced with this question: If I was wrong about Aza’s arrival date — a perception which I had [erroneously] attributed to divine revelation — was I also wrong about her health? Or her very life? And, if so, then what would that mean for my faith?
Or, to put it even more succinctly: If my daughter was stillborn, would I still love God?
I spent several days pummeled by anxiety — lots and lots of tears and prayers. Finally, I made this conscious decision: Yes. If my daughter is dead, I will still choose to love You, God.
But then, Australis was fine: gloriously, wonderfully alive and healthy. (Although, admittedly, she didn’t exactly look it.) So, in the end, it seemed like my crisis of faith — and subsequent response — were rendered of no account.
But, I couldn’t forget the feeling of facing down my child’s death.
Later that month, on an unseasonably warm day, my mother and I took the kids for a walk around the neighborhood. They rode in a little red wagon and squinted fair eyes against the late afternoon sun. I started to pull them up the hill, but was stymied when my mother chided, “Let me pull it — I don’t want you to miscarry.”
I scoffed, but nevertheless relinquished control of the handle. “Pretty sure this isn’t a high risk.”
My mother shrewdly assessed the wagon, then agreed, “Probably not. The wheels are decent.”
We walked in silence for a minute, before my mother asked, “Have you thought about what you would do? About the names, specifically?”
I sighed. “Uhhhhh… yeah. We’ve actually discussed that quite a bit. It feels very wrong to have another ‘Occidentalis’, were we to lose this one… but we’ve batted around, you know, like, changing middle names or something.”
My mother’s brow furrowed. “Hmm.”
“I think it might depend on when we miscarried,” I continued. “Like, if we’d already announced the name, then we couldn’t reuse it. But if we miscarried early, then we might.”
I glanced at my mother, who was wearing the most heartbreaking expression. “He’s still a life,” she said softly. “Why would it matter when you miscarried?”
For a few moments, I was speechless. The only sounds were the rumble of wagon wheels and the hum of Bo’s continuous chatter. Finally, I answered, “Because I would be embarrassed to have said that we’d have four, but then only have three. If we’re missing a cardinal direction, our family will have to explain that absence, forever.”
My mother shrugged. “It’s between you and God. And Taylor, obviously.”
I grimaced, because sometimes God speaks loudly through those around us. I didn’t need to pray to know that this was one of those times.
I shook off the feeling and [somewhat flippantly] answered, “Well, we might have to deal with that, but probably not for this one. Remember — Orientalis is the one that I don’t know anything about. That mysteriousness might mean that we lose that baby — but I don’t think I’ll miscarry this one.”
“I pray that you are right,” my mother concluded.
As February approached, we told more of our close friends: our Life Group, a couple of my longtime besties, one of my closest MOPS mamas, etc. I decided that I’d publicly announce in the same way that I had for Australis: after confirming Occi’s sex, we’d take some cute (ish) pictures of Bo and Aza snuggling my baby bump and do a fun throwback to Kiss Mommy’s Belly.
Following much contemplation and prayer, we also decided on a home birth — an intentional one, this time. I think it was healing for me to have Aza in a birth center — our *plan* with Borealis — but now I wanted a mulligan on our *reality* with Borealis.
After two successful deliveries, I was solidly considered a “low-risk pregnancy”. Thus, I decided that I only had a couple major deal-breakers. I needed a midwife who: 1) could (and would!) administer Pitocin post-delivery — because I low-key have a history of bleeding out, and 2) was not a Wiccan — because I can handle a certain level of disagreement, but I draw the line at witchcraft.
(Surprisingly, these two criteria eliminated a plurality of options.)
Eventually, I settled on a midwife who just *felt* right. Her resume was impressive, especially since she was so young. In the pictures on her website, Tanya looked even younger than me — although, when I interviewed her over FaceTime, I learned that she’s actually a year older. She brandished a confidence that was all too familiar: the desire to be taken seriously on one’s merits, and the frustration of being discounted for one’s youth. (For the record: I’m still the youngest mom at MOPS… for the fourth year running. At least they’ve all stopped asking how old I am.)
In short: I know what it’s like to ask someone to trust that you’ll do what you promise — and that shared experience made me inclined to take a relative chance on Tanya.
Even better — we connected on a number of personal characteristics, too. Far from being a Wiccan, Tanya professed a strong Catholic faith — and she correctly interpreted my sarcasm, which truly takes a rare sort. Furthermore, she wasn’t offended when I asked questions so pointed that they bordered on “rude”; instead, she delivered clipped, calm, no-nonsense answers. (I think that she and Anika would have gotten along well.)
After our discussion, I asked for the chance to pray about the decision and talk it over with my husband. Thankfully, she readily consented.
Taylor and I decided pretty quickly to hire Tanya as our home birth midwife, but things got a little tricky with insurance. Like most independent birthworkers, Tanya outsources her billing, which meant that our Verification of Benefits was sent off to a company overloaded with similar requests.
Thus, our VOB didn’t come back until February 2nd — and even then, it was entirely gibberish to me. (Money matters are over my pay grade.) I set the form aside for Taylor, hoping that he’d have a chance to look at it over the following weekend.
Act II: February 6th
That weekend started off like any other: completely hectic, with way too much planned. But, this was back when both my kids still regularly napped — mostly. (Reference Her Highness, the Queen of the Crib, which was published a week before the events of this post.) Thus, I had a narrow window during which to work on a writing gig — and thereby ignore all my other time-critical responsibilities, including the paperwork necessary to officially secure Tanya as our home birth midwife.
I don’t remember that anything felt “off” that Saturday. (Besides, you know, the one million tasks I was trying to juggle.) Nothing about the brisk air screamed, Your life is about to be changed forever! Watch out!
Everything was normal: the kids yelled; the dog barked; Taylor grunted.
And so, when I discovered blood in the toilet that night, I was completely blindsided.
Taylor hates that word — “blindsided”. He thinks it’s totally overused on The Bachelor. (“None of them should be ‘blindsided’. They’re on a dating show where — at most — one person ends up with the lead!”) Thus, over the past several years, I’ve all but dropped the word from my lexicon.
There are some moments, however, that truly feel like a bludgeon from nowhere.
It was hard to parse through my immediate flood of thoughts. Blood — oh no, this is bad. Wait, sometimes bleeding in pregnancy is normal. But I have no reason to be bleeding. Oh, maybe it’s actually just a cut?
It was *not* just a cut. Unfortunately, another wipe confirmed the source of blood — faint, but distinctly fresh. I thought maybe the blood had actually come straight from my brain, because I was suddenly lightheaded and so, so cold.
This is the beginning of the end, I thought. It’s only a matter of time now.
“Babe,” I whimpered to Taylor, who was distractedly brushing his teeth. I showed him the evidence and breathed, “It’s Occi.”
Taylor caught my gaze with a firm look. “Hey. You know just as well as I do that sometimes bleeding happens during pregnancy. This is nothing to be concerned about.”
My heart rate slowed just a bit. I had been counting on Taylor to do as he always does: to talk me off the ledge when I instantly jump to worst-case scenarios.
[Note: Having been raised in a house where every headache was probably an aneurysm and every sore neck was definitely meningitis, it’s hard *not* to immediately assume the worst.]
But, comforted though I was by Taylor’s pushback, my concerns still stood.
“Maybe it happens during other pregnancies, but not mine. I didn’t bleed with Bo or Aza, even for implantation.”
Taylor brushed back a strand of my hair. “And what could you do about it right now, even if you were miscarrying?”
I thought for a moment. “Pray?”
“Yeah. There’s nothing we can do but wait and see — and pray. Finish up and come to bed, sweetie.”
I breathed out deeply, then mechanically went through the motions of bedtime. Lastly, I grabbed a heavy-duty pad for what was surely coming.
When I crawled into bed, Taylor gently swept the tears from my face and said, “Hey. I love you, and everything is going to be ok.”
I shook my head, and fresh tears rushed to replace those that he had wiped away. “How can it be ok if he’s dead?” I whispered.
My husband pulled me into a hug, but I squirmed around to grab my phone. I immediately pulled open the Notes app and started a list.
Taylor: <grunts inquisitively> “What are you doing?”
“I’m writing down all the people we’ll have to tell. If we had miscarried after announcing publicly, then I could just tell everyone with an Instagram post — but, as it stands, most people didn’t even know that we were pregnant, so I don’t want to do, like, a blanket miscarriage announcement.”
“Babe. This isn’t a miscarriage. Or, at least, you don’t know that it is. Do you really need to put together a death report list?”
By this point, I had finished combing through texts that mentioned “Occidentalis” or “September 6th”, and I was now scrolling through my call history from the past month.
“Yeah,” I said. “This is the time to do it. I’ll want to tell everyone as soon as possible — not, like, drag out the process every time I remember about someone else. So I need to have this ready.”
A minute passed in silence as I tried to remember everyone I had told in person. I was disheartened by several names on the list — associates with whom, for one reason or another, I had shared our news before I felt ready. One had actually asked outright — “You’re not drinking! Are you pregnant?” — a question which, I had informed him, is never ok to ask. In retrospect, I wished I had just lied and said that I was an alcoholic.
He, and a few others, would not be great sources of comfort in my time of grief. This was, unfortunately, exactly why I hadn’t told more people: I was already dismayed at the lackluster sympathy I would receive from the ones we *had* told.
Eventually, I had listed everyone I could think of, although I suspected that I was missing a few. Grimly, I thought, Well, no matter — everyone will find out eventually. Like, when I don’t have a baby this autumn.
As I did one final scan of my “death report list”, I realized that the most upsetting aspect might be the names that were missing: good friends with whom we had intended to share our happy news over the next few weeks. Now, instead, we’d just be sharing our sad news.
That task complete, I stowed my phone and cuddled back into Taylor’s embrace. “You’re asleep!” I complained.
Taylor: <grunts sleepily> “I’m awake.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, obviously.”
I sighed, knowing that he would definitely be asleep before the end of my prayer — a prayer which I didn’t even know how to start. I lay in the dark for several minutes, hand low on my belly.
Finally, I began. “Oh LORD, what can I even say? You owe me nothing. There’s nothing that I can bring to You and say, ‘LORD, save my child, because I’ve been so faithful’, or whatever — because You know that I haven’t been faithful. I’m always falling short of Your glory. And even if I had been totally faithful, You would still owe me nothing — and yet You’ve already given me more than I could ever hope for: relationship with You, release from the bondage of sin, and the promise of the hope of eternity. And beyond that, the kids that You’ve blessed us with, and our marriage, and even this house. You’ve blessed us so much, and we could never do anything to deserve it — and yet, I ask for more.”
I paused and rubbed my wet face with a pillow. When I continued, my voice was even thicker with tears. “Heavenly Father, please save my son. Not because of anything I’ve done — because I’ve done nothing to merit Your love or Your grace — but because You are merciful, and because You’ve placed Your great name on us. I don’t ask for this having earned it, but because You’ve adopted me into Your family by the life, death, and resurrection of Your Son. We ask for Your intervention as children pleading with our Father, not as workers seeking our well-deserved wage. We know what we deserve, apart from You. But God, please — please — save my son. Save my Occi.”
I took a deep breath, which did little to calm my sobs. In a ragged whisper, I finished, “But LORD — not what I will, but even in this, would Your will be done.”
From beside me came a mumbled, barely-audible, “Amen.”
“Wow,” I snorted. “I thought you were asleep.”
Taylor: <grunts very sleepily> “It was a little touch-and-go.”
Despite my tears, I laughed a little. “Yeah, I know how you roll.”
And with that, I curled around my unborn baby for our last night together.
Act III: The Morning of February 7th
Sometimes, after something bad has happened, your unconscious mind will try to erase it. In the half-sleep of early morning, it will tell you: No, you didn’t fail that test. Yes, she’s still your best friend. No, he didn’t break up with you. — or, in my case, No, your son isn’t dying within you.
But, reality has a way of reasserting itself. I jolted awake at the first sound of my alarm and raced to the bathroom.
The pad was full of blood, and my tiny glimmer of hope dimmed even further.
Taylor entered the bathroom soon after me. “I don’t think it looks like that much,” he argued.
I scoffed. “It’s made out of a material designed to absorb blood. The literal purpose of a pad is to look like it’s *not* that much. But it is.” I flipped over the pad and showed him the saturated underside. “See?”
Taylor: <grunts uncertainly>
My actions that morning were affectless and robotic. I sat down with my two other children for breakfast — Taylor’s special steel-cut oatmeal, our Sunday morning tradition — just before the start of church, which we still attended virtually. (Our county was slow to allow houses of worship to fully reopen — and even when they did, we were lackadaisical about getting back into the practice of, you know, actually leaving the house.)
As usual, we had misjudged the time and ended up eating breakfast for most of the opening worship songs. [Note: Tardiness for church has become much less of an issue since our kids started rising pre-6am.]
When we finally got to the couch, I mumbled through the last few songs while Taylor tried to keep Bo and Aza seated — or, at least, non-violent.
Our pastor had just finished Second Corinthians the previous week, so this Sunday brought the start of a new “study” — a two-week bridge between the previous expositional series and the next one. I remember that the sermon centered on a section from Matthew, but beyond that, I couldn’t really focus. A few minutes into the study, my lower abdomen twinged, and I felt the urge to use the bathroom. I left my family on the couch and went alone to the toilet — which, in retrospect, wasn’t the best idea.
I had expected blood, but I hadn’t expected the quarter-sized blood clot — a blood clot that, at the time, I thought might be my unborn son.
It was like getting hit by a baseball bat. Sobs immediately wracked my body, and when I tried to stand, I merely collapsed against the wall. “Taylor!” I tried to scream — but it came out a whisper. “Taylor!” I tried again. “Taylor, please — please, Taylor, I need you.”
My husband found me leaning against the wall, still trying in vain to stand. “What’s going on!?” he asked in alarm.
I gestured to the contents of the toilet. “I don’t know — I can’t tell if — I need to know if it’s him.”
Taylor helped me stand, then supported me as I cleaned up. He helped me sit on the edge of the tub, then sat heavily beside me.
This is when he’ll tell me that it’s going to be ok, I thought. He’ll talk me off the ledge, like he always does.
But this time, he didn’t.
I had been staring blankly at the floor, but I looked up sharply at an unfamiliar sound. To my utter shock, Taylor — perpetually unflappable and hyper-rational; the one who explained to Anika how much of Bo’s head was crowning; the one who speaks primarily in nuanced grunts — he was crying… hard.
And that was the moment when I knew that this was actually happening. Watching tears slide down my husband’s face and drip onto the floor, I finally believed that this disaster wasn’t just in my head: this was real life, and I desperately wished that it wasn’t.
We sat there and cried together. Amazingly, our other kids didn’t come looking for us — which I guess means that we missed a pretty good sermon.
I couldn’t think of what to say. I wanted to pray, but I could summon no words — at least, no words of my own. Instead, I borrowed those of King David.
Taking a deep breath, I murmured the first verse of Psalm 139: “Oh LORD, You have searched me and known me.”
Taylor squeezed my hand as I stumbled through what had once been my favorite psalm. Even at the time, I recognized that the chapter would never again be the same for me: once a praise, it would now be a lament — irrevocably stained by the blood of my third child.
I faltered at verse 13 — the very reason I was praying this psalm. After a few deep breaths, I barely whispered, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Taylor stifled a sob as I continued. “My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed —”
Once again, I had to build up to the next line. Eventually, I forced it out through gritted teeth: “And in Your book, they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.”
And, there will never be any of them, I thought bitterly. Oh, God, why? Please, don’t take my baby. Please, please, please.
Taylor pulled me closer against him. I nodded — I knew he wasn’t rushing me, but we couldn’t stay on the edge of this tub forever. I mumbled verses 17 and 18, skipped 19 through 22, and concluded with the final lines. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
For a few moments, we sat in near-silence, the only sounds our hoarse breathing and the faint murmur of virtual church (and, intermittently, our kids’ shouts). Eventually, Taylor stood and rolled up his sleeves.
“What are you doing?” I asked numbly.
“I’m going to make sure that he’s not in there,” he answered.
I was torn. I didn’t want to force such a grisly task on my beloved, but I also needed to know that I wasn’t flushing the body of my son down the toilet. I looked away as Taylor fished out and assessed the object of interest. He soon announced, “It’s just a blood clot.”
“What?”
“It’s not him.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as Taylor returned the blood clot to the toilet and flushed. “Think about it — he’s almost ten weeks along. He’ll have a placenta, and he’ll be bigger than this. Didn’t you say he was grape-sized, this past week?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Almost kumquat.”
“Exactly. I think we’ll definitely see him.” He began to wash his hands, then added, “You should flush again, or else Bo might ask why the toilet is red.”
“Well,” I sighed, “we’ll have to tell him eventually. But maybe not yet, and not so graphic.”
Taylor grimaced at the prospect. “Uh… yeah, let’s wait until we know more.”
I considered what I would tell my son about his baby brother. The answer was pretty obvious: I’d tell him the truth. Occi *was* in Mommy’s belly, but then Occi died, and now Occi is in heaven with Jesus and with Grandma.
Bo hadn’t yet been conceived when Taylor’s mother passed, so he only knew her from pictures and stories. He had never taken issue with our explanation of where she was or Whom she was with, so I hoped he would understand when we told him what happened to his brother.
But, that was a conversation for a different day. Today, we just needed to take things one step at a time — and the next step, seemingly, was going back out to the living room to parent our two earthside children.
We discovered that Bo and Aza had buried the living room in toys. Annoying, but reversible. Taylor and I returned to the couch to “watch” church, although I genuinely think Bo might have payed better attention that morning.
After a few minutes, Taylor prompted, “You should text Tanya.”
I shifted uncomfortably — partly because my belly was still twinging, and partly because I still hadn’t gotten around to signing the midwife’s contract. “What good would that really do?” I asked.
“She’s a midwife. She’d be able to say if you’re miscarrying or not.”
“You already know that I am.” I gestured to Taylor’s phone, on which he had just done a search for “miscarriage symptoms”.
He switched off the screen and continued, “I still think you should text her.”
I groaned. “Just, like, ‘Hey, I think I’m miscarrying?’”
“I mean, yeah, that’s pretty straightforward.”
Unfortunately, I don’t really like being that straightforward. Instead, I typed up a long text regarding health insurance and prenatal costs — because that’s what we *had* been discussing. [Note: Yes, in retrospect, I realize that my beating-around-the-bush was pretty silly.] At the very end of that text, I tacked on a blurb about having some unexpected bleeding, hoping that Tanya would somehow pierce through all the extraneous muck to my actual reason for writing.
Not surprisingly, the midwife didn’t answer immediately — probably because my text didn’t quite convey EMERGENCY!, and probably also because of church. It was, after all, still before 10am: the whole day stretched out before us — and not in a good way.
I put down my phone and muttered, “In the morning, you’ll say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’, and in the evening, you’ll say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’” (a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 28:67). From what I knew, miscarriages could last for days — like my “prodromal labor” in The Birth of Borealis, but without a living baby at the end.
Eventually, church ended, and Taylor and I reanimated like especially enervated zombies. “Do you want to read some books?” I asked in a gravelly voice.
Bo gave me an odd look, but nevertheless brought over his box of little Chick-Fil-A books. Aza snuggled against my other side, and I gratefully, mindlessly read the books. Bo chattered about the characters in each story, especially how each of them was feeling. I knew he wasn’t blind to my tears — no matter how quickly I wiped them away — but I couldn’t think of what to say. I didn’t want to tell Bo that his brother was dying if somehow he could still be saved — although, I was now sure that Occi’s salvation could only come from above.
Oh, God, please save my baby, I prayed again. It’s only You, LORD.
I tossed aside a Peppa Pig book and picked up one by Nancy Tillman — the author of On the Night You Were Born. This book — If I Could Fly — had never made an impact on me before; in fact, I always read it in a soft Oklahoman accent to add some auditory interest. [Note: I can’t find a link to this book, so I think it must have been exclusive to Chick-Fil-A.]
Here’s its sparse contents:
If I could fly I would take you with me.
Over the valleys…
Up to the sea!
We’d glide over lowlands and float on the wind…
…and then I’d carry you home again.
You are loved.
Suddenly, this story — barely more than a Tweet, really — took on much more meaning than its author probably ever intended.
I wished that I could wrap Occi in my arms and fly away from our impending disaster. If only I could protect him — but I could no more halt the inevitable than I could fly. He wasn’t facing some external threat; he was being rejected by my own body. I felt betrayed by my very flesh.
The rest of the morning passed in a fragmented blur. I think that, given the chance, both Taylor and I would have spent the day laying in bed — basically, just waiting for this all to be over.
But, Bo and Aza could obviously sense our distress, and they [quite understandably] responded with unremitting clinginess, which was a double-edged sword. I was comforted to hold them close — to feel that they were solid, and warm, and alive in my arms: that when danger came, I might have a chance of protecting them.
On the other hand, I was grieved by the reminder that my body had already brought a healthy human into the world — twice. Why was this time so different?
After switching out kid-duty with Taylor, I located the number for a nearby imaging clinic — which, of course, would remain closed until Monday morning. My forefinger hovered over the Call button as I hyped myself up to leave a message. Be normal. Articulate. Calm. Clear. No crying!
I think I choked out 90% of the message before tears crowded out my words, so I’d say it was a success.
[Note: For the record, the imaging clinic never called me back, which kind of felt like a low blow.]
I let out a jagged breath as I ended the call. Now, to face another battle. I had avoided using the bathroom again, but as midday approached, I could no longer ignore the need to go.
Once again, a quarter-sized blood clot dropped into the toilet — although this time, I wasn’t that surprised. I steeled my nerve and reached into the water to feel around in the blood. As expected, I couldn’t locate anything solid.
My current plan of repeatedly fishing around the toilet wasn’t super ideal, and it was clear that I’d be facing this issue again. So, after washing up, I fetched our small kitchen strainer and left it in the bathroom sink.
I wished that I had something more august for the sepulchral occasion — which is, seemingly, a universal desire. It’s why so many burial arrangements are elaborate across time and culture — we all want to honor and memorialize our departed loved ones. But, I didn’t have a gold-plated blood-clot-catcher, so I made do with what I had.
Returning to the living room, I decided that this latest development necessitated another text to Tanya — basically, Hey, passed another blood clot, seems like I’m miscarrying.
Somewhat to my surprise, she immediately called. Not wanting to field her questions in front of Bo and Aza, I moved to the laundry room before answering the phone.
In an incredibly gentle voice, she asked, “Hey — how are you doing?”
I let out a long breath and tried to gauge the true answer to her question. Eventually, I settled on, “Uh, not super great.”
At her prompting, I related the past day’s events — all the while, stupidly hopeful that she would dismiss my symptoms as “no big deal”.
But, she followed up my story with, “Do you have any cramping?”
“Yes, a little,” I admitted. “But it’s very minor!”
Tanya sighed heavily. “I’m really sorry, but it sounds like you’re miscarrying.”
Tears sprang to my eyes, but I tried to force them down as I asked, “Is there anything I can do?”
“Do you have a history of miscarriage?”
“No. I’ve only had my two kids, and both of them were totally healthy pregnancies.”
“Well, then progesterone probably wouldn’t help, unfortunately. That’s really only for repeat miscarriages.”
“So…?” I prodded.
“So, there isn’t much that you can do — besides pray. And I’m sure you’re already doing that.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Yeah. For sure.”
Tanya continued. “I’m really, really sorry. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
I chuckled hollowly. “You already pointed out that there’s nothing that anyone can do at this point.” <pause> “Although, I would appreciate your prayers, too.”
“Yes, definitely.”
We said our goodbyes, and I sank to the floor in a tearful crouch.
“Ok, God,” I whimpered. “It’s all up to You.”
Act IV: The Afternoon and Evening of February 7th
Life doesn’t stop for grief.
Even through my tsunami of pain, I could still hear the chatter of my kids, and feel the phone in my hand, and smell the dog food beside me.
But even though life didn’t stop, all my attention was abruptly pinned on a single question.
If your son dies, will you still love Me?
It was the same thing He had asked during my stillbirth scare with Australis — and suddenly, that false alarm made sense. It was like studying for an exam: now, in the stress of the moment, I immediately knew my answer. God had already done the heart-work to get me there.
Yes, LORD, You know that I love You.
I was comforted by the exchange, but also confused. Did this mean that God would save Occidentalis? Or that He wouldn’t? As far as I could discern, only time would tell; it was merely my job to be faithful in the interim — which meant rallying the prayer troops.
But first, I had to check back in with my little family.
I returned to the living room, where Taylor was playing listlessly with Bo and Aza.
“Hey,” I murmured. “How are you doing?”
He turned slowly toward me and shrugged heavily. “What did Tanya say?”
I swiped at a stray tear. “Um, kinda what we expected. So I guess it’s just a waiting game now. I need to start telling people, and ask that they pray for us.”
My husband reached out an arm and drew me onto his lap. I buried my face against his neck and squeezed my eyes closed. Even so, another few tears leaked out. Apparently, “hopeful” and “emotionally traumatized” are not mutually exclusive.
He sighed raggedly. “It’ll get worse before it’s over.”
“Probably,” I admitted. Already, my “minor cramping” wasn’t feeling quite so minor. “But, maybe God will work a miracle for us.”
“I sure hope so, babe.”
I pulled back and looked at my husband. He looked… bad. In a way that I hadn’t seen since his mother died — and possibly, not even then. I was shocked to realize that he was taking this a lot worse than I was.
And then it dawned on me: It’s because he didn’t go through the stillbirth scare. He hadn’t feared for our daughter’s life like I had, and so he hadn’t faced the same question. Will you still love Me if your child dies?
Essentially, he was going through the exam without having studied first.
My heart — which had already split in two — somehow tore even further.
God, this is so unfair, I lamented silently. If You prepared *me* for this, why didn’t You also prepare *him* for it?
Out loud, I said, “Oh, Taylor. I am so, so sorry that you have to go through this.”
He gave me an exasperated look. “Uh… thanks, I think.”
I chuckled at the gentle derision. “No, I’m saying — like, I wish that this didn’t have to hurt you, too. That I could bear the burden for both of us.”
My husband’s brown-hazel eyes shone with unshed tears. “He’s my son, too,” he responded quietly.
“I know. I guess you’re SOL, then.”
Taylor: <grunts in surprised dark humor>
At that moment, Aza wormed her way between us, and Bo was close on her heels. I slid off Taylor’s lap, lest the weight of his family crush him. Aza quickly settled into my arms, while Bo squirmed around in Taylor’s before dashing off a few seconds later.
I assessed the situation. I needed to call my mother, but I didn’t want to do so in front of either of my kids. If they were alarmed by my gentle weeping, how would they react to all-out sobs? A cursory attempt at shifting Aza yielded no results, so I decided I would just text our Life Group, first. Less likely to cry if I didn’t have to force the words out loud.
In fits and spurts, I managed to type:
Hi family, we would greatly appreciate prayers right now. I seem to be having a miscarriage, although we won’t know for sure until we get an ultrasound — hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday. Taylor and I are both taking it very hard. We want for God’s will to be done in this — that, if possible, Occidentalis would be safe and healthy, but most importantly, that God’s name would be praised and that we would cling to Him.
Aza was still ensconced in my lap as I fired off the message. I set down my phone and hugged her close — too close, judging by her indignant squawk. I laughed softly, then murmured, “Ok baby, Mommy has to go call Amma now.” Turning to Taylor, I confirmed, “You’re alright with them?”
He nodded, so I headed toward the privacy of our bedroom.
On the way there, a thought popped into my head, so I made a detour down to the basement. I sifted through my stash of small boxes until — there! — I located my objective. It was a Murray’s Camembert box — the “fancy” wooden kind that would probably decompose quickly. (At least, quicker than my alternatives, which were far more plastic-y.)
Now, what to use for cushioning? I briefly considered tissue paper, but that felt a bit too macabre — like the world’s most tragic gift wrap. We didn’t have any cotton balls, and my craft stuffing was all polyester. Eventually, I thought of the right option: white, fluffy, and organic… our dog’s fur.
Yes, now you officially know that I’m a hoarder. Every time I wash our dog, I brush out her fur and stow away the results. My goal has always been to spin yarn with the material; to date, however, the only task for which I’ve used the fur is the one described herein.
Even as I decided upon that usage, I realized, Wow — I’ll have to write about this miscarriage for my blog someday, and I will have no justifiable reason for possessing a gallon-sized Ziplock bag full of dog fur.
Back upstairs, I placed the Camembert box below the dog fur cabinet — which, it behooves me to point out, contains other craft supplies, too. Then, with a weighty exhale, I continued to my bedroom. No one had opened the curtains, and the gloomy ambience seemed appropriate for the task at hand.
The phone call to my mother was… challenging. I could barely articulate our situation through my tears, and I realized that I probably should have just texted her, as well. Thankfully, she promised to pray for us, and I recognized that, at this point, that’s really all she could do. It’s not as though she could magically bring my child back from the brink of death; only God can do that.
By now, I felt totally sapped of energy. There remained one prayer warrior, however, whom I needed to contact: Bo’s godmother.
She and I go way back — to my very first day at Enid High School. We didn’t quite click at our first meeting (or at numerous meetings thereafter), but over the course of time, she became an incredibly dear friend and my closest sister in Christ. More than ever, I needed her prayers… but in this moment, I didn’t have the emotional stamina to explain why.
So, instead, I wrote:
Hi sister, I could really use some prayers right now, if you can spare them. I don’t want to go into it until I have more information, but I will circle back with you within the next few days. ♥️
Almost immediately, she responded:
I’ve been praying so hard for you the past few days. I’ll keep praying ♥️
I breathed out heavily at her response. This, more than anything, was the support we needed: the prayers of family and friends, offered in our time of vulnerability — a time when we definitely couldn’t rely on our own strength, alone. Already, sympathetic texts from our Life Group had begun to trickle in, and I was bolstered by the promise of additional intercession — which reminded me that I ought not leave the room before offering a prayer of my own.
But, the prospect seemed nearly impossible. I felt scattered and lost — like I was wading through a sea of honey, and I still didn’t know what awaited me on the other side.
Even so, I closed my eyes and tried to focus. I sat in silence for ages, waiting for the words to come. Finally, I whispered, “God — please, just… do what is best in this situation.”
I had struggled to give voice to this request, even if I left the underlying concession unsaid: Do what is best, even if I don’t like it.
In that vein, I continued, “LORD, You know Occidentalis intimately — so, so much better than I do. And, more importantly, You also love him more than I do. Only You know what’s best here: for him to live, or —” I choked on my next word, and instead finished, “Or not.”
A stray thought floated across my mind. Death *could* be a severe mercy. It was for Jeroboam’s son.
I couldn’t quite bring myself to contemplate this possibility. Instead, I muttered, “Father, You are good, even when You allow suffering.” And then, since I was on a roll, I lamely concluded, “And just… please help us to follow You, wherever You lead.”
With that, I opened my eyes to the same funereal surroundings. Maybe I should have opened the curtains, after all.
I glanced at my phone and was chagrined to see the length of time for which I had already left Taylor alone with the kids. Even so, I wasn’t yet able to return to the living room; instead, my body urged me to go to the bathroom again — although this time, I was prepared with my not-gold-plated strainer.
It was a little like peeing in a cup, if the cup’s weight changed in discrete bursts. This time, there were a handful of clots, but none of them had the characteristic look of a placenta or embryo. [Note: I checked very carefully.]
Eventually, I was convinced, and I dumped the clots back into the toilet and flushed.
“Hey — are you ok?”
I looked up to see Taylor standing in the door. Little Baby Bum played in the background, which explained the absence of clingy children.
I gave him a sad smile and gestured to the toilet. “Yeah, babe. Nothing yet.”
He nodded curtly, then looked askance at the still-bloody strainer, which I had left in the sink. “Uh… you used that as a catcher?”
“Yeah. I figured it was better than just toilet-diving every time.”
Taylor: <grunts in reluctant agreement> “I’ll wash it for you.”
I watched my husband wash my blood-clot-catcher and wished that his generosity didn’t have to go toward something so gruesome. After washing my own hands, I slipped my arms around his waist and cuddled in for a tight hug.
“You ready to go back out there?” he asked softly.
I nodded. “Yeah. We can’t just hide in the bathroom all day.”
It’s true — *we* couldn’t hide in the bathroom all day. Soon, Bo and Aza would have come looking for us, no matter how enticing they found their British baby show.
However, that didn’t mean that *I* couldn’t hide in the bathroom all day — by myself.
Admittedly, it wasn’t quite fair to characterize it as “hiding”. Sure, I was away from my kids, but it’s not like my task was some pleasant diversion. Plus, I wasn’t in the bathroom “all day”, per se — just, most of the afternoon. It merely felt like “all day”.
As the time aged toward evening, my body fell into an eerily-familiar rhythm. Just as in labor, my cramps — contractions, really — grew longer, stronger, and closer together. It made a sick kind of sense: after all, my uterus was trying to “birth” Occidentalis, just as it had his two older siblings. Except, those times, the physical pain was muted by the joy of a new baby — and this time, the physical pain was amplified by even-greater emotional pain.
With each trip to the bathroom, I both hoped and feared that I would see my dead son. I carefully looked through my blood clots, but to no avail. It actually got pretty tedious — to the point where I stopped washing the strainer and just rinsed it, instead. After all, it was only being used for this singular task, and I would definitely be sanitizing everything post-miscarriage.
When I wasn’t in the bathroom, and we thought our kids wouldn’t notice, Taylor and I traded desperate hugs and tense whispers.
“Do you think it’ll happen tonight?”
“Regardless of what happens, I’m not going into the office tomorrow.”
“What if we already missed him?”
“Do you think we’ll know when it’s over?”
And, in between all of that, Bo and Aza continued to demand the tatters of our attention. (Except during their nap, of course.) We read to them; we cuddled them; we sang to them — you get the picture. When they chided us for staring blankly off into space, we pretended that we hadn’t inadvertently been ignoring them. (And, when my abdomen ached with a contraction, I pretended that I wasn’t groaning in agony.)
At some point, I recognized that it was time to start outlining this post — but the prospect was daunting. If birth stories are hard, how much harder is a death story? [Author’s Note: It’s much, much harder.]
Thus, I shied away from even this simple task. How could I put into words everything that had already happened? I briefly considered skipping the outline, but knew that I would later hate myself for shirking this most-important pre-writing task.
[Author’s Note: Outlining is especially critical for stories that won’t become part of my oral history. For instance, contrast this post with The Birth of Borealis. Transcribing the birth story was relatively easy; I had, after all, told the tale dozens of times before I actually wrote it down. In contrast, I have told this story — in its entirety — exactly *zero* times. Hence, the necessity for an outline.]
And so, reluctantly, I started a Note and briefly jotted down the day’s events, thus far. As expected, the ordeal totally sapped my energy — although I’m not sure that anyone noticed a change in my already-moribund behavior.
Throughout the afternoon, I could focus on nothing except my impending, all-consuming loss. I kept wavering between total despondency and desperate hope.
This can’t be happening. I knew him so well. He can’t be gone. He’s my son.
God, please do what only You can do. Please save my son.
During one of my bouts of hopelessness, I leveled a glare at Taylor and said, “This is it. I’m not having Orientalis. I cannot bear to risk losing another one. It is asking too much of me.”
Taylor gave me a sorrowful look. “Ok babe,” he murmured — and though he said nothing else, the silence was full of everything I knew he was thinking: You can’t make this decision right now. We’d need to pray about something like this, and you *know* that God is calling us to have a fourth child.
I jutted out my chin and refused to change my mind — for about a minute, until my guilty conscience overwhelmed me.
“Ok, fine,” I admitted in a small voice. “We don’t make big decisions when we’re not in a good frame of mind.”
Taylor wrapped me in a hug and breathed softly into my hair. “We’ll pray about it again, but I’m pretty sure I know what we’ll hear.”
I felt guilty for looking forward to the kids’ bedtime. I wanted to be with them, but not like this. I felt like I was reduced to a tight rope and tunnel vision: one foot in front of the other, ignoring all else. I knew that they had received the worst of me that day — and that things likely wouldn’t improve in the morning, either.
Just before bedtime, Bo brought me something unusual: a book that we had never read before. We had purchased and shelved it without cracking open the cover.
The book was Max Lucado’s The Boy and the Ocean — and, like all Max Lucado books, this one had a not-subtle Christian theme: that God’s love is endless, akin to the ocean (or mountains, or stars). Likewise, the implicit encouragement — and rebuke — was less-than-subtle.
Yes, LORD, I *do* trust that Your love is sufficient, I reaffirmed silently. Or, at least, I *know* that Your love is sufficient, and my feelings with get there eventually.
I pulled Bo closer to my side — so solid, so alive. There is always more to lose, I continued. Thank You for the health of my two other babies.
Of course, Bo had me read the book a few more times — just in case I had missed its message the first time.
I probably should have opted out of the bedtime routine that night. As Taylor tucked our son into his toddler bed, I assumed Child’s Pose (ironically named, in this case) and moaned piteously.
“Babe — you need to give them goodnight kisses,” Taylor said gently. “Almost there.”
I sincerely kissed Borealis and Australis. “I love you,” I wept over each of them.
Of course, neither responded — but hopefully, they at least believed me.
I left the nursery and stumbled back to the bathroom — again. Still nothing of note, although it seemed that my body was building up to something. While my cramps had become nearly unbearable, I was producing fewer and fewer blood clots.
I shuffled to the living room with no clear plan. All I knew was that I didn’t want to go to bed before seeing this through — whatever that meant. I collapsed onto the couch, where I was joined by an especially-snuggly Taylor. He flipped on the television and asked, “Do you want to watch something?”
“No.”
Taylor: <grunts in exasperation> “Will you watch something?”
I grumbled incoherently for a few seconds, then forced out, “I guess.”
He nuzzled the top of my head, then asked, “So… what do you want to watch?”
I thought for a few seconds, then answered, “Something like The British Baking Show, but before Netflix ruined it.”
“Uh… ok, why don’t we just scroll through our options, then.”
We eventually settled on The Big Flower Fight — a mostly-mindless reality competition for floral sculpture design. We watched through the entire first episode, then speed-binged the middle episodes — watching only the initial prompt and the final judging. All of the storyline, a third of the time. Taylor even brought over popcorn to round out my feelings of laziness.
We left mostly-unspoken the reason for our intense interest in the show, but it never left my mind. Amazingly, I no longer felt the urge to use the bathroom. The change felt like a sign — like maybe we actually *would* be getting a miracle, and God would totally reverse all the damage of the day. I prayed to that end, although I knew that its opposite was far more likely.
Taylor decided that we ought to watch through the entirety of the antepenultimate and penultimate episodes. “Because, you know, now it’s just down to the good flower people,” he explained.
However, when we reached the final episode, it was clear that neither of us was up to the challenge. Alas — 10:30pm didn’t always feel quite so late.
Taylor yawned, then announced, “We’ll watch the last one tomorrow, babe.”
I nodded. “Yeah, ok. I’m going to go to the bathroom again.”
“Ok, sweetie. I’m gonna clean up a little bit.”
And so, I walked alone to the bathroom as Taylor swept up our popcorn crumbs.
For a few seconds, I merely stood before the toilet: the toilet where my first son had entered life, and where my second son would soon leave it.
I said another silent prayer — and then, slowly, I sat.
And that was when I finally met Occidentalis.
Act V: The Night of February 7th
There he was — my precious son, dead in a kitchen strainer.
“Taylor,” I called hoarsely. “Taylor, it’s him.”
Looking at his remains, I felt stupid for thinking that he might have been hiding in any of the previous blood clots. For one, the combination of organs was a lot larger than anything else had been. For another, these had the characteristic look of fleshy tissue, rather than gelatinous blood.
Taylor appeared within moments, and his face said everything. He had been hoping, too — but suddenly, our hope was gone. We would not be getting a miracle, and now we needed to deal with the reality of our situation.
“I want to hold him,” my baby’s father said softly.
I nodded as I transferred the strainer into the sink. “You need to bathe him in cool water,” I said, “because otherwise he’ll break down really quickly.”
[Note: I don’t know exactly when this deterioration starts, but I wanted us to have as much time as we needed. Some hospitals will keep a special refrigerated bassinet for this same purpose — to allow parents to say goodbye to their deceased babies.]
Taylor carefully scooped up our son and murmured, “Hey, little guy.”
I was already crying, but my husband’s tenderness pushed me over the edge. I stifled a sob as he gently washed the remains under a thin stream of water, mingled with his tears.
The thing that I’ll never forget about my son’s little body is that he was so small — smaller than he should have been. I realized that he had probably been dead for days, or maybe even weeks… and I hadn’t even known. How could I *not* have perceived the moment he passed — a moment that would change my life forever?
“Do you wanna… I don’t know, get pictures of him?” Taylor suggested softly.
The truth was, I didn’t. This wasn’t how I wanted to remember my son: tiny, and bloody, and dead. But, I also knew that I would regret having nothing to show of him but our quickly-fading memories, so I pulled out my phone and started recording.
Taylor ran a thumb over the largest section of the remains. “Maybe… the forming of the placenta?”
“Yeah,” I agreed meekly.
He delicately indicated the fledgeling amniotic sac. “He’s probably down in there.”
“Right in that clear part, kind of at the end,” I suggested — although my phrasing wasn’t quite correct. There was definitely a less-red streak of tissue, but it wasn’t exactly “clear”. At the very least, we couldn’t see anything more than the general shape of our little baby.
Taylor was obviously thinking the same thing. “How am I gonna get into — are you ok with me —”
I knew what he was asking: How are we going to actually *see* our son?
I pictured slicing open the amniotic sac and trying to recover just his body. The prospect was nauseating. First of all, neither Taylor nor I is a surgeon. Sure, he might be decent with a knife, but it’s not like we had a scalpel just lying around. And, even if we did, I wouldn’t want to use it. It felt violative of my son’s remains to cleave him from his organic burial shroud. His soul and spirit might have been gone, but I wanted to honor the condition in which we found his body.
All this passed through my mind in a split second, and I curtailed Taylor’s question before he could finish. “We’ll bury the whole thing.”
“You want to just bury him like this?” Taylor confirmed. “You don’t want to see him?”
“No,” I barely breathed. Not like this. This isn’t him anymore.
“Ok,” Taylor assented. “Do you have something to bury him in?”
“Yeah. I’ll be right back.”
I took one final picture of Occidentalis in Taylor’s gentle hands, then set down my phone.
[Author’s Note: I’ve had a year to decide whether to include a picture of my son’s remains. Though there’s an argument to be made in either direction, I eventually decided that we would keep the photos to ourselves.
Firstly, they are intensely private. While the rest of this story has been filtered through a full year of rumination, those pictures — and the video, especially — are entirely and completely unfiltered. It’s too raw to share, even for me.
Secondly, such content can be more than a little triggering, especially if it’s just going to stay on my blog forever. I, for one, wouldn’t want to scroll past that sort of photo every time I’m looking for something on the Blog page — and I imagine that I’m probably not the only person who feels that way. Hence, no gory pictures: just a gory story.]
As I walked to retrieve the burial items, I thought about a monologue I had made to Taylor in the days before we started dating. I always call it the “I Want You Speech”, because I just listed various things that I wanted for or from him. “I want you to meet my family… I want you to sweep me off my feet… I want you to learn all of my quirks…” etc.
But, while most of my desires were pretty low-intensity, one had terrified him: “I want your hands to hold our children.”
[Note: Yes, I apparently have the ability to be straightforward when it comes to suggesting marriage — just not when it comes to texting my midwife.]
Obviously, Taylor eventually came around — and I, of course, got my wish. Most notably, Taylor’s were the first hands to ever hold Australis — and obviously, he held Bo too. (But not before I did.)
Now, I was getting my wish once again — but it felt so incredibly wrong. No one’s hands should have been holding my son that night. He should have been safe and protected within my body, not cold and lifeless in our bathroom sink.
Except, I reminded myself, he *isn’t* in the sink.
Instead, my husband held him in strong, capable hands — and while neither those hands nor my own had been able to keep Occidentalis safe, I was still so thankful that it was Taylor by my side.
There is always more to lose, I thought again — although I couldn’t quite bring myself to the point of prayer. That would come back in time, I knew.
I returned to the bathroom and carefully packed the bottom of the Camembert box with soft, ivory dog fur. My embarrassment was somewhat assuaged — I mean, that fur was really soft — until Taylor asked, “Uh, is that Mache’s fur?”
I laughed softly, then admitted, “Yeah. It’s the best thing I could think of. It’s not like he’ll feel it, but I still want his final resting place to be… cozy.”
Taylor thought for a few seconds, then agreed, “I guess it’s pretty good for that, actually.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so,” I said. Then, gesturing to the now-filled box, I asked, “Are you ready to put him in?”
Taylor gave me a startled look. “Don’t you want to hold him first?”
I looked down at the lump in my husband’s hands. It didn’t look remotely human — and especially nothing like the tall, cocky rebel I had always presciently known my son to be. It would be hard to overstate the dissonance between my mental image and the reality before me.
“I — I don’t think so,” I whimpered.
Taylor’s brow furrowed in sympathy. “I think you need to,” he pressed. “He’s not here anymore, but he’s still your son.”
I sipped in a long breath, then huffed out, “Ok.”
I cupped my hands in the sink, and Taylor gently slid our baby onto my palms.
And I… just lost it.
It felt as though my soul was trying to leave my body to be with my departed son. My voice was totally unintelligible as I sobbed to him. “Oh, Occi Baby, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, baby. I couldn’t keep you safe, and I just wish I could have. I would do anything to have you stay.”
A still, small voice stopped me. Would you annul My judgment to justify yourself? (A paraphrase of Job 40:8 — one of my favorite sections of Scripture.)
No, I realized — and not without some relief. I couldn’t — or wouldn’t, at least — condemn God’s righteousness in favor of my son’s earthly life — an earthly life whose conclusion I had never been able to discern. God could have saved him; He didn’t. Who was I to deride the decisions of the Most High?
Would he have known You, LORD? I asked silently. Then, again, I wondered, Or, was this a severe mercy?
No answer — which wasn’t exactly unexpected. Even so, my mind now felt like a newly wave-swept beach. Sure, countless footprints and sand castles still remained — but they were softer now, and less overwhelming.
I took another deep breath and concluded, “I love you, Occidentalis. You will always and forever be my son, and I will never, ever forget you. I’m sorry that I never got to meet you earthside.”
I placed his little body in the Camembert box, covered him with another layer of creamy fur, and firmly fit the lid in place.
It would be the last time either of us saw him, this side of eternity.
The night was cold — like, 12ºF cold. We’d endured the same temperature for our engagement pictures; this time, though, no friendly photographer encouraged us to, “Smile for the camera! Think warm thoughts!”
In fact, the weather seemed to be encouraging quite the opposite. The temperature had plummeted nearly 40º since that afternoon, and seemed to be at the absolute nadir of its daily cycle. Furthermore, our melancholy task was accompanied by an unexpected sprinkling of snow. It shimmered delicately as it drifted through the air — as though, rather than frozen water, the flakes were actually diamond powder, suspended in a snow globe.
As we reached our goal — the oriental poppy field behind our lower driveway — Taylor looked up into the flurry. “This is for us,” he stated softly.
“What do you mean?” I asked through chattering teeth. My winter coat didn’t quite keep out the chill — although, I probably would have been shivering regardless of the weather.
“I mean, God sent this snow for us. It just started, like, the second we walked out here. Pull up your Weather app.”
I did, and was surprised to observe, “It’s supposed to stop in, like, ten minutes.”
“Exactly. It’s just for us.”
“Like He’s… sad for us,” I surmised. “Like a sympathy card, but in weather form.”
Taylor: <grunts in agreement>
I had grabbed the shovel from our shed, but Taylor clearly had no intention of letting me use it.
“Are you sure?” I checked. “I can do it.”
“No — I want to do it.”
I know better than to argue with Taylor when his mind is set, so I merely indicated the place that I wanted Occidentalis buried.
The soil wasn’t ideal, but Taylor still worked quickly. After a few minutes, I asked, “Why are you making it so deep?”
Punctuated by grunts of effort, he explained, “I don’t — want anything — to get him.” — which was, admittedly, an admirable goal.
Soon enough, the hole met Taylor’s standards. “Will you put him in?” he panted.
“Yeah. I guess this is it.”
I carefully lowered my son’s makeshift coffin into its grave, and Taylor immediately placed a rock on top. “In case anything tries to dig,” he explained again.
I nodded. “Do you want to say anything?” I asked gently.
“No,” he replied in a voice thickened by tears. “You go ahead.”
I thought about Occidentalis — all he had meant to me, and all the times I had thought about him and prayed for him since perceiving his existence.
Suddenly, I realized that one recurrent prophecy, at least, had been true: Occidentalis will break your heart.
And yet, I had loved him so, so much. Of all my children, he was the most vibrant — sometimes even more real to me than were Borealis or Australis. For years, his presence had been a constant in the back of my mind — as though he was only in the other room, and always just about to return. Talking about him — or merely anticipating his existence — had never failed to bring me to tears.
In short: I couldn’t believe he was gone. I held my insurmountable grief before God as though I were a child with an irretrievably broken toy. Please, Father — I don’t know how this happened or how to fix it.
Then, I thought about suffering itself — about how people respond differently. Did I want this loss to harden me, or soften me? And, more importantly, what did God want for me?
This question prompted me to reflect on the suffering that Jesus underwent on my behalf — willingly. But even though He was willing, it’s not as though He liked it. Rather, His suffering was evidence of His love for us… a love that would make it possible for me to see my son again, one day.
And so, finally, I was ready to speak.
“LORD, You have also buried a Son,” I began.
It was something I had never considered — that although God the Father’s hands didn’t physically bury Jesus, He was still there, and still grieving. It was an unexpectedly human image, especially when I contrasted His situation to ours.
“But, You knew Your Son a lot longer than we knew ours.”
What would it be like to know your child forever — in a relationship completely free from sin? It was hard to fathom. I had only “known” Occidentalis for just over three years — and, seemingly, our relationship would have been indelibly marred by grievous mistakes, from both parties.
And yet, I had ached to meet him and to love him. How much more so did God the Father love God the Son? It seemed sacrilegious to even compare the two parent-child relationships. And so, I cut to the heart of the matter.
“LORD, after knowing Jesus for eternity, You sent Him to suffer and die and be buried, for us. You didn’t have to do it; You did it because of Your love for us.”
Fresh tears sprang to my eyes — but this time, they were for my Heavenly Father and my Savior. Willingly separated, on my behalf. I felt a healthy dose of that godly sorrow that Paul talks about. I wished that my need for a Savior weren’t so incurable — but, alas, it is. My heart swelled with gratitude that Someone stepped into my desperate need.
“Please let our own loss give us a deeper and richer understanding of Your sacrifice for us.” I paused, then paraphrased Timothy Keller. “We may not know why this happened, but we know what the reason wasn’t: it wasn’t that You don’t love us — and Jesus, You proved it on the cross.”
Taylor moaned softly from the ground beside me. I knew we were thinking the same thing, so I said, “God, thank You for the hope of eternity, and the confidence that we’ll see our son again one day.” I blinked away another wave of tears, then finished, “Thank You that Your gift can’t be taken away. Jesus, in Your name, amen.”
Taylor rose shakily to his feet, then quickly filled in the grave. “Do you have another rock to mark the spot?” he asked.
I nodded. I had selected a coconut-sized quartz headstone, figuring that we would eventually swap out the placeholder for a more intentional memorial. [Note: We did this on the first anniversary of our son’s passing, using Taylor’s laser-engraver at work and a white granite sample from Home Depot.]
Taylor pressed the quartz into the freshly-turned earth, and I knew that our poppies would quickly reclaim the site. I liked the idea of my son’s body resting peacefully beneath the flowers — especially since, earlier that day, I had been so worried that I would accidentally flush his remains. In short: this end was much better.
As we prepared to go back inside, I knelt to the ground and choked out a final benediction. “Be safe in the ground, as you never were in me.” I paused, then echoed another set of King David’s words. “You will not come back to me, but I will go to you.”
With that, we slowly walked back to the house. Taylor stowed the shovel while I waited for him on the first step. This put us almost eye-to-eye, but the lines on his face were suddenly foreign to me — so altered by heartbreak that he seemed an entirely different person. Once again, I wished that I could have born the grief alone, if only to save him from this pain.
But, I couldn’t. I could only pull him into a tight embrace, both of our chests heaving with sobs. We stood there for a long time — holding each other and being held.
Finally, Taylor cleared his throat and spoke in a gravelly voice. “He was safe in your body.”
“What?”
“The last thing you said — that he wasn’t safe in you. But that’s not true. He wasn’t going to live, but you kept him safe until it was his time to go.”
I gave my husband a sad smile. “Thanks, babe. I think I’ll always blame myself a little bit, though. I mean, maybe it really was something I did.”
Taylor shook his head firmly. “No. It wasn’t you.”
He pulled us back inside just as the last snowflakes tumbled from the sky.
Act VI: Even Later, The Night of February 7th
Taylor collapsed immediately into bed, and I envied him. I’ve long wrestled with insomnia, and tears only compound the issue.
[Author’s Note: For the record, the worst sleep of my entire life has occurred over the course of writing this story — certainly a contributing factor to its tardiness.]
It was now 11pm, but I knew I had at least another hour of wakefulness before me.
First things first: I had to inform my mother and our Life Group of our loss. I typed out one message and sent it to both entities — because while I hate canned messages, there’s a time for everything. This is what they received:
Occi made his first and only appearance about thirty minutes ago. We spent a little time holding him, then buried him in the side yard. One day, poppies will grow over his little body. Thank you for your continued prayers.
With that done, I critically surveyed my surroundings. The entire house was a mess — after all, “cleaning” hadn’t exactly been a high priority that day — but I wanted to start with the bathroom.
It’s not that it was physically contaminated — or, at least, not much more contaminated than normal. Rather, it was full of, like, spiritual contagion: basically, it felt like a hospital room in which someone had died. It wouldn’t feel safe to me until I had methodically sanitized it.
I started with the kitchen strainer. There was a large part of me that wanted to just throw it away — but, it was our *nice* small strainer. Thus, it seemed condemned to the same fate as that of our Pyrex placenta bowl: plucked from obscurity for a noble task, only to be thoroughly sanitized and returned to obscurity. With that decision made, I hand-washed the strainer, then stuck it in the dishwasher and started a cycle. [Note: For no reason other than my own queasiness, it stayed in the dishwasher for another cycle after that, too.]
I thoroughly sanitized the bathroom sink, toilet, and floor — and I think I also did the mirror and tiled walls, just for good measure. All the while, I interspersed whispered prayers with quiet tears and stunned, speechless silence.
Of course, I’ve been through grief before — but never like this. It is a short list of people whose death would make a bigger impact on me.
Nevertheless, I knew that this moment in time — the time after the end — is when healing can truly begin. Not all at once, and not in a linear fashion — but, at least it can start. After all, it’s basically impossible to rebuild from grief when the person or relationship being grieved is still alive. (In my experience, at least.)
Thus, I knew healing would come in time — but I still wanted answers, like, now.
God, why would You have told me so much about this child if You were just going to take Him away? Why did I know so much about Occidentalis and absolutely nothing about Orientalis? Why couldn’t *this* have been the baby I didn’t know? And LORD… what do we do now?
Once again, God was silent — but He wasn’t absent. I could perceive His presence, if not His answers. And that, in truth, was answer enough.
Job never got an explanation for his suffering; likewise, I wouldn’t be receiving a tidy little reason, wrapped up with a nice theological bow. But, I still had God — and He, certainly, is more than enough.
When I finished cleaning, I surveyed myself in the mirror. I looked… not so good. Yesterday’s makeup had long since worn away, and the skin under my eyes was speckled with burst capillaries. In short: I looked like a very sad woman.
Nevertheless, I didn’t look like a woman who had lost her foundation: I looked like a woman who was going to be alright — eventually. I gave myself a tiny smile and repeated that famous line:
“The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
I slipped into bed around midnight — still, unfortunately, far from sleep. Instead, I lay in the dark and contemplated the future. Not the future where I’ll have to explain why our family has only three points of a compass — although, that thought crossed my mind too. (Maybe I’ll just direct any enquirers to this post.)
Instead, I intentionally imagined a future that seems so far away but could arrive at any moment: death.
A Pauline quote is applicable here: “We are confident … and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 5:8)
I know that the glory of this present age is nothing compared to the glory that awaits those who accept the free gift of Christ — and to some extent, I’m a bit embarrassed that the death of Occidentalis made this hope *more* real for me. As though I were like, Jesus is pretty alright, but now that my *son* will be there, I’m definitely sold on heaven! (Admittedly, not the best look.)
But, Jesus does tell us to lay up treasures in heaven — specifically because heart follows treasure (Matthew 6:20,21). Clearly, the Lord of the Universe isn’t ignorant about humanity; rather, He instructs within its parameters, telling us to place our treasures where we’ll have them forever.
So, I considered what it would be like to have Occidentalis forever.
In my mind, he was tall and lean — built like his father. He had somehow kept the sandy blonde hair that I lost years ago, with the hazel eyes so characteristic of my family. And there in my mind, he gave me a sad smile, wrapped me in a hug, and whispered, “Hi Mom. I’ve missed you.”
Look — I’m not naive. I recognize that the most likely explanation for this vision is “wish fulfillment”. I saw what I wanted to see, right?
Probably so. But because my hope is outside of myself — specifically, because I’ve placed it in Jesus — I refuse to discount the possibility that I caught a tiny glimpse of heaven. That is, after all, where I believe my son to be.
I had been trying to cry quietly, but Taylor’s sudden stirring suggested that I had done a poor job of it.
“Hey,” he murmured sleepily. “Are you…?”
He knew better than to finish the question: neither of us was “ok” — yet.
In the darkness and silence, I reached for his cheek. Like mine, it was gritty and cold with dried tears. Then, instead of lying about my current condition, I reminded my husband of the truth.
“We will see him in the renewal of all things, and he will be as he was meant to be: handsome, and strong, and on fire for God.”
Epilogue: February 8th
If only life were like the ideal blog post: a neat narrative arc, a well-paced plot, and a tidy little conclusion.
But, as I said before: Life doesn’t stop for grief — and, perhaps even more unfortunately, grief doesn’t stop for life. Instead, we battle through the best that we can.
Taylor stayed home from work that Monday — and though he didn’t cry again, it was obvious that the loss still weighed heavily upon him. He got up with the kids that morning to give me some time to tackle a different challenge.
I despondently surveyed the names on my “death report list”. Now that I actually had to use it, they seemed to stretch on for miles. I halfway-loved myself for pre-establishing my own marching orders — but, I also halfway-hated myself for having been so coldly analytical in the first place.
I really, really didn’t want to deal with this right now. That’s the worst aspect of texting [for me]: then people write back, and then I’m obligated to reply with a well-reasoned, emotionally balanced response. Usually, I can’t just get away with writing, “Busy with my tears, call me in a decade!”
But, there’s no time like the present — especially when it comes to unpleasant duties. I mostly just recycled the message I had drafted the previous night, and soon, I was through the ordeal — the first part of it, at least.
The replies trickled in over the course of the day, and I tried to respond to each in an appropriate, measured way. As expected, some were emotionally flat. (At the time, I was livid that I hadn’t just received a crying emoji, instead. At least that *wouldn’t* have required a response.) Most replies, admittedly, were better — and, unsurprisingly, the best was Samara’s, since she was the only one who had actually experienced the same sort of loss.
After breakfast, Taylor and I snuggled with Bo on the couch. Aza played nearby, but she wasn’t the target audience of this news.
I took the lead, “Bo, do you remember where Grandma is?”
He nodded. “In heaven.”
“With…?”
“Jesus!”
I ruffled his hair. “Good boy.” Then, taking a deep breath, I asked, “And who is in Mommy’s belly?”
“Occi!” Bo beamed. His obvious excitement for a younger brother absolutely broke my heart — again. (It’s amazing how many times a single heart can break.)
I heard Taylor’s breath catch as I plowed on. “Yes, Bo, you’re right. Except, we have something sad to tell you. Occi was in Mommy’s belly, but he —” I lost my nerve and had to try again. “But Occi died, and Occi isn’t in my belly anymore. He’s dead.”
I felt awful stating things so plainly — but, apparently, that is how you’re supposed to communicate loss to a young child. (And, it’s how I had practiced the previous day.) I watched Bo fit together the pieces of our conversation.
“Occi died,” he said slowly, “and now he is in heaven with Grandma.”
“And Jesus,” I confirmed.
Taylor squeezed Bo’s shoulders. “We will see them again someday when we go to heaven, but it will probably be a long time.”
Bo gave me a distraught look, and I ached anew for his loss, too. I wondered what he would have said had he possessed the ability to parse through his little toddler emotions.
I gave my son a hug and reassured him, “We love you so much. This is very sad, but we are all going to be ok. It will just take a little time.”
Taylor: <grunts in weary agreement>
That night, as we put our living children to bed, a few stray tears leaked out onto my cheek. We had always prayed for Occi at bedtime, but now there was no point — he was already with the One to whom we prayed.
Bo reached up and poked at one of my tears. I hastily brushed the rest aside.
“I think…” Bo started. “I think Daddy and Mommy miss Occi.”
And suddenly, the tears were back.
“Yes, baby,” I said. “Yes, we do.”
But after every storm, there comes a rainbow.
[Author’s Note: That was actually just the beginning of our week from hell.
The following day — Tuesday — was the day that Aza climbed out of her crib and onto her changing table — which, of course, is the precipitating event of All’s Well That Sleeps Well. Then, on Thursday, we had a horrific sewage flood — an account of which you can find in the introduction of Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Sewer. Then, Friday through Monday, I directed a long weekend of wedding planning — but that, at least, is a story for another day. Oh, and in the middle of that weekend, I sent out a MOPS email to remind everyone to bring diapers and gifts for the joint baby shower scheduled for our Tuesday meeting.
Needless to say, co-hosting a baby shower for four healthy pregnancies — right after losing one of my own — was not my favorite thing.
In short: Our need for God’s love and mercy never runs out.]