Over the Rainbow

I recently lost a baby as regular readers of this blog will know (see Baby Lost) and I’ve been talking publicly about the grief that follows miscarriage in an effort to help normalise the experience and raise awareness about the trauma involved.

But as much as I’ve exposed myself emotionally and processed my feelings, I wasn’t really ready for the news I got this week when I visited my obstetrician/gynaecologist.

It hadn’t been a fabulous week, but on my way to the doctor's I had a mesmerising experience: a concentrated storm hit and passed in almost an instant leaving a heavy mist which filtered the sun’s warm glow and not one, but two, rainbows. These rainbows seemed somehow meant for me…I was driving on a quiet road and they passed directly overhead – parallel to one another, like bridges over the Seine.

Mostly when you see rainbows, one end seems visible but the other will be elusive to the eye – not these rainbows. They were both only just long enough to reach from the paddock on one side of the road to the field on the other. It was such a strange experience driving beneath them…calming and time-stopping…like a heavenly-derived pause. It stole my concentration and I took a couple of wrong turns, adding several kilometres to the trip, but I wasn’t bothered in the least.

I was still feeling that strange sense of peace inspired by the rainbows when I walked into the doctor’s surgery. Maybe this was some protective spell…I knew I’d be finding out inside the doctor’s room what the medical tests on my baby had revealed. I’d been told to expect that they’d confirm the most common diagnosis – that a chromosomal abnormality had caused the miscarriage. So, I wasn’t really prepared for the news I received and it had an unexpected impact.

The tests had revealed that my baby was a boy with no genetic or other observable abnormalities. I can’t adequately explain what my immediate reaction was to hearing that news from my unusually empathetic doctor. Heart swelled…eyes filled…breath paused. I guess I’d grown comfortable with the expectation that his was a life not destined to be lived beyond the womb because of the likelihood of gross deformity. Learning that he was essentially a healthy baby until he died, inexplicably, inside me has made this loss more real…and more painful. But knowing that he was a baby boy gives him an identity – I can picture him and give him a name in my mind...imagine what he would have been like to know. Grieve properly.

My doctor told me I should embrace this knowledge of him and let him live in my heart. Others, she said, may find this strange…consider him just pre-life tissue. But to me he was a baby with whom I’d bonded and I had a right to remember him that way. I think her advice was heartfelt and wise. It has been hard for me to break down the protective barriers and allow myself to feel – the grief and loss - at this level but it’s prevented me from just locking destructive feelings in a box deep inside.

So, now he lives and the heavenly believer in me feels sure I’ll see him over the rainbow.

This post is for him