The Sad Story

When we made the decision to induce pregnancy at 22 weeks, I couldnt imagine how my husband and I were going to support each other through it, But I did know the perfect person to be there with us.. My sister. She is strong enough to be our strength and our voice and carries herself in such a way that is not smothering or overbearing. My sister was there for me when I needed her the most and I dont think I could ever repay her.

My sister is an amazing writer and is able to capture the essence of the day that I am not able to put into words. Seeing the pain from her point of view is something that I would like to share. I hope she doesnt mind but I am reposting her blog she so appropriately titles "the sad story

The Sad Story.

My nephew died, and I ordered a pizza.

Benjamin transitioned from abstract to real just before 6pm, without making a sound. Three hours later he died just as quietly. He was purple, almost black, from the bruising that is always the result when a baby is born so much sooner than he should be. Someone, somewhere, had crocheted a tiny white hat that would not have fit on a tennis ball but was still too big for Benjamin. The tiny white hat that didn’t want to stay on his tiny, almost black head because beyond where his eyebrows would eventually have been, there was nothing; a flatness that I saw but couldn’t look at. A couple of chromosomes that just didn’t line up right around the 24th day of gestation, and where a brain should have been there was nothing.

Part of me wanted to look, to confront the reality of it, but it seemed so perverse as to almost be sacrilege. And I was scared. Scared because I’m smart enough to make sense of what I was looking at and scared because once I knew a thing – this horrible thing – I could never unknow it. I’m glad I didn’t look any closer than I did; I know more than I wish I did already.

In spite of the tiny white hat that contrasted so starkly with his bruised body, in spite of his impossibly small features, in spite of proportions that were more similar to a frail old man than a newborn, Benjamin looked like his brothers. His wide mouth was framed with what would have been smile lines, just like Eli and Lucas. His nose was wide but short just like Jacob. His eyes never opened, but they were set close to the nose just like his mother, and his jaw was wide and strong just like his father, Tony. Tony, whose strong jaw had quivered when he said the words to baptize his son immediately after he was born; he didn’t quite make it through the short prayer before his voice broke. His big hands shook the tiny bottle of holy water the priest had given him – the water went everywhere, but mostly into the tiny white hat.

Of all the religious rituals, observances or services I’ve witnessed, this was the only one that ever moved me. It wasn’t a big ceremony or spectacle, it was just a man doing the best and only thing he could for his son. For the second time in as many days I sent a silent prayer to a God I’m not sure I believe in, not asking so much as demanding that he pay attention to what was going on. And that he make good on whatever his part of this baptism deal was.

For an hour after Benjamin died my sister held him and rocked him, trying to use the force of her will, her love, to bring him back and make him whole. I wish she could have. Instead she and I bundled him up in a blanket that looked like a bed sheet compared to his tiny body and handed him off to the nurse to make the tiny footprints and take the measurements that would describe just how small he really was.

My sister closed her eyes in her hospital bed and told no one in particular that she was hungry. She hated that she was hungry. She hated that even though this horrible thing had happened, she still wanted to eat. She hated that she would go on from this point without her baby. I hated it too, right along with her.

Tony was helping the nurse with Benjamin so the responsibility for feeding the family fell to me. 10:30pm in a town I haven’t known for over a decade, the options are somewhat limited. I grabbed the phone book out its drawer (right next to the bible) and wandered down the hall to the nurses station. Wandered really was the best word for it; I didn’t move with purpose or confidence because I had nothing left. The nurses and doctor, who all knew my face and all knew my name because they all knew that we were there for, helped me find what I was looking for in the phone book and told me how to get it. One phone call that I don’t remember but I know I must have made, and I wandered back to our room.

Our room was different from all the other rooms on the maternity floor. First of all, there was a card on the door that had a picture of a rose on it. None of the other doors had a card like that. I never asked anyone about it. Second, and this I noticed a couple of days before when I was walking around to stretch my legs, all of the other rooms had a high tech fancy baby warmer bassinet in the corners, ours did not. All of the other rooms in our hall were empty and open, waiting with their fancy bassinets for babies. Those bassinets made me sad, more so than the rose card on our door. One night on one of my walks I heard a baby cry somewhere down one of the other halls and I had to turn around and go back the way I came. I didn’t want to cry, it felt so cliche and overly dramatic to think “my sister should have that” but I thought it anyway, and I cried anyway.

Having made my call I went back in to sit with my sister and wait. A couple of people came in to check on this or adjust that, and the nurse did her thing. I wanted to do something for Alyssa, but there wasn’t anything to do. She just laid there with her eyes closed, but the tears made it out just the same. The nurse finished up and handed back the baby. He would stay with us until Alyssa and Tony decided they wanted otherwise, there was no pressure on them to do or not do anything, which was nice I thought.

I met the delivery guy in the lobby. He was young and really small and for a second I wondered about his parents and my parents and everybody’s parents, and if his parents knew how lucky they were that they had a very small pizza delivery boy who was standing and breathing and talking and taking my money.

I actually paused at the door or our room, pizza and soda in hand. It seemed SO FUCKED UP to be walking in there with pizza and pop, something so ordinary and casual when everything felt so serious and sad. But my sister wanted to eat, and she wanted to eat cheese pizza. And the whole point of my being there was to make sure my sister got what she wanted, to the extent that I could, so I brought her her pizza. Pizza which could have tasted like cardboard and sawdust for all we knew, because I don’t think that any of us actually tasted it, we just needed the calories after a very long day. Half way through dinner the nurse walked in and Tony felt so self conscious about the situation that he tried to explain why we were having what looked like a pizza party with a dead infant lying right there. The nurse, who was the youngest in the room by far, smiled sadly and said “You still have to eat. You still have to take care of yourselves, so eat your pizza. You don’t have to explain anything.” I liked her.

Earlier in the evening, after the baby was born and there was nothing else to do, all of the nurses and doctors and staff filed out of the room. I followed them out after checking with my sister so she and Tony could have some time alone with their son. I walked walked four doors down to the small waiting room that was full of boxes of Christmas decorations. It was the extra one that nobody ever used, and it had a small “quiet room” about the size of a bathroom off to the side. I walked in and calmly took off my sweatshirt and wadded it into a ball, which I tried to stick my entire head into. Then I cried so hard my stomach hurt and my hands hurt from clenching so hard. It felt like all of the air was being squeezed out of my lungs via my eyes, like my chest was caving in and my head was going to pop. Even doubled over with my elbows on my knees, the sweatshirt just wasn’t big enough to block out the entire world like I wanted it to. I tried though. I hurt for Tony and Alyssa and everything they’d gone through, and what they still had to face. I was sad for Benjamin and how unfair his circumstances were. I was sad for me because sometimes life sucks and it hurts but you have to be strong when you don’t think you can, and keep going when you don’t want to, and order pizza when everything has gone to hell.

Later when I was at the worst pizza party ever, I though about how this was kind of, but not really, a birthday party. I wish we’d had the pizza before he died.