by Marina S. Tsivin
The day we found out we were pregnant with our first child was the happiest day. I had a pretty easy pregnancy, just counting the weeks go by. I loved feeling my little guy kicking around, and we were excited to welcome our first child into our family. Although everything was hurting, from my back to my swollen feet, it would be all worth it, I thought. We totally embraced the process. We took maternity pictures strolling hand in hand through Central Park and even had a baby shower with blue baby elephant cupcakes. Oh, it was all so great.
At 39 weeks, I went on maternity leave and sat home anxiously waiting for labor. On the morning of January 14th, I was 39 weeks pregnant, just three days shy of my due date. After eating breakfast, I waited for my good morning sugar rush kicks. But I didn’t feel any. I waited, I lay on my side, I drank cold water, and after 30 minutes, I decided to go to the hospital. Once at the hospital, my whole world collapsed. The unimaginable happened, and I was entering my worst nightmare.
My boy, my beautiful baby boy, was gone. When? How? Or why? I would never know. I begged, I pleaded, I screamed, but it was a done deal; it was as terminal as a situation can be. The shock and the pain were unexplainable. All I wanted was to be with my baby forever. He should be the one burying me; this is not what life was “supposed” to be like. In one second, my whole world stopped.
The rest of that day was dark, cold, and tragic. In the same breath that I was told my baby had passed, I was told that I now needed to decide what to do. “Do you want to go home and process the news? You can come back tomorrow, and we'll schedule you for a C-section,” asked the charge nurse. “No, I just want to have my baby.” I was escorted to a room at the end of the hall, away from all the other pregnant or postpartum women. I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, counting all the ceiling tiles. One by one, I wasn’t crying, I was in a state of shock. I was just quiet and still, like my baby.
I was alone in the room, and then suddenly, my husband ran in, followed by my mom, all in disbelief. “What happened? How?” “Nothing happened; he just died.” I repeated that sentence, hoping that I’d jinx myself, and if I said it enough times, it would not be true. But it was. A doctor came in to do an amniocentesis. He came with his residents. “Sorry for your loss,” the attending said as he draped my pregnant stomach. “Okay, which one of you wants to do it? It's okay if you haven't done it before.” The attending was referring to who wanted to stick a giant needle into my amniotic sac, usually a risky procedure since there’s a chance you could harm the fetus. But not in this case, since the baby was deceased, that’s why newbies were welcome to practice. I’ll never forget the resident who did the procedure; he was laughing as the dark fluid flowed back from the needle. “Oh, it’s meconium, I thought it was blood. Phew,” he said. He never made eye contact or looked at me. I wish I had told his attending, “He’s laughing, get him out of here,” to make this experience unforgettable for him too. But I was just still, like my baby.
Next, I had to decide how to deliver my baby. I wanted a C-section. I wanted to be put to sleep, put out of my misery, and disappear. My mom asked the doctor, “If she has a C-section, when can she try to get pregnant again?” “Six months to a year,” he said. “And if she delivers?” “Twelve weeks. Although not recommended, but I have seen women get pregnant again as soon as six weeks.” My mom walked over to me. “Six weeks. You just have to wait six weeks, and you can get pregnant again.” Although it is not what most doctors recommend to anyone postpartum, in that moment, the idea of trying again in six weeks gave me so much hope. I pulled out my phone, opened my calendar, and counted six weeks, and wrote “Now.” The idea that this might not be the end of me trying to become a mother, that in six weeks I could try again, was so important to me. To quote Viktor Frankl, "Those who have a 'why' to live can bear with almost any 'how'." I needed to know that I still had a chance to be a mom.
The birthing process was dark and quiet. They turned off the lights but kept the TV on. I would go in and out of sleep due to all the sedatives they gave me. Sometimes I would even forget what I was doing until the doctor would shout, “Push.” After hours of labor, I delivered a beautiful little boy, 8 lbs and 20 inches long. For nine months I imagined what he would look like, and here he was, but he was gone. We kissed him for the first and last time and said our goodbyes. The nurses took pictures of him, cut off a lock of his hair, and placed it in a light blue box. As the nurses took him out of the room, my sister followed them and kissed David again, saying, “You were too good for this world.” A week later David was laid to rest in a cemetery an hour away from our home.
After the loss of David, my life split in two: life before him and life after. I had no answers for why this happened, no one to blame, and no one to be angry with, but I was consumed with rage. I lost the ability to sleep, eat, and think. I felt like I had fallen into a frozen lake and couldn’t swim to the surface. My way of understanding life was gone, and I just felt so empty. The days dragged on endlessly. I kept reliving that moment in the hospital every day, in my dreams—it was everywhere. Children who lose parents are orphans; bereaved spouses are widows. But what do you call a woman whose full-term baby dies inside her? What do you call her husband? There isn’t a word in our language for our situation. It is unspeakable; it’s unimaginable. I felt so alone.
I was heartbroken, mourning my baby who never got a chance. I was heartbroken for my family. I felt like I deceived them all. I made them believe we were going to have a baby. I made them dream and imagine David with me, and I didn’t deliver. It was hard to see how devastated my family was. Losing a baby is not just the mother’s loss; we all lost someone that day—a grandson, a nephew, a cousin. I was the only one visibly broken, but we were all grieving.
When our friends found out what happened, many were in shock and at a loss for words. They had never imagined that such a thing could happen and didn't realize I had to deliver the baby and go through the whole birthing process. Many reached out with sympathy and sayings like “You’ll have more” or “You're still young” or “That was God’s will.” Mainly, it felt like people wanted to know what happened and how to prevent it from happening to them. The tragedy of losing David is that I do not have an answer, no big lesson, and no way to help anyone prevent this loss and pain. It’s just something horrible that happened, and sometimes that is just how life is. “Life doesn't discriminate. Between the sinners and the saints. It takes and it takes and it takes, and we keep living anyway.” – Hamilton.
Those empty “words of comfort” were as painful as the silence from those who suddenly disappeared from my life. Although a simple message saying “Just thinking of you and your baby” meant a lot. All I wanted was someone to scream with me, curse, be angry with me, and yell at the injustice done to us. And fortunately, some people did.
My husband and I joined support groups for pregnancy loss and found hope in meeting other couples who had experienced stillbirth. We found inspiration in hearing other stories from people willing to reopen their wounds to share their experiences with us. We even learned about family members who had a stillbirth but never spoke about it until now.
Six months after losing David, we found out we were pregnant with our rainbow baby. It was a scary and nerve-racking pregnancy. I would wake every morning ready for this to be the day it all ended again. I carried a portable ultrasound machine in my purse and checked the baby’s heartbeat all the time (I don’t recommend that either). I tried not to get attached, not to think of what could be. I just existed. I told no one I was pregnant again, and my husband and I hid from the world for nine months. But on January 20th, one year and six days after the loss of David, we welcomed his little brother, Ari David. When we heard Ari take his first breath, we took our first deep breath too. A year and six months after Ari was born, we also welcomed David’s second brother, Eli Dov. The hole of losing David was never filled, but new life grew around it.
People ask us if having David’s siblings gave us closure. But what closure could I possibly get from losing my baby? Even today, I still think about David often; his image is forever ingrained in my memory. Grieving for someone you loved so deeply can never fade, but it can become something you learn to live with and move with. You can grieve and somehow still find a way to be happy at the same time.
David’s life here was short and mostly felt by me and his father, but he taught us more than we ever knew. We learned what love is, what pain is, what strength, compassion, and perseverance are. He forever changed our lives, and his memory will live on through us and his siblings.
By writing this piece, I have now created another tangible thing about my son. Another thing that I can show the world that he was here, that he was important, that he mattered. David was loved and wanted. And everything good in our life today is because of him. We will forever miss him. Until we meet again.
By: Marina S. Tsivin
October 13, 2024
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