labour

Labour was terrible. The gel made my cervix so irritable that the pain never fully went away - it just lessened and so there were no true rest periods between contractions. I was exhausted and scratched at my dh's back and pulled his hair. At some point, I guess, the pain becomes the only thing that you can concentrate on and the fact that there would be no cries when it was over didn't overwhelm me.

Within my mind - I wanted it simultaneously to end and continue forever. I knew that once it ended, I would be free of this horrible pain and yet...when it ended, he would be here and what would happen then?

Finally, beyond my control, my uterus began the final push. I started to panic - I can't, I can't, I can't - I started saying. nononononono....I can't. But he was born onto the end of the bed before anyone could get prepared. His little body fell out of me and onto the bed. Finished. Separate.

And there was silence.

I expected it to be horrible and painful - but it wasn't. All I felt surrounding me was peace, and him. He was in the air around me.

I called for my glasses so that I could see him. Someone told me it was a boy - but I knew it was. Someone said - she wants her glasses, she wants to see him.

I wish I could remember the details more from here on in, but I don't. I think I looked at his tiny body and tried to memorize every detail - his dark soft hair, his serious little face, his tiny perfect body. We clipped a piece of his hair and they took prints of his hand and his feet and measured and weighed him. They dressed him - and I kept the outfit he was dressed in...it is the most treasured of the mementoes because there is a little spot of blood on it. A spot of blood that screams - look! I existed!! I was real!! You cannot deny me.

I know that while I held him I felt distant from this little baby's body - this shell. He wasn't there. It was empty and his soul was in the room surrounding me, holding me, carrying me - but it was not in that broken body.

It took my husband much longer to let go. He wrapped him up gently in a blanket and held him in his arms and rocked him back and forth. He walked the hallway with him. He sat with him in a chair. He stood with him in the room. He rocked him...though there was no reason to rock him.

I was ready to say goodbye. I was tired, exhausted and I felt there was no need to keep the shell any longer. I hope that I didn't rush my husband. I hope he did whatever he needed. I will never truly know what it was that he felt that night just as he did not understand my experience. That is the cruelty of grief...it cannot be travelled with someone else. Its a lonely path.

We named him Gabriel John. Our son. Our first son.

And so began my journey with grief.

separation