Tragedy

Dear friends and readers,

I couldn’t talk about this before but now I feel it will be good for me to share. This is a tragic story and I don’t want to traumatize those who don’t want to be traumatized so I will put it under the fold.

On Thursday as I was going to work I felt a very slight discomfort. I cannot even really define it because it was barely perceptible. It was more like a feeling that I shouldn’t be going into the classroom than pain or anything of the kind. I’m not into meaningless heroics so I told people at the department that I will not be able to teach and I went home.

Then I went to see my doctor and we did a routine ultrasound.

And there was no heartbeat. Just like that. For no medical reason, Eric’s heart had stopped. This is the same thing as SIDS but it happens in utero and it is 10 times more frequent than SIDS. Somehow, I managed to not know that this was possible. I knew a heartbeat could stop in the first trimester but that it could just happen 6 days before the due date  was unimaginable. I thought that if there were problems at this late stage, one could go into premature labor, have bleeding, or experience some symptoms. But it turned out this could just happen.

I cannot describe to you what it is like to spend the night with a  dead baby inside you. The doctor told me that people sometimes choose to wait for the labor to start naturally but I couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of psychological resilience one needs to face something like this.

I had the C-section on Friday. Eric was very beautiful, with curly golden hair and fat cheeks. Everybody at the hospital was really wonderful and sensitive. The nurses all cried for us. My sister flew in for the operation. She and N have been really phenomenal throughout all this.

I know that it is impossible to find words to say to a person in this situation, and that is fine. You are all good people and I know you care. I will be fine, I don’t have any suicidal thoughts or anything of the kind.

In the coming days, I will be writing whenever I feel it helps me to do so and about things that it helps me to discuss. It’s OK to say as little or as much as you want. I know you are all with me.