I wrote my blog yesterday and then
I couldn’t sleep. The butterflies inside
were back again. Up until yesterday I
had never considered it. I never
wondered. It never even crossed my
mind. Perhaps I was just so overwhelmed
and now that time has passed I can think more clearly. I’ve read about abortions, to educate myself,
to be able to understand how and why, and just because I’m female and I think
that it’s important. At 20 weeks a fetus
has the ability to feel, to hurt, to acknowledge pain in so much as a baby can
acknowledge anything. Had she been born
and gotten pinched, or the shock of the cold air outside my womb been too much
to bear she’d have cried, she’d have voiced her pain. That knowledge is what
kept my eyes from closing last night except to blink back tears. For hours my mind fought sleep. All I could think about was that Gabbie was
38 weeks in gestation. She was 38 weeks
and could have felt pain. I had imagined,
as far as wounded mind can imagine such a thing, that she had softly closed her
eyes and quietly slipped away in her sleep, tucked up warm where all babies are
safest. Up until now I had thought she would have
passed easily up to Gramps, and that Angels would have held her close. Now, I don’t know if her passing would have
been easy. And it hurts to think. There is nowhere in the world that a baby can
be closer to her mother than within her.
Yet even that could not have saved her from her pain. Did she have pain? I’m not asking the question because I want to
hurt too. I’m asking because now that
the question is swimming around my head and before my eyes I want to know the
answer. Is there an answer?
All
this time I was worried about me, and that she was gone, and that my dreams
were shattered by her leaving me, how I was going to raise her sisters without
her, how I was going to make sure that Derek knew I loved him every day even though I hurt. How selfish.
How could I not have considered that my tiny baby with the bow lips,
chubby cheeks, and full head of hair, may have suffered?
The cord
had been wrapped around her neck four times.
I know that technically she doesn’t breathe but her lungs would have
filled with fluid and expelled it to practice breathing. Her head would have needed the blood flow
that would have been interrupted by the tightening cord. There is no way to know how long her cord had
been wrapped. Her heart rate had always been good. Am I
to believe she did not hurt? Am I to
believe that she wouldn’t have fought? She moved so much inside me, all night, all
day, sometimes violent bouts of kicks and hits, could that have been her
fighting to save her life? Could that
have been her trying to get unwound and only making it worse?
I used
to joke about how big I got. My babies
had a mansion, in comparison to other women, that was huge, with plenty of room
for comfort. Each time I had a c-section
the fluid was way more than the doctors had accounted for. The extra fluid that my body produced of its
own accord had provided them ample amounts of room to grow, much to my chagrin
and collection of ill-fitting clothing. I
had come to accept my largeness as a good thing for her. But now, I hate my body for producing so much
fluid. Perhaps if it had not, she would
not have had the room to move so much, she would not have had the room to turn
so many times. Perhaps her mansion would
not have killed her.
These
are thoughts that have crossed my mind.
It doesn’t mean I blame myself. I
know I could not have known. There is
not a window to my insides. I could not wipe away fog and see the beautiful
baby within. I could not have
known. But God,… now that the thought
has crossed my mind, how can I convince myself that my tiny defenseless baby I
had lovingly conceived, grew, talked to, named, loved, … How can I convince myself
that my Gabraella did not suffer a terrible strangling death right inside me
and I did not know? I’m sick over
it.
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