.
A start, in my mind, is that we acknowledge the many aspects of pregnancy and that it does not always result in a live child nor a child with the same abilities as most children. Women’s expectations about pregnancy are a powerful determinant of their mental health after pregnancy, including the likelihood of experiencing depression.
The fairy people missed the princess and called to her to come back. “Please let me stay longer” she said, and they sighed and let her stay a bit longer, and a bit longer, and a bit longer. One day, when it was very, very close to when the fairy princess would be born into the human world, she knew she could not stay any longer. With a heavy heart she told her mummy and daddy she would always be with them and that she loved them very much. Then she closed her eyes and her heart stopped beating.
My daughter’s heart stopped beating at 39 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy. As is the case almost half of the time, there was no medical explanation.
The mummy and daddy were heartbroken.
When we write stories, we have a choice about the language we use. Our language influences what we focus on and how we feel. In our case, for example, we chose to have a celebration of life for our daughter, rather than a “funeral”. In Sinhalese, which is my parent’s native language, we do not have a traditional word for “goodbye”, but rather, we say, “Go and come back”. Words and thoughts are very powerful. They influence our reality. This does not mean we need to look for silver linings or push away negative thoughts and feelings. In fact, suppressing our thoughts and forcing ourselves to be jovial can backfire with disastrous consequences. As I write this, I stop to wipe away tears – they are always there and always will be. However, sorrow and joy are not mutually exclusive.
We played Foster and Allen’s version of Don McLean’s “And I Love You So” at Chippie’s celebration of life:
“And I love you so/the people ask me how/how I’ve lived ’til now/I tell them I don’t know…The book of life is brief/and once a page is read/all but love is dead/this is my belief”.
Something I clearly remember was acknowledging that my grief was never something I would “get over” and that I wanted to celebrate my daughter’s life as it had been and as it continues to be, making meaning, even if it seems arbitrary. One of the things I believe in strongly is that my daughter had a legacy and I have chosen to be the custodian of that legacy. Part of that is to draw attention to the stories of the pregnancies of children who are not in this world in order for us to heal.
The princess could see how sad the mummy and daddy were and wanted them to have a child who would be able to stay with them. The fairies asked the wise moon and caring sun for help. The sun gifted sunbeams to make a little boy, with dark golden hair, a sunny smile and a warm disposition. The moon gifted them moonbeams, so he would have wise eyes, a beautiful soul and the ability to light up the darkest room. They wrapped him up in powerful magic and he came to his mummy and daddy who loved him, and called him Bear.
You may be interested to know that I had another pregnancy between Chippie and Bear. Tharaka (star, in Sinhalese) was an ectopic pregnancy. I underwent emergency surgery and lost my right fallopian tube. We were then told that our odds of conception had been halved, because although it was theoretically possible for the left fallopian tube to channel an egg from the other side, it was difficult. However, very early scans showed that the egg that made Bear came from my right side – the side without the tube. As soon as I heard this, the meaning I chose to make of this was that Bear was very determined to be with us. It gave me hope. Bear is now almost two years old.
Do you know how I know this story is true? The little boy has an unusual light birth mark on his left cheek, where the fairies kissed him, he has a rose shaped and rose coloured mark on his chest, above his heart, where his sister put her hand on him, and, despite the odds, he has golden hair that darkens in winter.
As I write this, I am pregnant with Ant, who may arrive any day now. The egg that made Ant came from my right side as well.
Dr Kumari Valentine has a PhD and is a registered clinical psychologist who is passionate about using psychological theory to help people change their lives for the better.
Dr Kumari’s personal experiences with complicated pregnancies and pregnancy-related grief underpin her work on mindfulness and overthinking.
Visit www.kumari.co.nz to learn more about Dr Kumari and her range of mindfulness-based CDs and like her Facebook page at www.facebook.com/drkumarinz/
