Letter to Ellen

This is a special letter to our first baby, a stillborn.  My prayer is that this writing will be a comfort to other mothers who go through similar pain.

DEAR ELLEN

 A mother’s letter of tears and love

 by

 Janet Baird Weisiger

“For you formed my inward parts;

              You covered me in my mother’s womb.

              I will praise You, for I am fearfully and

                        wonderfully made;

  Marvelous are Your works,

              And that my soul knows very well,

              My frame was not hidden from You,

              When I was made in secret,

               And skillfully wrought in the lowest

                         parts of the earth,

               Your eyes saw my substance, being

                         yet unformed.

                And in Your book they all were written,

                The days fashioned for me.

                        When as yet there were none of them.”

                                                                 - Psalm 139:13-16 NKJ

Dear Ellen,

            It has been decades now, but I’ve never forgotten you.   Years have passed and yet, when the calendar announces June 4, I remember.  It was a flawless sunny day with bright skies and fluffy clouds, the perfect setting for weddings, graduations and birthday celebrations.  It was supposed to be your special day, your birth date, a day to be treasured, and a day when the angels sang.

  But, sadly, there were no happy greetings for you, no announcements with pink-ribboned cigars, no bouquets of flowers delivered to the new mother.  In place of exultant cries of joy, sobs of grief hammered the tiled walls of the sterile delivery room.  Instead of cuddling you in my ready open arms, Jesus welcomed you and held you in his bosom. 

You, my dear Ellen, never filled your lungs with earth’s life-sustaining air.  You never wailed at the insult of birth.  You were, as the certificate stated in cruel finality, stillborn. 

            Stillborn.  I still choke at the sound of the word.  Born, but still.  Born, but not moving.  Born, but not showing signs of life.  What a cold, depressing term.  Stillborn.  A word that knifes through the heart of a woman lying on the delivery table.  After all the pain, all the work.  The agonizing moments of waiting for the victorious sounds of a squalling hungry newborn.  Waiting, waiting… and then only terse professional words of the doctor and the nurses. 

“Suction!”

“But she looks perfect.”

“Cord not wrapped around her neck.”

“No response, doctor.”

And then finally,  “I’m sorry, sometimes these things are for the best.”

“For the best?”  I want to scream. How can this be “for the best”?

I lay on the delivery table, shaved, scrubbed, white sheets properly draped

and I weep.

Yes, I birthed you.  I remember every detail.  But I never saw you, never held you, never touched your fingers and toes, never stroked your soft warm skin, and never smelled your newborn sweetness. 

Your daddy and I wanted you.  We always knew we would have babies.  That was part of being in love and being married.  A family.  Children (it was always plural) to fill our lives with laughter, noise and, yes, even mess.  Babies who would change overnight into toddlers, Little Leaguers, prom queens, chemistry majors and walk out of our lives to marry, have their own families and continue the cycle of life as God intended.

You were our first baby.  We saved money to buy a white crib decorated with dancing lambs.  I hummed lullabies as I sewed curtains for your “baby’s room”.   Your aunt hosted a shower with gifts of receiving blankets, colorful mobiles and tiny soft clothes.  I covered a bassinet, found at a garage sale, with white fabric highlighted with pink and blue bows.  We were ready for you.  We had no way of knowing whether you were a boy or a girl.  It didn’t matter to us.  We were going to have a baby!

We never doubted God had blessed us with the creation of a little one.  We knew Him as the giver of life and our lives honored His ways.

For nine months, you were alive in me.  I thrilled at the first flitting of what seemed like butterfly wings as you moved within me.  I giggled at the waves across my extended belly as you stretched an arm or leg and poked an elbow or knee.  Your daddy and I lay in bed at night, our hands on my tummy, fascinated at your turnings and tumblings.

The day I birthed you, I was not unduly alarmed, because I understood the progression of labor and recognized the early contractions.  My little suitcase was packed and I awaited the right time to leave the house.

Your daddy stayed with me during those long hours at the hospital.  Just to have him in the labor room with me was rare in that decade.  Lacking the technology of fetal monitors, the labor room nurse checked your heartbeat every fifteen minutes with her stethoscope. 

And then something went wrong.  As the contractions grew stronger and the second stage of labor began, the labor room nurse suddenly rushed from my room.  The doctor quickly entered and ordered your daddy out to the waiting room, telling him “we need to make some important decisions.”   What about your daddy?  This was his wife, his baby.   Important decisions?  Without his imput? 

Your daddy sat alone, flipping through dog-eared magazines, not knowing whether he had lost a wife, whether the baby was dead, or what was wrong.  No one told him anything until you were long gone from us.

I remember how frightened I was. 

The professionals conferred, almost forgetting my existence.

“No fetal heartbeat.”

“Should we do a section?”

“No, let’s try high forceps.  Prep her and let’s get started.”

In the delivery room I was carefully shielded from all that was going on.  No mirrors, no husband there to coach me, only one kind, sympathetic nurse holding my hand.

And then the final push, the clinking of the forceps, the gushing forth, and … silence.  No slap, no baby cries.  Only silence.  And then the resigned sigh from the doctor and finally the announcement.  Stillborn!

"Oh, she's so beautiful!" The nurse spoke.
Then I knew you were a girl.

They never let me see you.  They never let me hold you.  They just took you away.

Where did they take you?  What did you look like?

I was rapidly wheeled into the recovery room, unable to move my legs because of the caudal anesthesia.  And I cried.  I cried continually, sniffling and sobbing, my heart breaking, my arms empty.  Questions bombarded my mind.  Why?  Why God, why? 

“Where is my husband?”  I asked a hundred times. 

I wept alone. 

An officious nurse appeared at my side.

“You’ll have to stop your sniffling.  You are disturbing the other mothers,” she ordered.

“But I have no baby! I can’t help it! I have no baby!” 

They assigned me to a private room in the middle of the maternity wing.  I could shut my door but I could not shut out the sounds of crying newborns as the nurse wheeled them down the hall for their feedings. 

I spent the next few days in the hospital mourning and suffering uncontrollable grief.  Newborn feeding schedules jarred me awake, interrupting my medicated sleep and thrusting me into waking nightmares.   Each day dawned with promise for every new mother but me. 

Where did they take you?  What did they do to your tiny body?

Your daddy and I left the hospital, my arms empty, my breasts now filling and aching for my infant to suckle.  When we returned home, the door to your room was closed.  It would be weeks before I had the strength to open the door, look in the silent room and weep again.

What would you have done with your life?  Would you now have a family of your own?  Would we have shared mother-daughter secrets?  Would you have been the joy of your daddy’s life?

Where did you go?  Where are you now?

For years I wondered why they never let me hold you.  They said it would have been too painful.  They said it was better just to forget.

They said a funeral would just prolong the grief.

We grieved but never chose a coffin, wept but never dug a grave.  We cried bitter tears but have nothing to remember you by.

They just took you away.

Was your hair brown like mine?  Were your eyes blue like your daddy’s?

They said, “You’re young, you’ll have more babies.”

But I didn’t know that, anymore than they did.  They meant well, and I know they were all hoping I would go on with life… and …forget.

But, as you can see, I have never forgotten you.  I have never forgotten the pain of losing you.  I have never forgotten the nine precious months of life I shared with you.

Because, my dear Ellen, you were alive within me!  We were mother and daughter.  My body nourished you, protected you and kept you warm.  You drew comfort from the ceaseless beat of my heart.  You heard me sing and laugh.

For years I asked,  “Where are you now?  Is your little soul with God?”

When I birthed you, I didn’t understand God the way I do now.  Through the years I have studied His word and I have discovered the scriptures say some pretty wonderful things.  Romans 8:28 says, “All things work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.”  I believe that now.  That season of darkness gave me keen appreciation for all of life’s blessings and joys.  That experience of losing you gave me a glimpse into the mystery of just being a woman.  I was wonderfully made in the image of God to bear, nourish and love you.   God gave my that gift of pregnancy and I slowly, reluctantly, waited on Him.

Then, miraculously, a year and 3 days after you were taken from us, your brother was born.  And in the next four years, your three sisters arrived in rapid succession.  My cup runneth over.  What untold blessings God gave us. 

But still I have never forgotten you.

        
           God knew you before you were conceived.  God knew you before your daddy and I expressed our love for each other in one glorious passionate moment. And God knew that losing you at the time of your birth would bring uncomprehending pain to us.  But He also knew that in that pain, He would be there to hold and comfort us.  He would also gradually heal me and enable me to forgive some of the thoughtlessness and cruelty of that experience. 

Most important of all, God showed me, through your tiny unborn existence, that each life is sacred and holy, created in His image.  And because of His plan, you are and always have been present with Him in His eternal kingdom.   I now know with absolute certainty that you are loved, Ellen.  You are loved by an amazing God who cares for even the tiniest dear ones like you. 

Sometimes I think they did not let me hold you because they thought unless you breathed in the open air of this world that you were nothing, that you did not even exist, that you were just a piece of protoplasm.  But I knew differently.  I knew you were alive, I knew you had always been alive in me.  You were alive for those nine months because you were created by our most magnificent God.  No one can tell me otherwise.  God has said that He loves and cares for all His creation.  Thus I know He takes care of you.

You will be delighted to know that your brother and three sisters are happily married, and that you have seven nieces and five nephews who give us untold joy and blessings.

My Lord and my God wipes away my tears, Ellen, because even now, I sometimes still weep when I remember the pain of losing you.  But He has also given me contentment by holding me in His love.  I trust Him, even though I do not totally understand His ways. 

So for now, Ellen, rest well in the arms of Jesus.  I am fully confident I will be united with you in that glorious Paradise which awaits all of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ.  At that time, I will finally gaze upon your face and see you for the first time, my dear one, my first baby.

                                                          Your ever loving,

                                                                                    Mommy