Child and infant loss is a terrible thing that we only read about. It’s a GoFundMe page for a friend of a friend who just lost their child. Or a distant relative who just had a miscarriage. It’s almost taboo to talk about it. “Parents should never bury their kids”. In a perfect world, this would be true. Tiny caskets. Little baby urns. The insurmountable task of planning a funeral for a baby. It’s something that happens to other people. Never to me. Until, of course, it does.
I’ve had a life full of “it won’t happen to me” moments. I’m a nurse. It’s both a blessing and a curse because I know just enough to be dangerous. So that feeling of helplessness and apathy after my first son was born, it wasn’t postpartum depression. Because PPD is something that happens to other people, not to me. Those two pink lines that were fleeting and disappeared after a series of miscarriages. Miscarriages and infertility happened to other people, not to me. Being sent to Maternal Fetal Medicine when pregnant with my daughter for a “closer look”, was just a precaution, because having a baby with birth defects was something that happened to other people. not to me. Hearing “I think your baby is missing part of her brain” was surely a mistake. A limitation of technology, a limitation of SOMETHING, because that is something that happens to other people, not to me. You’d think I’d have got it by now. I’d have taken the hint. But after all, they say, lightening doesn’t strike the same place twice. Until, of course, it does.
After my journey with my daughters pregnancy, you’d think I would have been an absolute wreck the day of our anatomy scan at the MFM office. We had just seen them a few weeks prior for the first series of genetic ultrasound testing, and left with an “everything looks perfect!” farewell from the perinatologist I knew so well from my daughter. I was calm and not at all worried about this appointment. My husband was there with me, and while baby #3 was a complete surprise, we had both began to get really excited about growing our family. We knew it was a boy (due to a little hiccup at the OB office) and were already playing through all the sibling scenarios in our heads. We both came from families with only two children. The thought of three was foreign, but we figured that if anyone could handle it, it would be us. We saw baby up on the screen and were joking with the ultrasound tech the whole time. Of course, the first thing I asked was to look at his brain, which looked perfect. CUE: SIGH OF RELIEF. “You’re sure that you see is Cavum Septum Pellicidum?” I asked. The tech laughed “I’ve literally never had anyone ask me that before”. Of course, I was a CSP expert because it was the first sign something was wrong when I had my ultrasound with Lauren. The baby wasn’t cooperating, so the tech decided that she would go and get the doctor because “sometimes the moment we bring in the doctor the baby shapes up and gives us what we need!”. About 20 minutes later, we were still waiting for her to come in. My husband remarked that he hoped there wasn’t something wrong with the baby, since it was taking so long. I told him not to be so dramatic, and that everything was fine. Because having a baby with a fatal condition only happens to other people, not to me. Until, of course, it does.