The Sound of Silence

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

 

--"The Sound of Silence," Simon & Garfunkel

I was towel-drying Luc after his bath when he looked up at me and asked, "Where baby?" I stood still and debated for a minute. Usually he asks that question in reference to Thi, followed by his own recollections of where we buried her: "Little Sister sleeping. Near rocks." But instead of bringing on a fresh wave of pain, this time there was hope, a glimmer of excitement so long gone and missed. 

 

I leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Luc, do you want to know a secret?" Tung and I had said we wouldn't tell, what with the shadow of a loss putting anxiety in our hearts. "There IS a baby," I said to Luc, "a new one in Mommy's tummy. But we aren't going to tell anyone yet, ok?" Luc smiled from the tickle of my secret in his ear, weighted with the knowledge that he was in on something special, but not yet able to comprehend its meaning.

Dear Baby, that was my favorite memory of you, in the very brief time we had together. It was like when I took that walk around the townhouses near my old company's location while pregnant with Thi, talking to her as I basked in the late-afternoon sun, worries and insecurities temporarily put aside so that I could enjoy the dreams of what could have been. It wasn't long though, dear Baby, when I noticed spotting over a weekend and called my OB to get an early appointment for a scan. 

It seemed a million years to wait during that half-week until my appointment. I took a walk in between work to calm my nerves, my heart pounding, willing time to pass quicker, wanting to know. But deep in my heart, I already did. This pregnancy was different; I didn't feel it. I felt too...normal. Aside from fatigue, I didn't have nausea or bloat. I felt a little full in the mid-section in my pants, but it didn't change as the days passed. I felt guilt over being so anxious over something going wrong that I couldn't bond with this baby. But most of all, I felt empty, like nothing was there.

We saw the gestational sac right away when the OB performed the ultrasound. "I see the...pregnancy," she said cautiously. Not the baby, because in that oval-shaped womb was only a void of darkness. No yolk sac. No fetal pole. Only "some slight matter" of something arrested in development at 5 weeks when I should have been 7.5 weeks, floating around like debris in space--empty, silent. After getting my Quantitative HCG tested three times in the week to follow and seeing the numbers drop, I was diagnosed with a missed miscarriage from a blighted ovum.

I had my D&C surgery on Friday, August 17, 2018 at 12:30PM. That is your birthday, dear Baby. I went to sleep pregnant and woke up no longer so. I have trouble picturing you because I never saw your form, but I will never forget you. Because the forming placenta continues to produce pregnancy hormones that stay in my blood even after you were removed, my body still thinks it's pregnant. When I take a pregnancy test several days after the D&C, it still shows up positive. What a mind trip, that you seem to be still there, even though you're not, even though you technically never have been. What a strangeness, that the body refuses to yet acknowledge what the mind already knows, what the heart has figured out all on its own. 

Dear Thi, that is the story of your baby sibling, short and brief. I have always felt guilty over you being alone while your father and brother and I get to move forward in our lives together. Yes, in a sense, you are always with us, but often I picture you playing around your gravesite, waiting for us to visit and bring you flowers and toys. Well, now Mama has sent a baby sibling to keep you company, Thi. Take good care of Baby, my girl. I wish I could hold you both in my arms, but that is not my fate. So as your father says, "Be good. Don't cause too much trouble, my loves." One day we will see you again, on the other side of Darkness.