Delaney’s Story

A friend of mine is very ill.  I keep thinking of her shock as she awakens each morning to the reality of her “new reality’.  I keep asking friends “do you know what that's like? To wake in the morning to an ordinary day and then remember that the unthinkable has happened?”  It is truly like a punch to the gut.  Sometimes anxiety creeps in and the heart rate quickens and other times a sob is dumped in your lap unannounced.  I know this feeling viscerally.  I don’t visit it often but these feelings have asked for a seat at the table.  Asked to be heard.  Liberated.  They have beaten my body in protest for years. Won’t you please listen, they ask and I am slowly pulling out the chair for them.  

That picture.  The one you see above.  That was a picture of my son saying goodbye to his sister.  We didn’t know it then.  I imagine Delaney was on the other side of that belly.  Face pressed up against my insides as her brother pressed up against my outsides. A kiss that would never happen outside my body because only a few hours later, Delaney, 8 months in utero, would get tangled in her umbilical cord and die.  

I went out that night. June 5th.  2015.  I wore a red tank top.  I think of that every time I put it on.  “That’s the tank top”.  It was the only thing that fit my swollen belly. I ordered mussels in red sauce. I was indulging an odd pregnancy craving as I giggled with my girlfriends, on what I believed would be my final night out before she came.  

I got home that night and lugged my tired body into bed.  Red tank top clinging to my belly as I grabbed my husband’s hand in disbelief.  “Oh my gosh Jas! You gotta feel this! Delaney is going crazy in my belly!” We laughed.  “This one’s wild”, I said.  

That was a phrase I said often during my pregnancy.  Delaney’s a wild one.”  As an Intuitive, it was something I just knew.  I thought that meant “feisty”, “independent”, obstinate, unruly curls. Not earth shatterer, life changer, heaven seeker.  I never could have suspected the plan Spirit had laid out for us or the way in which Delaney would be that wild one I knew she was.  

The next morning we awoke.  My body was strangely quiet, only I hadn’t noticed yet.  We went to a fire house festival.  We sprayed hoses, wore red hats and ate hot dogs. Afterwards, I put my 3 year old down for a nap and then went to put myself down for one as well.  It was then that I noticed my very wild child was very still. Absent in fact.  I recalled a few suggestions I learned in my birthing class about how to awaken a baby in utero.  I took a deep breath and tried each one. I laid on my left side. Nothing.  I drank a glass of water. Nothing. I  played music into my belly.  Nothing, and finally, I ate a spoonful of honey.  Nothing.  I called my doctor apologetically and waited for her to return my call.  In the meantime I anxiously painted my nails.  A beautiful coral.  

Three sets of feet soon trudged up the stairs to the birth ward.  I remember being afraid something was wrong and simultaneously embarrassed that I might have inconvenienced my doctor if there wasn’t.

Buttons were pushed, straps were hooked up and paddles slid across my round belly but the thumping sound was notably absent.  Where was the ferocious heartbeat the technicians always remarked on? 

Nervous glances were shared between the nurses as a suggestion was made to try another ultrasound machine and give the doctor a holler.  In a voice I didn’t recognize as my own, I asked, “Is she there? Can’t you find her heartbeat?” 

As we waited on the doctor, the nurse brought in sandwiches.  My three year old, sensing distress, began to hand them out.  “Eat a sandwich everyone’, he said.  “Eat a sandwich”. 

I will always remember this moment, the one where my three year old felt he needed to parent, the parents.  

The doctor arrived a few minutes later, smiled at me and sat on the edge of the bed.  She turned on the monitor and glided over my belly once more.  Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh but no thump thump thump.  To this, she turned to me and said, Carolyn, I am so sorry.  Jason grabbed my leg and without fully grasping the finality, I asked “Do you think it was the mussels I ate last night?”  The doctor sensing my shock and confusion said, “Carolyn, your full term baby died.”  I heard her that time and a guttural moan slipped from my lips.  Jason’s too.  Little Alex looked between us with confusion.  

The doctor sat for a few minutes and answered my nonsensical questions.  Nurses floated in and out, dropping funeral brochures and water. I remember being confused by the funeral brochures.  It felt too soon.  It was only minutes ago I learned of her death, a possibility I had never considered and here I was considering cremation.  What the fuck?  Honestly! What. The. Actual. Fuck?

I was encouraged to birth her right then and there but I had a little broken boy beside me who needed his mama so I decided to return the following day.  Sunday.  June 7th, 2015.  Her birthday, the day after her death-day. 

We sent Alex home with a dear friend and firmed up plans for our return the following day.  As Jason went to put Alex in the car I made my first phone call.  I dialed my sister’s number with my heart banging wildly in my chest.  She answered and I heard myself scream the impossible.  “Jaime! Delaney is dead!” From her mouth I heard my own words repeated “Delaney’s DEAD?” and was shocked and horrified. I then heard my mother scream in the background. 

I made a few more calls that sounded exactly the same. Friends insisting I must be wrong.  But I wasn’t wrong.  This shocking truth belonged to me, Jason, Alex and the little soul baby who was ours no more.  

We left the birth ward and drove home silently.  When we arrived, neither of us were ready to enter life yet, so we took a walk.  It was then that I knew something intuitively, Delaney wasn’t a baby.  Delaney was a wise ascended soul who was going to support us on this journey and so was my Buddhist teacher, mentor and friend, Tory.  Somehow, we had the wherewithal to know that if she wasn’t there to hold this container and to keep us present, we would both go away and dissociate because the pain would be too great and the wisdom that comes with loss would allude us.  
There were lots of cuddles through tears that night and mindful explanations for Alex.  How does a three year old boy wrap his head around a sister who is no longer there, but there still, in my belly. As we both drifted off to sleep my doorbell rang. The soft hand of my husband touched my shoulder and beckoned me downstairs.  There, in my living room were my three best friends in their pajamas with snacks and a few bottles of wine.  Each Ubered over for fear that the wine that would numb their grief, would impede their ability to drive. There we sat and cried.  My glass rested comfortably on my pregnant belly.  On my pregnant belly. 

I showered as the sun arose the next morning. I curled every curl just so and talked to a few friends as I slowly made my way to the hospital.  Up to the third floor.  A woman manned the desk and was made privy to my arrival.  She didn’t greet me with the same enthusiastic smile she had a few years ago but met my eyes with compassion and grief. I would come to know this expression. It would reside on the faces of many that greeted me in the coming months.  

In we went.  Dead man walking.  The nurse I received today was different.  She was all business.  I missed the mushy mom nurses of yesterday.  “Would you like to remove that dress so it doesn’t get soiled during birth”, she asked? Jason responded for me as I took the gown and changed in the bathroom.  Jason, poor Jason.  In it like me. But out. So far out because I was the one birthing death today.  

Things happened quickly.  The balloon that was placed in my cervix to begin dilation the night before was removed. Pitocin was administered to induce labor and my water was broken manually.  It was painful. Angrily painful. I walked to the bathroom and through a puddle of my own amniotic fluid.  Jason seemed heartbroken and appalled at the same time.  All I could think about was the last time my water broke, the joy that it brought. Not today.

Before I had the time to let it sink in, the door opened and Tory arrived.  Accompanying her was a big bag.  “Hi guys”, she said in her warm, compassionate way.  Peeking from the top of her bag were flowers and drums.  I remember giggling and telling her whatever plans she had for those drums she could forget about.  “I am Boulder, Tor. But not that Boulder”.  

Her sights were immediately set on Jason.  She could tell he needed some support and offered it in the form of a deep embrace where tears fell easily.  She was then at my bedside as the labor began. She helped me breathe through the pain and kept doctors’ questions at bay mid-contraction.  I still remember how nourishing it felt to be protected in this way.   In between, she brought out a blend of essential oils that she said would help accompany Delaney home.  I didn’t know it then, but the smell of that oil would become her scent, Delaney’s, and I would return to it often to be close to her.  

Labor came quickly and before I could refuse an epidural, Delaney was on her way.  She came fast and furiously.  Good! I thought, because that’s how I feel. Furious!  The pain of the labor met me right where I was.  Matching me emotionally.  Torn apart from the inside out.  “Get out of me Delaney I yelled! Get out!” Tory praised my words.  “I hear you, Carolyn.  Good girl!”  A part of me wished for the labor to continue.  For more pain.  For more excuses to touch the feral part of me that was just so fucking angry! 

For as loud as that room was as I pushed her into this world, was as quiet as it became when she entered it.  Gingerly, she was placed on my belly.  Her back was to me.  I saw her lustrous black curly hair and sweet bottom.  I remember feeling awkward and saying out loud, “I don’t know what to do with her”. My teary doctor wrapped her in a blanket and placed her in my arms.  

There is no preening of a dead baby.  The amount of time spent without blood flow makes the skin vulnerable and peely. Like after a bad sunburn.  Vernix isn’t wiped away from the face.  No diaper is necessary.  It’s heartbreaking and surreal.  

If I am being really honest, I don’t remember this particular moment in time very well.  I am not sure I was even there.  In my body, I mean.  I was kind of floating above and seeing this heartbreaking scene as if from someone else’s vantage point. I saw Jason crumpled on the sofa.  Fragile, as if touch would disintegrate him.  I saw Tory at my bedside placing essential oils on Delaney’s forehead.  Calling her beautiful and me, uncertain as to whether I should feel pride or shame.

A photographer then joined us in our room.  A suggestion offered strongly by my heartbroken doula.  “You’ll need these photos to know that she was here, Carolyn.” The photographer looked at my Delaney and began to cry. She and Tory, complete strangers, embraced.  That moment, that image, has always stuck with me. It was so generous. So brave. To allow herself to crack wide open in front of us. 

Jason and I held Delaney for a long time.  Every few hours she’d be set down in a warming tray in order to slow the breakdown of her body.  The nurse would place her down without consideration of gentleness or of her mama’s broken heart as she watched.  I would think about this countless times over the years and wonder why I didn’t speak up for her or for me.  Why I didn’t think the dead deserved as much care as the living. All I can say is that at that time, I was confused as to what a dead baby who didn’t live in the conventional way deserved or what I deserved to ask of others handling her. Saying goodbye to a baby before you have even said hello is a surreal experience and one that leaves a lot of questions without answers.  

As our time with Delaney was drawing to a close, my closest girlfriends timidly entered our room. This gathering was very different from the night before.  Ali’s face was streaked with tears and Heather and Donna followed behind heartbroken.  Quietly, they gathered round the bed where Jason and I sat and passed Delaney between them. A red tent of sorts.  There was something so sacred about Delaney being seen, witnessed and validated for her short time here by these strong women.  By all of us. When I learned I was pregnant with a girl, there was an unspoken pact made between us that she would become a part of our tribe.  Our tribe now needed to unravel that pact and say goodbye, so we did and now it was Jason and my turn to do the same.

As the girls filed out my heart raced.  Jason was emotionally exhausted and I knew that the time had come to say goodbye and leave her behind.  (I still nod in disbelief when I think we had to leave her.)

I put on my green dress, the one I came in wearing only seven hours earlier, when Delaney was tucked safely inside me. Everything was different then. My belly was now flat and my breasts were dripping milk for a baby who wouldn’t be needing it. Discharge orders were signed, cremation paperwork filled out and she was placed in our arms one last time.  Jason and I sat on the bed and cried with her.  Inwardly imploring her to open her eyes but she just wouldn’t.  We told her we loved her and would be so sad without her.  I kissed her forehead and felt my lips stick to her cold skin. Jason and I looked at one another, his eyes rimmed in red and he said, I love you while nodding in disbelief.  

Delaney left before we did in the arms of our quiet, stoic nurse.  I watched her all the way down the hall.  Jason and I gave her a good head start for fear we might give chase.  We then slowly walked as instructed down the hall to the back exit of the maternity ward. That’s the door the families take who leave with empty arms.  

Out into the bright summer sun we went.  That day the world carried on just as it always had. It was just us that was different. Quieter. Inward. Grieving. Jason and I held hands the whole way home and climbed into bed with Alex.  It would be the three of us again.  Just the three of us.