My Body was a Graveyard

This is the reality of pregnancy loss. Whether it happens at 6 weeks, 12 weeks, 20 weeks, or 36 weeks, your body turns into a grave yard, once your baby dies. For me, my body was the one place that I was supposed to keep Tacoma safe. The one place that I thought nothing could hurt him. You hear people say all of the time “I’m not ready for my baby to come out. They’re safe in here.” Pregnancy loss takes that innocence from you. At least for me it did. Truly if I could watch my baby grow outside of my body in a little incubator, I might choose to do that some days.

The thought that my body is a safe place for my children to grow is an ongoing constant battle I have had to fight since the moment I heard the words “there is no heartbeat.” I went from believing that my body was amazing, strong, capable, and able to immediately believing I had failed, my body was not strong and that I was not capable of providing for my family. My body had gone from a safe, nourishing, beautiful place of growth to a graveyard.

When Tacoma died, I had no idea. He was my first pregnancy and I had no idea was “normal”. There were many things I had brought up to my doctor throughout appointments but each and every time I was assured that it was all normal, and every ultrasound provided that reassurance… until it didn’t. Let me be clear here, though. I do not blame my health care provider. I do not think that she did not advocate for me and I do not think she dismissed any of my concerns. In fact, I believe the exact opposite. When I say that I had no idea Tacoma had died, I mean, I still felt movement. I still felt pregnant. I had anxiety and concerns all throughout my pregnancy with him, reading into each little thing, each time to be reassured with a positive ultrasound or appointment.

At 27 weeks and 6 days we went in for an ultrasound and appointment. At that appointment we watched our boy move, have the hiccups, and pass a biophysical profile ultrasound with an 8/8. However, our doctor did come into our appointment and voice a little concern with fluid that looked lower than normal but within range, and measurements overall of him being about 2 weeks behind. Again, nothing too concerning, as he had just gotten an 8/8 on a test that is medically proven to be good for up to a week. She went ahead and referred us to maternal fetal medicine for a second opinion and then we were scheduled to start seeing her every two weeks. we left the appointment nervous but optimistic.

Six days later we showed up at the maternal fetal medicine office and began the scan, within moments our life changed drastically. The words “there is no heartbeat” came out and immediately the world stopped. In that moment I realized two things 1. My body had failed and was now a graveyard and 2. I was going to have to birth my dead baby. From the ultrasound room we moved into a dreaded telehealth room. Our maternal fetal office is small and their main office is based out of Overland Park, when the doctor came on the telehealth screen the first words I heard were “well when did she stop feeling movement?” Those words are the worst words that still haunt me to this day. Those words, while meant to be helpful, reinforced the belief that I had failed and my body was graveyard because he then proceeded to tell me that my baby had been dead for 48-72 prior to the scan. Immediately I started to wonder, rack my brain and try to remember the last time I had felt movement. However, my reality was that I had just turned around and told my wife while walking into the ultrasound room “ope, look there’s their head or butt” and pointed to a spot on my belly button that had begun to harden and form into a ball. What I didn’t know at that time was that what I had been mistaking as movement and a cute baby butt or head, was actually contractions.

My son had been dead for days and my body was in labor and I had no idea. My contractions weren’t painful, I had felt them for a few days and there were no other labor signs.

These memories are hard. They are haunting, scary, and now as I’m pregnant with our daughter, I find that sometimes the movement can be triggering. My body was a graveyard. My body housed my dead son for days. I had no idea, but I am also not in the wrong for that. I did not fail my son.

My son died and there was nothing that I could have done to stop that. Unfortunately though, his death occurred in my body and that creates a whole new layer of things to have to work through.

Pregnancy loss is not just a loss- it is a death. It’s a death that occurs inside of another human that adds a multitude of layers of trauma to persons life. It’s a death that is not always classified or seen as a death because the life was growing inside of someone else. A life that was never lived outside the body of their mother.

Pregnancy loss though, is the loss of a life and so many other things.

Learning to appreciate, be proud of, love, and trust my body after Tacoma died has been and always will be a journey. One that is full of highs and lows, one that has good days and bad days.

My body was a graveyard but my body was also a vessel to bring life into this world.