By Lorraine Ash, M.A.
©Dave Bredeson | Dreamstime.com
After my daughter, Victoria Helen, was stillborn at full term, I received a strange message from many people, all carrying a theme: I was incomplete.
I wrote a memoir about surviving the stillbirth. I never thought I’d write a memoir, but, of all the genres, it was the most perfect and necessary for me to process the violence that had rocked my life.
The book, Life Touches Life: A Mother’s Story of Stillbirth and Healing, gained readers and touched hearts throughout the United States and in the Middle East, Australia, Europe, China, Canada, and Mexico. Later, I wrote a sequel, Self and Soul: On Creating a Meaningful Life, about how my life, years after the loss, blossomed. What wonderful communions I enjoyed with my readers.
But none of that stopped the insistent message that my life was fundamentally flawed.
One book reviewer told me my story was not one of courage, but of cowardice, because I didn’t get pregnant again.
“You stopped after failing,” she said.
“I couldn’t get pregnant after that,” I’d replied. “We tried, but it didn’t happen.” She remained immovable in her opinion.
Indeed my husband and I had made a decision that was right for us: we opted against fertility treatments. We’d just gone through hell and barely come back—literally, in my case. The Group B Strep that took my daughter’s life almost claimed mine. For a couple of weeks, I was touch and go. When I was suspended in the uncertain hell between life and death, we became very respectful of the powers of Mother Nature. We decided not to try forcing her to do our bidding.
Half an experience
Once, a well-meaning friend offered this thought: “You had half an experience—a pregnancy up to giving birth. Go and complete it. Adopt somebody else’s newborn baby.”
The piece de resistance, though, was the advice of a famed author who saw the Life Touches Life manuscript in its early stages.
“Stop writing this,” she said. “It’s not an appropriate topic.”
“Why ever not?” I asked, genuinely perplexed.
“Because stillbirth is something that didn’t happen,” she said. “Write about something that did.”
She’s the narrative expert, I thought, but apparently there are stories she doesn’t understand. Something happened, all right. Trust me.
Embracing life as it is
So now two things are true of me: I do not have progeny, and I do not live out my days insisting upon, or lamenting, a destiny that did not, for whatever reason, materialize. I know my genes will not live on. Instead, I embrace a different kind of legacy. I approach eternity not by looking to some faraway future, beyond the imagination, but by embracing the moment called Now as it resonates through my whole being—body, mind, and spirit.
My life is about helping others reach those places inside themselves, too, and encouraging them to tell the full truth of their stories as they are—not as they could have been. My message is that today is the only day any of us can affect and that today, no matter the circumstances, is full and complete.
As the great Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has said, “Life is available only in the present moment. If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply.”
Tomorrow will be full and complete, too—but different. I can trace the change while still acknowledging the completeness. Becoming whole is a spiritual process. No matter what happens on the outside, it’s an inside job.
Do you live fully in the story of your life, as it has unfolded? Or are there still gifts in your experiences, however painful, that you have not yet opened?
Lorraine has generously offered a complimentary copy of her new book Self and Soul: On Creating a Meaningful Life. If you’d like to win a copy, simply leave a comment and type #gift at the end. I’ll do a random drawing on Monday, September 8th.
Lorraine Ash, M.A., is a New Jersey author, award-winning journalist, essayist, book editor, and writing teacher. Self and Soul: On Creating a Meaningful Life, her second book, is available in a variety of formats and online stores, all presented here. Reach Lorraine at www.LorraineAsh.com, www.facebook.com/LorraineAshAuthor , or @LorraineVAsh.
What a touching story – I cannot imagine having people write those things to me. It would be devastating, especially the editor, how unprofessional. If you were telling one of those magical success stories where you end up with a child at the end I am sure that including the part where you survived the still birth and Strep B would have been just part of the drama of the story. How many Memoires about infertility that have the “magical happy ending” include at least one tragedy either still birth or miscarriage. Would love to read the book. If I don’t win, I will request my library purchase them. #gift
Once I am done with book I will donate it to library as well. its important that these books are available in libraries. Until I requested a small list of them they had non about accepting Childlessness Not by Choice.
Charity, You make a very fine point. In another journey, where the mother ultimately has a child, the stillbirth can be viewed as an obstacle in the overall story, at least to a person without firsthand experience of any of this. Sometimes there is no “magic” and, in a different way, life is still fine, and that’s a very important thing to articulate out loud. Thanks so much about the library donation. You’re a love to do that.
Lorraine, your post literally made me gasp. While I continue to be amazed at the (possibly unintentionally) cruel things people say, I am most of all in awe of your courage in facing (I can’t quite say “overcoming”) your loss and sharing your very real story. Thank you for being a voice for women who have gone through similar stories. Best wishes to you as you send your books out into the world and move forward on your personal journey.
Kathleen, Thanks so much. I learned something key from this experience ~ that a trauma, loss, or challenge is at first so enormous that it seems to contain us. We feel we are inside the trauma. The challenge seems to be facing and processing it ~ growing, if you will ~ until somehow we grow larger than the trauma and it is inside us, making us more compassionate and wise as human beings. For me, the sharing is part of the processing. Happily, the writing has had the effect of facilitating the shift in readers, which, I must tell you, is among the best feelings in the world.
What a powerful story you have. Thank you, Lorraine, for your very brave, inspiring, and wise post.
Andrea, Thank you for taking the time to read and post in response.
It seems so basic – no particular experience, including motherhood, is essential for or a guarantee of wholeness. Thank you for your wisdom and light. #gift
Kathy, You’re right! Someone once wisely said you don’t get to the simple until you’ve gone through the complex.
You rock!
Maria, Thanks!
Lorraine, I read “Life Touches Life” after it was first published & we exchanged a few emails at the time. Back then, I knew very few people who had decided to remain childless after stillbirth, and just knowing you were out there was an enormous comfort to me. I did not know you had written a sequel, but I would love to read it! (And if I’m not the winner, I will be looking to purchase it online.) #gift
Loribeth, I remember you because the feeling was/is mutual! Please write to me at [email protected] and let me know how you’re doing.
Will do, Lorraine. 🙂 I am tickled that you remember!
I forgot to add #gift to my comment. Thanks.
dear Lorraine,
I will lit a little candle for Victoria Helen tonight.
I can’t believe how many cruel and stupid comments did you hear.
I often wonder how people don’t get it that if they don’t have anything kind to say, it is million times better that they just keep their mouth shut.
I love your attitude of Embracing life as it is.
Wishing you all the best for the future!
kind regards from Europe.
#gift
Klara, You will light a candle. What a gracious, wonderful thing to do. Thank you very much.
Those comments you received made me cringe. I know so many women who are bad mothers but feel superior because they gave birth and they are the people who say these kinds of stupid things. My sister’s first child (and only daughter) was born stillborn at 8 months and I saw and felt the incredibly deep pain she went through at that time. Everyone expected her to keep trying and after waiting a year, everyone thought she should be over it (as did she) and she got pregnant again. She wasn’t ready and I think the fear and trauma she went through made it very difficult for her to embrace being a mother. That child is now 21 and they have a very bad relationship much of which I think relates back to her inability to fully love him out of fear. You did what was right for yourself and I wish my sister had too because, 22 years later, she is still suffering and I think it’s because she has never truly allowed herself to accept she was entitled to grieve that first loss.
Maria, Wise words indeed. “Everyone” exerts a lot of pressure on a woman in these circumstances because they desperately, and often rather innocently, want the “magic” that Charity talks about and because, frankly, if the woman had another baby “everyone” would feel better. But years go by and it is the woman who must live with the outer and inner realities of her life. And those years, which drip by day by day, are lived alone. In those years, “everyone,” and their advice, have faded away.
Thanks for the post – Loved the insight at the end about living in the present – Today!
Megan, Thank you!
Thank you for sharing! After 10 years of trying and many tests and treatments we are to the point of healing what is not to be. To hear everyone’s stories is so helpful and eye opening to hear how many suffer in silence. How to do help your family and friends understand something they have no comprehension about. Someone wrote about the monthly trauma those with infertility deal with. I had someone try to relate their story to me of have a miscarriage and I felt like saying well 10 years times 12 times a year…talk to me after 120 miscarriages. Thank you so much for being brave and sharing your personal lives.
Christine, Thank you for sharing. As to courage, it’s taken a lot of bravery to live your story. My goodness! We don’t know why things are the way they are, but peace is accepting them and working with what is. It sound like you have arrived in the land of peace after A LOT of trying. Once there, in that land, life will unfold in wondrous words you have not anticipated.
Oh forgot #gift
Lisa, Thanks so much for hosting Self and Soul on your fantastic blog. Your readers are my tribe. 🙂
Lorraine,
It was a pleasure and an honor to have you as a guest blogger. Thank you for having the courage to share your story.
~Lisa
What a touching post, Lorraine. My wife and I went through a decade of infertility, trying IVF, adoption and all manner of other things, with no result at the end. Like you, our story was ‘birthed’ into a book that has (surprisingly to us) brought hope to many (http://sheridanvoysey.com/resurrectionyear). A wise monk said to me ‘The lack of a birth in your life is birthing life in others’. The same for you, perhaps?
I bristled when I read the comments you’ve received on not being complete without a child. And advice to ‘adopt someone else’s newborn child’ are quite ignorant of both the adoption process and its emotional costs after something like long term infertility or a stillbirth.
God bless you as you walk forward.
Sheridan,
I’m so glad to know about you and your book! A blog tour is terrific for making connections like this. I reached out to you on Facebook and Twitter and will get your book.
God bless you and your wife, too. We are all certainly kindred spirits.
Warmly,
Lorraine
Thanks everyone for your wonderful supportive comments and congratulations to Klara! A copy of Lorraine’s book will be heading your way!
I am looking forward to the book.
Thank you, Lorraine and Lisa.