Loving Silas: Birth Part 2~ Joy & Sorrow

Today has officially been 4 weeks to the day that Silas came and left. It was important to me to add this part of his birth story today.

I remember watching the ultrasound like it was yesterday. In fact, this entire pregnancy and every moment that I had with Silas still feels like it happened yesterday. They are moments in time that have been exquisitely carved into my heart. They are now a deep part of me that I will never lose or let go of. I remember how calm and at peace I felt as we were waiting for the ultrasound machine to warm up. I wasn't afraid because I could still feel Silas squirming and occasionally pushing himself up into my ribs. He was alive and for now, he was safe. The sonographer took her time and carefully looked at Silas, and so did I. As I watched, I inwardly prayed that this wouldn't be the last time I would see him alive. She took several pictures of his numerous medical issues. We were finally going to see what he would look like in person and that brought excitement along with anxiety. I never knew that it was possible to experience such joy and sorrow simultaneously. There is an eagerness that comes with knowing you will soon meet your child, and with that eagerness joyfulness follows. Hand in hand, joy and excitement skip through your heart and together they ignite a mother's love even more than what was already there. Lingering closely behind them is a dark, heavy sorrow just lurking and waiting for the opportune time to attack and smother all the excitement and light out of joy. Joy knows it is there, stalking her and wanting to smother her, but she doesn't care. She knows her time will be over soon... She accepts it. She doesn't know that sorrow is quickly leading the way for desolation to take over.

When the ultrasound was over the doctor told us all we had to do now was wait. So, we did just that. I made a decision early on that I would opt out of having any fetal monitoring. If I had to listen to his poor little heart rate drop or even stop during labor, well, I'm not sure I would have been able to live through that. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I made because I became so focused on Silas and his movements that I didn't need a monitor to tell me how he was doing. Everything around me slowly disappeared and it was just him and I trying to live through this difficult moment, together as one. As long as I could feel him, we were okay.

Again, we found ourselves surrounded by our loved ones and we sat around and waited. I wish I remembered more about this time, but I was in a fog. I was just focusing on my precious boy and his movements. Somewhere in the midst of the conversation around me, my water broke. That was the cue for everyone to leave the room. Karl scurried out behind them to grab the nurse and when they walked back in, I was slightly panicking. Mostly I was just in shock at the amount of fluid there was. It was significantly more than I had anticipated and I could finally understand why my body couldn't handle it. I understood why my body had let me down. Immediately after the nurse came in, my doctor followed. I wasn't ready to push yet so he sat next to me on the small couch and just waited with us and didn't leave my side. Everyone around me was quiet and patient. Our room was filled with a calmness that you wouldn't expect in a situation like ours, yet there it was. The lights where kept fairly dim and the room was relatively quiet, only occupied by a handful of people. I looked over at my doctor and calmly told him that I was ready. He came around my bed and sat on the edge next to me and our nurse came to my other side. I remember watching Karl start to pace a little bit and his nerves seemed to be getting the best of him. He quickly ended up at my side to hold my hand, and there we all were focused on Silas, and only Silas.

I still felt Silas moving right before I started pushing. It was the last bit of encouragement I needed to get through this. I took a few deep breathes before my next contraction hit. As I started to push, my doctor was encouraging and guiding me, but eventually I had stopped listening. I couldn't feel Silas anymore. Just like that... from one moment in time to the next, I couldn't feel him. Again, I found myself inwardly begging and pleading to God... Please don't let this be it. Please God. Please let Silas be okay. I need my baby, my son, to be okay. This was the sorrow trying to stifle out my joy. Before I could beg or plead one last time Silas was born into this world. Not kicking and screaming like the other babies at the hospital that day, but silent, still, and peaceful. It took the doctor a second to figure out how to cut his very unique umbilical cord and then he gently placed Silas in my arms. He respectfully pointed out a few of the issues that had been visible on the ultrasound and he laid his hand over Silas's chest to check his heartbeat. While this was happening, everything around me faded away and all I could do in that moment was focus on Silas.

Breathe, baby breathe, please baby breathe... Please just one breath, Mommy loves you and needs you to breathe! PLEASE...

There I was, holding this beautiful human being, and the rest of the world ceased to exist. There I was, inwardly begging again. There he was, more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. There he was, in my arms without ever taking a single breath. There was sorrow, running hand in hand with desolation through my heart. There was death, making itself ever so present. There was nothing I could do and yet so much I wanted to do. I would have given my last breath to see Silas take his first. I wanted to save him from death, but there was not a single thing I could have done to help him escape it. Despite the overwhelming sorrow, joy still remained. Joy stayed because I knew I was blessed to be his mother and I mothered him the best I could in the small time I was given. Joy stayed in my heart because in the end we got what we wanted... Silas never suffered, he never knew pain, and all he ever knew was love. Love will never fail us; it always prevails. That love is what allowed joy to remain in my heart.

After the nurse took his measurements and footprints, she offered to clean him up. I politely declined and told her that I wanted to do it myself. I would never have another chance to bathe my child so I needed to do this. Together Karl and I bathed him, slowly and methodically. It was beautiful. We dressed him and swaddled him in a special blanket. The nurse offered a tiny knit preemie hat to put on him, but again I politely declined. I had made a tiny gray hat for him and it fit perfectly. We took turns holding Silas and loving him before inviting our family back in the room.

My eyes were fixated on him and only him. I tried to absorb every possible detail about his physical appearance that I could because I knew I would never see him again once this day was gone. Silas looked so much like his big brother did when he was born; he had a button nose and full head of hair. I kept caressing his cheeks. His skin was warm and soft and I kissed him ever so gently. I kept telling him that I loved him. I never wanted to let him go. The world may have thought he was imperfect, and I heard a lot about the things wrong with him while I carried him, but no one ever told me how beautiful he was going to be. To me, he was perfect. No one told me that his birth would turn out to be the most beautiful birth I could have imagined. No one told me he was going to change my life forever. No one told me that there could be immense beauty in moments such as these.