I’ve waited a few months to write about our loss. Just when I think I’ve felt everything there is to feel, I know more is to come. I never thought we would lose a child, our son. I never thought I would have to say that in my lifetime. The loss of a future we were so eager for and you can’t come back from. Sometimes I’m still in disbelief this is our reality. It’s a weight you hold on to forever and never goes away. You’re just living with it. A longing ache.
Writing has been an outlet for me that allows feelings to come out guilt free. I’m never second guessing what I’m saying to avoid hurting someones feelings. It just spills out of me with no regret. I’ve learned that the loss of our child stirs new feelings in me everyday. Like when you think the bitter, gray, snowy days are over, because you’ve had a few sunny warm ones. It hits you like a ton of bricks out of nowhere and next thing you know, you find yourself sobbing in the front row of church. The pastor is talking about baby dedications and how amazing it is to see so many new babies and pregnancies and how “There must be something in the water!” When all you’ve longed for is to be pregnant from the moment you left the hospital empty handed. I could have walked up to the microphone and screamed at the top of my lungs, breathing fire. Writing this is not only therapeutic for me, but a hope for when someone experiences this pain and google searches out of desperation for some kind of answer and comfort for feeling the way they feel. I hope they end up here and maybe find a little bit of peace in their feelings. I know reaching out isn’t easy and opening the wound isn’t either.
OUR STORY
My husband will tell you that I have a tendency to look too much into things. Admittedly, I’m a hypochondriac and oh so grateful for his patience, but Otto was the exception. We moved into a new house. Pretty quickly, I might add. We had a terrible landlord and were eager to get out. At the beginning of December, we moved into our friends home. It was familiar, bigger, each kid would have a room for themselves and we were eagerly waiting for his arrival. I already knew Otto was going to be a wild child. We hoped for it. Prayed for it. I always heard stories of Ryan as a kid, climbing the doorframes and always having to be ‘adventure ready’. I wanted that for us. We thought he would be a boy that didn’t fuss much, because they always say your second is different from your first. We thought he would be a wild little boy that loved his momma so much, because that’s what little boys do. We pictured lots of walks with coffee and a stroller, many hikes in the carrier and an immeasurable amount of kisses and snuggles from all of us. I turned down weddings, sessions, new business ideas, intentionally making time to be with him and our family. I’ll tell you what, Hadley prayed every night for a little brother. She got him.
In the midst of moving, he stopped kicking. My paranoid self tried self-soothing. I thought I was tired, so he must be tired. The next day I tried resting, poking at him, drinking juice, ate something sugary. An OB always says that sometimes you just get too busy and don’t notice them moving, but I knew it was time to go to the hospital. I just felt like something was off.
I’ll never forget when Danica came to our home to watch Hadley and I started sobbing. She placed her hands on my belly and she just prayed over him in the middle of the living room. Our house in a little disarray, but glowing with Christmas lights, ready for the holidays. I’ll never look at December the same.
When we got to the hospital, they hooked me up, trying to find his heartbeat. She tried asking a lot of questions to distract me, playing dumb like maybe it was her fault she couldn’t find the heartbeat. I knew when I saw her hand shaking as she was trying to call the OB, that we were in for a long night. I think I was still in disbelief when she told me my instincts were right. That we lost him and we looked at the screen with no usual moving limbs or flickering heartbeat. There’s something that sends a tornado of anger and resentment in me when someone talks about their baby kicking or moving around inside of them, not letting them sleep at night. Like “Oh! Your baby is so full of life inside of you that you can’t sneeze without peeing? Good for you”. But you say it in a really snotty way and your eyes metaphorically roll so hard they go to the back of your head. Not because I wish ill will on anyone or their children, but we’re salty, bitter and every flavor profile in-between. It feels personal. Why would someone even say that knowing that your baby literally stopped moving in your womb. But I smile and nod, trying to put my feelings aside, because you genuinely do want to be happy. You’re just a mess on the inside. I don’t know if fake it til you make it applies in this particular scenario, but I’m going with it.
They brought us to a room where I was induced. We cried, waiting, knowing that in the next 24 hours, we would have a mostly bitter and sweet arrival of our son. We got up around 5am, went through another box of tissues, had coffee and watched this beautiful vivid sunrise. We haven’t looked at sunrise the same since. I remember our eyes being so raw, we said we couldn’t cry anymore. We weren’t ready for the reality. I wasn’t ready to hold our son knowing that he wouldn’t be crying and seeing the world for the first time. You see, there’s this last bit of hope in thinking they will come back to life. That you’ll push, hear cries and the doctors realize they had it all wrong. Like a cruel joke… but that didn’t happen.
On December 5, 2021 at 4:36 PM, we brought Otto into the world. I wish he could have seen us. Ryan says he remembers my cry, but all I can remember was saying “He’s perfect! He’s Hadley’s twin”. I don’t know why I expected anything less. I didn’t think I could even hold him. My heart felt too much. Even to this day, I think my mind has blocked out some moments of his birth. They wrapped him up and put him my arms and I barely remember it. But I remember the look on Ryan’s face as he held Otto. There was only love and protection. Oh so much love. I think the nursing staff at Memorial North are literal angels. They took photos when our hearts couldn’t bare it. They cared for him just like a living newborn baby with “awww”s as they measured him. My God he was perfect.
I remember wanting to leave the hospital so badly. To get home to our daughter, his sister. The hospital felt like one big terrible dream. From the ultrasound, induction, birth, death arrangements and leaving empty handed. I remember my belly looking round for so long and thinking that I couldn’t wait to see him again. Like it was all made up and the next time would be sweeter.
Telling Hadley the next morning was the hardest. It felt like we were literally taking a knife to her heart. She noticed my stomach looked different and when we told her Otto went to heaven, she cried. The hospital gave her a stuffed bear with Otto’s name around the neck and stuffed inside was a paper with his hand and footprints on it. She so badly wanted to take it to school and show her class. She still tells people that she has a baby brother 5 months later. He sits on our shelf with a photo and some crafts that Hadley made for him. Sometimes he sits and has meals with us. He’s in our family albums, proudly. He’s a Parr and we’ll always imagine our life with him. For now, all of his clothes get put away. His stroller gets put downstairs and we wait for the day to possibly use it, but they’ll always be his.
WHAT IT’S TAUGHT US
When you lose a child, a lot of people show up for you. At least I hope they do. They don’t know what to say or how to say it. They want to love on you and listen to you. My advice, let them. Let them bring you food, gift cards, raise money, childcare, a bottle of whiskey. You may have a hard time accepting it, but you need those people. Those people you have a deep love for and they show up at your doorstep the day after you get home from the hospital and just sit at your dining room table with you and a box of tissues. Those are the ones. The ones that pray over you and take care of your family, because you are family. Other times it feels hard when people show up wanting you to open that wound over and over. Like they brought you a pie and want you to spill your guts. Like pouring salt in your eyes when they’re already raw.
We’ve learned that having a child can shake your marriage, but losing one will rock it to it’s core. No matter how strong and beautiful and supportive your love is. Keep going. You start to grieve differently and don’t understand. Sometimes you cry together and other times you take turns being that rock for the other.
In our loss, I’ve learned a few things. I say OUR, because men deserve support after the loss of a child too and its often overlooked. That grief leaves you feeling every feeling imaginable on speed. Like rewinding a tape and fast forwarding it again. I’ve also learned to say something. Say something rather than nothing. I remember feeling angry that some family didn’t say anything. Was it that they didn’t care? Or was it that they were so uncomfortable with their own feelings that they didn’t know what to say or how to say it? You can’t take it personally. There were times where someone else’s loss hit me and I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t. Say something. Anything. No matter how repetitive it sounds. I remember wanting people to ask about him. What he looked like. Who they thought he looked like. Did he have my nose? Ryan’s hair? Hadley’s lips? All of these are correct.
We also learned of other families pain after experiencing their own. I connected with families that experienced stillbirth. I learned every feeling I had was normal. We lost Otto at 35 weeks. I talked to women that lost theirs at 36 weeks, 40 weeks and going to the hospital to give birth. A child that passed one week after birth. A husband and wife that experienced two stillbirths in a row. Not comforting, I know. Just when I thought I couldn’t hurt anymore, I heard of pain I couldn’t even fathom. We found out the day Otto was born, that he had passed from a cord accident. Not that it made the loss any easier, but we found comfort in knowing the cause of his death without any further testing. We’ve heard from so many families that still don’t have closure from their loss. I remember the week we lost Otto, we went to get Subway for dinner and Hadley slipped, fell and hit her head. Nothing that would typically send me into a panic, but my mind said “Oh no, God! She can’t have anything happen to her. She’s the only one I have left”. It stuck with me all day. Life feels so much more fragile now.
I’ve learned that it leaves families longing to fill those clothes they’ve already bought and those arms they so badly wanted to fill. While it leaves other families so broken and afraid to try again with the unknown. A blissful ignorance and innocence taken from them. For our family, we thought Otto would be the last. It took losing him to realize that we want as many kids as we can. That we have so much love to give. Your family will never be the same. It will never feel complete and while we hated that someone would wish us peace, we’re finding our own version.
Otto Maine Parr, you are so sooooooo loved.
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