#159 Not good on Mother’s Day

a post for bereaved mothers

****** Trigger warning: this post deals with the topic of child loss and grief, which might be triggering for those who have recently suffered from loss. Please skip this post if you think this will be too upsetting for you.******

Hello friend,

I’ve been debating whether to write and share today's post. It’s difficult to talk about big subjects like losing a child, let alone share your personal experiences on the subject without alarming family, friends and confronting readers.

I consider this a safe place to share my writing and my experiences. After all, A load off my mind is also about my mental health, and this month, like every month of May, these issues are always be on my mind. I hope my reflections will not only make me feel better at this time of commemoration but also shed some light on the nature of grief and loss.

Please do not be concerned about me or my mental health; I am doing as well as possible. I am negotiating my way through a difficult time as best I can. My only aim in sharing my thoughts here is to share my story with you. We all go through grief in one form or another, so why not talk about it.

We live in a society in which people are uncomfortable with grief, they avoid it or simply do not know what to say. But there is nothing wrong with talking about the person or people you have lost, it’s ok to mention their names, ask questions and talk about them. Actually most of the time this is exactly what a bereaved person wants to do. After the tears dry up grief changes form and you simply crave to be acknowledged, to talk about what you miss and remember the joy.

My story starts with the fact that I’m not good with Mother’s Day. I don’t think anyone else who has ever lost a child can be a hundred percent comfortable with celebrating motherhood when they will always be missing their child. There is a memory of their profound intergenerational loss that never lets go. It’s an ache that never leaves you sometimes; it’s only a dull throbbing you can almost put up with, and you seem to get on with life for a while.

On other days, grief is so powerful that it squeezes your inner organs and makes the tears well up, whether you want or not. You must stop, acknowledge it, and let it flow out. I thought I could open and close the tap, but the pipes would burst if the water pressure built up. Who knew grief could be described so aptly with a plumbing metaphor?

Emotions always tend to snuck up in one form or another. Sometimes, tears will well up randomly into my eyes with an innocent thought or realisation. Something that reminds you like their birthday, another pregnant woman or a child around about the same age. It makes you remember and wonder about your lost child.

This year, it will be 18 years since I lost my firstborn little girl, Estella Carmela Desiree. She was stillborn.

Estella got all tangled up with her umbilical cord. The doctor who performed my cesarean and untangled her said her long cord was wrapped three times around her neck, and as she turned around into the birthing position, her foot pulled at it, and she suffocated. It was a freak accident, like a child playing, hitting its head, and suddenly passing away.

There is no rhyme or reason for why cords tangle in this way. I must have read hundreds of medical journal articles trying to understand. Umbilical cord tangles happen in one out of every hundered pregnancies but don't necessarily end in death.

Umbilical cord accidents represent ten percent of stillbirths. These kinds of things happen in every other type of mammal species, but no one knows why.

Some research suggests that short umbilical cords are linked to mental retardation. In general, umbilical cords have been getting longer with each generation, but no one knows what this means or entails for the fetus.

I still can’t believe such a thing can happen in the womb. You’d think the womb is the safest place to be. I didn’t feel anything, and it would have been impossible to know. Even the doctor said to save a child, you’d have to be lucky enough to be monitoring him at the precise moment he is in distress, and even then, there would be no guarantee that you’d be able to save them in time.

Nobody really talks about the fact that so many different things can go wrong in pregnancy, you just assume it will all go well, that you will take home your baby. But really it isn’t one hundred percent guaranteed. Having a child isn’t easy. It’s a blessing when everything does go well, because so very much can happen. That’s the nature of giving birth.

I lost Estella at thirty-eight weeks, towards the end of my pregnancy, when everyone knew and was preparing for her arrival. I was expecting to hold her in my arms.

Instead, I woke up with a terrible sense of emptiness and longing that had never left me. I remember the pain of the operation, the nurse who made me stand up, the blood that ran down my leg, staining my slippers, and the sense that the whole pregnancy and suffering had been for nothing.

The ripple effect of Estella’s loss was felt collectively through my friends and family. They were all as heartbroken as I was. But you try to be brave. You get up in the morning and try to function despite missing a part of yourself. I felt as if I’d lost my faith, my hope, a piece of my identity or soul. I felt so lost for the longest time.

Even today, there is nothing worse for your self-worth than losing a child. My life has never been the same. I’ve been just drifting along after such a deep wound. I know many people have suffered more than me, people who have lost everything and still keep living. Yet I feel like I have become a ghost of myself despite my best efforts.

I often feel left out of joyful conversations and interactions about child birth and rearing a new born. Usually because those who know about my loss, will pretend it never happened, or think I automatically don’t want to talk about it.

Sometimes, I want to talk about my first born, but then think no one really wants to hear about a dead baby. It’s a strange situation to be in, I’m dying to talk about her but then I don’t want to bring anyone down.

One time I got a phone call from a friend a few months after it had happened and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. We had been out of touch for about a year and so he didn’t know I had been pregnant. He heard the tone of my voice and took it as a lack of enthusiasm on my part. I immediately regretted not explaining. There is always this ackwardness around bringing up what is considered a taboo subject. But I want to change this.

If grief has ever taught me anything, it is that it comes from love. The more deeply you love the thing or person you grieve, the more heartfelt your grief will be. Even though losing Estella felt like dying, I am comforted that my grief comes from a love I’d never experienced before.

I have this theory about love: You cannot control it. You have to let it out of you, or else you’re going to burst a blood vessel. Love cannot be contained; it’s bigger than we are. That’s why people are said to be glowing when they fall in love. People do stupid things when in love because they don’t know how to express their feelings; it’s often overwhelming.

My love for Estella never leaves me, whether you believe the soul stays near. I prefer to say she’s still in my mind, in my thoughts, and she is always manifesting herself in my life in one way or another.

Estella's birth/death date is on the fourteenth of May, so I know I’ll be emotional this week. So, I will try to say a prayer, light a candle, visit her grave at the cemetery, and generally do something to commemorate her.

The fact that the year my daughter was born (2007), the date of her birth coincided with Mother’s Day is etched into my subconscious.

One year, for Mother’s Day, I woke up at five am after the strangest dream. I dreamt that my house had been robbed.

Then, the realisation hit me. During the week, I’d been following the story of Denise Pipitone, who had disappeared at Mazara del Vallo in the province of Trapani nearly 20 years ago. I sympathised with her mother, Piera Maggio, who still believes her daughter is alive. The press revisited the case after a Russian girl with an uncanny resemblance to Denise was found. However, a DNA test confirmed she wasn’t Denise. I remember thinking that’s how I felt, as if my daughter had been stolen from me. An irrational part of me is still waiting, longing for her presence in my life. So the dream wasn’t about my house being robbed; it was about those emotions, the sensation that I’d been robbed of my daughter.

Then the tears came welling up. I hadn’t cried for Estella for a while, so I must have needed to express my love for her once again. So, I let them flow. It is so unfair to be denied your child, but there is nothing much you can do when something like this happens.

The best thing is always to remember them, say their name, include them in conversations, in everyday family life, and talk about them with your friends. If you have pictures, keep them close; visit them if you have a gravesite.

I have a little shrine with photos of my grandparents and Dad. A small glass vase of crystal flowers represents Estella. I always speak with Estella; everything I write expresses my love for her.

The therapist I saw after her loss said that I’d be fine because my writing would help me, and it does. One day, I hope to write a novella about the beautiful and dreadful things I learned from her loss. But as you can tell from this article, Estella’s story takes me into very dark places I don’t think people would be interested in hearing about. But who knows, perhaps I might write it one day if I can make or find a story out of my grief.

Mother’s Day is difficult because I lost Estella, but it is also tricky because of her little brother Matthias, who was born two years later. Now, I have to be his mother. I must be brave for him; he cannot see me crying. I need to be present for him. We do speak of Estella, and he loves her very much. But he, too, is very much aware of her absence in our lives, and it is a void to fill.

It’s difficult for me to see so many expecting mothers on social media showing off their pregnant bellies. Don’t get me wrong, I love babies, and I’m always happy for other women having babies. But the sharing of intimate photos brings back so many memories of my trauma. It is triggering.

I wish people would be more sensitive to others’ losses. One in four people has lost a child, whether it be through miscarriage, abortion, stillbirth, SIDS, illness, or other terrible incidents that steal children from their mothers, fathers, and family.

When my son was born, I kept him to myself. I shared his photos only with friends and family because I didn’t want to trigger other people’s grief. I’ve rarely shared anything personal about Matthias; even now that he is 15, I still don’t put him on public display.

I’d say to anyone on social media that your child is beautiful, unique, and loved, but this public forum is not the place to share. You can share little proud moments and snippets, but this isn’t what social media is about. It’s more about advertising, selling products and networking, not sharing personal things. I’d also debate if social media is nowhere to share opinions, but that’s another topic.

There’s no harm in wishing everyone a happy Mother’s Day, celebrating your mother, or sharing a newborn photo. It’s just about being aware of other people’s struggles—those who feel sadness when remembering their pregnancies and those who struggle in their motherhood journeys.

Celebrities will always push their brand or sell their photos for more followers or influence. Honestly, there is no need to publish your entire maternity photoshoot; you aren’t famous.

So please be gentle to mothers who are suffering, those crying into their pillows in the early morning of Mother’s Day or their angel child’s Birthday.

Please be kind and empathetic to others.

And for anyone suffering from this same loss, I hope you had a gentle Mother’s Day.

I know, see and acknowledge your pain and am embracing you with these words.

I hope your grief is not too great for you and that the love from your little angel or angels finds a place of healing in your heart.

I invite you to say a little prayer for your baby, write them a letter, say their name every day, light a candle in their memory and keep them always close to your hearts.

If you are experiencing this kind of loss, put a heart in the comments so I can send you my sympathies and love.

Just one birthday

(a letter for Estella Carmela for her 18th Birthday)

This year is a hard one for me, baby,

18 candles on your birthday cake.

Where has the time gone?

My baby doll is all grown up.

You’re an adult now.

Your girlfriends and classmates are all dolled up in cute little black dresses and ball gowns.

With their bright red lipstick and too much makeup I wonder if you could ever be like them or even be friends with these girls who would have been your classmates.

I think you'd see something more to life than boyfriends, cocktails and nightclubs.

I wish I had all those 18 birthdays instead of 18 All Souls days.

No one should attend to their child’s grave.

But that’s all we got, baby.

At the cemetery, birthday candles are not to be blown out; only light globes and flowers are allowed.

I never got to take you home.

The little dress I bought to bring you home is what they put you in when you went into your coffin.

I got plenty of tears and heartbreak, but not even one birthday.

What I wouldn’t give for just one birthday.

We danced to your favourite music. Have some laughs and talk all night. Make big plans. I’d make your favourite food, go out for ice cream, and blow out those candles together. I'd give you all my laughter, tears, happiness, and sadness.

I'd give you my life, and you'd give me yours. And together, we'd always be mother and daughter. Yes, we are together even now, but I'd also like to have a little bit of life with you. A few memories to keep with me, like a memory box, instead of empty what ifs and maybes.

Ever since you went away, I have never even liked my Birthday. Why must I celebrate without you? But I celebrate you every year. We have our remembrance of love. After all, everything you knew was the comfort of love, safety, and my expressions of happiness that you were in the world.

Another year of sad, cold, hard marble and religious services that are a poor substitute for the warmth of those moments of love I miss.

Sometimes, I think I died with you. My boundless hope, good faith, and belief in happy endings all went away with you. I am slowly regaining some hope, faith and happiness, but they are still battered around and tattered by the trauma,

It took me a long time to want to listen to a specific type of music and realise that a thing of beauty could be here with me, yet you are not.

No matter where I go or what I do, I still think you should be here.

You should be celebrating your 18th birthday like all the others of the same age. I will never accept that you missed out on this life. I hope and pray that wherever you are, you are growing older in my love and in the arms of your ancestors, who love you as much as I do.

I miss you every day and a little more for every moment without you. And more so every day, as I imagine you growing with every passing year.

And the love grows bigger when I think I can’t miss you anymore. As deep as my grief digs itself deeper, the love is there to fill it. I hope you see how much love I’m saving for you. I’m sending it out to you like a bonfire at night, and I pray you see it from where you are.

That’s all I have on my mind for now.

Thanks for reading along.

Stay well, and be kind to everyone, including yourself.

Speak again soon.

Rochelle

Sometimes, I talk about Sicily.

Other times, I talk about whatever is on my mind.

My writing is always about lightning, the mental load, and sharing my thoughts.

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