An idea of a mother’s love

Growing up my mother said a phrase which translated means: May not even a tepid gust of wind touch you. It’s a mother’s prayer that nothing bad or harmful ever hurt her child. It’s a prayer she said several times a day.

When my stomach contracted painfully, the thought beyond my own pain was Is my baby hurting? Is he scared? Is he struggling? I know that there is no advanced brain and it’s still very early but he had nerve endings he could feel pain. When he fell to the floor the most difficult part to process was Did it hurt you when you fell? How long till the life left you? Would it have helped if I looked beyond my horror and held you? Morbid, I know, but its how I felt and its what kept me comatose in bed the first few days.

When the doctor told me based on blood work its likely the baby died several days before I miscarried, I felt boulders lifting from my shoulders I did not know I carried. I felt relief that at least, if he had to go, he died in my womb and the contractions, the smack on the floor, did not touch him.

My baby left this world without a name. Without a hug or a touch. I never changed his diapers or saw his first steps. I never got to complain about the terrible twos with my baby. But I felt a mother’s pain when he died, a small piece of that pain for surely the pain is even more unimaginable when you’ve done all the things that I mentioned earlier.

The pain I endured as I suffered wondering how my baby suffered makes me respect my mother so much more, and all mothers.  I am amazed at my irrational processing, to have experienced this much pain, to know how much more can be, and yet wanting to try again anyways.