On me: Sweater. Shirt. Jeans. Hat. Boots. Bag. Necklace. Belt. On Ava: Sweater. similar shoes.
Did you know that October is Pregnancy and Infant loss awareness month? I’ve known about it since the first fall after I lost my baby girl, but I couldn’t write about it until now. My heart needed a few years, and some things are so precious and sacred to me, that I keep them a little closer to my heart.
But today, I feel like it’s time, because I want to share something that my daughter taught me even though she never opened her eyes.
On the day I gave birth to my Ruby, I learned something.
It was a warm sunny day in June. I’d been on bedrest for almost a week, but my contractions weren’t stopping. In fact, they were getting worse. My husband had been watching me like a nervous hawk for days, we were both trying so hard to mentally make my body stop trying to go into labor. It wasn’t working. I asked him to take the big kids to their swimming lessons so I could have some quiet, and try to figure out if this was getting serious enough for me to go to the hospital.
About a half hour after they left my contractions flared up. So much so that couldn’t talk through the pain and I started instinctually doing the birthing positions I’d used many times before. I called Craig and told him I needed to go in. The kids were still in the pool and he needed to get them out and pack them up, so he called my dad to come and get me and take me to the hospital. That way I could get there faster and he would meet me and send the kids home with my dad.
As we were driving to the hospital me bent over my knees trying not to moan, and failing, my dad rubbing my back and telling me everything would be okay, something happened.
We stopped at a light and I looked out the window. There were runners everywhere, making their way up the side of the road. I recognized the race bib, it was the first day of the Wasatch back. I’d run that very same race just a few years earlier. And now here I was, watching them from a car that would take me to the hospital to deliver my baby, who wouldn’t live. It was surreal.
And then like a flash, I had one of those profound moments of insight right in the middle of something horrible. I could see myself running in that same race. All those cars that passed me, there could have been someone in them right in the middle of their own personal hell, and I never would have known it. And all those runners, with their special shoes and moisture wicking clothes, their headphones and heart rate monitors, they didn’t know what was happening to me.
And I didn’t realize it at the time, but that moment changed the way I see people forever. So now, when I’m having a bad day, when I’m stressed or in a hurry and someone cuts in front of me in line or I get bad service at a store or restaurant, and my knee jerk reaction is to act like a total witch, I see myself sitting in that car again, watching the runners. And I remember that I don’t know what’s happened to anyone else. What they might be struggling with, what weight they might be carrying. And it makes me stop, and try a little harder to be a little kinder.
I’m not perfect at it, I’ve still made mistakes, and I’ve still been rude when I should have been nice, but I realize now that even though she was only physically part of our lives for a few hours, my daughter Ruby taught me greater compassion.
And that’s a pretty great gift.
Great gifts are meant to be shared. So that’s my hope today. That we can all have greater compassion, and try a little harder to be a little kinder.
“If we could look into each other’s hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance and care.”
-Marvin J. Ashton.
