Remembering

A chain-kind of status update on Facebook tonight pushed my mind back quite a few years in time. What I mean by chain update is that it's one of those that gets copied and pasted who knows how many times by who knows how many people. It went something like this:

Lost angels: We remember all babies born sleeping,

Or whom we have carried but never met,

Or those we have held but could not take home,

Or the ones who came home but could not stay.

Make this your profile status, if you,

Or someone you know has suffered the loss of a baby.

Baby loss is still a taboo subject. Break the silence.

I saw myself about fifteen years younger and with only little boy at the time. After a trip to the emergency room for a non-related pregnancy issue, I woke up from anesthesia to discover I was pregnant. In other words, we didn't have a clue. I can still remember the nurse talking to me as I was opening my eyes.

Angela, the baby is fine.

Baby? I'm thinking, What baby? Well, lo and behold, there was a baby and we were in just the first few weeks.  My little emergency issue had been taken care of and we were released to go home.

To go home and tell our little boy that he was about to become a big brother.

The joy didn't last, though. Just one month after that day my mom sat with me as I waited for my doctor's appointment for a check-up. I remember watching a little girl play in the waiting room. Her mom (or the lady with her) called her by the name Savannah. I thought that would be a pretty name for a little girl with red hair. Savannah Rose.

The appointment did not go well. There was no heartbeat to be found; only what the doctor called a "mass" and a "blob". If I had not been in shock, I think I would have had some words for that woman. That was not a mass or a blob she was talking about. That was my baby. And my baby had died. I never went back to her again.

I was set up for another appointment in the hospital just a few days later. My husband held my hand and our preacher stopped in. I cried before I went under and I cried when I woke up. It was one of the saddest days of my life.

And so once a year I take time to reflect and wonder about what might have been. Anytime I hear the name Savannah or visit the city Savannah or read the book Savannah (which, by coincidence, I just bought a paperback copy today at a book fair), I think about the baby that forever in my mind will be the one who had my red hair. Only God knows, but the thought makes me smile at an otherwise sad memory.

Bittersweet moments for those that know.