Losing a Piece of my Soul

On June 4, 2010, in what was supposed to be a regular midwife checkup of 26 weeks, I found out that my baby's heart had stopped beating. That evening I was admitted to the hospital and labor was induced. My baby was breech, and it was an impossibly hard labor, punctuated by the words that the midwife could only do so much, or my little one would be torn in two. On June 5, 2010 at 11:00 a.m., I delivered a baby boy. I named him Alistair Magnus. He was perfect in every way, from his pale blonde hair, to his turquoise eyes, to his large hands, and his high-arched feet. On June 5, 2010, I said goodbye to the largest piece of my soul.

It is ten weeks later today, and I am a different person.

It is an impossible thing to think about burying your child, no matter how young or old. It is an impossible thing to sit on the computer designing your child's headstone, when you would rather have been picking out his going home onesie from the hospital. It is an impossible thing to face the fear of conceiving again, knowing that a perfect pregnancy, with perfect test results and a perfect ultrasound could still contain such a small imperfection in the inside of the umbilical cord that would cause a baby's death. It is an impossible thing to find hope in the maelstrom of madness and grief, especially when no one really seems to understand what you're going through.

My husband and I visit Alistair daily at the cemetery. I know that some point, our visits will not happen as often, that we may have future little ones who occupy most of our time.

But I will not forget. For when he died, he took a piece of my soul with him.