Still - Emma Hansen

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she tells me, “I am going to take some pictures for you and Aaron.” I look at her quizzically, wondering why we would want pictures of any of this. “You don’t ever have to look at them,” she continues. “But just in case you want them one day, I’ll keep them in a safe place for you.”

      “Alright,” I say. I don’t understand, but I trust her.

      I request an epidural, as soon as possible. The exhaustion, the emotional toll, the physical pain, the mental agony—they are all at levels beyond what I can handle. If I’m going to finish this, I need just a few minutes to regain an ounce of strength.

      Our midwife, Susie, arrives around midnight. She exhales audibly as she steps into the room. Her hair is braided down her back, with small wisps escaping at the nape of her neck. She gathers gloves and gauze and tools from a tray, the crystal bracelets stacked up on her wrists rattling as she works.

      “Susie has lost a son too,” Jill says.

      “Really?” I gaze at her desperately, and she nods. I can almost sense her ache. I wonder if this kind of pain will be obvious to me now, a secret language spoken among a secret club of the bereaved. Learning that she knows the pain I am feeling, I feel instantly heartbroken and grateful at the same time. There she is, still living, still moving, still delivering babies even. Somehow, she is surviving. Maybe I will too.

      Susie asks if she can perform a cervical check. She talks me through each step, gently preparing me for the discomfort. “You’re seven centimeters,” she announces. “I don’t imagine it’ll be long now.” She smiles kindly and hurries out the door to speed up our admitting.

      Later, I will learn that the nurses originally booked us into one of the smaller rooms in the windowless birthing suites on the first floor, the ones with paper-thin walls that let in the cries of mothers and babes from the other rooms on all sides. Jill and Susie advocated to move us upstairs, where the rooms are new and spacious and beautifully renovated, with windows looking out to courtyards. Upstairs, we don’t have to see or hear what we’d longed to experience ourselves. Not much can make our situation better, but that small act certainly does. At least our birth will be our own.

      At one thirty the anesthesiologist comes in to administer my epidural. He is young, another resident, but he is calm and confident. I start to relax, a little. I’m already fully dilated and can feel the pressure of the baby’s head, but if I have just a few minutes to breathe, everything will be alright. The anesthesiologist numbs a patch on my spine, inserts the epidural catheter, and starts the drip. The cool rush of fluid passes through the tubes over my shoulder and I breathe through the next few contractions. As they start to slow down, I catch my breath. I bring myself back into the room and notice it is unexpectedly calm. Our midwife, our doula, and the labor nurse surround us, steadily going about their jobs. No fussing, no panic, no rush. There is peace—one I imagine could be attributed to God. It’s strange to say, but suddenly the birth feels like the one I’ve been imagining. It feels beautiful.

      My waters break in a dramatic gush shortly after the epidural. With one quick check Susie quietly says that it’s time to start pushing, if I’m ready. I look to Aaron and have to blink away the tears. This is it. We are about to bring our son into the world and then, too quickly, say goodbye. I look at the clock—it’s 2:00 AM on our due date—and grip Aaron’s hand as I nod. I start to breathe our baby down and out, fully aware of every movement despite the epidural, as I gently push through each contraction.

      “Remember to smile,” Aaron whispers in my ear.

      I forget myself for a moment and laugh as I bear down. He squeezes my hand and smiles with me. We’d been told in prenatal classes that smiling during the pushing stage could help minimize tearing. There’s no longer a need to worry for the health of our baby, so he directs his worries to me. That he remembers this and voices it is a tremendous act of love.

      Jill keeps assuring me that I’m doing an incredible job. She tells me my body is made for this, encourages me by saying that everything is stretching well. Then finally, a few pushes later, relief. I take our baby from Susie’s hands and pull him up onto my chest. Aaron cuts the umbilical cord. At 2:24 AM on April 4, 2015, our beautiful son is born, still.

      IN THE IMMEDIATE moments after his birth, we pore over every flawless inch of his strong body. He is the perfect mixture of us both. I see Aaron’s nose, head shape, and long fingers and toes—he would have been tall. But he has my eyes, dimpled chin, and shock of black hair. I don’t believe it’s bias when I think that he’s a striking baby. These moments are both the happiest and the most painful I’ve ever known. There will never be enough of them.

      Then Susie says the words we never thought we’d hear:

      “We know what happened.”

      “You do?” Aaron asks.

      “There’s a tight true knot in his umbilical cord,” she replies. This knot is what killed him. Jill shows me a photo on her camera, zooming in on the center. The cord is dark and rich with life-sustaining fluids on one side of the knot, and on the other side, the one closest to his body, it is pale. Nothing was getting through. He was starved of all that was created to provide for him.

      I don’t ask to see the real thing. It doesn’t occur to me that I might need to hold the knot that took the life from my own flesh and blood. Later, I will think I would have appreciated knowing how that felt.

      True knots are rare, happening in about 1.2 percent of all pregnancies. And even more rarely are they fatal, because usually the knot doesn’t tighten so severely.1 We are told he must have done a few somersaults and tied it when he was very small—it was so close to his body. Then when he dropped in preparation for his birth, it would have tightened—slowly or quickly, we’ll never know.

      My heart is heavy knowing what happened. On one hand, it’s a small relief to know it wasn’t something we did or didn’t do: ultrasounds can find knots, but because they are so rare, they aren’t routinely screened for, so often go undetected. But that same knowledge brings tremendous grief; his passing happened completely out of our control. We couldn’t have protected him from this.

      Our labor nurse, Rose, looks at him lying on my chest. “He’s perfect,” she says. “Does he have a name?”

      “Reid.”

      We decided months ago. We started referring to him by name in the third trimester, even though we kept Theo as a backup. But Reid fits him—a tribute to my maternal grandfather, Patrick Reid. Parents, siblings, and friends all used it, near the end. We knew who he was meant to be.

      Aaron calls both of our parents: “He’s here.” Less than an hour after his birth, my parents arrive. I watch with pride as they lay eyes on him for the first time, gushing over how perfect he is and commenting on which of us he looks like and why. Then I fall apart as they too mourn the loss of a life they have held close to their hearts. It dawns on me that though he died before anyone got to know him, he still made an impact, is still loved, and that many are grieving his death. We are not alone in this loss.

      Time passes; nurses come and go. My wet sheets are changed out for fresh ones; I’m given a new hospital gown. Aaron sleeps now on the couch next to my bed, and my parents doze in the corner by the window. It’s still dark out, and the room is quiet. I lie with Reid in my arms. When I close my eyes, I can so easily pretend that he is just sleeping too, that any second he’ll wiggle the way he did in my belly, or cry out to be fed. I memorize the weight of his body in my arms, imprint the image of his face in my mind.

      I’m not an early-morning person. I’m not even a daylight person. That’s not to say I’m not ambitious, but days often slip away from me. I can probably count the number of sunrises I’ve seen on both hands. They’re sleepy and cold and pass too quickly. I’m a sunset child. A creature of the night, who thrives on the light from the moon and the stars. My best work is done past midnight. For me, three AM is bedtime, not rise-and-shine time.

      The

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