My Schrödinger Baby

How can you describe finding out that your baby is dead, and your baby is alive?

This complexity will always accompany my son's birth story. His deceased sister shared his womb for roughly the last 6 of 30 weeks gestation period. The first 24 weeks they got to know and grow together, two peas in a pod that looked like they were enjoying a long sleep over in bunk beds in the ultrasound pictures. Funny that he still does not like to sleep alone.

We went in for a normal ultrasound visit at 26-1/2 weeks gestation, expecting to come home with 3-D ultrasound pictures of their faces. In the waiting room I read an article about how losing a loved one at my current stage of pregnancy dramatically increased brain or developmental abnormalities like autism, or something of the sort. What a relief, I thought, that everyone close to me was in great health. Everything was going so great, I absolutely enjoyed my hard earned (IVF) pregnancy. During the ultrasound the tech suddenly got quiet, then said she was going to get the doctor and come right back. It was not like a movie. They did not rush me to an operating room for any extraordinary measures. The doctor quietly informed us there was no heart beat for our daughter, though our son appeared okay - undersized as always, but okay. Then we were sent home, out the back door of the clinic to avoid having to face people.

I knew I needed to comfort my guy, who must be so confused in there without his sister kicking him all day. I knew I needed to focus on all of my love, hope, and joy about my surviving baby. I knew I needed to grieve my deceased baby at the same time, though still hidden. My baby is alive, and my baby is dead at exactly the same time. Both things are true and it is my reality, yet my reality is completely broken by this truth. My box contains all of my joy and all of my pain simultaneously. My poor son will always have this painful entry into the world and birth story, and my daughter will have no birth story. She will have a death certificate and no official birth. My son will have a birth certificate always accompanied by death. My Schrödinger Baby.