Chocolachillie

Golden children dancing
To the sound of your amusement, your pride
Beautiful, talented, clever

Where his face belongs is an open space on your wall
Emptiness in your wallet where his image should be
Empty as your memory is filled with one word
Damaged

You were shamed, scandalized, wronged
This only happens to other people
Less worthy

And so you went missing.
Missing out on his love.

You couldn’t give acceptance, support,
Wouldn’t watch. It offended.
You had no interest in learning,
And so you never saw that he wanted to make you proud.

What the people said or thought was so loud that it drowned out
The language of his eyes.

You say you were worried. You said that you prayed from afar.
Thank you. I suppose.

I know you were too busy:
Condemning
Denying hope
Negative
Negative
Death

Keep your silver pieces. They never meant much anyway.

We have a set of a few steps in our passage going down to the level of our bedroom. When we moved into the house I griped about the steps and the stupid people who would put steps in the middle of a passage. (Sorry Mr. McCormack. I know there was no other way.) Non-stop.

And indeed, I fell down those steps in the middle of the night going to the bathroom with monotonous regularity. Once even while I was pregnant.

One day I complained about the stupid three steps in our passage to a good friend of mine. She looked at me with a slight smile.

“Nelba,” she said, “there are four steps.”

I counted them and yes, sure, there were four. My perception and the reality were two different things. Different enough to trip me up. My problem was not the steps, but my perception of them.

Guess what? Ever since that day, I’ve never fallen down the steps again

There is nothing that depletes joy as quickly as the misconception that perfection exists.

As a child I envied my friends their sense of security. Perceptive from the start, I knew that I was different. And I thought that the difference was that they were happy and I was not. I was right, incidentally. But what I didn’t realize was that happiness is a choice.

This became a pattern throughout my life. I would rush through life towards the next thing that I thought would make me happy. Work, marriage, parenthood.

My love for Marco was tainted with always falling short of my own expectations as a mother. Loren would be my chance to get things perfect.

And then Loren wasn’t perfect, despite/ because of my best efforts.

The hardest learning curve of my life, started.

I’m not quite sure when the turning point came. But one day I realized that life isn’t perfect. Never. Imperfection is normal. And that wishing for an unattainable ideal was robbing me of the moment:

Being loved for being Mama. Not for being perfect.

I confided – who knows why, I generally don’t confide in strangers? - that we craved stability after our middle child, Loren, died last year. He gulped, said that he was sorry and then proceeded to ask me questions that at first made me squirm but were so spot-on that I finally realized: This man’s child died too.

Yes, he said. It was a cot death when his first-born daughter was only eight weeks old. They had tasted parenthood. Just tasted it.

They had two sons after her, but he will always miss his little girl. It was long ago – his sons are almost grown.

And so we talked – two strangers made intimate by our shared grief. I felt no shame at the tears streaming down my face. He knows about the stupid things people say, about fathers going silent, about feeling guilty for making love to your wife. He started doing counseling with parents facing similar situations and realized that the divorce rate was close to 80% He knows the expectation that grief will last forever and that it will lock out all joy.

Only to surprised by reality: The knowledge that our children were beautiful beyond belief and that their lives meant something. That we miss them, but that we need not spend our lives blinded by grief. That we will see them again and that they are in a better place than we are. For now. And ultimately that God cares more than we’ll ever realize. If it wasn’t for his daughter’s death, he would never have known this most important fact.

Yes, one day, you walk out of your office on your way to give a quote to a woman you don’t know. You look at the trees and marvel at their beauty, wondering what all of this means: This earth, this beauty, this existence. But your wonder is merely abstraction, because you have reached a place of peace where what you already know, is more important than what you don’t know.

Despite his excellent abilities and qualifications as a teacher, my father decided to farm. He first rented properties and planted crops until he could afford a farm of his own. My maternal grandmother, who loved him like her own son, cried when she saw his soft hands with the slender fingers turn into the hands of a farmer. But it was those same hands – the farmer’s hands – that held mine after Loren was born. “It was NOT you fault. Don’t you dare believe that for one moment!” he whispered fiercely.

It was thus the hands that I noticed first on the photograph. They reminded me of my father’s hands – calloused and stained with tractor oil – the hands of a man who does manual labour. But they were lifted protectively to keep the baby girl in his arms from falling forward.

“Blind father reunited with his daughter” was the caption of the newspaper article. (The Mercury 3 March 200 And I was hooked.

This father fought the authorities over getting custody of his baby girl after she was taken away from him late last year. His wife died of cancer in November, leaving him the sole custodian of their baby girl and his wife’s older children. Despite the fact that he had not only been nursing his sick wife, but has also been the primary caregiver of all the children for a while, the children were removed from his care by social workers and placed with his sister-in-law. They claimed that he would be unable to look after the children by himself and that he would not be able to support them on his meager salary.

Some time last week, the courts awarded him custody of his daughter. The man said that the older children could decide for themselves whether they wanted to stay with him or not, but that he knew he was capable of supporting his daughter financially and taking care of her. He has since remarried.

There is nothing as leveling as moving. I’ve been lucky in that I had to move once as a child and only a few times as an adult.

I often joke that I would like to get rid of all my possessions to the point where everything fits into one suitcase and travel the world. But, in truth, I would find that way too unsettling. I need my things around me. I need space. I need a home. I hate that moment when my things are packed into the moving van and I have no place to sit down and have a cup of tea. No home.

This past week-end we visited Dirk’s new partner in Estcourt – the little town he proposes to start working in on 2 May. The idea was for Dirk to travel the 50 minutes there and back every day. But we soon realized that it would not be easy and furthermore that he would not be able to do it forever. We were merely postponing the inevitable. So, we took the plunge, had a look at a rental property and decided to relocate there at the end of April.

I saw a rental agent yesterday – a nice guy who’s already handling our other property. He walked through our house and gave me his honest opinion. “Charming and rustic farmhouse with city amenities. A bit small, lacking a second inside entertainment area, but compensating for it with various undercover outside entertainment areas. Nice pool, bedrooms accessible from the outside, showers.” Things people tend to like. No doubt there would be people who’d absolutely hate it, but I know that there will also be people who’d fall in head-over-heels in love with it at first glance. Like we did. The problem with a slightly upmarket rental property is that it becomes cost-ineffective for the owner. But selling it at this point would be stupid.

The house we are moving to in Estcourt seems adequate for our needs. The yard is fenced. It is in a cul-de-sac. It faces away from the cold winds coming from the mountains, hides behind a hill. It has a fireplace. It is in a mock-Spanish style – a style that I feel do NOT belong in South Africa; thus making my objection intellectual in nature - but its location makes that aspect of it rather charming. (I’m thinking bougainvilleas, pelargoniums etc. One of my colleagues says I should henceforth call it our hacienda!)It unfortunately also has wall-to-wall carpets past their sell-by date and bathtubs in a questionable shade of pumpkin. But, hey, if you have to say one thing about me it would be that I like a challenge! I know that I can make it look nice and I’m sure we’ll be happy there. My first impression of it was favourable and I trust that.

One salary. Ouch. Since we were married I’ve been used to earning an income. It isn’t going to be easy doing without – even if it is only for a while. But I also feel that the kids need me at home right now.

We are moving closer to the Drakensberg – in fact the town overlooks the Drakensberg to the west. So there is plenty of cheap entertainment available. Driving for 30 minutes brings you to arguably one of the most beautiful places in South Africa where there are plenty of free day-walks, trout-fishing, bird-watching and many other lovely things to do and see. There is only one fast-food place being built in town and two small supermarkets. There is no real need to spend money, as long as we have food on the table. And we will have food on the table even if I have to start a vegetable garden!

We won’t be able to afford a maid or a gardener. I don’t mind cleaning and gardening but I’m not so fond of washing and ironing. Oh well, I guess compensation comes in the form of two bright faces that I no longer have to kiss goodbye every morning…

Leaving memories behind is somewhat more difficult. There is the little grave. And I feel as if my heart would break thinking of leaving the place he was born and where he died. But considering that we have been surviving for almost a year now in a world without Loren, this is just one more hurt to face and live with. Just as I had to accept that he resides no longer in that body with its restrictions, I have to accept that there is no part of him bound to a geographical place. He goes with us, in our hearts. Always.

Some mornings I drive to work listening to the regional radio station, East Coast Radio. I’d be smiling at their jokes and singing along to a song when….

BAM.

Sadness hits me like a brick. And suddenly my ears become too sensitive, the sunlight too bright and the day ahead impossible. Usually the mood doesn’t last long. At work there are things to see to and Marco and Magnus keeps me busy at home. But I get reminded in that moment how much we have lost.

When I wake up with this heavy feeling I know to choose a CD that holds no memories, that requires no emotional input from me. I drive to work allowing myself the luxury of tears – never mind the glances in my direction. I get to work and I go through the day with a heaviness that threatens to engulf me. I feel like life has no meaning. That there’s nothing to look forward to. I’m tired and sad. Sad and tired.

But most days I spend knowing very well how lucky I am. I never have to go to bed hungry. I have a wonderful marriage, beautiful children and family and friends that I love. I live in a lovely place, have a home that I enjoy, have a good job and despite South Africa seemingly going to pieces around us, we still have a bright future that I feel very optimistic about. I had a little boy who changed my life and for whose life I’ll always be grateful.

Surviving loss makes you strong, but the problem is that you lose your sense of invincibility.

One of the medical team at Magnus’ c-section was an older woman who’d lost four children. Four. She shared with us that she had twins - one of which died shortly after birth. Another child was still-born. Two of her sons died days apart after a motor vehicle accident in which they were both involved. She still has two children. While she recounted the losses her voice became emotionless. It was very hard, she said, in a cold cold voice.

At some point, I suppose, you cut away all emotion.

Last night I sat reading a magazine. I came across an article about a woman who dropped her perfectly healthy child off at daycare only to be phoned a few hours later by a doctor saying that her child was dead. He was only three months old. A virus that rapidly attacks the lungs, was the cause of his death. She described her feeling at finding him at the doctor’s office – still warm - and her resistance at having him taken away to a mortuary. I felt her pain echoing mine. My own heart started beating heavily and I ran to the bedroom where Magnus was sleeping. In the dark I held my breath and felt relief surge through me as I saw his little hand fluttering while he dreamed. Marco was laying spread eagled across the bed, his breathing steady and soundless.

Yes, I know how much I stand to lose. But grace was given to me in that I know now to live in the moment, to treasure what I have. To live fearless.

And I’m reminded of the verse I read the night Loren died:

“Death where is thy sting? Death where is thy victory?”

A whole lot of referrals to this site came from Babyzone yesterday. Ever curious, I went to check and found this site mentioned as a warning to a mother not to have a homebirth after c-section.

I guess opening our story to the Internet does draw visitors who do not know us and who may be quick to make assumptions. I have been judged by almost everybody I know. I’m used to it by now. Even worse, there is nothing anyone can think of me or say to me that I have not thought of myself and said to myself. But fortunately, with time comes a degree of sanity and logic.

After Loren’s birth I have spent hours dissecting what happened, getting input from all over and doing research on every possibility. I have reached some conclusions and I have reached a great deal of peace. The one thing I cannot do is change my decisions. I cannot undo Loren’s brain damage or reverse his death. But I can go forward – step by step. And I have come out of this stronger and more determined to do what is right. Not what is convenient for others, not what is generally expected, but that which I know in my heart to be the right choice for my children and myself.

Researching all of this and slowly getting to know other mothers with brain-damaged children, I’ve realized that babies get hurt or die and mothers get hurt or die no matter what the setting. To say a homebirth is unsafe is to imply that hospital birth is. And that is not true. Babies get hurt and mothers die in hospitals every day. Birth is as safe as life. (And no-one gets out of here alive.) But given a choice between the safety of letting my body do as it has been made to do and trusting everything I have into the care of fallible people with their own agendas….?

The one thing I do not want to do is contribute to an even worse birth culture than there currently is. And believe me, the birth culture all over the world is shocking. There is no trust in the process left. Women trust their doctors implicitly (and often foolishly). Women are being delivered of their babies rather than delivering them. Babies are forced to be born when they are not ready. Some pay the price in terms of health issues. Some women and some babies pay psychological dues for the rest of their lives. And women are told that everything is okay as long as the baby is healthy.

It is not true.

There are thousands of women out there who suffer from birth trauma, post traumatic stress syndrome and post partum depression due to the raw deals they had with their children’s births. Loving a child and welcoming it into the world is a completely different experience to processing its birth and satisfaction with the process. Women are made to feel guilty about not being satisfied with their experience of birth. Sure, there are some women who love their c-sections or their epidurals. And if they do, they are most welcome. But for every woman out there who loves her c-section there is a desperately unhappy woman who hated her child’s birth. And she has as much right to her emotion as anyone else.

I would go as far as saying that there’s an unrecognized epidemic of birth trauma out there.

I didn’t like my c-sections. I still don’t. What happened in Loren’s birth does not negate my unhappiness with Marco’s birth or Magnus’ birth. I’m not sorry that any of my children were born. I love them. But Loren’s birth was wonderful purely as a birth compared to Marco and Magnus’ births. I’m not sorry that Loren’s birth brought me Loren. Was he “worth it”? Every single bit! Were Marco and Magnus “worth” the feeling of being subjected to slaughtering. Ditto. But I would have preferred, of course, to have had peaceful loving births for all three of them. To have had all three of them healthy – both physically and emotionally.

My babies were so intertwined with me that all three of them could sense emotional turmoil in me even if I was at work and they were at home…The two that are left still do. To hurt me, in any way, is to hurt them too.

Let’s talk about stats. Go to ICAN’s website and look at the stats. Join ICAN and read the “real stories” behind medicated, interventionist hospital births and the scare tactics doctors use to suit their malpractice insurance. I’ve experienced them firsthand. I was told by a doctor that he was more worried about his insurance than my baby. Sure, there may be some hospital births or doctors that are not like that, but believe me, they are such a minority that they are not worth mentioning. I am very sorry that I even went to see a doctor with Magnus’ birth. I’m sorry that I was bullied into another so-called emergency c-section. The doctor admitted that she had me in hospital and that she was not going to let me leave. I should have walked out. I should have.

Homebirths are safe. Stats prove it. They are at least as safe as hospital births and in some respects they are safer.

I had an unassisted homebirth – which is completely different to a homebirth with a midwife. But in South Africa you have to have the backup of an OB-GYN for a midwife to even be allowed to take you on.

Uterine rupture happens. It can happen in a person who has never had a c-section. But even in people with multiple prior c-sections the rupture rate on a tranverse cut is negligible. Often rupture happens because of interventions such as induction or administering of Pitocin. And these things happen because in a hospital birth the staff put women on a tight time schedule - which is not how the human body works. In a homebirth you are not going to get the interventions you are going to get in a hospital. And that makes homebirth safer in terms of the danger of uterine rupture.

Uterine rupture is not what caused Loren’s problems. He inhaled amniotic fluid which is actually a complication more prevalent during c-sections. Amniotic fluid inhalation can be disasterous even in a hospital setting.

C-sections carry more risks for both mother and baby compared to vaginal births whether the vaginal birth in question is a VBAC or not. Simply because it is surgery. Major surgery.

Let us go back to square one. Would I have chosen the same birth for Loren again?

Yes.

But. I would first have tried harder to get a midwife on board. Failing that (and yes, I strongly suspect that I would have failed, because I would not have found an OB-GYN prepared to support it)I still would have had the unassisted birth but I would have taken an infant CPR course. I would have birthed without assistants and I would have had a better Plan B than “let’s go to the hospital.”

My advice to the woman who asked the question on Babyzone?

Birth is a strongly emotive thing, precisely because it is tied up with our feelings about our own births, our sexuality and our children’s births. If you truly want a VBAC, go to people who’ve done VBACs and especially HBACs (home birth after c-section)before. Join ICAN. Don’t ask for advice or justification of your decision on a public website. You’ll just end up in more turmoil. You’re getting people shooting their mouths off on their personal beliefs rather than basing anything they say on facts. This is not the way you are going to get a birth that you’re satisfied with, but most importantly, it is not the way you are going to get a safe birth either.

I do not judge people who have elective c-sections because of convenience or because they truly feel they need them. But I don’t want another one. Ever. And don’t you dare judge me or question me.

As much as I’m not able to (or don’t want to) reverse my choice of an unassisted homebirth or as much as I’m not able to reverse Loren’s brain damage and early death, just as much a mother who chooses a hospital birth or an elective c-section cannot reverse her decision should she or her child get damaged in the process. The only difference is that in the hospital setting there’s somebody else to blame. In my case, the buck stops here. And I am truly unable to know whether I would have felt any better if a doctor’s decision damaged my child. In the end it would still be my signature on that hospital form condoning whatever was done.

The ax forgets, the tree remembers. African Proverb

While we were students, one of our friend’s friends, Tanya, went shopping for a pair of high-heeled shoes for a dinner-dance.

She located a shoe on one of the shelves in the clothing shop that she rather liked, but couldn’t find it in her size. So, finding nobody nearby who could help, Tanya walked over to a salesperson standing behind a counter. Upon her request for help the lady asked where she found the shoes.

Without bothering to look behind her, Tanya took the shoe by its toe and used it to point; “over there”, not noticing that an elderly lady had walked up to the counter and was standing right behind her. She hit the poor woman with the sharp heel of the shoe right between her eyes. Shocked she saw how the lady turned blood red in anger and how the point where the heel hit her stayed white so that she resembled a red parakeet with a white dot on its forehead. This looked so funny, that Tanya dived into the closest rack of clothing, pulled the clothes over her head and started laughing hysterically.

Knowing Tanya, she would have emerged at some point to apologize profusely, but it is probably better that we don’t know how the rest of the encounter went.

Dirk found a new job and he’s so excited about it! It will entail longer hours, more travelling and probably more stress. But he needs something new. Something different.

I’ve decided against buying the franchise I considered, because it is just too expensive for our current financial situation.

The boys are well. Marco, being the little radio-receiver he is, picked up on our excitement/tension within minutes and has been impossible for the last few days. Magnus decided to channel his energy elsewhere and came up with leopard crawling as an alternative to tantrums and crying. And, oh boy! I’m not complaining. I just thought I had a few more months to childproof things in and around the house…

Anna - who used to be Loren’s caregiver - now looks after Magnus. The other night, when the kids and I were taking her to the taxi rank in the car, she asked out of the blue when we were going to visit Loren’s grave again. I explained that we went over the weekend, but said that if she wanted to go, I would take her.

“You know, Nelba, I love Magnus. But he hasn’t taken Loren’s place in my heart. I miss my baby so much. I thought that when Magnus starts crawling and walking I would take Loren so that he could play with Marco and Magnus outside. I never thought God was going to take him from us.”

She started sobbing.

“The other night I dreamed he was back with us and when I woke up and saw that it was just a dream, I was so angry. So angry.”

At this point Marco was all ears.

“Anna, what did you say? Where is Loren?”

With such hope in his voice that I wanted to cry too.

“No no no, Marco! It was a dream. Lorentjie is gone!”

“Oh…”

Silence in the car.

Then Magnus gave a long drawn-out yawn.
And we all laughed.