Crisis Self

One reason I dropped off my blog this year is that I have taken on more responsibility at my old support group, Ending A Wanted Pregnancy.  I am going to share here a little of what I write there every day.  We will all be touched by crisis someday.  Though my support group is very specific, the emotional experience of grief is near universal.

We hear a lot of small regret in support group.  I wish I hadn't had anesthesia.  I wish I had known to ask about cremation.  I wish I had footprints.  Why didn't I ask that question?  I wish I had held my baby.

I call it "small" regret because, even though the sense of this regret is enormous, the regrettable moment was relatively tiny compared to the much larger decision to end the pregnancy.  Small regret, unlike big regret, is universal and persistent.  And it is not subconsciously regretting the abortion, so you can pack away that recreational head-shrinking theory and save it for another day.

Photo from my crisis

I have come to understand my own loss in terms of crisis. In crisis, everything small falls away. All the noise from outside sources (the media, culture, family and friends) drops to nothing. The big picture stretches out before you, crystal clear. In crisis, usual, Everyday-Self would be totally crippled, so she steps back and lets Crisis-Self take control. Crisis-Self has a special kind of wisdom.  She can blow right past all the bullshit and take the decisive action that the situation demands.  Crisis-Self makes hard, important decisions and sacrifices from the very essence of Whole-Self's heart.

When the crisis ends, Crisis-Self fades into the background leaving normal, Everyday-Self to return home and make all the shattered pieces fit.

The pieces don't fit.  They never, ever fit.

***

Do you know what I regret? I had my baby the old-fashioned way, by birthing her, the only option at my late gestational date.  Birthing Laurel was an act of devotion. I cherish it. She was born in one beautiful piece, so I was given the opportunity to view her. I said, "Yes!" feeling very grateful for the chance to see my baby.

I held Laurel in a little box on my lap. I touched her baby soft skin.  I laid a light kiss on her forehead. Dr. Hern offered to leave me and my husband alone with her for as long as we wanted. We refused. I gave her back immediately, never taking her out of the box. I can not tell you how many times I have mourned the missed opportunity to hold my baby in my arms, feel her weight against my chest.

Angry and sad and helpless with the regret of it, I call on Crisis Self to remember why I passed up that opportunity.  She sends me this memory:

When I held my baby in the little shoe-sized box, snuggled in beautiful and silent, all 5 lbs 13 oz of her looking just like my eldest, when I kissed her head and smelled her skin, all that I felt in my heart and my soul and my bones was an absence. It was clear as a bell: This is not my baby.  This is only a body.  My baby had been gone for days. She wasn't there.

That is why I didn't want to hold her. That is why I didn't need more time. She was already gone.

I have to believe Crisis Self. She was there. She is the one who knows. No amount of holding or snuggling or kissing would have brought Laurel to me in that moment. She was already gone.

***

I didn't know who I was for a good two years after my loss.  I wasn't anybody at all.  I was a hundred-thousand sharp, jagged little pieces.

But I know myself now. I gave up trying to fit all the shards together around my missing baby. Instead, I learned to soften the pieces like so much clay and mold myself into something entirely new. I tell you, it is a confusing, excruciating process.    Not all of the shards are soft.  Some still poke at me or slice me when I'm least expecting it.  It's alright.  I'm at peace with being some combination of shattered and reborn.


***


If you have survived a crisis and find yourself in a million brittle shards, get to know your Crisis-Self. Reach out to her with love. Tell her that you don't always understand her every action, but that you appreciate her strength and judgment at that awful time. Thank her for dealing with a situation that left Everyday-Self paralyzed with fear and grief. Ask her to help you remember.  Even if you hold  regret, recognize that Crisis-Self did her very best with the resources you had at the time, and that she shares your deepest values. Send your love and appreciation for that.  Soften yourself, and see what happens.