Coping after the loss of a baby
Two Yellowknife women reach out to others who have miscarried
Galit Rodan
Northern News Services
Published Friday, October 14, 2011
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Jennifer Young, 34, and Jaime MacKay,
35, were brought together by a mutual friend in early 2010. Both women
have suffered a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy and have turned to
each other for support and understanding. They are currently in the
process of setting up Yellowknife's first support group for mothers who
have gone through the same ordeal.
- Galit Rodan/NNSL photo
Claire MacKay was born on Oct. 1,
2009. Ten tiny fingers and 10 tiny toes - her father Andy's toes, the
nurse had remarked. Inexplicably, her heart had stopped beating days
earlier. She was delivered after just 17 weeks of gestation.
Jaime MacKay cradled her daughter in
her arms. All around her, in the obstetrics wing of Stanton Territorial
Hospital, excited couples were just getting to know their babies. They
would have a lifetime to do so. Jaime and husband Andrew left the
hospital empty-handed and devastated.
Jaime needed someone who understood, another mother who had gone through the same ordeal.
Statistics vary but the Canadian
Federation for Sexual Health estimates that approximately 25 per cent of
pregnancies end in miscarriage. Yellowknife obstetrician Dr. Andrew
Kotaska said they are "very common." But Jaime knew of no one else she
could turn to for support. She tried counselling but didn't feel a
connection and did not return after her first visit. She turned to the
Internet and soon started her own website.
A little more than a year later,
Jennifer Young, just 16 weeks into her second pregnancy, delivered
daughter Jade at Stanton. It was Oct. 15, Pregnancy and Infant Loss
Awareness Day.
Jennifer and husband Andrew had taken
off to their cabin the previous weekend for Thanksgiving. When they
arrived home on Monday, they used the Doppler fetal monitor Andrew had
rented "to check in on the little babe," said Jennifer, and couldn't
find a heartbeat. Had it been the boat ride at the cabin? What had they
done wrong? Doctors confirmed the death on Wednesday and Jennifer
delivered Jade on Friday. Swathed in a white blanket, all red skin and
big lips like her father's, she met her loving parents, though she would
never know it. They held her for an hour, the three a picture of
frailty.
There was no cushioning the loss but
Jennifer, at least, had someone who understood. She had Jaime. "They
were supportive at the hospital, for sure," said Jennifer, "but I
wouldn't have gotten the level of information from the hospital that I
got from Jaime."
Less than 10 months earlier, Jennifer
and Jaime were introduced by a mutual friend after Jennifer lost her
first baby to an ectopic pregnancy on Jan. 18, 2010. Ectopic
pregnancies, in which the pregnancy begins outside the womb, can be
life-threatening for the mother and are, with exceedingly rare
exceptions, fatal for the baby. Both Jennifer and Jaime's first
pregnancies began in their fallopian tubes. Both lost their first babies
and both at six weeks of gestation.
Though Jaime and Jennifer have only
met in person three times, they sit across from each other in Jennifer's
cozy living room and easily share tears and finish each other's
sentences.
"You know our losses, both of our
losses weren't, to most people, very far along," said Jaime. "But the
minute you get pregnant ... Are you going to have a boy or a girl? You
start planning, you start picking out names and all of a sudden,
devastation. Everything is just ripped away and your future has just
been, you know, a big piece of your future has just been..."
"Taken away," they say in unison.
Apart from the grief and guilt, both
women felt incredibly lonely after the loss of their babies. "One thing
that I find is that the earlier the loss the less people understand.
They think, well - it was just a fetus," said Jaime.
Jennifer sometimes wondered whether
she was losing her mind. "You really feel like ...Why can't I get over
this? Why can't I just move on? Why am I stuck in my grief?" she said.
And though both women have loving and
supportive husbands, family and friends, they feel that only other women
who have experienced a miscarriage can truly understand the storm of
accompanying emotions.
Knowing how much they've depended on
each other and on the few other women they've met who have lost a baby
has led them to reach out. It is something Jaime has wanted to do for a
long time but has only recently, with a push from Jennifer, found the
courage to do. There is no existing support group in Yellowknife but
Jennifer and Jaime are working on formalizing one of their own.
The two women fret about exposing
their losses so publicly but are firm in their desire to break down the
wall of silence surrounding miscarriages. "If we can help one person
through all of this then it will be totally worthwhile," said Jennifer.
And as much as they would like to help others, they recognize that the
support will always be mutual. "As great as it is to help somebody ...
you still need the support and I don't know if that ever goes away."
Claire may be gone but she is
certainly not forgotten. Jaime and her family think of her every time
they happen upon the shape of a heart - in a sink full of dish soap
bubbles, for example, or a chip out of a goldfish cracker. She calls
these randomly occurring hearts 'winks' and thinks of them as signs from
her daughter.
Jaime also keeps an online album of
photos of Claire's name, written in the sand on an Australian beach at
sunset, on a stone by a rushing waterfall, or photoshopped onto a photo
of a beautiful lily. "I adore seeing her name written ... a little piece
of her lives on," writes Jaime on her website. They are tiny mementos
that take on a much larger significance. They are the only photo albums
Jaime and Andy will ever have of Claire.
Jennifer and Andrew had Jade cremated.
Flipping through a catalogue, the second urn they came across was
called 'jade.' It was heartbreakingly perfect. The second urn for their
second lost child and Jennifer's second pregnancy. The jade urn sits by
their bedside, though they spread some of the ashes over a birch tree
they planted at the cabin, the place they think her tiny heart beat for
the last time. They like to think of their daughter growing as the tree
grows.
"Every single day we live knowing that
we've lost children," said Jaime. No doubt millions of women around the
world share that sorrow. But Jennifer and Jaime have each other and
they have learned to cope. They want to help others do the same. Though
they have not yet formalized their support group they encourage anyone
out there in need of support to contact them.
October is recognized as Pregnancy and
Infant Loss Awareness month throughout the United States and in some
Canadian provinces, with Oct. 15 set aside as a day of remembrance.
The Northwest Territories has not
officially recognized the month or day. On Oct. 15, at 7 p.m., people
around the world will light a candle and leave it lit for at least one
hour in honour of babies and children who are gone, said Jaime. It is
called the International Wave of Light celebration and Jennifer and
Jaime invite Yellowknifers to participate. Jaime has had friends take
photos of their candles burning in Africa, Sri Lanka and Arviat, among
other places. She has added them to her photo album.
Jennifer can be reached at serendipity@ssimicro.com. Jaime can be reached through her website at http://web.me.com/homh.
Talking about miscarriages
"I think the biggest thing is acknowledge the loss. And the easiest way to say it is, 'I'm sorry.' Don't avoid."
"Don't tell somebody that they're young and they can try again, because their babies aren't replaceable."
"Don't say, 'It happened for a reason.'"
"If you know the baby has been named, use the baby's name. Ask that person how they are doing and try to remember the dates."
"Know that they might not want to go to baby showers for quite a while and don't take it personally."
"Holidays, especially the first ones, are really, really difficult."
"If somebody starts talking about
their baby, give them the time to talk about their baby. Don't try to
change the subject because that hurts."
