From Zen Computer

Eight weeks ago I changed, everything changed. My wife and I where expecting our second child that August. Nine months of bliss. Nine months of planning, dreaming, seeing…

On August 17th I was sitting in a status with my lead system administrator. My wife calls, she tells me that she is worried, she had not felt the baby move the whole morning. She had eaten fruit, which normally would make our baby dance…this time nothing happened. She called our mid-wife, who told my wife to head to the hospital at once. She took my daughter, called myself, her parents and a friend and drove off. I took a taxi to the hospital. While in the taxi I was still dealing with work things, not really imagining what was to come…how can one.

We arrived at the hospital at the same time, and luckily, so did our friend. She took care of our daughter right away. My wife and I raced upstairs, to the birthing ward. We were first put in a room with six other women. Around us we heard happy mothers, often with a husband, friend or their mother, with the doppler sound of heartbeats surrounding us.

Our midwife had arrived as well. We where waiting for minutes, that seemed like hours, for a nurse to come see us. As the time went by, our midwife desperately  attempted t plug the doppler to try to get a heartbeat herself. Finally a smiling happy nurse arrived. How could she not be happy, working in such a place, surrounded by glowing smiling mothers. Yes, some worried, but always glowing. But she was unable to find the heartbeat. A head nurse was called in, she could not find one either.

Things sped up, a doctor with her resident  came. With them they brought an ultrasound cart. First the resident tried to find the beating heart. She was looking more and more desperate, and I think I already knew what was coming now. The look was too telling. Up until that moment I had been trying to calm my wife, who deep down had already known long before me. I had kept asking her not to worry, the machine was surely broken. Surely she was panicking for nothing, I had said until this look. That we would hear our child’s heart-beat  in just a few seconds.

But the residents eyes took all of that away. The doctor offered to try, but we knew. I was out of words of encouragement. And my knees gave in…again an eternity. The doctor looks my wife in the eyes “I have no good news”. We did not question her, we where speechless. They brought into another room. To be on our own, but they still bombarded us with information. Or so it seemed. We where under the most brutal shock. What happened then is yet another story. What remains is that our perfectly healthy daughter died of asfixia in utero, an cord accident. An accident…a cruel act of nature.

What remains is that about six hours later my wife gave birth to our daughter. Who passed away after nine months and four days in her mothers womb. By far the most painful day of my life.

No, it is not good to think of other things.

No, there is nothing that will make you think of anything else.

No, it does not help that we have a living wonderful amazing daughter. We lost a child, we where to have two.

Yes, I am taking care of her, off course I do, we take care of us, as best we can.

There is nothing to say, there really is not. As little as one can be prepared for this. As little there is to say. Acknowledge, that is all I can tell those that surround those to whom this has happened. A simple acknowledgment, a child has died. No parent is supposed to bury their own child, just be aware of it, and respect it. Death is not a tabu, you can talk about it.

Astrid is there all the time. I am fully functional, but she is there.  She was here with us. And she will always be with us, for all the years to come.

A little more then a week after this we held a ceremony for our child. Which was incredibly soothing. And I thank all of you that where there…

Here is the text I read during this ceremony, originally written in German by my godfather, translated by his wife and sent to us, then slightly adapted by us…

How should we not be frightened when the skies are bound to tumble down on us. How should we be happy, bright, calm, composed, when death is knocking on our door, where there was life invited as a guest.

We are full of fear and full of horror in these days and weeks. We are feeling like this when we think of ASTRID, and there is little consolation to be found when we look outside, into the world.

Life is threatened by the insanity which we create for ourselves, with our ideologies and phantasms, with our fears and security strategies, with our religions.

And when we trust the future, in good hope and in good faith, and the future is taken away from us, we are speechless, disgusted and indignant.

It is not long ago that a deadly born child was treated like a Nothing. It was taken away from her mother immediately, as if it would be dangerous to get in touch with the baby. And one had to return to daily routine as soon as possible.
Being born dead meant as much as never having lived.

Together, we are contradicting this thinking.

ASTRID has got a name among us. ASTRID has got a biography.

There are images of little ASTRID. She had her place and her home in her mother’s belly. We know from science that her senses had been awake for a long time, that she had already formed a whole specific character, and that her father’s and her big sister’s voices had a familiar sound. She knew her mother’s likings.

A verse of Matthias Claudius’ poem comes to mind:
Do you see the moon in the skies? It can only be seen half but it still is round and beautiful. Thus there are many things we laugh about because our eyes cannot see them.

This verse describes a bit of our feelings. There has been a short life, coming to an end, which was dramatically early for all of us.

But there was a life, from which we may suppose that it was, in itself, round and beautiful.  It is not sure that a life of ninety years is beaming brighter in its glance and perfection than this short period of life.

We are in the happy confidence that also, ASTRID’s life reaches its accomplishment. We firmly stick to the hope that the life of little ASTRID remains connected with our lives, in a good way. We put our trust in the faith, which promises us that the fiber of life cannot be ripped by death.

October 15th is the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. My wife, my daughter and myself will go to the ceremony here in Montreal at the Oratoire Saint Joseph, and my thoughts are first and foremost with us. But also with all the parents that live through this. Some of you I have met in the support group. I worked with a father who experienced the same. And I thank you for your advice…

8 weeks have passed, a life is to come…

UPDATE : My wife wrote a little note about her experience with the Québec parental insurance plan, that was published.

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Incredible insights by Robert Fisk on the fantasies that words can create…

In this Link TV special, award-winning correspondent Robert Fisk speaks out on the continuing conflict in the Middle East. From Israel and Palestine to the U.S. involvement in Iraq, Fisk argues the media has failed to fulfill its duty as watchdog.

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