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Life will never be what it was before her impact and ironically that is the silver lining to the tragedy. Part of me died with her that day, but ultimately left me better off. Sort-of like stories you hear about people who lose the use of one of their five senses, like the ability to hear or see, and as a result the remaining four senses become almost super-human. I’m not sure how else to describe it, but eventually I began to see things more clearly in a way, like a fog I didn’t know was there had lifted.

That benefit didn’t come right away. Initially, I was lost in a darkness. Everything I trusted had let me down, including myself. All the careful decisions made to protect us had failed, so there was nowhere to turn. Leaving the hospital with a list of therapists rather than my baby was agony. Seeing the car seat that would never be used completely broke me. I wanted my body to run away from my mind. The events of September 30th would constantly replay in my head over and over all day and night. Each time I would try to alter something about the day to see if I could force a different outcome. I couldn’t. The autopsy turned up no answers. We had a lawyer look at our medical records to see if something was missed in our care, something to learn from. There was nothing. It was not enough that my world had crumbled, but even the outside world was unrecognizable. It was October of 2020 and everywhere we went people were walking around with half covered faces and shifting eyes.  My broken mind told me they all knew what happened, and they were judging me.

My sister-in-law told us about a lady named Patty who has an organization called Alexandra’s House. She had been helpful during the losses of our nieces, Gemma and Mariana, so we went to meet with her and hoped to get some direction. It was the first time we had to tell the story of what happened. We struggled through saying the words out loud. We didn’t know if or how she could help us or what we were looking for that day, but she was loving and being in her presence was comforting.

Shortly after our meeting, Patty called and told me that another woman nearby just lost her full-term son, Benjamin, and she asked if I would call her. I was such a broken person that I couldn’t believe I would be helpful to anyone, but I also knew how this woman must feel, so I called. She told me her story and I cried with her. When she told me that she is a family doctor that delivers babies, a weight lifted off of me. I had been consumed with blaming myself for what happened, but hearing her story gave me permission to consider the possibility that it might not have been all my fault. If it could happen to her, it could happen to anyone, I didn’t know how badly I needed to know that I was not alone.  She mentioned that she knew another woman who recently lost her daughter. Then, that woman knew a woman who knew a woman and eventually by the power of zoom, we were a group of 9 moms spread throughout the country together mourning the losses of Brooks, Aria, Rory, Mabel, Miles, Alice, Benjamin, Autumn, and Antonia. We met regularly sharing helpful books, therapy experiences, medication thoughts, and basically became an outlet for venting our experiences that only we could understand.

I probably needed therapy. That’s the message I received overwhelmingly from the world. I researched the names from the list the hospital gave me, one they noted to have suffered losses of her own. She had great reviews, so we met. I told her what I had been through and asked her for tools to help me navigate life with my new tough reality. She shared about her experience of baby loss and then began asking me about my relationships with my mom and my dad. Both of my parents are deceased, and I cried through telling her about them and how I desperately wanted to be able to hug my mom. There was plenty to say about my parents, but as the clocked ticked on I was feeling anxious because I needed some relief and telling her about my parents didn’t feel helpful. I reminded her that my current situation had left me struggling to find a reason to get out of bed and brush my teeth and I kept trying to bring her back to my present, but then just like that, the hour was up. She said she would text me with available times for a next appointment and I drove away feeling empty. I had hoped to have something to work on or think about, but instead I felt disappointed in myself for letting her distract me. I liked her and I believed she could help me, but I was hanging on by a thread and needed actionable tools.  I vowed to keep her on track at our next appointment.

When that day arrived, I drove the 25 minutes to her office excited about the possibilities. I sat in the lobby with another lonely soul. She emerged from her office and walked down the long hallway toward the lobby; my insides were glowing with hope.  She greeted the other person without glancing my way and took him back down the long hallway to her office. I was confused. I wondered if I should call out to her, but I sat silent. I double checked our text message to make sure I got the day and time right. I did. She’s probably coming back for me; I’ll wait a bit, I thought. Maybe she didn’t see me, I texted her. As the clock ticked on, I realized she wasn’t coming back. My inner glow of hope darkened and thickened and welled up inside me until it needed to burst out. I got to my car and bawled. It was a beautiful sunny fall day, and that angered me. I didn’t know where to go and for some reason drove to Trader Joes. I couldn’t focus on anything, and the masked shifty eyed faces angered me. The darkness inside me was in control and it felt violent. When I arrived back home, I’d begun to laugh to myself, but it wasn’t lighthearted, it was like the Joker from Batman. I was losing it.

She texted me back. She said she felt awful. She took responsibility and apologized profusely. She told me she was overworked, noting a growing number of clients and told me that she hadn’t been sleeping. Was she looking for me console her? Then she asked, “What is your name?” Huh? We had a whole text chain of conversation how could she not know my name? She tells me that she deletes texts from clients for our privacy. I texted her my name and when her next message came through, I was floored! It read, “I am so sorry Traci, I can’t believe I botched our very first appointment. It is always so hard to come in for the first time.” First appointment?! Whoa! This lady didn’t remember me at all! Didn’t remember that my baby girl died or that my parents died or that I had sat in her office blubbering for an hour just over a week ago.  The Joker roared! I reminded her we’d met. Unconvincingly, she now claimed to remember. She apologized again, gave me a refund, and then offered me another appointment time. I politely declined her offer and then I thanked her. Previously, I thought I had lost all of my dignity, but thanks to the ease with which I rejected her, I knew there was a shred remaining. I was done with therapy.

One of our condolence cards was from Father Snow, a priest in Omaha that led a mission trip we had taken to Honduras a few years prior. He wrote encouraging words and mentioned that the people of Honduras mourn the dead with a novena, which is a recitation of prayers and devotions for a special purpose during nine consecutive days. George wanted to try it and I still needed a reason to get out of bed and brush my teeth, so I agreed. We decided to go to mass for 9 days in a row. Day one, I couldn’t focus, pray or even really listen, but I managed to sit, stand and kneel at the right times and afterward I felt like I accomplished something. The next 8 days came and went and my ability to focus in prayer seemed to improve. After the 9th day, something made me laugh. I caught myself. It wasn’t the Joker, it was joyful. It was nice, but then I felt guilty, the darkness was there to make me pay a toll for the fleeting joy. 

The daily mass ritual stuck around for a bit. I kept going a couple of times per week. Sometimes the biblical messages seemed to be speaking specifically to me and my situation. I wondered if everyone else felt like that too. I started taking on small projects, landscaping, making my bed and cooking. The physical wounds of giving birth were healing and I was commanding more and more of my mind for good. Gratitude was creeping in as I realized so many of my friends and family had been so amazing. I began to allow myself to feel worthy of being loved. So many people around me had proven to be much better friends to me than I had ever been to anyone. They inspired me to be better. 

After a few months, it felt like it might be time to go back to work teaching Pilates. My clients had been amazing. They sent flowers, dropped off meals and mailed sweet notes, but I knew that not all of them knew my situation.  There were many who had disappeared during the pandemic and my first client back was one that I last saw when I was in my first trimester, not showing or telling about my pregnancy. I had no idea if she knew whether I had been pregnant at all. I was nervous about how I would handle small talk about what I’d been up to, but I put a brave face on and went to meet her. When I saw her face, I immediately knew she had no idea. She was bright and smiley and excitedly hopped up and down guessing, “Did you have a baby?!” Um, ouch!!! My heart sank. I gave her the cliff’s notes and then tried to segway into her workout. She felt dumb and I felt dumb, but we got through that awkward exchange and ultimately, I walked away feeling proud of myself. I knew it couldn’t get worse than that and handling it without breaking down felt like a sign I was getting better. 

Communication with the full-term loss group began to fade. Some of the moms were pregnant again and our challenges weren’t as uniform as they had previously been. One day, I posed a question, “as much as we are heart-broken about the situation we’re in, would any of you choose to protect yourself from the pain if it meant you’d never have gotten pregnant in the first place?”  Overwhelmingly, all agreed. The joy we experienced from the little lives that grew to full term inside us during our pregnancies far exceeded the pain from the loss. I began to feel freer to shed the pain and see our sweet baby girl for the beauty and joy she brought us. 

At her funeral, I laid my hand on her tiny casket and read the following: 

Our sweet Antonia Therese, your dad, and I planned to call you Anni. We fell in love with you on January 18th when we first learned you were going to be part of our family. Every decision we’ve made since then had you at the center. We wanted to bring you into this world and show you all its beauty. Every tree, every flower, everything we know. We were excited for you to show us about the miracle of life. Something went terribly wrong as you tried to come into this world and now your dad and I are lost without you here. Not being able to save you has left us with crippling pain and it is hard to know who we are without you in our lives. Please know that we would’ve done anything if we had only known what to do to have you here with us. We miss you so much. Know that all of the pain of losing you was worth just getting a glimpse of your beautiful earthly being. The miracle of being touched by you, our sweet angel, is our greatest joy. 

Although way too brief, the time that we got to spend holding our baby girl in the hospital was amazing. We got to study her tiny beautiful little face and see that she was a perfect combination of her dad and me. She had a full head of dark hair, and I could even see resemblance of my mom. Gazing at her while her dad was holding her felt like all of my dreams coming true. Sadly, that all took place while simultaneously experiencing our worst nightmare. We never got to see her open her eyes.  Reconciling that experience in my head was impossible for so long. It feels like I’ve been stuck at a crossroads unable to progress. My mind was stuck on the nightmare and as the world kept moving and I could feel the push behind me, but I didn’t want to be stuck on the nightmare path. It’s awful and it left me unable to see the beauty of her life. As I began to take more control of how I tell my story, I realized I could brighten the light of her life by how I talk about her and think about her. It feels better for me to talk about her as a blessing and the brighter I made her light, the less I would focus on the shadow of her death. I feel free to recognize my sweet Antonia Therese Ismert for exactly what she is to me, a dream come true. ,