The Betrayal of a Grieving Memory

     As painful as all of it was, is, will be, I will always remember it all.  I will remember and feel every contraction, every tear (rip), every tear (cry), the feeling of my bag of waters as it emerged and retreated, emerged and retreated and finally emerged and burst.  The way my body felt as my legs were bent and pushed wide out to the side, my knees in my armpits, my hair wet with sweat.  I will remember how it felt when I reached above my shoulders and behind my head to brace myself against my wall expecting the force of my pressure to burst through the barrier.
     I will remember the way it felt when I delivered my child's head.  The sense of relief knowing that just another push or two and I would to hear my baby cry, hold my baby in my arms, and watch my baby suckle at my breast.  I will remember the sense of wonder I had, in that moment, at the marvel of birth.  I will memorialize the way my child's head felt when I reached down and smoothed my finger tips over her soft, hair covered scalp.  I will remember the moments of anguish that followed as my body betrayed both myself and my child.  The moments when I was forced to pivot onto my hands and knees in hopes that my body would release and my beautiful child would be born into this world pink and bewildered.  I will remember the intense yet defeasible pushing, my midwife's profanities, the impenetrable words NINE-ONE-ONE.  I will remember the sirens, the voices of the rescue team.   I will remember and feel the burn of every piece of my flesh as it was manually ripped open by as many as three sets of hands at a time.  I will remember the desperate disbelief as I was taken from my home and lifted into the ambulance.
     I will remember my final two contractions when my body finally released and my child was born.  The way I could only see the front of the ambulance as we raced down the road and the fact that I only discovered my daughter's gender from the pronouns that were used after she was fully delivered.  I will remember the hope, the fierce hope, when one rescue worker said her color was getting better.  I will remember the entry to trauma room, the extreme abandon I felt for my own safety, and my focus on my daughter's wellbeing.  I will remember having to deliver my placenta and attempt to be stitched without proper anesthesia all while a curtain was drawn between myself and my daughter.
     I will always remember when the neonatal doctor came to me, head shaking in defeat and I saw my daughter for the first time.  The nurses brought my limp daughter to me, intubation tube still in place, blood from birth still spotting her scalp. I will remember how, in that moment, I knew I would never be the same.

(Photo by Sherry Kruzman Photograohy www.sherrykruzmanphoto.com )
A picture that normally depicts the beginning benchmark
for the development of an adorable scrunched up baby.
For me, however, it has become this image above of my
breathless infant who's life outside my warm belly never
began. 

     The rest blurs.  I know I was taken to surgery where I was put under a general anesthesia.  I know the first words I remember after coming out of said anesthesia were from the lips of Patrick's mother "She robbed everyone of this baby," she accused.  I know the hospital was compassionate and allowed me to hold my daughter late into the night.  But the details, those fade.  The faces of the doctors and nurses who worked on both Celia and me that day, even those who came to visit are missing from my memory.  The Lisa I was before my daughter was born, before my daughter died is missing too.  Perhaps someday I will remember her, the Lisa who came before.  I will not be her again, I know this.  But I am told that I will meet a day that is not wet with tears, I will laugh a true laugh or smile a true smile that will not be followed with pain.  When will this day will come? I do not know, but I am told it will.