MOURNING MY BABY: THE PAIN OF STILL BIRTH

By Alice K.

The reason I am telling this story is that nobody gave me any comfort immediately after the loss of my baby. Relatives and friends who came to see me in hospital where I had delivered a dead baby seemed to ignore what had happened and plied me with food and unrelated stories. Even my husband did not seem to care (I came to appreciate later that people mourn differently, with many men not wanting to show their true feelings).

People should be enlightened so that they can understand the deep pain and sense of loss after a woman loses her baby. She is in deep mourning. It does not matter if she has other children or not. One mourns her baby and never forgets.

Christians say that “All things work together for the glory of God” and that “God is good all the time” In fact I had often said this many times when preaching and comforting people after they had suffered a misfortune. However, I did not appreciate these sayings myself after losing my baby. I was very bitter with God. In fact for quite a while I lost faith and found that I could not pray.”

I had made elaborate preparations for my coming baby. With the three children, all boys, that I had had before, we had not had the money and they had followed one another closely that I had had no time to prepare properly. This time I had furnished a room with a new beautiful cot, beddings and lots of  unisex clothes.

I had not checked the sex of the baby but friends and relatives would tell me that they hoped it would be a girl for a change. Me, I just wanted a health child.

A week before my due date, my youngest son became sick and was hospitalized. I had kept him company at the ward. The same day as he was discharged I started having labour pains and was rushed to hospital. After labouring for hours the doctors had to do an emergency caesarian to either save the baby or me. I was very sick. When I came to after theatre, I was told that my baby had died before being born. His birth weight was 5.5 kilos. It is only me who knows the devastation I felt. I was so demoralized. Was God punishing me? My whole body was aching and ready to feed a baby who was no more. What was I going to do with everything I had bought for him?

.I got visitors who did not offer me much comfort. Many who came once did not come again and I spent almost two weeks at the hospital. Maybe I was largely to blame for this because much later someone told me that I looked so fierce and bitter (I gave them “macho mbaya”), that they did not dare to face me again soon.

I rested at home for two months. During this time various neighbours came to see me. Some offered various explanations for what had happened to me. A Christian friend amazed me when she talked about possible witchcraft from  a member of the family while another friend had the audacity to tell me that maybe I had closed my legs because I did not want another boy. Maybe she had not bothered to find out that I had had a caesarian section. Another told me that it was bad luck to make too many preparations before the birth of a baby, that you do not count your chicken before they hatch.

The first moment I felt that somebody sympathized with me and understood what I was going through was when some ladies we had a “merry go round chama” with came to visit me. The chairlady greeted me and she sighed audibly while hugging me. Tears fell down my cheeks and some of the other ladies also cried. The lady who preached talked about Jehovah Nissi and how we should all make the Lord our banner to show in the face of all trials and tribulations.(See Exodus 17:8-16). The ladies also offered some beautiful prayers and for the first time in a long time, I had a good night’s sleep. I began to feel that I could be happy again.

A day later a women- group we used to pray with came to see me. One lady told us her story. She had had a similar experienced to mine. I was surprised because I had known her for a long time and did not know this. Before they left they made a prayer circle and I felt truly blessed.

When my mother visited me she also gave me her surprising story. She told me that she had lost five children to miscarriage and still births before getting her live firstborn. I am her last born and this was the first time she had told me this. I do not know how come nobody had mentioned it to me. Maybe because there was a big gap in our ages. By the time I was born, most of my siblings were grown up and I was brought up almost like an only child. Obviously on her part, my mother had not wanted to talk about such things before. We talked a lot that day, my mother and me. She described to me in detail the various instances and how affected she was. She validated all the feelings I had. I felt even closer to her from that time we shared as women.

I learned various lessons from my experience.

First when you have a misfortune, do not allow everyone to comfort you.  Some will blame the issue on witchcraft and their traditional beliefs, problems within the family and all manner of imagined ills. They will leave you more shattered and broken instead of healing your wounds, and present many problems without solutions. You should not entertain stories that go against the word of God. One must be very strong in the Lord. The power within oneself is important otherwise if you are weak you will be destroyed.

There are a lot of people whose negative feelings about you will come out through thoughtless comments when you have a misfortune. People should be very careful what they say lest their words hurt others and spoil their relationship.

The people who helped me most were those who had a similar experience. This made me realize how much help support groups can be for various problems. I also realized the potential of professional counseling. I did not go for psychotherapy and I wish I had so that somebody could have guided me in my recovery

These days, I am able to appreciate that everything works together for the good of all who love the Lord. I understand the deep surrender to God’s will that such a testimony entails. Even though I lost my son and will never forget him, I have become a better person in that I now understand with a deeper insight the suffering of others and am better able to empathize with them without just quoting Bible verses the depth of which I do not truly comprehend.

Four years ago I got the chance to go back to school. I went to university and I have graduated with a degree in counseling psychology. I feel that I have a calling for this kind of work and maybe for this I should thank God for my little angel that I never got to know.

^“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”. Romans 8:28 (New King James Version)

This article first appeared in the September-October 2009 issue of Woman of Faith magazine.

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