Last evening, an ex-schoolmate of mine confided in me a tragic experience that she's going through lately. Just a couple of days ago, she underwent surgery to remove one of her fallopian tubes. The reason was that she'd discovered that she had an ectopic pregnancy, which is an abnormal pregnancy that occurs outside the uterus. The foetus will not survive, and it could lead to serious complications that might even endanger the life of the mother if the pregnancy continued. This shocking discovery came just mere hours after learning, with much joy, that she was pregnant for the first time. She is currently recuperating at home, but finds herself breaking down uncontrollably from time to time as she thinks of her loss.
This sorrowful encounter brings to mind my own experience of having to deal with the loss of an unborn child in the first quarter of last year, just months before Justin was conceived. Hoping that I could somehow comfort my friend, I exchanged a series of messages with her through FB and shared with her this experience that not many people who know me are actually aware of. While typing to her, I felt a vague pang of grief as I recalled what had happened -- how I had carried the hope and joy of having a child, only to have fate deal me a cruel hand by taking that very child away from me so abruptly, without even giving me a chance to get to know and love him/her.
But had fate been thoroughly cruel to me? My friend, after learning about this part of my history, told me that if she could be so upset after a few hours of knowing she was pregnant, it must have been much worse for me, for I would have been so much more attached to my unborn baby than she'd been to hers. I must admit, throughout the period of ordeal, I was looking for someone to blame. If there was indeed a Heavenly Being, why didn't He protect the tiny life within me? Why did he allow its heart to stop beating, just like that? Why did he punish me by shattering my life and hurling me down to the depths of painful sorrow, when I had done nothing wrong?
However, thinking back, I must say that there are others who have gone through worse traumas than me. There are mothers who have lost their child, whether the child was five or fifteen, or even older. Just imagine how these mothers felt during their grieving period. They'd given birth to and raised their child, came to know their child, protected their child and loved their child for a much much longer time. At least, I was fortunate enough to have no vivid memory of this one that I'd lost, save for a few black and white pictures of him/her when he/she was still alive in my womb. And even though I would never meet him/her, the joy that this unborn child had brought to me in those first three months of pregnancy would not be forgotten, for it was this child that had allowed me to savour the very first taste of being a mother. And the loss of the very same child has taught me to cherish my firstborn even more, and realise how much of a miracle it is for life to occur in the womb and be presented to the world nine months later.
Last evening was truly a night of mixed emotions as I thought of all these. I felt a simultaneous sense of melancholy and bliss. I also thought of Justin and how I'd feel one day if he was robbed from me forever. It's a question that Hubby has posed to me before as well. I have no detailed reply for him; I simply know that my life would be certainly no longer be the same, and I cannot even bear to think about how I would cope with the painful memories of my sweet baby boy's adorable expressions and behaviour, as well as the times we have spent together, bonding as mother and child. Even just imagining this now hurts. It's just like imagining that something has happened to Hubby, and that he wouldn't be coming home anymore. It would be too painful. Just too much to handle.
I sincerely hope my friend would be able to manage her loss and recover emotionally. It's good that she has a supportive husband as well and would be going away in June for a holiday elsewhere. This would allow her the much-needed change of environment to help release her mind from the sad experience.
I wish her all the best, and I hope her desire of having a baby would be fulfilled in time to come, just as how I'd been blessed with Justin.
