“Do you have any kids?”

At the first pregnancy and infant loss grief session we attended, the facilitator made a point of saying that we were all parents even though our babies died. Given I had no living children at home, I paused at that thinking, how? How am I a mom? My baby died. My arms are empty. 

The next morning, I was standing in the shower and it hit me. Smack in the face for the first time in 3 weeks I realized, that I had in fact grown, bonded with and delivered a human baby. My baby. My daughter, who although never got to take an earthly breath, was still my daughter which by association, made me a mother. The fog of the trauma of Lola’s death and birth had blocked my brain’s ability to process this detail and I’ll be honest, it took while for it to really let it sink in.

A few weeks later our car was having issues. Given my mental state, I would have had my husband deal with it, but I had to get some bloodwork done that morning, so I took the car in after that.  While I was waiting for the shuttle to pick me up and take me home, I realized that I had not been around any human stranger that wasn’t a medical professional or funeral director since Lola died. Instantaneously, everything got really bright and really loud, I started to sweat.

The shuttle car arrived and hoping to avoid any social contact, I reached for the rear passenger door. This is when I hear the driver (who we shall call Norm) yell “You can sit in the front!”.

My mind: No, please no. 

My mouth: Oh it’s ok Norm. I respect your personal space and will just sit back here.

My body: starts to sweat.

Norm: Nahh it’s ok. Come on up here, there’s lots of room.

My mind: No, I can’t.

My body: goes ahead and gets in the front seat with Norm (*facepalm).

My mind: ok no problem, body betrayed us, here your hand is holding this phone, just stare at it. We know it’s rude, but you can’t deal with Norm right now so here’s twitter.

Norm: blah blah..probably nice things... blah blah... comments on the traffic... blah blah... do you have any kids?

Mind and body get on the same page and freeze stiff, say nothing and continue to sweat.

Norm: Do you have any kids?

My mind: paralyzed.

By mouth: NOPE!

My mind: what the hell body?! you just told this man you don’t have any kids but I’m giving you constant flashes of your daughter’s face. 

In addition to what he perceived as a perfectly appropriate question, Norm said a lot of other nice and polite things during our trip, but I don’t remember any of it. All I remembered was this absolutely nauseating feeling that I had betrayed my daughter by ignoring her existence during that conversation and how unfair that was to her. I was a mess. 

I spent the next few days crying in bed being tormented by my thoughts and begging my daughter to forgive me. 

Thankfully, I had therapy that same week and, in between sobs, told my therapist what happened with Norm and how guilty I felt about my response when he asked me if I had any kids. She took a moment and said, “You did nothing wrong. Lola would not be mad or disappointed, you were protecting yourself and instinctually, did what you needed to do.” 

We spent the rest of my session discussing how complicated life so suddenly became in the wake of Lola’s death and how challenging it now was to exist in society and complete the most basic tasks. We also confronted the reality that although it didn’t end as we hoped, Lola was a significant part of my life story now and something I couldn’t ignore. Through all of that, the most important thing I realized through this exercise was that I had said “Nope” to Norm when he asked me about children, because I wanted to avoid HIS potential reaction to the truth! Talk about a mind-blowing realization. I had gone through that whole awkward exchange not in fear of giving an honest answer, but in fear of possible ways he could respond. The unfortunate reality is that our society is awkward around death in general, throw a baby into the mix and despite best intentions, people can act like absolute morons. Subconsciously, I had been terrified that if I had revealed I had a baby who had died, I’d upset him.

Now... after all of this you’re probably wondering; how do you answer, “Do you have any kids?”. This is what I will say...

I’ve always had a pretty high tolerance for the lobs shit that life can throw, but now that I’ve lost a baby, my threshold for “fucked up shit” has gone wayyy up. Somehow, I’ve managed to get through the hard things. We can do hard the things; adrenaline keeps us going. But the easy stuff... it’s now the easy stuff that wrecks me. 

What should be a polite exchange with a driver, something I’ve done hundreds of times, is now a panic inducing experience resulting in hours of therapy and days in bed. This is life now. This is life now that my baby died, and I work every day to learn how to bend in new ways so I don’t break.

It’s been eight months since Lola died and my panic and stress do continue to get the best of me on many (read most) days. BUT, every time I have a horrible experience now, as experienced in the aftermath of my short drive with Norm, I’m at least able to learn how I want to feel (or not feel) going forward. 

Over these months, which have simultaneously been the longest and shortest of my life, I’ve learned that in life, especially once you’ve experienced a trauma like the death of a baby, you don’t need to ignore your own feelings to protect those of others. All of the other big girls and big boys and can take a page from the WASP handbook and politely hide their uncomfortable feelings to your face then deal with their issues after you leave. This is a new way of life for me and is necessary for survival. Is this selfish? No. In fact, I’d argue that this the ultimate act of self-care. Face masks and pedicures are only going to get you so far if you don’t honour your own truths. 

So for me, when I get this question now, I generally answer that I have a daughter that lives among the stars. For me, this is the right answer. For me, this honours both Lola and myself. But, not everyone is the same and so for anyone trying to figure out how to answer this question for themselves, I’m going to be honest and say you probably are going to need to go through some accidental flubs, along with some days sobbing in bed and sessions with your therapist to figure out what works best for you. I’m sorry it’s not easier. This is how our lives work now. We can do hard things, like bury our babies, but the easy things... not so much. 

For those of you reading this who aren’t in our shitty club, I would implore you to keep us, those who are permanently traumatised from our losses, in your mind next time you meet a stranger. Consider loosening your introductory questions to allow the person on the other side to decide how much or how little they want to share... Something like “what do you do in your spare time?” generally doesn’t ruin anyone’s day.