Robert - Baby lost: a story of grief and hope

Heartbreaking, powerful, clear-sighted. Powered by the clarity and force of a mothers great love for her children, and the authors reflective capacity honed by years of legal practice and research, this memoir faces fundamental questions about life itself. Hannah Robert experienced an immense tragedy and has given others a true and guiding light.

Zo Morrison

Hannah Roberts Baby Lost is a stunning rumination on the minutiae of loss and grief, and the epic struggle involved in putting yourself back together after unspeakable tragedy.

Baby Lost is a courageous and beautiful memoir. With devastating honesty, Hannah offers up her grief, presenting her story with a deft, insightful touch, allowing the reader to bear witness to a loss that is far too often unspoken.

Monica Dux

A gutsy, vivid and unflinching book about unspeakable loss. Hannah Robertss book will resonate with anyone who has known the darkness of grief, and the gradually returning light.

Hilary Harper

baby
lost

baby
lost

A story of grief and hope

HANNAH ROBERT

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

Level 1, 715 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

www.mup.com.au

First published 2017

Text Hannah Robert, 2017

Design and typography Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2017

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Lyrics by Katy Steele (Little Birdy) are reproduced with permission, via Graham McLuskie. Extracts from When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chdrn are reproduced with permission, courtesy of the Pema Chdrn Foundation. Zainabs blanket, pictured on the cover, was knitted and crocheted by Joanna Robert.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Text design and typesetting by Cannon Typesetting

Cover design by Klarissa Pfisterer

Printed in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Robert, Hannah, author.

Baby lost: a story of grief and hope/Hannah Robert.

9780522869439 (paperback)

9780522869446 (ebook)

Robert, Hannah.

MothersAustralia.

Fetal deathPsychological aspects.

Grief in women.

Hope.

If the content of this book brings up issues for readers, for help or information call: SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Support): www.sands.org.au

Stillbirth Foundation (A charity raising money for research and education on stillbirth and stillbirth prevention): stillbirthfoundation.org.au

An online community of baby lost parents, which includes resources on how to plan a funeral for a baby, how to help a friend through baby loss etc.: www.glowinthewoods.com Lifeline: 131 114

Contents

For Zainab and Mia and all the other babies gone too soon

Promises

I will greet you with hands smelling of oranges.

I will kiss your mouth in your sleep.

I will let you surprise me

Over and over again.

I will curse that my hands cant bat away all the things that will hurt you.

I will rememberdespite the shockthat no matter how many times I have dreamt you

You are your very own dream

From your very own flickering head.

I will breathe you in and mingle you with my familiar cells.

I will breathe you out and let you mingle amongst the hard and soft particles of the air.

I will bring you home,

And I will open the door.

And as much as I delight

In the still unreal thought

of seeing the light bounce

from your face onto mine

I will not hurry you.

(September 2009)

Part I

IMPACT

Sunday, 27 December 2009

There is only one place to start with this storythe point where all the ripples start, the moment of impact. Everything circles around that.

I replay this moment often. There we were, buckled in and travelling north on a suburban arterial road at around 5.40 p.m. two days after Christmas. We were not a conventional family for all kinds of reasonstwo mums (one Lebanese, Rima; one a skip, me), with Rimas teenage daughters from her previous marriage (Jackie and Jasmin), and our long-awaited donor-conceived baby on the waybut it was the most ordinary of family car trips. We were heading home in the station wagon after visiting my cousin to drop off belated Christmas presents. I was driving, with Rima next to me in the front passenger seat; Jasmin in the back seat on the left, reading her book; and Jackie behind me. She had been leaning on the window gazing out, but leaned forward to ask Rima something.

Wed been listening to the cricket, and I said to Rima, Hon, can we change this? Listen to some classical music for Haloumi? Haloumi was our name for the baby that bulged in my eight-months pregnant belly, that had been hiccuping all morning.

But Rima didnt reply, and didnt change the station, because in front of us we could see exactly what this moment wasin the shape of a four-wheel drive, which had hit the car in front of it in the southbound lane and was now swinging sideways onto our side of the road. Id started an annoyed query, What is he doing?, but finished with a yell, FUCK OFF!!

And I braked. I pushed with my arms and my legs, and the tiny hairs on my arms and legs, to try to push that car away from my family and me, and the little one curled in my belly.

The impact smacked two momentsbefore, and aftertogether so forcefully that I was left puzzling about what they were doing next to one another. All I know of it was its loudness, and the shudder it left in our bones. We know it happened, we had the evidence before us, in torn metal pieces and CT scans, but it was too quicktoo much to fit into one tiny moment, so that everything broke, and the normal boundaries of our lives split apart.

We stopped moving instantly and I could still hear myself yelling and thought, Too late for that, and shut my mouth so hard that my teeth chipped against one another. I made a decisionthis was actually happening, and since I couldnt undo it, Id better deal with it.

I turned the engine off and looked at Rimalovely, alive Rima, though she was screaming too by now. I could hear the girls screaming behind us, and though I couldnt turn and see them, I knew they would be hurt but okay.

I looked to my right, where the four-wheel drive had come to a stop, as if we were just parked cars in some wrecking yard. A clear liquid was gushing from the other cars mangled engine. I thought, If thats petrol, we could be blowing up any moment now. I had visions of an action-movie scenea billow of flame, and bodies moving in slow motion. I couldnt movethe car was crushed in around my legs. Rima, get out of the car. Tell the girls to get out.

Later, in the hospital, Rima mused, I opened the car door, but then I realised I was too hurt to actually move. Why did I open the car door?

Because I told you to get out. Because I thought the car would explode.

I felt calm. I drew great draughts of air and tried to send some of that calmness towards Rima, who was still screaming. My thoughts sliced through the slow-moving time around us. If we could just be calm and reasonable, it would all be okaythe ambulances would come, they would unfold this car around me, my baby might have to arrive a little early but would be okay. Thirty-four weeksthis child would already be so strong. Viable.