008. Sophie

[monstersinthecosmos]

As per tradition on LJ, I would disappear for months and then update like 4 times in a week. SO DON'T BE ALARMED, THIS IS NORMAL SO FAR LOL.

But anyway.

For the past eight months I've been working two jobs, which means I was usually working seven days a week. I was generally getting 1-2 days off a month. But today was my last day at my weekend job, and..... it's one of those things like, I'm burnt out and I want more time to myself to do things I want to do creatively? But at the same time I'm always worried that depression will get a foothold if I don't keep myself busy. SO !! Going into it with my eyes open, hopefully I can keep it at bay.

So the weekend job I had was newborn photography in the hospital. It was okay. It was shit money but I liked the work. I'm not super into babies. I don't want kids. This job didn't kick in some dormant maternal instinct or anything. But they were okay. I liked working with them. There's something very humbling about meeting people on the first few days of their lives. They're these precious blank slates and I felt like I loved each of them. I would have to cuddle them and rock them to get them to calm down sometimes and it was such an overwhelming feeling of trust to hold these vulnerable little creatures.


I wanted to post a thing I wrote back in May, since it's just been collecting dust in my hard drive and we're in here now. It's about a baby I had at work.

The thing about this job that never occurs to anybody is that sometimes the babies die. And sometimes the family still wants photos, because it's the only opportunity they'll have. I personally made it through my eight months only getting two, but it happens more often than most people realize. No one wants to talk about babies dying, no one wants to admit it. It's something so awful that we don't know how to. I was only working weekends, so getting two makes sense. I would say on average I noticed a couple a month, and that's only accounting for families who wanted pictures. Sometimes they don't, and they make it in and out of the hospital totally off our radar.



The two I had didn't necessarily upset me, I wouldn't say. For some reason I'm a mess about the weirdest anxiety bullshit but then Actual Things don't phase me at all. Thanks, brain. I know some of my coworkers would get really upset by doing them and they'd cry after. I didn't feel emotional at all, but I couldn't get them out of my head for days after. It didn't feel like trauma, though, it felt more like reverence. Just thoughtfulness. Looking death in the face just makes you a little deeper for a while. And holding a dead baby is such an intense tactile experience that I could still feel them in my hands for days after. I'd stare at my palms and think about how cold the skin was, and how delicate they were. How their little faces could rip like paper if you weren't careful.



It feels weird that I was able to experience this and see behind this curtain that most people don't. I'm not sure why life works like this, like what gave me the right. I can't know. Most people go through their whole lives without ever meeting a dead baby, you know? But I had that one weekend job the year I was 29 where I photographed demises and met freshly bereaved mothers and had to take deep breaths so that my hands wouldn't shake because their bodies were so delicate and I didn't want to break them.



So that said. I had to write it down both times just to get it out of my head. I might as well share it. It's kind of messy stream of consciousness stuff. I've considered revising it and making it neat but I haven't figure out a good reason to, so whatever. Anyway. Here we go.

Your name is Sophie and I met you the day you died.

Did it count as meeting you if you weren’t really there? Are you really born if you’re already dead?

I heard your mother’s soft gasps for breath from the doorway. Heard her before I could see her. I stayed behind the curtain until it was time to come in, and the lights were so dim. There was music playing, so quietly, so soothing and comforting and I wondered if any of them even heard it. I wondered if the two in the corner—your grandmother? An aunt?—were ready to crawl out of their skin from it. Was it repetitive? Was it obnoxious and arrogant to think it could help? But I heard the gasps from beyond the curtain, the way her voice was threaded into every heave, and the warmth in the room, the oppressive warmth. Hospitals rooms are always warm like this, though.

And then there you were, bundled in the striped hospital blanket. Your mother wailing and your father bent beside the bed, shoulders hunched and head leaning against the safety rail. I didn’t see you right away, just the little shape in the blanket. The tiny miracle, the little bundle of joy on any other occasion. Grandmother looked on from the couch, her face so drawn and dry, hands fidgeting in her lap. Loss upon loss upon loss in that little room. Your parents lost a child, and for your grandmother? Where was she for this? How many grandchildren did she have by now? Could you have been the first? And to watch her own child go through this pain. She stayed to the side, helpless, as your mother cried.

Wailing and wailing and asking for water, but it was too soon, she wasn’t allowed any yet. Her face so wet and red above the tiny purple baby in her arms. How long had you been gone, and how long had she been holding you? She cried out even louder when we took you, as we rolled you away, but at least this time you’d be back. And next time…

Mother’s Day next week, and the bags of clothes they won’t need to use. A knit hat and matching booties, and the blanket we wrapped you in.

As we left the room a guest had arrived; young lady in Hogwarts shirt, her eyes glassy and terrified. She approached the bed and your mother said “I’m so sad!”

We covered you in a blanket and slipped away. Took you across the hall to a sunny, quiet room. I opened the curtains while my partner arranged you.

“Sometimes this happens,” he said, and he stepped back to look, “and it really makes you think about your own problems.”

He’d folded your hands over your chest, little and purple and just peeking out so we can see. Ten purple little fingers; you were so close to being perfect. Perfect little model, with a dark little mouth and the tiniest little ears. Little everything.

And then the nurse came in, and she brought us toy blocks. Wooden ones with letters. She spelled out your name next to your tiny body.

“What’s her name?” I asked, and she answered as she laid out the letters.

“Sophie,” her tone dull but not sad. Serious but soft. “My daughter’s name.”

She stared for a moment at the handiwork. Sophie.

“Spelled the same,” she added. Voice flat, like she was disappointed. Like it was a waste.

And you were so still while we worked. When we moved the bassinet your body rocked just enough, and it seemed like there was jelly beneath the skin. But so still and serene and so dead. Maybe you were cold, too, but I didn’t touch, I couldn’t know. I wanted to ask more questions, I wanted to see how you’d feel in my hands, so that I could be prepared for next time. But I didn’t ask. I stayed back, in silence and reverence. I couldn’t ask for that.

Would I feel like I knew you better if I’d held you, touched you? Felt exactly how weak you were in your flesh, and how truly gone you were? I don’t know if it counts as meeting you if you weren’t alive, but I knew so much about you from these moments, how could it not count?

You were a little girl named Sophie who never took her first breath. Lived her whole life in the perfect warmth and dark of Mother, safe and sound.

And you were so loved, so wanted. Your parents were weeping across the hall and you never got to go home. Maybe they were able to return your carseat. Maybe they closed the door of your nursery to avoid it until they couldn’t anymore.

Such a moment of disconnect, to stare at such a fragile creature, who didn’t even make it through her first day, Baby Sophie, whose picture was taken on a worn down couch in an empty delivery room. Lives are welcomed into this world every day, and so many in this room alone. But not yours, Sophie. It’s the happiest time in someone’s life, welcoming a new one into the fray. No one expects this.

Your mother still crying when we brought you back.

It was a glimpse beneath a veil, meeting you, Little Sophie. You are part of a world that so few get to see, that so few expect. Most people do not meet dead purple babies, and do not intrude into a stranger’s moment of raw grief. So surreal to experience this divide, this subjectivity of trauma. My day going fine, going well, and here are your parents who have been freshly shattered. And your mother, her insides likely torn and bleeding, all that pain and this was her reward. It can be so cruel and random.

When I finally left you, left the dark room with the heavy warmth and dull music and sound of pure misery, I opened my laptop to see the other one I met today.

His name is Briggs, and I met him when he was sleeping, swaddled in his hospital blanket and wearing a blue knit hat longer than his body. Your room was dark and sad and his was sunny and joyous. His mother so young and charming and delighted, her accent southern and sugary and everything you’d want happiness to sound like. He opened his eyes and cried and his parents fawned over him, the way I’m sure yours would have fawned over you.

But some of us don’t even make it out alive.

I’m so sad, she said, and it stuck with me more than anything else.

How shredded you must be to reduce yourself to that. I’m so sad. The hurt so enormous that you can’t explain it in any way that makes sense.

You were loved and your mother was sad.