I have wanted to write about this for weeks, but I have been
having a hard time getting started. I
have been afraid of not getting all of the details straight. While I was lying in bed last night, I
realized I needed to write sooner rather than later as all the specifics were
starting to blur.
_____________________
The Monday after finding out that Oliver had died, I called
The Birth Center so that I could ask all the questions I had about
miscarrying. Sarah Grace, the midwife on
call, fielded all of my questions. One
of the things she mentioned to me was that since I was so far along in first
trimester that I might see the baby when I finally miscarried. She told me that
there was the possibility that the baby would come out whole but that he may
also come out in parts. I was also told
that I might never see my baby at all during the miscarrying process.
This news precipitated a question that I hadn’t thought
about prior to calling; what was I supposed to do with the baby? I was told
that some people flush their baby, some put the baby in the trash, and still
others bury their baby. I couldn’t
stomach the idea of the first two options, but I also had no clue how to go
about burying the baby either.
Thankfully, Ish and I had several days to figure it all out.
Part of our concerns when it came to figuring out what to do
about burying Oliver was that we weren’t sure if there was a prescribed way of
doing things in the Catholic Church.
We
of course knew that burying the dead is a corporal work of mercy, but beyond
knowing that we would need to bury our sweet baby, we were pretty clueless.
I mentioned this concern to Little Ish’s
godmother and she very graciously offered to have her husband research the
matter for us.
During the time that he
was researching, I was reading
Karen Edmisten's book
.
Between the information our friend found for
us and the information in Karen’s book, we knew that we could bury our baby on
hallowed ground and we were fairly sure there was some sort of funeral rite for
unborn babies.
Since we knew we were going to bury Oliver before I
delivered him, I took the time to figure out how I was going to catch his
little body; I did not want to be fishing his body out of a toilet.
I got the idea of miscarrying into a
scarf/thin piece of fabric by looking at what the Elizabeth Ministry included
in their
Miscarriage Delivery Aid kits.
I had considered purchasing one, but I had the feeling it wouldn’t
arrive by the time I needed it.
After we figured out how to catch Oliver, we simply stopped
worrying about what we were going to do.
When I finally did miscarry, Ish called his mother because we didn’t
really know how to go about getting the whole burial process started. It turns out I still don’t know how to do
that, because Ish’s mom very kindly worked out all of the details for us so
that Oliver could be laid to rest beside his great-grandmother and his uncle.
On the morning of January 10th, Fr. Ambrose
presided over a gravesite burial service for Oliver Innocent. Under a small tent with our baby sealed
inside a beautiful inlaid wood box, surrounded by a group of about 35 friends
and family members, we prayed for the soul of our sweet boy. I can’t adequately describe that morning
except to say that as hard as burying Oliver was, the overwhelming love and
support from friends and family was a testament to the fact that he lived even
though he was never born.
by Orson Scott Card. So far I am enjoying it. It is nice to be reading a carefully crafted fairytale retelling; the last one I read was a train wreck--one of those books I finished because I had already gotten so far into it that I couldn't not finish it. Enchantment is definitely a breath of fresh air in comparison.
