A Ceremony for Hope

We walked down to the Medomak River behind our house. 

 

WATER: There is a bend in the river- I knew our ceremony needed to go to this place but I didn't know why. The river takes a 90 degree turn and is surrounded by a flat flood plain area. We began a scavenger hunt to put together tiny rafts to float down the river.
Hope's Aunt Liv got scared by a spider and squealed like a little girl

AIR: Each person launched their raft with a burning bundle of sage, rosemary, and hemp incense. Afterwards, I read the story of why we gave Hope her name.

FIRE: We walked back to our house to start a fire inside a hole, in which we burned things from nature that each person brought from their homes- winterberry, sage from Idaho, grass from the Field, pine cones, and so on. Then we each wrote notes to Hope and tossed them into the flames. Some people spoke or shared readings. 

EARTH: We smothered the fire and planted a serviceberry, which will some day provide fruit to our family and birds, in effect sending our love for Hope far beyond this ceremony. 

Chapter 6: Naming of Hope

Chapter 6: Naming of Hope
We didn’t pick from our list of favorites- this baby needed a name with a different tone. Getting out of bed one morning soon after we learned she had died, the name came to Brian- Hope. Instantly, yes, of course, this would be the perfect name. Hope

She came into existence because of hope, our pregnancy was tied together with hope, and then in the end, we were able to wait out the six weeks because of hope. We didn’t always feel hopeful or speak its name aloud during these times, but everything about this baby’s life and death rode on the back of hope. Hope

Hope’s life could be overrun with sorrow, agony, despair, distrust. When we think of Hope, we could feel only the pain, the unfairness, the doubt. And yes, maybe all those feelings will remain strong for us all for a while. Hope

But, her name is Hope. When we think of her, when we speak her name, just in that word, room for hope is made. Imbedded in her name is hope and simply in holding her name, the scary feelings must give way to some small amount of hope. Hope

Its almost like a cute childish trick- “you may feel horrible, but say my name, and there is something there for you. I gave you sorrow, but I am also giving you hope. Even if at times by a trick, it is there.” She forces upon the sorrow a sense of hope, she asks us to mingle the two, honor both feelings simultaneously. Hope

She was a small baby, doing things in a small, subtle way. Saying her name, the space becomes just wide enough for something to begin, something to grow, something to move. Brian and I came across the saying, “while I breathe, I hope”. Its true, hope is a small simple thing. In just one breath, one moment, one day, exists the expanse of hope. She gives us this little, precious, fragile, consolidated thing. That is her gift to our family- just that small amount can get us through until we, ourselves, can grow it out, fortify it, establish it. Use her gift- say her name, listen to her name, hold her name. Hope.

Chapter 5: Birth of Hope

Chapter 5: Birth of Hope
Around mid-afternoon on March 25th, my amniotic fluid starting leaking, which I didn’t know at the time. I arrived home from work and told myself that tonight was the night. It wasn’t an affirmation or wish or even demand- it was just true. I had the word “flush” in my mind- a complete downward emptying. Unromantically, I had the image of my hand pushing a toilet handle down, water swirling down the toilet, moving uninterruptedly around the white ceramic- flush. I told myself that labor would begin as soon as I walked through the threshold to our house- something I also told myself during Ari’s birth. I opened the door, read our plaque on the wall: “make this threshold wide enough”. And with that I am certain, the slow widening began. I said hi to Brian and told him tonight the baby will be born.
At first there was nothing, then a dull cramp, then a peaking cramp. Anna and I talked on the phone a few times over the next couple hours, eventually she decided she should make the trip through the night to be with us. Just as I hung up the phone, light contractions starting waning and waxing, drifting in and out. Brian began the water to the birthing tub, hobbling around on crutches. I walked around the house, pausing through contractions to bow my head and rock my hips. I paused less out of need and more out of honor. Because I knew labor would be short, I wanted to savor the opening and coming- cherish the precious moments of Hope’s birth. I indulged in the rolling rounded over pain- this was the feeling of a mother delivering her child home. I was a birthing mother.
Brian went outside for a smoke break. Later he would tell me that he saw a flaming shooting star- a meteor streaming half the reach of the sky, a bluish streak highlighted with white light. After the birth, Anna also told us she saw the same celestial streak.
As Anna arrived around 11pm, we checked in with each other, but soon headed to bed to sleep off as much of the night as possible. I cuddled with Brian, sleeping lightly, nested with my dreamy contractions. This bed- I had spent so many restless hours in wait. It was my shoddy raft to ride through the storm, mounting the dark endless waves. The raft was both our haven- a space to read fun-loving books, watch movies, play sudoku- and the exposed frontlines- a time to feel our hearts becoming more raw.
But now, finally in this land of labor, this bed was just its sheets and winter warm blankets. I woke myself out of this sleepy space with the sound of my increasing breath. Anna checked on me and continued preparing the birthing tub. The contractions now called for my breath to moan through them. They called on me to get off my side and sit up in a low-seated crouch, shins firm on the bed, arms long at my sides, slowly rocking up and down. This was the position I knew I would labor in- I had visualized it exactly as this. Brian turned on the music I knew I would birth with- a particular soulful artist played with the base turned up. I cried thinking of all the times I had listened to the music, fantasying the birth of my healthy baby. Brian cried knowing this is what we had been waiting for these 6 weeks- waiting and waiting- but still only to greet a child without youth. My limbs were getting ever so slightly shaky, little hints of nausea- I knew birth was soon. I wanted the water.
I felt surprisingly buoyant in the birthing tub- supported in the warm water, not having to hold my own weight. The sensations changed in the water, in the dimly lit living room, feeling less defined contractions. The baby crowned. I asked Brian to light candles and burn sage. In between now- the gentle balance of being in between- holding our baby at the threshold between coming and going, holding our journey at the balance of waiting and arriving. With tears down my cheeks, Brian at my side, I gave the final easy push to release both this baby and ourselves.
She floated up- 2:22am. Anna caught her. I cradled her small wet body. I could hardly see her through my tears, through the candlelight. We wrapped her in a green and white checkered blanket. We looked at her tiny hands and feet- so still, rigid from the weeks. She was almost exactly the size of the little teddy bear my nieces had given me. Brian held her as I got out of the tub. Anna wrapped me in a blue towel and Brian wrapped the baby in a matching one. Moving to the couch, I sat, held her and we cried- grief, freedom, and…Hope. We feel asleep. Waking up, I opened my eyes, looked around the room- finally, I made it.

Chapter 4: Waiting for Hope

Chapter 4: Waiting for Hope
I wanted to honor our baby’s 5 and a half month life with the birth that had been intended for her- a calm, peaceful, unmedicated birth with loving midwives to catch her and love her, with her home in Union to welcome her. And so the waiting began.
My body started on night one with a little nighttime contraction and continued these gentle warm-ups for 6 weeks. During that period I put up the birthing wall, packed up the baby’s few belongings, puffed my eyes up with tears, wrote, visited, was taken care of, went to work on odd hours, met with our midwives. I traveled through many different places over these weeks- many feelings, many dreams, many turns.
There were moments of acceptance and learning, amazement of this journey unfolding. I learned that the place on my ankle from the dream is an acupuncture point were energy often pools and stagnates. A massage therapist intuitively went to this point and told me when I asked that this area had to do with reproductive health. My dream had knowledge I didn’t possess.
I dreamt of a branch in the river by our house blocking the flow of the river. When I woke, I dragged that branch out of the frozen river with the help of friends, in hopes that it would release any blocks in my body. But still, several nights later, I dreamt of a stack of rusted blue metal barrels tied up at the edge of our river, waiting to be released.
The weeks just kept going by, each morning waking again into what began to feel like my holding pen. I’m still here, I thought each morning, yup still here.
I started some gentle home induction methods- blue cohosh, black cohash, evening primrose oil, acupuncture, massage, meditation, nipple stimulation, and the winning herb schisandra.
I was holding up well enough for the first 5 weeks. Then the weight became too heavy: Brian blew out his knee, had surgery on his meniscus and ACL, out of work for a month, needing also to be taken care of. My two midwives, Donna and Ellie, had to leave town for their planned vacation. My three primary caregivers, Brian, Donna, and Ellie were all out of the mix. My two stillbirths were heavy. My five weeks were depleting. I felt abused by the circumstances of life, slashing at me as I tried to navigate. Sinking deeper into my sadness, sinking deeper into insomnia, I felt I could not take another step down this journey.

Chapter 3: Missing Hope

Chapter 3: Missing Hope
It started with a dream- a blood test taken from the center of my ankle revealed that my blood volume was too low to still be pregnant, two nurses told me that the baby had died, Donna and Ellie rushed in at that very moment, red in the face from crying, they held me as I wept, I broke out of their embrace to pace the room, shouting no, no, no, flashing back to loosing Ari, hysterical tears, devastation.
I woke up. Startled. Afraid. Nightmare. Brian in his sleep, told me, “Its okay, try to think of something else- think of flowers.”
For the next week the dream haunted me. I begged the baby to stay, told her how much I loved her and wanted her. My prenatal visit was coming up. I thought in my head about what would happen if we couldn’t hear the heart this time- I played it through in my head. Both this and the dream came true.
At the beginning of our prenatal visit with Donna, Ellie, and Anna, I told them about the dream. We talked for almost an hour about cooping with the worry of this pregnancy after having lost Ari. Feeling reassured, I lay down for the midwives to measure my belly, feel my uterus, and find the heartbeat. Anna tried with the Doppler. Nothing. Ellie tried. Nothing. Still nothing. Donna tried. Nothing. Familiar nothing. A missing heartbeat- a surprise that felt familiar and reminiscent.
Ellie called PenBay Medical Center to schedule an ultrasound. I called Brian at work, now crying, wishing I could just not tell him. We met in Camden with two hours to wait before our appointment. We practiced the wonderful skill of denial, more thoughtfully known as “worry when it comes.” We had lunch, Brian got a haircut, looked in a bookstore.
Soon we met Donna at the hospital waiting room. We talked about how the placenta could have been blocking the baby. We talked about maybe my pulse was high and the baby’s was low, making it hard to tell the two apart. We had hope.
Ultrasound room- the technician rolled the instrument over my belly. The baby’s image came up on the screen. I saw that there was no movement inside the body. There was no sound. I knew. The technician said, “this is the hardest part of my job- there is no heartbeat.” I curled up on my side in a heaving cry- gasping for air between weeps. My whole body ached in a hollow pain-a physical pain that folded me in half.
Soon enough, an obvious decision was made to go home and wait for labor to begin. The first birth I attended as a doula informed this decision, as just a year before I helped a now dear friend through her stillbirth where she went home to wait.

Chapter 2: Pregnant with Hope

Chapter 2: Pregnant with Hope
Part 1: Hope attended three births with me as a Doula. She was present as Leif, Adelaide, and Lily were born into this world. Her ears were not developed at those moments but she did know something of their coming, witnessing their arrival.
Part 2: I heard Hope’s heart beat on two occasions. The first- I lay on my back with three midwives over me. They experimented with a fetoscope but it was still too early for these fascinating instruments to detect this little heartbeat. Next they used the Doppler. With a little bit of goop on my belly, Ellie sifted through the different sounds and out emerged a strong baby’s heart, beating with life. I smiled. Then I cried from the very spot were this baby rested. The last heartbeat I had heard was Ari’s, the last heartbeat I had not heard was Ari’s. Relief, joy, sorrow- and yes hope. My midwives held me while I cried, holding the space for my tears to go. I felt a lifting at that moment- a shedding of past sorrow. I felt joy and anticipation fill those places. The second time I heard her heartbeat was with Brian beside me- it was a much more convivial moment. Brian and our midwives enjoying a moment that held nothing but love- simple love.
Part 3: The three Sommo girls decided it was time for a baby shower. Even though I was only four months along, many were home for the holidays- an occasion to celebrate our baby and my pregnancy. A dozen or so women came to our home in Union- the eldest being Whitney, the youngest perhaps was Emma. With full stomachs, we started in on articulating the celebration. We passed out short yellow candles, decorated with a sprig a hemlock and toile. Passing the light around the circle, we also passed red wool yarn, looping it around each wrist to form a bracelet. Candles were taken home to light when the baby was born and the bracelets were worn until the baby was born, creating a replica of the circle that was formed that day. Then we crafted messages for my birthing wall- a wall of womanly wisdom. Tissue paper, glue, scissors, cardboard circled around the room- talking, laughing, reminiscing, creating. This family of women soon left, leaving behind a few small presents, including a very small teddy bear with a purple bowtie picked out by my nieces Jesse and Adrianna.

Chapter 1: The conception of Hope

It is time to write a story about Hope. From the beginning to… a different beginning.

Chapter 1: The conception of Hope
I first learned of Hope’s being from a phoebe who flew into our house. After I opened the doors for her to fly on, I thought, “Oh yes, a messenger delivering a hint of news”. And indeed it was.
That night I took a pregnancy test that turned positive with such quick vigor. Second-guessing, I called the test hotline to ask if it should have turned positive so quickly. A sincere man reassured me and asked if congratulations were in order. Yes.
He and I were the only ones to know for those first few hours. I cherished this secret time with just me and my baby- time with a seed that was to be Hope. I wallowed in being with child again- delighted in the carrying once again. I cried and laughed, the first expressions of my love for Hope.
At 9pm, Brian and I had a phone date to celebrate our anniversary, October 15. I told him then but he I believe had known before the official test. Together, that night, we shared our pride and went to sleep once again as expecting parents.