A Little Process, A Little Progress

Current work, Nathanael's painting in progress

Nathanael Paul, 17 weeks

Nathanael's tiny 1" footprints

This was the year where I was going to be organized.  Our youngest finally started school full time and our oldest went off to University.  The four in between all safely in school.  So this was supposed to finally be My Year.  I enrolled in two educational programs, one international (Post-natal Doula and Breastfeeding Counselor training) and one local (Community Services Work).  I signed up to volunteer additional hours for a local crisis pregnancy centre.  I really wanted to be able to start helping people, especially in the field of pregnancy, especially crisis pregnancy.  In between all that, I started painting art and that was well-received.  Little did I know that I would have two crisis pregnancies of my own within the first six months of the year.

It all started out well.  Then I got sick.  Then I got pregnant.  Then I miscarried in the 3rd month and was hospitalized for a few days.  Then I got sick again, very sick.  Off to the hospital again, and a long period of recovery.  Then I got pregnant again.  AGAIN!  I could not believe it.  We acclimated to the idea yet again, were starting to buy baby clothes, were excited to see the ultrasound at 12 weeks and hear the heartbeat and start to feel the little kicks in the 4th month.  I had two nasty viruses back to back in the beginning of the pregnancy but things seemed to be going ok and I recovered, or so I thought.

Then, at 17 weeks, sudden silence.  No kicks.  No heartbeat to be found.  Off to the hospital again, to have the horrible ultrasound in the emergency department.  The ultrasound where a perfect round-headed little baby floated motionless, no heartbeat, head gently bobbing as I was prodded.  The next three days were spent in hospital, where they tried to induce delivery. I went into surgery in the middle of the night on the third day. The drawn-out and graphic delivery of our tiny baby boy was emotionally traumatic in ways which are not decent to describe.  It will never, never leave me.

We named our baby Nathanael Paul.  We are still waiting for his little hand and footprints, and his ashes to be returned to us from his cremation.

In the meantime, I'm trying to carve out time to work on the only painting I had been able to begin while I was pregnant with Nathanael.  Between being sick with the viruses and morning sickness and just trying to keep up with the demands of a large family, I wasn't up to doing much else at the time.  No studying, no volunteering, no commissioned paintings...just this one little watercolour, which began as a study in silk inks.  And right now I'm still trying to carve out time to finish it.  I'm trying to pick up the studying again (in a different field.  I'm not ready to work with pregnancy and probably won't be for a little while yet.  I'm so painfully tender yet, we all are.)

We are also dealing with a very ill child, who has a condition called HSP which was triggered by those same viruses we had at the beginning of Nathanael's pregnancy.  He's been out of school since September, very ill.  And all kinds of other events are happening with the other children -- graduations and end-of-school year festivities and carnivals and all sorts of things.

There hasn't been any time to grieve or really process the death and birth of our little baby. I try to take time late at night to write.  But then I also, for the rest of the day, try not to think about it.  I guess this little artwork is my way of acknowledging our smallest boy in a gentle way, a little process and a little progress.