Here I am, Cassandra.

And this is my city under ashes.

And these are my prophet’s staff and ribbons.

And this is my head full of doubts.

-Wisława Szymborska

I think a lot of people divide their lives up into before, during, and after. There are just some moments that turn you, like a gyre, and spit you out on the other side. You’re rarely the same in the aftermath. People tend to talk about the “before” or the “during” of these events a lot. They are the rising action and the climax of the story, after all. The “after” gets erased. That’s probably because the falling action is often a combination of boring and messy. You go back to whatever remains of your life and try to figure out who you are now. People don’t have patience for that. They want the headlines, the drama, and then to disappear quietly into their own comfort. They don’t have patience for your “after.” That’s your business to sort out. 

This year I’ve watched a lot of my friends’ babies turn one, and I can hardly believe a year has passed. I look at their cute, pinchable, almost toddler cheeks on social media and think, “no that can’t be right, I mean, I had Sparrow right around the same time, and…” Then I do the math. It is right, it has been that long since my daughter came and left, my little bird who flew away too soon. 

In December of 2020, my daughter died due to a stricture in her umbilical cord. At some point, as she grew, the cord twisted, thinning in one spot, cutting off blood flow and stopping her heart before I had a chance to meet her face to face. The doctors told me it was like a lightning strike, one in a million, an unavoidable stroke of terrible luck. I used to find statistics very comforting. What’s the likelihood you’ll be that one in a million? Well, when you find out and you’re the one, it just kind of…to put it lamely…sucks. 

I’ll spare you the details of the birth, but I will remind you that I did have to give birth. A lot of people forget that and are shocked when I tell them, but babies don’t just evaporate when their hearts stop beating. She had to come out somehow. The only difference is no child is wailing at the finish line. You don’t go through labor excited about what’s to come, the person you’ll get to meet, hold, and raise. Only the parents cry when the baby is dead. You get a box, not a baby. A referral to a funeral home instead of a pediatrician. The great state of California sends you a Fetal Death Certificate instead of a Birth Certificate. I remember seeing her APGAR score of 0 on her paperwork and wanting to slap someone. “Of course, it’s 0. Did we have to document it?” was all I could think. Though the answer was yes, they did. Our sad story was one of millions, folded into the aforementioned statistics of stillbirth. 

But like I said at the beginning, that was the during. This piece is about the after.

The memory of her death, the haunting moment when I realized what the cessation of her movement meant will live within me always. I have carried both life and death inside of my womb. 

Yet time marches on even if your world has stopped spinning and it is spring (again) and now I carry life (again). My daughter’s sibling is due earthside in a few weeks. 

As desperately as I wanted to be pregnant again, I simultaneously knew that it would be no cure for the agony of losing my daughter. In fact, I was actively aware of just how difficult it might be. Before I got pregnant, I told a friend that I imagined it would be something like clinging to the wing of an airplane for nine months. Thirty thousand feet above the ground with no choice but to just hold on. 

From day to day, I’ve managed well, but I’ve always been the type to compartmentalize and deal with my emotions on my own time. There have been, and continue to be moments where the fear is all-consuming. I hold my breath at each ultrasound and waiting for the doctor to confirm the heartbeat feels like an eternity. Frequently, there are tears, but I keep them brief and the mask hides a lot (why yes, reader from the future, this is a Covid-era story). 

So I function. I cook, clean, work, get out of bed. Externally, all is tranquil. I am coping well, playing the role of responsible citizen and expecting mother. Internally, it is loud. There are no blissfully quiet moments where I simply imagine this baby’s future or feel the joy of my second child moving within me. To be sure, I have those thoughts, but there alongside them, hovering just above my head like the sword of Damocles, is the insidious and constant whisper, “what if they die?”

Yes, what if, indeed? The reality is that this thin veil between life and death, that sword at our necks, is with us daily, but most people have to ignore it to function. After all, how could you even begin to give your attention to the daily trivial pursuits life demands if you’re too busy side-eying the Grim Reaper floating just there, in the corner of your eye? I have found myself constantly wondering who’s turn it was next. Me? My husband? My next child? My cat? 

There are moments of gut-twisting anguish that have shaken me out of my sleep and brought me to my knees to bargain with God. “Just let it be me this time, not the baby,” I’ve pleaded in a moment of prayer to the Almighty. “I don’t think I can do it again.” I’ve convinced myself that history is repeating itself many times during this pregnancy. I’ve lain on my side, racked with fear, gripping my stomach and waiting for the baby to squirm. From this position, I’ve faced my husband with tears rolling down my face as he, my calm, rational rock, asks me questions only I can answer, “Do we need to go to Labor and Delivery? Do you want me to buy a doppler?” Then the child will kick, wiggle, or swirl, and I’ll breathe out again. This dance repeats ad nauseam. 

I am viciously jealous of women who announce their pregnancies as soon as they find out. Those who pop gender reveal balloons and declare with so much surety that soon they’ll meet their son or daughter. My mind screams out, “you don’t know that!” and then I feel guilty for hating their ignorance, or for judging someone whose history I don’t know. I had hoped that would fade. It remains potent. 

This has been a pregnancy of no illusions. When your first child dies and you never hear them laugh or learn the color of their eyes, when you have only hours with their body instead of years with their soul, it strips something away. The sword of life and death is there over you now, like it always was. The only difference is that you can see it. 

My challenge, in this “after,” has been to survive on a day-to-day basis and not wander around like Cassandra, constantly trumpeting the doom of Troy to an audience who would much prefer I remain silent. Most expect me to be joyful with the new pregnancy, but babies do not replace babies. My well-meaning, much-beloved mother asks me with each passing week if I feel more at ease. I wish I could tell her yes. 

I doubt I will ever feel truly at ease again. That is the after I must deal with, this is the music I must play, and the tune I must dance to. But in this after, there is only today, and this is how I survive, clinging to the wing of my fast-moving jet.   

I have no words of comfort to bring this all to a close. No sweet one-liners that fit neatly into a quotable Instagram box. I do not feel any better, I am only used to the sensation, the gnawing nip of fear at my back. So I operate from inhale to exhale. Minute to minute. Day by day. For today, my second child is alive, poking me squarely in the ribs as I write this. I will live by each “today.” 

Caitlin is a writer living in Los Angeles, California. If you want to learn more about her work you can find her at caitlinmheflin.com or on Instagram @caitlinmheflin