No, we're not getting divorced. This is just something that was said to us repeatedly while I was in recovery from my c-section with Korbin. Probably every 30 minutes. And honestly, I do think it helped keep us together. Hearing that made us cling to each other that much more instead of drift apart on separate grieving paths. We still have been grieving differently over the years, as is expected, but we've learned to go to each other in our grief.
It's amazing how much that phrase meant to us, as odd as it sounds. And yet, what if they had added: You can keep your baby with you as long as you need.
I recently listened to a podcast about death and what a family's options are when dealing with a loved one's body. What hit me like a slap in the face was the fact that you can take your deceased loved one home from the hospital. Like seriously, what. The. Fuck. My gut reaction is that we were totally screwed by the hospital. That's the anger in loss talking. But also, seriously, what an incredible way to have some serious closure when losing someone. This podcast discussed all the implications from how the family experiences the first signs of decompososition, like the smell, to really feeling like you had the final moments with the person that were so needed. Even if you didn't realize you needed that extra time. I feel like that would have added some much needed sanity to this incredibly insane moment in our lives.
I'm still a bit floored by learning this. I mean, not a single person, nurse, MA, doctor, psychologist, told us this was possible. Not even that we could have kept Korbin with us the entire time I was in the hospital. Instead we were rushed to give over his body while I was still too loopy to stand up for myself and my mental and emotional needs. This is possibly due to a lack of education, as well as a lack of cuddle cots. A cuddle cot is specifically designed to hold a deceased baby and keep the body cool enough to delay the first signs of decomposition, like the smell mentioned above, so that the family has time to process this devastating moment.
I can't even tell you the magnitude of the regret I still struggle to make peace with from our lack of time with Korbin's body. Therapy has helped me to process the regret a bit, but it is still there lurking beneath the surface of my grief.
As I continue to learn more about death and the laws surrounding what is supposed to happen to the bodies, I'm finding I am being drawn to educate others in our area. Not necessarily just the people I know, but hospitals, birthing centers, midwives, even funeral homes. In some states where this education is already present, funeral homes and hospitals are already equipped with cuddle cots to offer to families for rent. There's also the A Day With Chase foundation, which sparked my interest in learning more about cuddle cots. This foundation seeks to educate and provide cuddle cots to facilities so that they are available for use in such times of need. And yet, there are so many facilities that still don't even consider infant death that devastating to a family. There is still so much to learn, and so many to educate.
I'm making this one of my goals for 2018. To research all the ins and outs of a family's rights when it comes to losing a baby and how to best educate the facilities that care for these families. And also to develop a way to provide these facilities with the necessary tools to go along with this education, namely the cuddle cots.
Maybe it's for selfish reasons, to help me deal with my regrets and grief. But I sincerely want others to have a better chance at dealing with the devastating blow of the death of their baby, and to not have the regrets that I have to deal with daily. Proper education and support can alleviate that. And we just need to support each other.
Because we got a lotta love to give.
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