At the last minute the night before my c-section, we decided to host family and friends who had come into town for Tracy’s birth. We ate, we drank, we decorated our Christmas tree. We admired the living room walls that my sister had just painted for us. It was all so painfully normal.

Before I went to bed, we measured my bulging belly. I’m only 48 inches tall, but my belly measured 46 inches around—bloated from the extra amniotic fluid Tracy could not drink because of the shrunken rib cage that could never support her body.

At 8:07 am the next day, Tracy emerged blue, but breathing, from my belly and our little family—Gibson, Cara, and Tracy—headed to the recovery room, where our parents, siblings, and friends were anxiously waiting. For the next 24 hours Tracy was swaddled in that striped blanket and didn’t seem to mind that silly peach hat. She drank from a bottle, she cried, she stuck out her tongue, she blew bubbles, and I swear once she even smiled at me.

Twenty-four hours after she was born, we had to begin our life without her.

In the beginning it was easy, oddly enough. Tracy’s passing was peaceful, as the doctors promised it would be, and we actually felt victorious that we got any time at all with her. Gibson and I were completely cocooned by family members who stayed to cook and clean, but also sat with us and talked about the cute way Tracy stretched out her arm, or the time she nearly lifted her head off my shoulder. They'd remind me how she tried to open her eyes when I sang to her. We'd smile at the memory of her sweet and surprising strawberry blond hair.

Then people went home, leaving us to face a world that didn't know our daughter—a horrifying thought. A show I happened to catch on the Discovery Channel showed a mother elephant steadfastly guarding over her dead calf. The rest of the herd was trying to get her to move on, and she was visibly distraught, making mournful elephant noises. I knew exactly how she felt.

Tracy Where Are You?, I would often cry out, with a primitive wail that I didn’t recognize as coming from my own body. Friends would try to comfort me, and reassure me that Tracy was with God. (What the hell does God know about taking care of a baby? What if she needs her mother? I would sob.) My animalistic, confused rage surprised me. After all, I knew the medical reason why Tracy died. And I even believed her to be in a heavenly place. But none of that mattered. I had counted on those last poignant months of my pregnancy to have seen the worst of my grief. I expected the usual explanations, both clinical and spiritual, to comfort me after Tracy was gone. They only seemed to mock me instead. You made this choice, the raging thoughts within my head would taunt, and now you refuse to accept it?  

Not long after Tracy died, Gibson and I started attending a hospital support group for parents dealing with perinatal or neonatal loss. Here we all share our stories, without bravery, without excuses. The stories are all different; the stories are all the same. Placental abruption. Umbilical cord accident. Genetic mishap. Medical termination. Parents all grieving for their children. I see flashes of my animal rage within them too.

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