We’re grateful to Natasha from blusabar.com for sharing with us her very moving experience of baby loss.
Natasha is second generation, British born, Punjabi woman whose life drastically changed in 2019. Below is her story:
In 2019 I experienced the biggest test of my life. I went from a mother to be, to a mother who’s grieving her first baby. I birthed my baby straight into my own hands at 26 weeks. I’d never felt so scared and alone in my life, yet I was surrounded by these big Asian family units we see. That’s what the bereavement midwife saw, and I guess that’s why she called me the day after my sons funeral and said, “it’s evident you have a big family & you have a lot of support so I’ll close the file down but you have my number if you need to talk or if you need support”.
I tried to speak to say no, I need help, but it was too late, the damage was done, and I couldn’t get my words out. I found it hard enough to speak and hearing that left me feeling like I had no option but to stay quiet. I lay on the floor alone in my bedroom for the rest of that day and I didn’t move. No one ever contacted me again from the NHS.
What the bereavement midwife didn’t know (because she didn’t ask, she assumed) was that this big Asian family I was surrounded by was his family, and I didn’t even know they were coming to my son’s funeral. My former husband and I had said it should be small and intimate so the fact so many people from his family attended was a lot to take in. I’m still dealing with the trauma and the aftermath of that day nearly 3 years on.
In addition to that, 3 weeks prior to my son’s funeral and only 8 days after I’d given birth, my then husband told me to visit my hometown and see my family. I didn’t want to go, I told him I couldn’t drive for 3 hours alone but he insisted that I go back so that my family could take care of me. My body hadn’t recovered from labour, my breast felt like they wanted to explode, and I was still leaking milk from my nipples. I barely packed a thing; I didn’t even feel like I was in control of my own body and I don’t remember much of that drive. I called my former husband the next day to say that I’d be back home in a few hours. He replied by telling me the house that I’d put my whole heart into was no longer my home and that he’ll be divorcing me. I never returned.
Within 8 days I’d lost my baby, my pregnancy body, my husband, my in laws and my home. I still had a funeral to get through and I hadn’t had time to digest all these abrupt and unjust changes to my life. I had no say in anything, nobody asked me, nobody spoke to me and at that time, I no longer wanted to live. Life was too much for me.
The only thing I had left and that nobody could take from me was my heart. It was the only thing I could trust and be certain of, so that’s where I remained, and I turned to the Lord & I was showered with Love & Compassion.
I heard so many awful things said about me by the very person & the people that my family ‘handed’ me over to in marriage. I say handed over because even though I had a love marriage, in this culture there’s an open consensus that when a woman marries, she is leaving her maternal family for that of her husband’s family. Yet very easily and so many stories I hear of families treating daughter in laws in such an inhumane way. How have we got so comfortable to continue this narrative of ‘giving our daughters away.’
The only thing that was there for me in my trauma was my prayer and without it, I really don’t believe I would have made it as far as I have and embarked on this journey of healing as quickly as I did. Despite what I was going through, I stayed in my heart centre and I never left my faith. It saved me, and what I’ve experienced since, allows me to confidently claim that the heart centre holds the keys to everything, & once you unlock it, it connects you to unimaginable gateways.
Other than the pain of my grief and digesting what was happening to both me and to my baby, one of the hardest things to comprehend was the way the South Asian, and more specifically, the Punjabi elders questioned me - like I was supposed to have the answers to the questions they had. I will never forget the way one of my former husbands Puwa’s (his dads’ sister; so an Aunty) questioned me in Punjabi and expected for me to answer as to why my baby has died after I had told them my scans were fine and the baby is healthy. It made me question myself even more, I’d cry to myself, ‘was it me, did I do something, what’s wrong with my womb’. She went on to tell me how she gave birth to a stillborn baby boy at full term when she was still in India. I was shocked when she said that, and I feel embarrassed to admit that it made me feel a little better because it’s so unspoken of that I really did feel that I was the only person in the world that this had happened to. I’d had many heart to hearts with her before, but she never mentioned that she actually had four sons and that one had died until now. I still hear her words and her tone though, ‘naleh kendeh’ which basically implies that your being contradictory. I find it hard to understand how she could be so intrusive with her comments after having experienced such a pain herself. On that same day, one of my Massi’s (my mums’ sister; so an Aunty) called me to give her condolences and she also told me how she gave birth to a baby, but he was born sleeping. She told me how you never get over the pain of your baby dying and it’s something she still carries. She went on to tell me how she didn’t get to see her baby or hold him, and in them days they just took the baby’s body away. My body was cold for the rest of that day. It was the middle of summer, but I sat shivering.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and why we don’t speak of such things, but I too couldn’t speak. I was in shock (& I still am) that just 40 odd years prior and in an NHS hospital, the same thing happened to my Massi and they just took her baby from her. Was that some sort of system or protocol that was put in place then(?). You just removed the dead baby from its mother as soon as they’re birthed & then put them where(?). My Massi doesn’t know the answers to them question and she never will.
I knew my own answers though because I was calling the hospital every day to ask where my baby is and asking what they’re doing with his body. I informed the hospital that I needed to be notified in advance and I want to be told if he is to be moved & where he’ll be going. Whoever had the responsibility of my aftercare didn’t fulfil my wishes of wanting to be updated at every step. I remember calling one afternoon only to be told they’d transported my sons’ body to Guys & St Thomas hospital in London. I asked when and was told it was the day before. I was so affected by the fact I had no idea where my son was – even if it’s his dead body. It added to the pain and the guilt I was experiencing.
I felt the pain of my elders and of every woman that came forward to tell me of their own baby loss stories, and I felt the burden of the emotional & physical effects of baby loss like that of a hundred thousand women. I started thinking of my maternal grandmother and I felt a pain for her like no other because she had told me in my teenage years about the two sons she birthed in Punjab; one born sleeping and the other to leave after a few short years. Whilst I hurt to hear my grandma’s life stories, I couldn’t relate to her experience in the way that I can now and that caused me further pain. I was now grieving for 3 generations of my own bloodline and before I knew it, I could feel the pain of women across my whole ancestral land and a calling to heal generational hurt. It’s like I can feel them stood around me and when I’m grieving, I’m grieving for them and the loss of all their babies too. It physically hurts my body and it leaves me drained for days, if not weeks.
What other words are tied with the two that are ‘baby loss’? - ‘shame’ ‘guilt’ ‘blame’.
I can tell you that even as a second-generation British born woman, I too was subconsciously feeling an element of shame and guilt, I just didn’t know it. I wanted to remain silent and I didn’t want too many people to know in fear of being spoken of. I hated the thought of people discussing my son and the loss of him and I was concerned of their intent. I feared being judged by this culture and these toxic traits of blame and shame. It’s riddled like a disease taking over one’s body and its embedded so deeply that its spread across and into the modern-day diaspora. Your living in a constant fear of being judged and that in itself is so damaging to the mind, body and soul. Whether it’s from the clothes you wear, the grades you get, the university course you take – or don’t, to having male friends, to not having enough Indian girlfriends, to your work status, to your choice of life partner, to the way you feed your kids. I’ve witnessed it since my early years, and I’ve heard how women will speak and discuss anything they can on another woman. Hell, I’m a victim to it and I can tell you it’s vile! It’s affected and caused damage to my mental & spiritual wellbeing more times than I can even fathom.
I have memories from young about certain topics not being discussed due to them being too taboo and baby loss / miscarriage was one of them, but we never really questioned or spoke about taboo topics either. When I was in my 20’s I recall hearing some news about one of my cousin’s miscarrying, but I was told not to say anything. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t pass on my condolences but at the same time I think for south Asians, it’s very common to hear about what’s going on in other people’s homes and then act like you don’t know. The whole family would be discussing a life event of yours and not mention it when they greet you, and even you know yourself that they know, but it still goes unspoken of. It’s these toxic cycles and patterns that are still being repeated and passed down through the generations.
I’m in my mid 30’s and even within my own small & very close-knit friendship circle, we’d never discuss family matters or dream of telling one another what’s happening within our households. We call ourselves ‘sister friends’ yet none of them know about some of my deepest trauma wounds and only in the last few years have we started being more open with each other. I’d say the loss of my baby, choosing a path of development & healing had a knock-on effect within my circle and the dynamics of our group. We slowly started to open up more and in turn that meant a huge weight and responsibility being lifted off of our shoulders. To speak of your parents and the home you’ve been raised in is viewed as a huge disrespect as well as being noted as ‘berst’i (shameful/embarrassing). I personally feel this is the reason why there is so much intergenerational trauma within our culture and why first, second born generations are repeating such trauma cycles. We are so conditioned to hide things, to not speak and as woman we are programmed to inherit all the pain and the working ways as far back as our great grandmothers’ mothers, and if we don’t, you risk being spoken of and causing ‘shame’ to your family name.
There’s no hiding from the fact shame/guilt/blame is embedded within the South Asian community and further, it seems to be a given that the women will carry the burden of that in silence, whether it’s just or not. Apparently the whole izzat (honour & reputation) lies with just the females of the family.
I was now one of those females. I’d been shamed before though; I’d had a lot of blame placed with me and I was burdened with things from quite young that I didn’t deserve to carry. This programming led me to accept being treated in a similar way by my former husband & his family. I knew I was being abused but I accepted that this would just be my life so instead of protecting myself, I damaged myself even more and I let my former husband and in laws continue to keep hurting me because with my minds view then it was my own fault because I wasn’t a ‘good enough Indian girl’. I thought that if I continued to keep putting their needs above mine that eventually I would be accepted and respected, despite the fact that I’d come from a divorced home.
It never happened and despite all my love & all my efforts, my former husband & his family treated me in the most despicable way whilst I was enduring a pain such as baby loss.
Baby Loss. It’s just two words, yet when it happens to you, you realise just how taboo and unspoken of it is. Them two words had me lost and I stayed lost in lost, with what I lost.
Nobody told me, nobody spoke to me and nobody asked me. When I speak of my angel baby, people move awkwardly because I refuse to drop my head in shame so when I’m asked ‘do you have children’, I’m getting stronger at saying ‘yes, yes I have an angel in the heavens who calls me his Mummy’. I don’t always manage to though and sometimes I walk away with the guilt that I just answered ‘no’ when I was asked if I have children.
The silence is damaging & we need to get better at making way for new behaviours so that new patterns can be created, and the next set of our babies are born into a more supportive human race! All of that starts with conversations but from my experience it seems like we are still a long way away from having such discussions.
As an end note I’d just like to say that whilst the element of shame, blame & guilt is ever present within the culture I’ve been born and raised within, my research over the last couple of years & psychological studies suggest that women from all backgrounds and all over the world are suffering in silence with the shame that surrounds baby loss.
It pains my heart because it’s a pain I know too well. If anyone deserves a wave of compassion and support, is it not the woman who’s been delivered a burden of grieving her child (?). My wish is that we get better at providing support and hearing the pain of each tear that falls.
Do we as a society and a race of human beings still not understand the woman is the only vessel across every species that God entrusted to hold, deliver & nurture his most beautiful creation to.
The silence, the shame and the blame game are slowly killing the spirit of women. I know because it killed mine but I was fortunate enough to find the strength & the courage to get back up and rebirth.
If your touched by this story, please light a candle in honour of the women who had their babies leave too early.