You Knew

For the month of May, the Hogg Foundation is celebrating Mental Health Awareness Month. Throughout the month we’ll be highlighting this year’s theme, “In Every Story, There’s Strength,” and focusing on the resilience and diverse experiences that shape mental health journeys within Texas communities.

This piece was written by Crystal Rhodes, a member of the Contributors Circle at the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. The views expressed in this post do not represent those of the Hogg Foundation.

It is hard to express the devastation that I felt when I lost my child. It was May of 2020. The world was thrust into chaos and the unknown due to the COVID pandemic. I had just become a Mrs. instead of a Ms. and my new husband and I had just celebrated our honeymoon fighting for toilet paper at Walmart.

A few days later, I was finishing the last of our Costco wedding cake and realized the butter cream icing wasn’t sitting so well in my tummy. So, after mindfully using the toilet paper I fought so hard for, I encouraged my husband to go to HEB, stand in the long line to get in the store, and get me a pregnancy test.

Naming Dreams

When the positive sign appeared, we were both beyond belief and the happiest we could have ever been. We called the clinic right away and was seen the same day. A blood test confirmed that we were expecting. It was the first time in a long time that I was completely happy and hopeful.

We started picking out names and told our immediate families. My husband wanted to name our child Apollonia if we had a girl. I told him he had fell and bumped his head if he thought I was naming our daughter after a character in the movie, Purple Rain (no offense to any Apollonia’s out there reading this)!  We both laughed and spent the next few weeks planning for the birth of our child.

Everything Shatters

We lost our child a few months later. I screamed until I had no voice. My husband would not talk and swept the same place in the kitchen over and over. The OBGYN knew. She knew I was losing my child, but she refused to tell us. She denied adequate healthcare because she decided it was too late. I felt betrayed. I heard multiple stories afterwards from women who didn’t look like me who were given the hope by their doctors that their child would survive. These doctors provided medications and scheduled extra sonograms for these women who did not look like me. My doctor, who did not look like me, told us to wait and see.

I think I lost my mind after our baby was gone. I remember wanting to die to be with her. I knew the baby was a her. I knew I was going to have to debate with my husband over why we should not name our child Apollonia. I knew everything was going to be amazing when we brought her home. Except we didn’t get to bring her home.

Writing Through the Pain

No one tells you the anguish and darkness you feel when you lose a part of yourself. Everyone just told me “it’s going to be okay.” If I heard its going to be okay one more time, I was going to literally stab myself. I began writing. I wrote because eating cookies a dozen at a time wasn’t working to take the pain away anymore. I wrote because my husband was shut down and wouldn’t speak to me and the loneliness was way too much to bare. I wrote because cutting only gave a temporary relief.

I wrote…

You walked into the damp examining room.

A fake sunflower placed coldly in the smudged window.

White walls blended in with your white skin.

Your yellow tresses fell down the nape of your neck, blue eyes stared into me.

My soul began to cry out. My ancestors screamed so loud.

She knows.

She knows.

I felt his eyes. His prayers.

He wanted to be a daddy, he longed to brush his daughter’s hair.

Bleeding is normal she said.

We’ll wait two weeks more to see if she lives.

But she knew at week ten that my baby was dead.

She knew but she didn’t care.

She knew but didn’t speak the truth.

Because her skin was fair and mine was darker than hers.

She knew and she didn’t care.

This was my truth.

She knew she was gone before I even knew it.

And she didn’t care.

Because my skin isn’t fair.

I wrote and wrote.

Reclaiming Power

It took about a year and lots of antidepressants for me to acknowledge my pain and to believe that losing my baby was not my fault. It took about two years after the miscarriage for us to start trying to conceive again.

We tried and tried to get pregnant again. I took a whole bunch of herbal supplements, I drank more water, I exercised, I laid with my legs in the air. Nothing worked.

Thus, begins our fertility journey. I won’t get into specific details today, but to understand the complexity of this journey and the amazing outcome, I will one day tell you about the trauma and strength that came with bringing my rainbow baby, my unicorn into the world.

Why I Will Keep Telling My Story

Dr. Maya Angelou once said, “”You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” I forgive myself for not fighting for what is right during one of the worst times in my life. I forgive myself for not understanding the process. I forgive myself for wanting to take my own life. I will never reduce myself to conform to what others believe grief is and I will never let my losses be my demise. Rather, I will continue to tell my story because in every one of my stories, there is strength.

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