My Sister and her Baby

I was halfway through leading a meeting yesterday when I received the call. It was my sister Edwina. Her twin sister Philippa was 39 weeks pregnant. We had taken bets to see when she would “pop”. I had picked June 4 in two days time, firmly in the middle of the spread. My buzzing phone stopped, exhausted it attempt to get my attention. I continued through the list of requirements on video chat. Then a message appeared on my screen “It’s URGENT!” I made a note to call back. Then another two in quick succession “Phil’s at the hospital. Bub wasn’t moving. They can’t find a heart beat” then “Phil’s Bub passed away”. In that instant: shock - when the normal folds back and in it’s place is a vibrating void.

I told the others in the meeting that something was wrong with my sister and I had to cut it short. I was not frenzied but my mind had gone very quiet. I phoned Edwina. She was composed given the circumstances.

The day before Philippa had known something was wrong. She had not felt the baby move. According to my mother Phil had been anxious from the start - her list of complaints had continued throughout the past nine months. The way that Edwina tells it - it’s of mounting tension. They had spent 10 minutes trying to coax a kick or a turn from the baby but the baby remained a dead-weight.

For me the details of pre-birth motherhood emerge through stories like these and I realise my ignorance. A woman forms an attachment to the person growing inside her. This much I knew. The nuance of that relationship though I am still learning about. Did you know you ca drink sugar to excite the baby inside? So tethered are you together you share mood, timbre and experience.

After ten minutes of this Edwina and Philippa were worried. In another ten minutes after that they were in the car to the hospital.

I returned to the meeting. Apologised. Told them my sister had a miscarriage and finished the list of requirements. Then I told my boss what happened - who said I could have the day off. I rang Philippa who was coherent but distressed. I had enough time to tell her that I loved her before she was taken off to do an ultrasound - the final confirmation of what we all knew to be true.

I have three younger sisters - Stephanie, three years older than the twins, lives in Chile. Over the past few years, our family has been beset by baby fever. Stephanie had her second child, Lucas, this year after Mateo who just turned two. Edwina has Grace - her birthday was today - the day that Philippa’s baby died.

I can’t really imagine the blackness that my sister returned home to after the hospital. Her husband Chris was by her side the whole time. He is devastated in an inward and silent way but still trying to be brave. As is usual the truly traumatic aspects remain in the detail. Perhaps that’s why we rely to heavily on euphemism to convey these events. Directness is raw and abrasive. Their child was dead. She had the option to have the birth induced then and there, to spend the next 24 - 48 hours giving birth to something that she had nursed inside - that would never open its eyes. Her recovery would have been to the backdrop of crying babies in the maternity ward. She decided to return home with the literal motionless mass inside. Today she will be induced.

After the gruelling trial of child birth that ends not with a baby’s cry but in silence, the nurses have given Philippa the option of being photographed with the child. They can dress him (we know it was a he). They had already named him - Brody. Philippa and Chris now in eye of grief’s miasma have to make decisions. What is right right now may not be right when the experience begins to ferment and work its way into their bones. They have the option for a funeral for example. How can you make that decision when you don’t know how you will feel?

Yesterday Edwina and Chris stayed by Philippa’s side. They had Edwina managed to entice a few smiles out of her twin sister - a feat in itself. It’s times like this that I appreciate the bond of twinship - to exist in a binary system orbiting the centre of gravity between them. Edwina had always been the dominant twin, born a few minutes earlier than Phil she lead the way from the beginning. Philippa had been watching her two sister’s children grow. I could tell she was so proud to join them in motherhood - a project pursued in tandem.

While we know the bleak colour that grief will take on, it has still yet to reveal its architecture - will it be a swallowing cathedral or a maze. We instinctively revert to finding meaning in the way we navigate the world. My mother scrambles to find blame and a cause as a way of making sense of loss: anger is her crutch. I prefer work. Edwina will remain close to Philippa. My father will try to cheer everyone up - an enterprise doomed now, but perhaps might succeed later. Stephanie has to support from afar.

Some of the details now are so banal they invite a quieter grief. My mother and Edwina spent a weekend with Philippa putting together a nursery for the baby, for instance. This will have to be quietly disassembled. Will they paint over the bright colours and the name-tagged storage solutions? Plans and prep became irrelevant the moment that heart stopped beating. They are replaced by a void.