On Bitterness

The Bitter Potion by Adriaen Brouwer

Chef and author Jennifer McLagan said:

Bitter can be dangerous; bitter can signal a poison or a toxin. We have this innate reaction of negativity to bitterness. [I want] to help people overcome that negative reaction to bitter and try to see it as a positive taste.

I think one of the most important things is not to try to eliminate it. People say, 'Oh it's bitter,' and they'll put some sugar in there. Try to balance bitterness with something else. Something salty—salt will often cut the bitterness—but also something fatty. I should have known this straight away, fat and bitter are perfect partners. If you have something rich and you match it with something bitter, they play off each other and make each other taste even better. . . .

Embrace bitterness.

I have tasted bitterness this past month. We have tasted it.

"Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" (James 3:11)

On Tuesday, March 22nd we had an ultrasound at 13/14 weeks. Everything looked good as far as our little surprise guppy's development. A completely intact skull, fingers, and toes. That little one was wriggling around like crazy—alive! Aunt Robin noticed the babe's profile looked like Graham. I always love seeing the bright lines of perfectly formed ribs, limbs, and skull. The umbilical cord was covering the genitalia, so we did a genetic blood test screening to check for other abnormalities, and to reveal the gender.

On Tuesday, March 29th, the last day of my parents' visit, the test results came in. After hearing there were no genetic problems, I asked them to email me gender results. I forwarded them to Ashalon and Cindy, who helped us pull together a fancy gender reveal party just before my parents got on the plane. They wrapped up a wildflower in a box and gave the boys unmarked silly string cans to spray at us. A girl!!

As the unbelievably amazing reality of a baby girl set in, I was still feeling quite sick and somehow still a little uneasy. Maybe I was scared to have a girl, or maybe I felt what was coming. Ashalon made her a little pink tutu and blingy flower hair clip. Cindy and I went fabric shopping and talked about baby girl clothes and decorations. Michelle brought over a cute gift of a pink stuffed elephant and Mary Jane socks. So many people expressed their excitement for our new baby girl in our all-boy family. It felt like a tender mercy from heaven, just for us, too good to be true.

On Tuesday, April 5th, we went in for a regular monthly midwife appointment. Rich was with me. We chatted about exercise, how good my blood work looked, how the perinatologist changing the date of conception back almost two weeks based on the ultrasound measurements couldn't possibly be right. Then I got up on the table to be measured and check the heartbeat. No heartbeat. How could that be? They changed the batteries, brought another midwife in. Still nothing. So we rushed to the other office for an ultrasound. I wasn't nervous at first. I was sure there must be some mistake. This was our miracle baby. We didn't ask for her, how could God take her away from us now? But when they ran the ultrasound instrument along my swollen belly, there she was curled up in a ball—a flat line of silence for a heartbeat. Our little baby girl sleeping—dead—inside of me.

To avoid the many awkward conversations, we announced her death on Facebook, just a week after we'd announced the happy news of our pregnancy and her gender. Almost immediately we were showered with flowers, meals, treats, gifts, cards and kindness. My momma flew back to help me and grieve with me. It was almost too much to have so many mourning with us, but also felt good to have people share with us in our sadness, despite the awkwardness and embarrassment.

[They are] willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort. (Book of Mormon, Mosiah 18:8-9)

Some of the flowers lovingly given in our grief

I didn't understand when we lost Samuel to exencephaly 14 years ago that I was certainly not alone in my grief. I felt the Savior's empathy for me, but I felt like nobody quite understood what I was going through. Now I understand that so many women and their babies suffer this horrible fate, then many go on to birth healthy babies into happy families—happy families who still remember sadness.

[I]f they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet. (Doctrine and Covenants 29:39)

It took several days to find a doctor to help us deliver this little one, since our midwives couldn't do it in a birthing center and the homebirth midwife we contacted felt like it was too risky to do at home. On April 8th, Dr. Christina Sebestyen finally saw us (her practice delivered Henry) and scheduled us to go into the hospital Sunday, April 10th to induce labor.

They started the induction at 11pm with Cytotec every three hours, and I was able to sleep some, and breathe through the contractions. It felt very familiar to be laboring in the same hospital where I'd delivered Henry, but also surreal to be there for a much less joyful event. It was very quiet in our room, too quiet. We walked the halls a bit, trying to avoid looking in the rooms where babies were being born—alive babies. We listened to music, but couldn't quite settle on the kind of music we wanted as a soundtrack for these strange moments. We were playing cards (Spite and Malice to match our mood) at 11am on Monday, April 11th when Dr. Sebestyen came in to check me. She said I must have a high tolerance for pain, because I was dilated to a ten, and if I gave one or two pushes she would come out. Sure enough, she slid out like a little fish, and there she was: our baby.

Photo by Leilani Rogers

We named her Miriam Claudia. Miriam after Moses' sister who bravely looked after her brother, the prophetess who joyfully danced with the other women after they crossed the Red Sea. Claudia after my sweet and brave mother-in-law who was taken from this earth in December 2008 after a long fight with breast cancer.

She was very much not alive, slippery and colorless, looking almost like she was melting away. But she was so beautiful—tiny little hands, mouth, feet, nose, ears, ribs, umbilical cord, even a clitoris! Our old friend Leilani, a birth photographer, came to take pictures of her nestled in the beautiful blanket Aunt Robin made her, pictures we will always treasure.

After some sweet, quiet moments with Miriam, the contractions and bleeding started to increase really fast. I couldn't seem to deliver the placenta that was still inside me. My hands and arms went numb as I pushed, and after a visit to the bathroom where giant clots came out of me, I passed out briefly on the bed, just as my mom walked into the room. Dr. Sebestyen tried gently pulling the placenta out using some instruments, but my body, probably going into shock from all the blood loss,  wasn't cooperating. They made the quick decision to take me into the operating room, where under general anesthesia they scraped out the rest of that pesky placenta. I woke up later in the hospital room surrounded by Rich, my mom, Aunt Robin, and shortly thereafter my kids and Cindy. It was all over, but the grieving had only just begun.

The name "Miriam" can also be translated as "Marah," the name of the bitter waters in Exodus 15:

So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.

And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah.

And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?

Moses Sweetens the Waters of Marah by Nicolas Poussin

And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them,

And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.

And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters.

I want to believe He will make these bitter waters sweet, or at least taste good. What is the symbolic salt and fat to help life taste good again? I'm not sure. But I know from experience they will come. I will wait and work for that miracle. If it doesn't make me bitter, it will make me better.

[W]eeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. (Psalm 30:5)

[T]here could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. . . . [O]n the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy. (Alma 36:21)

On Mother's Day we planted a Montezuma Cypress tree for Miriam, spreading underneath its roots her ashes and the dried flowers from those who grieved with us. We planted it in the flood plain behind our house, where we hope the steady flow of muddy waters will help it grow into a giant tree that could live for hundreds of years.

We sang "I Am A Child of God," prayed over the tree, and finished with this scriptural hope:

Blessed is the [wo]man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For [s]he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8)

I don't know if the fruit we will bear in the future will include another baby, but I know I will choose to wake up each morning, trying to find the joy in each day, trying to continue to yield good fruit. I will try to figure out how to temper life's bitterness with the fat and saltiness that can make life delicious and meaningful, for myself and the people around me.