Like Debbie Reynolds, I had to carry my dead baby after he died in utero. Medical providers wanted to keep me pregnant.
At 32 weeks pregnant with twins, the author found out one of the babies had died in utero. Medical providers denied her request to trigger labor.
Courtesy of Jenna Fletcher
- A 1989 interview with Debbie Reynolds talking about her stillbirth recently resurfaced.
- In 2018, I was pregnant with twins and one of the babies died in utero.
- I had to carry my dead baby for almost a week, and it was a harrowing experience.
In the wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a 1989 interview with the actress Debbie Reynolds recently resurfaced, in which she talked about her harrowing experience of being forced to carry her stillborn baby for six weeks after the baby died.
In the interview with Joan Rivers, Reynolds revealed she had been seven months pregnant when her child had died. Because this was before the 1973 passage of Roe v. Wade, her medical provider initially denied her an abortion, and she almost died.
But, she told Rivers: "They finally agreed — some board, I imagine — that they would try to take this child out, but at this point now, it was more dangerous than ever."
In 2018, I was also forced to carry dead child. I was 32 weeks pregnant with identical twin boys when we found out baby A, my son Nicholas, had died.
While I never had an abortion, Reynold's experience reminded me of my own because neither of us was heard after finding out our babies had died in utero, and we were both forced to continue being pregnant.
My medical providers refused to let me deliver early
Initially, the plan was to keep me pregnant for six more weeks after we found out he had died.
The pregnancy had been hard on me physically and mentally. I was sick with hyperemesis gravidarum and developed gestational diabetes. In addition to being an older mom carrying twins, I was being closely monitored because I had a history of preeclampsia and underlying medical problems,.
Despite these health issues, my providers refused to let me deliver my babies the day I learned about my son's death because of how early I was in my pregnancy. Instead, I spent almost a week in the hospital with one living son and one dead son inside me.
I wanted to end my pregnancy, though not abort the living twin in my womb. I felt my living son would have a better chance out of my womb than remaining inside it, having had my other son die in that same womb. And I would have a better chance at being the mother and the fierce advocate my premature baby would need if I wasn't entering the experience shattered by weeks of carrying a dead child in my womb.
I was carrying death
The feeling that I was carrying death never left me. Culture has taught us that death is scary and sad, but those words aren't strong enough.
I couldn't shake the feeling that death was like a contagious darkness threatening to invade the rest of my body. I feared whatever twist of fate killed my dead son would kill me or my living, unborn son.
As Reynolds told Rivers at the time: "It's just something that I never have forgotten and the pain of it."
I'm still haunted by the night terrors I had, of blackness and dust swirling around me, during and immediately after my hospital stay. When I realized it was just a dream, there was no relief, because I was trapped in the waking nightmare of the tomb of my body.
While Reynolds said she almost died, I never got to that point, fortunately. I went into active labor the next week, while still in the hospital for observation. To my relief, a provider took pity on me and didn't try to stop the delivery, even though it was still early. I ended having a C-section.
She said to me: "I was really hoping you'd go into labor the day I admitted you. I wouldn't have stopped it then, but I couldn't give you a C-section then."
There's no way to imagine the nightmare of being forced to carry a wanted baby that is gone. Each day I remained pregnant felt like an eternity of horrifying stillness.
Courtesy of Jenna Fletcher
After the pregnancy was over, I developed severe postpartum depression and anxiety. I can't imagine how much worse it would have been if I had to live in that chilling void for any longer than a few days.
While I firmly believe the human spirit is resilient, I also think there are some experiences that can break a person. Being forced to carry a dead baby in your body for weeks is one of them.