The Morning I Met Angus: A Story of Motherhood & Loss
*This story and images are shared with explicit permission from the family.
“They’re not sure how long he’ll live, if he’s alive at birth. But we know she wants to remember everything.”
Her friends got my number from a local birth doula who knew. She knew hard spaces were not scary for me, because I’d been in them myself and found a form of peace there.
Melanie and I set up a call, her friends took care of the logistics.
There were tears, long pauses, a little bit of laughter and something else. I couldn’t quite identify it after we hung up, but there was something else in that space. In her voice. Tangible and yet deeply spiritual; almost as if I could feel her posture through the phone.
It was a Tuesday morning, I was headed home from the gym and got the text.
5:54A “Morning! Showing signs of early labor…giving you a heads up. I’ll text when we head in.”
Zooming down the toll to Texas Children’s, 10 minutes from my house, I jumped out of the car and raced to Labor and Delivery.
Long as I live, I’ll never forget the scene:
As I rounded the corning, camera on and in hand, I saw a crew of nurses, doctors and specialists gathering outside the door. Some already teary, some collected and informative, the spectrum of trauma responses at play. One nurse nodded towards the room and whispered, “go on in, he’s here.”
As I slipped into the room with floor to ceiling windows, I saw Melanie, her arms cradling a rustled hospital blanket tinged with meconium, umbilical cord still pulsing, keeping their connection secure. Just a little longer.
Her eyes caught mine and with tears welling I mouthed, “Hi.” And her with the widest grin, softest eyes and deepest sigh, “He’s here.”
He’s here and he’s alive.
No one knew for how long, but that morning, time froze.
The emotions in the room could have filled the Pacific Ocean. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was following Mel’s lead.
That was it. The thing I couldn’t define on our call: it was a deeply embodied sense of Mothering. The humanness and divineness, all rustled up like her own spiritual hospital blanket tinged with meconium.
Melanie fully embodied the depths motherhood sometimes calls us to and she remained grounded in it all.
That’s what I was here to reflect back. The micro-moments of motherhood and fatherhood in the depths of sorrow, still finding pockets of love. What a gift it was to witness. What a gift it is to know this kind of mother exists.
What a gift it is to have met the boy who wasn’t supposed to come out breathing and yet gave his family seven full and beautiful days of deep love and knowing.
If you or someone you love is considering documenting the hard parts of the motherhood story, consider this a sign that it’s worth it. Even if no one ever sees the images, you’ll have them when you need them.
