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Losing Murray
Matt Duvall, Annville, PA
From Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission. By Hogan Hilling and Al Watts.
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Losing a baby.
I want to make a joke about it, like, it’s just like losing your car keys or maybe something about being absent-minded … but that is a defense mechanism. It is how I deal with the arbitrary, soul-crushing stuff that just happens when there is no villain and nobody to blame.
As I am composing my first draft of this, I’m lying in bed. My son woke up early this morning because of a cold, so he is now nestled beside my wife and me, sleeping soundly, his arm thrown over his eyes and his head pressed into me. He is two and a half, funny, smart, and kindhearted.
Our daughter, six-weeks-old, is lying in her bassinet, making some sort of grunting noise, as infants do. She has started smiling regularly at me when I talk to her, which shows she already has an advanced sense of humor.
This is my family, my rock, and even when I am not sure of anything else in my life, I am sure of them and our love for each other. We call ourselves “Team Duvall,” half-jokingly, but that’s really how it feels.
Four years ago, at almost exactly the time I am writing this, my wife and I were imagining what our soon-to-be-expanded family would be like. Did we hope for a boy or a girl? We went back and forth on that one. Would s/he be hairy like me? Which features would s/he get from each of us?
We did the intake forms at the OBGYN practice, had the sample formula tins lined up like little soldiers on the counter. We only told our parents because it was still early, but we were excited, happy and a little nervous. We had songs already for the baby – “I throw my hand buds in the air sometimes, saying Ay-yo.”
The day of THE check-up, I had to go back to the school where I taught to do some tutoring. Right before I had to leave, they were putting the little portable heart rate monitor on my wife’s stomach. I hoped to hear our baby’s heartbeat for the first time, but there was nothing but static.
“It’s ok,” the nurse assured us. “They’re so small now; sometimes we can’t find it.”
I wasn’t worried. Everything was going to be fine. I left and went to tutoring. The students weren’t happy to be there, but I sure was. I was going to be a dad! I had put my phone on silent, because why wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t need to be poised for news for another seven or eight months. Then I’d need it on at work so I could rush to the hospital and see the little guy or gal come into the world.
That is why I missed the call from my mother-in-law. I listened to the voicemail as I left school. I was numb. I didn’t know what to feel.
There was blood work to be done, just to confirm what the emergency ultrasound had already shown.
Each pregnancy has a one in 1,000 chance of being a molar pregnancy, one in which an empty egg somehow gets fertilized. It is not viable and can become cancerous, spreading throughout the mother’s body. In extreme cases, it can lead to death.
Our baby wasn’t going to ever be a she or a he. We would never hold it, never comfort it through its first fever, never kiss a boo-boo, and never teach it to ride a bike.
Instead, my wife had to have surgery, and then follow up care for months to make sure there was no malignant tissue anywhere.
We were devastated. Everything seemed dull and grey to me.
My wife and I supported each other through the grief, pain, anger – the whole spectrum of emotions – but we dealt with them in completely different ways. My wife wanted to tell those around us, to explain what had happened. I could not deal with the platitudes or assurances of some greater plan, so I didn’t tell anyone.
I tried to work more, so I would not think about it, but I’m sure that year I was not a very effective teacher. I was angry a lot. I exercised more. I avoided talking about it, except to my wife, but I could not avoid thinking about it. When that stupid “Ay-yo” song would come on the radio, I changed stations.
In retrospect, my wife was right. I should have told people. The platitudes are annoying, but they are what we have in order to let people know we care. And sometimes, just sharing that pain can help us recover.
Four years have passed.
I don’t know if I can ever be over it. I’m not angry about it anymore, though. I am still sad for the possibilities we never got to realize, but I have so much good to be grateful for that I can’t be negative about the past.
So, here is where my big takeaway should go. I wrote this because I wanted to share how an event like this affects fathers too because when we lost Murray the Molar (our gallows humor attempt to make things better), I looked for information and online groups for fathers and found one abandoned WordPress site.
I want people to know how dads suffer too when our partners lose a baby. It is a different kind of suffering, but no less legitimate, and we may deal with it in different ways, but it is still real. Hemingway said “the world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.”
Sometimes it’s ok — better, even — to be broken.
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Matt Duvall is the father of a two-and-a-half-year-old boy and a 4-month-old girl. He is also a former professional wrestler who appeared on national TV shows as his alter ego, The Prince of Polyester. He completed his MFA at Seton Hill University, which is also where he met his wife, Natalie. He is currently a Ph.D. student at Drexel University’s School of Education and primary caregiver for his children. When he is not reading about theories of learning or changing diapers, he practices Krav Maga and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, runs and tries to avoid mowing the yard. He blogs (infrequently) at https://reallycrankydad.wordpress.com/
Hogan Hilling is a nationally recognized and OPRAH approved author of 12 published books. Hilling has appeared on Oprah. He is the creator of the DADLY book series and the “#WeLoveDads” and “#WeLoveMoms” Campaigns, which he will launch in early 2018. He is also the owner of Dad Marketing, a first of its kind consultation firm on how to market to dads. He is also the founder of United We Parent. Hilling is also the author of the DADLY book series and first of its kind books. The first book is about marketing to dads “DADLY Dollar$” and two coffee table books that feature dads and moms. “DADLY Dads: Parents of the 21st Century” and “Amazing Moms: Parents of the 21st Century.” Hilling is the father of three children and lives in southern California.
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Originally published in Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission.
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