There are three things that I remember most about being pregnant with Sage. The first was how much I yearned for her. I was pretty much ready to have another baby the minute Szerafina was born and by her six month birthday, would have definitely gotten pregnant had my period returned by then. It was a good thing I didn’t, in retrospect. There was a lot to be learned in those first two years of motherhood and a lot of replenishing to be done. A month after her second birthday, a period! It feel like an eternity had passed and I was elated. I got pregnant in February and I miscarried that baby early on, at about 6 weeks.

I got pregnant again soon after that loss. I remember taking a pregnancy test minutes before entering a yoga class in the changeroom and spending that entire class praying, ‘please baby stay, please baby stay with me’ in my head. That baby didn’t stay. I began bleeding at around 8 weeks and I remember thinking how awful it was going to be to tell my husband, daughter and friends. Again? What was wrong with me.

I let a few months go by before being open to experiencing pregnancy again. Just the magic of being with a child one day at a time. I discovered that we conceived a few weeks before Szerafina’s third birthday. I was happy. Scared, but mostly grateful. I remember celebrating the fact that at least we didn’t have trouble making a baby! The early months went by slowly, but with no real significance. I was living in Japan at the time, but would be in Canada for the birth in the summer. I went to see a Japanese doctor for a few months, mostly to do the socially acceptable thing, and a little just to have something to celebrate the mini milestones with.

The second thing that really lingers with me about my pregnancy with Sage, was the family vacation to Hawaii that we took in April. Szerafina was 3. Old enough to play on the beach happily with her Papa and let me snooze deliciously in the sunshine almost every afternoon. With a six month belly, I was glowing and deliriously proud. I practiced Yoga in the mornings outside, ate refreshing acai bowls and enjoyed some local pastured beef burgers. I remember the intense craving I had for meat and the satisfaction of taking it in, much to the (happy) horror of my husband. He had never seen me eat meat with so much gusto before. I choose my moments, but I listened to exactly what my body craved. I loved coming home to Nova Scotia with bronzed skin and a growing baby. I really enjoyed being pregnant in the summer, I welcomed the heat, lake swimming, farmer’s markets and flowy dresses. After I saw that doctor in Japan a few times, I decided that I wasn’t going to see a physician at all for the rest of the pregnancy. I just didn’t see the point. I had a healthy homebirth at home in Hungary with Szerafina, and I was going to do the same in Canada.

After much searching, I got connected with two beautiful women who would support me for the next few months and grow to become two of my closest friends and confidants. I’d never met either of them before, but they committed to loving and supporting me and my wishes for a home birth right from our first conversation. Our relationship only began about two months before Sage was born, but they changed my life forever.

The third event that vividly sticks with me about my pregnancy with Sage was my Blessing Way. My friend who acted as my primary birth attendant, I’ll call her ‘Vivianne’, wanted to organise a mother’s blessing for me. It sounded interesting, but I’d never heard of a Blessing Way before. I was intrigued and also a little nervous because I don’t really enjoy being the center of attention and also feel like I had an eclectic group of friends at the time. I had been living out of the country for four years at that point and didn’t have a strong community, or so I thought.

It was a Friday evening, a hot night in July and my living room was filled with about 10 women, JP and Szerafina. It is sort of unusual to have a man at a Mother’s Blessing, but that’s how it happened for us. We sat around in a circle and Vivianne asked everyone to take turns in telling the story of how they met me. It was such an emotional exercise and everyone was in tears, speaking wonderful words of adoration and praise for me. Truly, I had never experienced anything like that in all my life and was so filled with love, peace and joy. All these women gifted me a meaningful bead, which was made into a necklace that I wore around my neck. The spirit of the necklace was to guide me through the experience of birth with strength and courage. Everyone made an offering to bring to a woman’s shelter and we said a prayer for all mothers in the world who didn’t have the love and support that I did. I remember JP crying when it was his turn to speak. Later he said that he was overwhelmed to see that everyone saw what he saw in me everyday. We spent the rest of the evening making art, feasting, decorating my belly with henna and putting fresh flowers in my hair. The baby danced as my friends painted my belly and we all laughed. JP and I made love twice that day and once again in the morning. I don’t ever remember feeling happier. Vivianne stayed the night and came with us to the farmer’s market on Saturday morning, leaving us after breakfast. It was the first time she met JP and it was a good opportunity for us all to spend some quality time together.

I remember waking up on Saturday morning and having Szerafina rub my belly and talk to the baby, as she always did. The little kicks and punches she would receive in response would delight her. JP would only have to put his hand on my skin and the baby would squirm all around, so much so that I’d always have to put an end to their game of torturing Mamma, and we’d all laugh. I didn’t even think of it, but that morning, there were no jabs or kicks in response to their loving coos. Sleeping in, I thought to myself.

I hardly touched my favourite egg wrap at the market and Vivianne remarked that I looked uncomfortable. Indeed I was! ‘My belly is so heavy!’ I exclaimed. ‘I feel like it’s sitting on my lap’. Lighthearted. I was up late the night before, I figured I was in need of a nap. The rest of the day passed and I got to the evening, uncomfortably thinking that I hadn’t felt the baby move all day. Or I probably just didn’t notice. I figured I should get to sleep.

When I woke on Sunday morning, I knew things weren’t good. She didn’t move. I called Szerafina over and asked her to put her head to my belly, talk to the baby and listen for the response. ‘It’s quiet Mamma! She said nothing!’. I went through the day in disbelief. I drank coffee, coca cola and lots of orange juice. I didn’t drink any of these things in my pregnancy, but I did everything to inspire a response. I poked, massaged and prodded at my belly. I felt her, but she didn’t nudge back. ‘Wake up, sweet baby’ I kept saying, ‘Wake up….please stay. Please baby stay’. I went swimming in the lake that afternoon and layed in the sun. I was in denial. JP looked at me periodically, and I shook my head, ‘no’. By Sunday evening, he suggested I call Vivianne. It was 10pm and I didn’t want to bother her. ‘I’m sorry to call so late’, I said. ‘It’s probably nothing. But I haven’t felt the baby move today. Or yesterday…maybe’. I was waiting for encouragement. The words telling me that there was nothing to worry about.

She said, ‘I have to be honest. I don’t like hearing this from you.’

I decided to go to bed. To cuddle up with my family and get rest. I knew that nothing could be changed in that moment. I resolved to go and get an ultrasound in the morning.

Monday morning came and JP and I went. Dealing with the hospital was truly a horrific experience. They gave me at least 4 ultrasounds, on different machines, on different hospital floors, with different doctors and technicians. No one telling us anything. No one wanting to confirm what we already knew. When finally, we got to the doctor who said the words, ‘I’m sorry. We can’t find a heartbeat’, I wanted to throw up and disappear. I wanted the world to disappear. More than sadness and heartbreak, I was panicking over the fear of the feat ahead of me. I kept thinking, ‘There’s no way i’m going to give birth to this baby. There’s absolutely no way that I can give birth to a dead baby. I can’t do this’.

I begged for a c-section. They denied my request. To my shock. The doctor said, ‘You’ll be induced and give birth on the maternity ward’. With all the other mothers. Giving birth to their living babies. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I called Vivianne from the waiting room and she echoed JP, ‘You can’t have a cesarian. You don’t want to do that’. When she said that she was coming to support us, I finally burst into tears. I somehow assumed that she wouldn’t come. My baby died, what was the point? ‘I love what I do,’ she said. ‘And i’m going to be there for you, for it all’.

JP and I went home to Szerafina and the babysitter. I took my friend outside and told her in the most awkward way. It just didn’t seem real. I was in shock. I don’t remember how the rest of the day went. I was supposed to go to the hospital that evening to begin the induction process. They would begin with a cervical gel, 3 applications of it, 6 hours apart. I didn’t want to go to the hospital, but I didn’t know what else to do. As I had time to rest and let things settle, I decided that a natural birth was still what I wanted for Sage. This baby deserved the birth that she was meant to have. I didn’t even know if I could have a natural birth, if the death of my baby changed the way that I would birth her. I just didn’t know. I was afraid to see what she would look like. At this point I didn’t know whether she was a girl or a boy, or what her name would be. The last ultrasound that day showed that my fluid levels were good and that the baby was fully developed and nothing out of the ordinary could be seen. It was important for JP to know why our baby died. He wanted to have an autopsy. At that point, it didn’t matter to me either way.

There was a point on Saturday morning when Vivianne was looking at the course I was studying. It was a natural herbalist program with Rosemary Gladstar. The course binder said ‘SAGE’ in big letters across it for ‘Sage Mountain Herbs’. I had been studying for a year, but really into tincture making, tea blending and natural body products that summer. I saw that name pop up over and over again. In describing the course to Vivianne, I lightly said, ‘Oh Sage. Yes…that’s a beautiful name’.

Vivianne arrived and so did our second birth attendant, ‘Maggie’. Maggie stayed with Szerafina while Vivianne, JP and I went to the hospital for that first application of cervical gel. I remember the complete sterile room and robotic nurses. They were ‘nice’, but it was all so impersonal and unfamiliar. They didn’t want to let me go home and I was mortified. Spend the night there and be under their control? Szerafina was home and I wanted to spend the evening close to her in the comfort of my own bed. I had to negotiate with the nurse, put on an act and play that I was more obedient than I was. JP had already told them that we originally wanted to give birth at home, so they were employing all their scare tactics. I’d hemorrhage. I’d get a fever and die. The baby would come so fast and I would be at risk. They finally let me go, but I had to promise to be back at 2 in the morning for the second installment of the cervical gel. I didn’t go. I decided to sleep and get as good of a night’s rest as I could. I knew I had a long road ahead of me. I also wanted to avoid as many interventions as possible, if I was to have the least traumatic birth possible. I began taking blue and black cohosh tincture, in high doses. That got things started as I felt light braxton hicks like sensations throughout the night.

I woke in the morning with a resolve. I was going to be strong and get through this. I didn’t know any other way to be, in order to survive what I would do. I showered, put on a comfortable but nice black cotton dress. I tied my hair back very deliberately and scented and oiled my skin. It was like I was preparing for battle. ‘Are you ready for this?’ Vivianne asked when she saw me in the morning, ‘I think so’, I replied. I sat at the edge of the bed where she had slept and she took my hand. Szerafina came into the room and hugged me, her beautiful blond hair getting all silky on my oily skin. One thought that broke my heart the most was having to break the news to my little girl that she wasn’t going to have a brother or sister anymore. I felt so much responsibility and guilt for both her and JP’s loss. I felt like a failure.

We told some people that day what was happening. Our parents, some very close friends. Their reactions and cries just put more pressure on me. I couldn’t deal with any of it. I felt like I had to be in my own zone, ready to be strong. I couldn’t break down yet. As we got ready to go to the hospital that morning, Vivianne reminded me that we could still do this at home. In those moments, I just couldn’t wrap my head around what we would do with my baby’s body afterwards. It was a fear that I couldn’t even express out loud. I was scared of what she would look like, even though I knew she only died a day ago.

At the hospital the second time it was much more difficult to navigate the staff as they were not pleased with me skipping protocol and not coming in for the cervical gel the night before. They sent a social worker to come and talk to me, to assess me. ‘How are you?’ she asked. I just looked at her, in disbelief. Could this actually be real? This patronising woman here with her critical gaze in the most horrendous time in my life. I was afraid to show emotion or to break down, I felt I had to give the ‘correct’ answers so that I could go home again to labour in peace. It was like being held in captivity. The nurse on duty held her hand on my belly for one hour making small talk with me, so that she could watch my reaction during my sensations. I told her I wasn’t having any, but she didn’t believe me. It’s true, I was in the labour process but I knew that I had a long time to go still and I didn’t want to stay there. I faked small talk. It was humiliating and degrading. She said things like, ‘Oh this baby will come so fast, dear, you have to stay here where it’s safe’ and, ‘Oh you don’t want this baby naturally, you take all the pain medication you can get. You’re in enough pain as it is’ and, ‘Your first baby was 9 pounds?! Oh my, you have a high pain tolerance!’ and other nonsense statements that just enraged me.

I finally broke down in tears when they brought me a death certificate to fill out. Through blurred vision and heartbreak, I had to fill out a name. But I hadn’t chosen one! Vivianne reminded me that I liked the name Sage. It’s true, I did. And that’s when I named her.

Finally, mid morning, JP and I left the hospital. At home I lay down in bed and felt sensations while Szerafina lay beside me. I just lay with my eyes closed, letting them wash over me. As I was carried away into the birth trance, my baby Sage was speaking to me. She was this gorgeous chubby baby, floating up in the clouds and she was saying, ‘It’s OK Mamma, you can let me go now. It’s OK Mamma, you have to let me go’. It was a hypnotic mantra and she was with me the entire time, supporting me. She was smiling and happy. I saw her get on a tiger’s back with 3 other babies and they were in a large expansive yellow field, with a forest in the background. It took me some time, but months later I realised that those other babies were the spirits that I had birthed in earlier miscarriages. The tiger had first appeared to me when I gave birth to Szerafina, giving me strength and protection. Vivianne came in to offer me some food. I didn’t want to eat anything. I turned away. She lightly put her hand on my shoulder and said very gently, ‘You have to participate in the process…’ She was right. I got up and went downstairs to my living room. I lit the candles that all my women had given me at my Blessing Way ceremony. I sat there and cried and cried. This was it. I knew I had to go to the hospital so that I could fully let go. I felt the energy and all the love that was given to me, just two days before. The henna still adorned my body.

Maggie stayed with Szerafina while Vivianne, JP and I left. I had to stop walking with every sensation. The nurse gave me a wheelchair and we used it to carry our stuff. I was in another world. I remember the hospital staff being surprised that I had gone into labour without them putting me on pitocin. The one thing I felt thankful for in those moments, was for the merciful nurse on duty who respectfully honoured my wishes to be left alone. ‘Ring if you need me’ she said before she left. I went into the hot shower, curtains pulled, lights turned off and door mostly shut. Just JP and I. I was standing for a while, legs apart and knees bent, allowing JP to hold the showerhead just so I would feel the pressured stream of warm water on my back. I was letting go, feeling mentally and physically ready to allow this baby to come through me. Vivianne would come from behind the shower curtain only to offer me sips of bone broth, nourishment tea or water with orange juice. I remember how lovely it was to have different tastes of liquid to pass through me. I was being loved and I felt safe. After a time I wanted to squat in the bath tub and when I became hot and restless, I moved to the hospital floor. I could see the hard cold bed above me, but we brought our own wool blankets and yoga mats so I didn’t have to climb up onto that narrow bed. Rocking on all fours, sensations were coming more intensely and close together and I began to lose my resolve.

Why go through all this pain for a baby that I will never hold awake in my arms? Why should I endure this for a baby that I would never put to my breast? Why was I putting myself through this pain? I didn’t think I could endure it any longer. I suppose Spirit was working with me as right in those panicked moments my waters released and Sage quickly followed after. I could feel JP at my side and Vivianne behind, telling me to go slow. I had no control, Sage was emerging with no urges to push on my part. Vivianne held her head while the rest of her emerged and I heard the sound of her little body land on the floor. It was a very loud thump in a very quiet room.

I would later repeat that sound in my dreams and nightmares for days, months and years to come.

I heard myself cry, ‘Oh God, no, I can’t. Oh God, no, I can’t do it’. I think Vivianne was concerned at that point, she didn’t want me to hemorrhage. She sternly told me that I had to pull myself together. It was a tough, motherly love. It was enough to bring me back into the present moment. I was so afraid to look at my baby. I didn’t know what I would see and wondered if I would find her miss shapen or overtaken by death. I turned and sat back on my heels and looked down at her, laying face up on the blankets.

She….

was beautiful. She was perfect. She was so incredibly sweet and cute. She was mine. JP and Vivianne saw before I did, that she had a double true knot in her umbilical cord. So very clearly the cause of her death. It was so tragic and sad, we just wept and wept for all that we had lost. For her pain and suffering. I imagined her being cut off from her life support and it nearly choked me with grief. I covered her body with a yellow blanket, thinking in this far away place in my brain that I didn’t want her to get cold. It was strange, this hollow sound of our crying in the sterile room. Faintly, I could hear other babies, live ones, being born in the rooms next to ours. It felt so unfair, so immensely painful.

The nurse came in and was taken by surprise and I wanted to cover Sage and protect her. I heard myself say to the woman, “It’s ok, everything’s ok. I’m ok. She’s ok. I just need some time with her, can you leave please”. She said yes. She would have to come back though, and the doctor would have to come to check me. I hated that. That I would still have to play sane so that they would let me leave right away so that I could be home. I got into a freshly poured bath with Sage and admired her beautiful body. She was so fragile, even at over 7lbs. I didn’t want to touch too much, I already felt her physical body melting away like quicksand and I wanted her to stay. We wrapped her up and Vivianne took some photos of her and snipped a locket of hair. We got her foot prints. All things I couldn’t care to think about at the time, but that I’m so thankful to have now. I was immediately grateful for those things in the days after, after her physical body was taken away from me I had no other tangible proof that she had been real. Maggie brought Szerafina into the room to meet her sister. I was so sad, so sorry, that I had to tell my daughter that her sister wasn’t alive. I could have died with the weight of it. Szerafina was so gentle, her reaction so accepting. She loved Sage, curiously examined her and wanted to see her fingers and toes. ‘So small!’ she remarked, ‘but why are her eyes closed?’.

I don’t know how I found words, but I said something like Sage had a short life and that she wasn’t going to come home with us. That her spirit had left her body and that she couldn’t stay. To my astonishment, Szerafina accepted Sage’s death with grace. She taught me so much and helped me grieve in those early weeks and months. She would go on to question more and show that she too, felt the loss of her sister, but it was and is always something that we freely talk about. Her memory is fully alive with us in our prayers each and everyday.

A few hours later I was walking out of the hospital, arm in arm with my husband, weakly walking to our car. Past all the people, past the mothers with their babies. It was incredibly jarring and I wanted to be home as quickly as possible. We pulled up to the most beautiful scene of Szerafina picking wild flowers from our front garden for bouquets inside. Maggie made a delicious chicken soup and I ate two bowls. It was the first thing I had eaten in days and it felt wonderfully nourishing. I didn’t want her to leave, but Vivianne had to go back to her family and Maggie had to go too. It had been a long few days and we all needed rest.

I wasn’t exactly sure what to do next. I felt so empty and lost. JP and I cried every night together, but he had to return to work right away and I had Szerafina to take care of. My friends came to clean our house and offer support and love. Our immediate family were heartbroken and I was overwhelmed by their grief. I feel like I kept them at a distance in the initial first weeks as I was tending to my own immediate pain.

We had Sage’s body cremated and took her remains to Mason’s Beach in Lunenburg, a special place for our family. We had a beautiful little ceremony where we each said a few words on the beach, sat on the quilt I made for her and released some of her ashes into the ocean. We took pictures, cried and held each other close. These days were heartbreaking, especially as my milk came in, spilling from my swollen breasts.

I was filled with a great need to nurture and grow something, of course, that is not too difficult to understand. What was strange to me, was my great desire to create and live, even more vibrantly than before. I had no desire (although it would have been justifiable) to lay in bed or mourn at home for long periods of time. I wanted to be sharing. I remember going to my sewing class a week after her birth and my teacher being supportive, but apprehensive about my presence. I wanted to finish the post partum dress that I was sewing. I wanted to wear it. It was made from beautiful Italian fabric, a dark forest green with cream coloured flowers throughout. Other people didn’t know how to react to me either, even friends. Many people didn’t say anything at all when they would see me on the street or the farmer’s market. The idea of my baby dying too great, too uncomfortable, too big of a taboo to address. I was seeing the world through a new lense, everything changed. A filter had been taken off my life and I despised the fake and false realities. I began a process of transformation. I’m not sure what it was, but it was like a coming out. I began to grow my hair in dreadlocks and started my online yoga and nutrition business. In that year, I wrote 3 online programs and a natural beauty product recipe book. I traveled to teach yoga and started to coach clients online. I hosted two retreats. It was satisfying at the time. It was like I didn’t want to waste another day being anything other than authentically me. I began speaking out about homebirth and natural birth, a natural lifestyle and other facets of my life that I had kept reserved for only my closest friends. I really came alive in a new way.

Sage, true to her name, taught me a lot about living. I think death and loss have the potential to move people in this way, if we are given the opportunity to explore the depths and to talk about it. We can accept and ritualise souls departing in very meaningful and celebratory ways, but we have to be able to open the flood gates. I also now know that death, just like birth, belong at home and I’ve become more and more interested in this process.

Her footprints rest on my altar, are tatooed on her father’s back, are etched on my heart.

Forever part of me.