Firsts

Everyone always talks about how the first year is going to be the hardest. There are the first milestones, like the original due date after loss and family birthdays, and first holidays.

But I have been reflecting on the firsts that started at the beginning, and the firsts after loss that are not on the calendar: the ones that are unimaginable, the ones you brace for, and the ones that surprise you.

I feel grateful that I didn’t really envision too many firsts before Nathan was born. I wanted the sex of the baby to be a surprise, so we didn’t know we were having a little boy until Jordan announced it in the operating room. We had names picked out, but we couldn’t fully picture a daughter or son by name, and I honestly think that helped after our loss. I had imagined a life with my baby, but not every detail of what that life would look like. I can appreciate how those specific dreams, once imagined, become their own things to grieve too.

The "firsts" in my experience of loving and losing my baby started with telling people that I was pregnant and all the different ways I decided to tell them. I remember all of those unique moments. Sharing our news felt so exciting and special.

My in-laws were the first to find out. We were on a Schwartz family vacation and I was five weeks pregnant. After our long and hectic travel day, Jordan made a toast and shared one more curveball: I was pregnant. They hadn’t suspected anything, even though I had secretly thrown up at the airport before we arrived. We were so thrilled to share the news about our growing family.

Telling my parents about their first grandchild was so much fun, too. I bought a children’s book with Filipino foods listed from A to Z and I’ll never forget their reaction when they read my note on the inside cover and realized that it talked about introducing all the food of our culture to their future apo. 

I had planned my birthday party with a "favourite things" theme in late October, asking my friends to bring three of one of their favourite things to share with the group. I told my oldest childhood friend that I was pregnant by claiming that I was showing her my items in advance on a video call, but shared a three-piece baby outfit instead. At the party, we cheersed over non-alcoholic sparkling wine and talked about how next year would be my first birthday with my little baby as our newest party guest. 

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Nathan in the NICU, in his little Giraffe incubator, after my C-section. It was so surreal after the whirlwind 15 hours to actually see the baby we made and waited for. I remember Jordan leading me from my room, already familiar with the NICU protocols he had learned while I recovered from surgery, and sitting in my wheelchair looking at this little boy who looked like us. I was overcome with love for my husband and my son.

Introducing Nathan to a few family members in person and sending pictures to other family and friends was another special first. It was also why sharing his unexpected death just three days later was so devastating. 

My firsts changed almost immediately from things I wanted to remember forever into things I could never have imagined needing to do.

The early days after Nathan passed away contained too many firsts that I thought I wouldn’t be able to survive. The first time I said, “My baby died.” The first time I saw my in-laws after they rushed home from vacation, coming home because Nathan had died instead of coming home to meet him. The first Mother’s Day while grieving. 

Our grief counsellor has talked to us about how, sometimes, the lead-up to a difficult date is more stressful, and I’ve found that to be true. The days before can be so anxiety-filled that actually getting to the day can feel like a relief from the suspense.

Our fourth wedding anniversary came nine days after Calm-hearted went live. I had found a rare stretch of momentum in the work: enough energy and purpose to keep me moving without pressuring myself to do more than I could handle.

By the end of the night, after a delicious dinner out, I surprised myself with all the emotions that bubbled over because I didn’t have time to anticipate them. I was not back in the deep anguish of the earliest days, but that night I was sad, sobby, and very far from calm-hearted. I thought about how four years ago Jordan and I could have never imagined navigating this tragedy together, needing to re-read the promises we made to each other as reminders of our love and the life we wanted to build.

I’m realizing that I will keep having firsts tied to milestones like this, but they also make me notice how far I’ve come since those earliest firsts after loss.

Being pregnant, and then eventually visibly pregnant, made people around my regular routines part of my experience. The technicians at my nail salon and my hairstylist shared in my excitement. My massage therapist kept making changes to the table setup as appointments went by to make sure I was comfortable. When I returned to the gym after the nausea of my first trimester, my instructors were excited to learn that I hadn’t been away because of an injury, but because I was pregnant, and they happily supported me in making my own modifications to exercises.

Suddenly, all these people in our lives were invested in our journey. They predicted whether we were having a boy or a girl. They talked about how much our lives were going to change. 

Visible pregnancy was part of my particular experience, but I don’t think this kind of painful return belongs only to people whose pregnancies were visible. An earlier loss can leave its own changed routines, appointments, conversations, places, and private expectations.

After Nathan died, firsts became situations I had to negotiate.

What would it be like to go back to my nail salon? I made the decision to call in advance and tell them what happened. What would I say to the people who had watched my pregnancy progress in real time, when I returned no longer pregnant and without a baby? I tried, where I could, to make those first returns a little safer for myself.

My neighbour knew the main instructor at the community center and told her what had happened so that I could go back to class knowing at least one person understood. I had a similar sense of comfort at my first public event, a cake-decorating activity with my girlfriend, who of course knew about my loss, while we were in a fun, social space where nobody else did.

My return to workout classes didn’t have to become a public explanation, and I didn’t want to be the center of attention, but it was hard when the physical change from pregnant to no longer pregnant came with people’s natural, happy assumptions. I remember an older woman smiling widely at me from across the room when she saw me back in class, probably thinking that I was back after eight weeks with a baby at home. So I went up to her, shaking my head, and I think she knew before I said what had happened. She pulled me into a fierce hug and shared that she had experienced a loss many years before too. We both had tears in our eyes when we let go. 

I made a lot of conscious decisions so I wouldn’t need to have so many of these difficult conversations in real time. I sent emails in advance to my counsellor, my hairdresser, my physiotherapist, and other people I would eventually have to see again.

But not everyone will want to do this, and it’s the ordinary firsts that can feel so vulnerable as you try to reintegrate into your life after pregnancy and infant loss. You brace yourself because someone who doesn't really know you could say something unexpectedly painful: an “at least,” a platitude, or a comparison to your loss that can land catastrophically. I dreaded feeling like I might be one careless comment away from someone in my regular routine adding to my grief.

I’m so grateful though, because I was pleasantly surprised by how thoughtful people were when they heard what had happened. People I had invited into the excitement of my pregnancy found ways to be there for me in my loss.

Before my maternity leave, I had been working with a dietitian to make a postpartum meal plan and use some of my remaining work benefits. I had to contact her and cancel our plan, and she sent me a meal-delivery gift card. The health center where I saw my chiropractor and pelvic floor physiotherapist sent a meal-delivery gift card too, and on my first visit back postpartum they asked about what I had been through and listened as I talked about Nathan and what I hoped to do in his name.

Telling all these people ahead of time gave them space to absorb the shock without requiring me to manage their immediate reactions. It also meant that, when I was ready to return, I did not always have to explain myself at the door. 

And then there are firsts that no one thinks to warn you about because they are not dates, milestones, or part of the regular life you return to. Firsts appeared for me in ordinary moments that suddenly carried an enormous amount of meaning.

One of the first friends I told I was pregnant was a girlfriend whose wedding Jordan and I had attended right after my positive pregnancy test. I showed her a picture of us from her wedding and said, “This is my favourite photo of the three of us.” When she realized I was referring to myself, Jordan, and our little baby the size of a blueberry, she was so excited for me. Soon after, she found out that she was pregnant too. We were supposed to have our babies one month apart, but by the time her daughter was born, Nathan had been born early and had been gone for almost three months. 

Her daughter was the first baby Jordan held after Nathan. I was reduced to managing my breathing and gulpy tears while missing my baby and watching Jordan tenderly hold a baby who was not ours. 

That experience took more out of me than I expected, even though I was happy to meet our friends’ beautiful daughter. At the same time, I could feel the preciousness of life and the heartbreak of death.

Now, firsts catch me even when nothing particularly significant is happening.

At the gym, I do the typical “Oh, good!” when someone asks how I’m doing. It always felt polite before, a reflexive answer when neither person really needs the conversation to go any deeper. Now it always tugs on my heart a bit, because it’s not always genuine, especially after everything that has happened.

I remember the first time I automatically said it and meant it because I was having a good grief day. It happened while I was talking to a lady who I used to do classes with a couple of years ago and hadn’t seen in a long time. I surprised myself by saying “Good!” without flinching, realizing how much I had gone through since the last time we saw each other.

I get caught on that sometimes when I run into people now who never saw me pregnant and don’t know my story. They have no idea how much of my life has happened since we last crossed paths. And I guess it reminds me that we really don’t have any idea what anyone is really going through unless we talk and ask.

The first time I returned to the non-alcoholic store, I got ahead of the inevitable question, walked right up to the owner, and said, “So, remember how I WAS pregnant? Well…” We hugged and she told me that she was also grieving a recent death in her own family.

As painful as it is, opening up about Nathan has created meaningful moments with people I might have never connected with in this way.

My firsts now feel different. They contain grief, but I can also share what I’m doing now. Calm-hearted itself has created firsts I could never have imagined before Nathan. Because I’m writing and sharing my personal life more publicly than I ever have before, there will be new people who learn his name. New places where I can share his story as part of mine. New things I will do because being his mom changed me.

At my first networking event after Nathan died, I was asked for the first time if I had kids. I had rehearsed an answer in my head: “Yes, I have a son, but he died as a newborn,” but it came out as jumbled word vomit. Jordan and I had talked about how we’d answer this because we knew it was inevitable that he’d be asked by a new employee at work or someone on the golf course. We’ve both made it through this first now, answering this question and learning how to tell our story in our own ways.

By my second networking event, I had to practice another new answer: how to explain Calm-hearted. I was no longer only returning to parts of my old life. I was beginning to enter conversations that did not exist in my life before Nathan. Now, I can connect my professional background with my own experience, and people have been receptive and supportive about what I am looking to do to serve the pregnancy and infant loss space.

I kept waiting for the perfect “last first” so that I could finally write this blog post. I think I imagined there would be some point where I could say that I understood the pain of milestone firsts and that I was through enough of those first returns to places that had seen me pregnant. But the reality is that I’ll keep having firsts.

The hard truth is that time will keep creating new firsts without Nathan physically here. Every day that passes takes me one day further from his time on earth. Every new month, season, and year creates another first without him.

There is no last first. I get to keep having firsts, and I can have them in Nathan’s name and in his honour. Continuing to have firsts means continuing to live my life as Nathan’s Mom.