It smells like rotten cabbage... When a mother loses a child

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. And, until you enter that bleak landscape of grief, there is much you would not know.

So, throughout the month, I've been dropping insights and reflections on LinkedIn, gathered from friends, colleagues, and my own experience as the mom of a dead daughter (Mercy Joan - 8 days old).

A recent post seemed to really hit a chord, with almost 13K impressions and around 200 likes.  So I'm sharing it here in the newsletter, in hopes that it is helpful to you too.

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I started this as a tame, generalized post but then thought - you know what? The problem with so much of the narrative around loss is that it is so scrubbed and sanitized.

The mothers who lose full term babies aren't just dealing with the emotions, the logistics etc, they are dealing with the very jarring, messy physicality of loss - their breasts don't know the difference.

So this reflection comes right from my journal and the book I'm working on -

"No one tells you that losing a baby smells like old cabbage. My mind was trying to wrap itself around the fact that Mercy was dying. She would never be in a talent show or confess her middle school crush. She would never try solid foods or move up a size in clothes.

My mind was reeling but nobody told my breasts. My body was following the ancient rules and rhythms of childbirth. The baby had been born and had to be fed.

It didn’t matter that Mercy couldn’t nurse, couldn’t even breathe without the aid of a ventilator. I was painfully engorged, my boobs hardened by unused milk. I think it was a nurse, maybe a lactation consultant, that mentioned in passing, “I’ve heard that cabbage can help.”

There are so many people that offer to help in those immediate, upside down days after a crisis. And I will never forget Jill Pittman.

I grew up playing with Jill’s five sons, eating ice cream and marveling at her compost heap. She was my cabbage fairy, silently storing a new head of purple cabbage in the crisper drawer every few days.

I would place leaves of cabbage in my wrongly-named nursing bra and remove them a few hours later, the scent of old milk and rotting vegetables mingling to smell of moldering hopes."

The comments section of the post was alight with resonance, women sharing of going back to work with gaping hearts and leaking bodies.  

One takeaway is to consider, organizationally, what your policies and procedures are around miscarriage and infant loss.  Is the person still entitled to a maternity leave?  When do you expect them back in the office?  Have you paused to consider the physical and emotional challenges facing grieving parents?

Another takeaway is to lean in with care and intention - for many people, both in my work and in the comments section, the loss is still very real and accessible. 

"How is your sadness today?" is a way to acknowledge that it is still very hard and feels easier to answer, sometimes, than "How are you doing?"

Helpful books on Pregnancy and Infant Loss

A big part of my journey into grief held a spiritual component.  This book is written from a spiritual perspective, so if that is your jam, read on.  

Although I don't resonate with every single line, the heft of loss and the raw emotions rang true.  Angie Smith's daughter, Audrey Caroline, lived for just over two hours.