So I live on a farm. I am not a farmer, nor is my husband...but we live on a working farm. There are cows, chickens and as of last summer...pigs. Well for the first time, they decided to keep and breed pigs to raise (rather than just butcher them after the fair and get new ones in the spring each year).
So, on January 30th (6 months since Marly), mama pig (Willow) gave birth to twelve baby pigs. We witnessed ten of those births. I had kinda joked that one could be Marly, and one of the kids decided he was going to name his Marly, if that was ok with me. He picked the best one...a female with spots, like her daddy. So we had a Marly pig. She was going to be his 4H pig and then, she would be a mama pig after that. Fast-forward a few weeks later...
I get home and am looking through my mail and there it was: a large envelop from the North Dakota Department of Vital Records. I knew exactly what it was. It was Marly's Death Certificate. (Side-note: when your baby dies...they are not issued a birth certificate, only a Certificate of Fetal Death to show they existed. And there's a strong possibility you will be shown little to no compassion when you request one. I was told "since there was no birth, there's no birth certificate issued." You can imagine how that made me feel and also, how I responded to that, but that's for another day.)
So there I was, absorbing that document and in walks the neighbor. He said he had to tell me something (and he did not look thrilled about it). I could tell he was dancing around it and I said "what happened?" He proceeded to say something about the pigs and I knew right away...it was Marly. Yup. Mama Willow rolled on and killed Marly. Out of all the pigs, Marly pig was the only one Mama Willow killed. And it was on the same day I received my Marly's Death Certificate.
Now if you know anything about raising pigs, you know that this is fairly common. But to me, it showed the irony of the fact that Marly pig died because of a terrible mistake her mother made. Mama Willow did not mean to kill her daughter. It just happened. An unfortunate reality of pigs. And sometimes...of being a mother. Sometimes we fail our children, even when we would do anything to protect them. Even trade places with them.
I don't care how many people tell me not to blame myself, not to carry guilt, that I couldn't have known, etc. I will always carry the guilt that my daughter died because of my body failing her. That she died because of decisions that were made leading up to and on her birthday. Decisions I made. I am not writing this for sympathy...for people to feel sorry for me and say "but it wasn't your fault...don't carry that blame..."
I'm writing it because I want people to try and understand how and why I feel the way I do. I'm writing it for those moms who are carrying around guilt like mine. I know, like me, they would have traded places with their child. They probably laid on that operating table or on that bed begging God not to take their child, like I did. They hoped and prayed for some sort of miracle. I wasn't one of the lucky ones to get a miracle that night. At least not in the sense that I was praying for.
The miracle I was given was a beautiful, perfect daughter that I only got a little time with, but who I will see again someday. The miracle was that I was ok, because I very well couldn't have been. The miracle, is that my uterus is still in tact, and I have the option to carry more children. I was given the miracle of another chance. Of hope. Of more children. (Whether this actually happens, I have accepted is completely out of my hands.) Some moms don't get those miracles.
So, for the time being...I have a little garden statue in "Marly's Garden" that I knew was perfect as soon as I saw it. A statue that reminds me of both Marly's. And as long as Marly Pig's family stays out of the dang garden! (they already got into it once)...it will be there for a very long time, as a reminder that mom's can't always protect their children. Marly knows how hard I prayed and fought for her. What I went through for her. How ready I was for her. But in the end, I didn't get to take her home. God took her home instead. Maybe He gave her little Marly pig as a pet? I'm anxious to find out.
7.8.19