Remembering Constantine

I'm slightly belated in this post.  Two years ago yesterday evening, I completed the miscarriage of my third baby.  While I was only eight weeks along (little Constantine didn't measure more than six) and while his presence in my body apparently doesn't even count towards the number required for my goal of attaining grand multipara status, he was missed, mourned, and loved.

My girls still talk about him occasionally.  I remember their assumption that he had a name.  The question wasn't "Did our baby have a name?" but "What was our baby's name?"  Of course he had a name.  Of course he was a person.  He was a baby,  just one who was too little, too sick, to come out to be with us.  He went to live with Jesus instead.  Mother Mary cares for him, I'm sure, as he prays for us.

At the time, I didn't know where to go for advice and information.  Sure, I knew people who had miscarried, and so many people came out of the woodwork to share their stories with me.  Being at St. Tikhon's Seminary, we were surrounded by people who knew how to handle a miscarriage in a loving, Christian way.  So many had gone before us and could act as guides with suggestions for where to bury, how to pray, how to grieve, how to remember.

But for actual technical information?  My options were limited to Google searches and www.babycenter.com.  While I am indebted to the information I found—as it allowed me to recognize my baby's tiny amniotic sac—the site used sterile terms like "products of conception."  It gave me no indication of a respectful (Christian) way to deal with my baby's remains, but thankfully, as I said above, I was not alone to figure that out.

Thanks to Mat. Anna, we Orthodox now have somewhere practical and comforting to turn.  A few weeks ago or so I added a new button to my blog: Lost Innocents: Practical helps for miscarriage from an Orthodox perspective is as a tribute to her little Innocent who passed away sometime during this past Lent.  She has convenient liturgical information for burials, a practical section with photos to help you prepare for delivery and know what to look for, and plenty of other resources.  Sometimes it just helps to immerse yourself in other people's stories, to know that other people have been where you are now as you allow yourself to grieve and release your plans and expectations for this little person's life.  You'll find that there too.  If you'd like to have your story included (even miscarriage labors cry out to be "told"!) I'd encourage you to contact Mat. Anna and offer.

Thank you, Matushka, for your work on this resource.  I pray that it provides support and comfort to many.

Intercede for us, Holy Nicholas!

A friend of ours has recently found out that their unborn baby has passed away at just over 12 weeks gestation.  His wife will have surgery today.  If you are inclined to pray for them, the baby's name is Nicholas.  Pray for him and for his Mommy and Daddy.

Our Baby Constantine's grave, St. Tikhon's cemetery

I know I am incredibly blessed to have (now) three healthy children here with me.  When we miscarried a couple of years ago, I was comforted by the thought that if I only ever had my two baby girls, that I would still be blessed and happy with our little family.  And as any regular readers know, God continued to bless us with another baby this summer.

But my heart goes out to those families who have to endure the miscarriage or death of their first baby.  To have your innocence shattered by the loss of your first child would be one of the most difficult things I think a parent could go through.  And the questions!  Why didn't my baby live?  Did I do something wrong during my pregnancy?  Will I ever be able to carry a baby to term?  Why wasn't I allowed to meet my little one?  Why me?

Any time I hear of the passing of an unborn baby, I am reminded of what my sweet doctor told me after my own miscarriage.  He mentioned that some women, for every baby they are able to meet in this world, they have several babies praying for them in heaven. How comforting!

It is entirely possible that I, too, have several unborn children in heaven keeping Constantine company.  I have no way of knowing whether we've had just the one miscarriage or if I've had a few very early ones too.  It is possible that I may have more in coming years.

What a heart-swelling thought: All the unborn children I have had or may have in the future are a great cloud of children praying for me, my own personal army of tiny saints, perfected and taken before the temptations of this world.  How we ache to meet them, but how they rejoice with our Lord!

Icon of the children being brought to Christ, located in a rock outcropping at St. Tikhon's Monastery

I thought it especially joyful and appropriate that these parents chose the name Nicholas for their baby.  Of course, the timing is right, being that St. Nicholas's feast day was on Monday.  But don't some of the hymns and prayers to St. Nicholas refer to him as a special friend of children?  Imagine him surrounded by our lost little ones, their heavenly surrogate grandfather praising God with them and leading them in interceding for us.

Holy Saint Nicholas, special friend of children, pray to God for us!

Mourning Lost Children

I just read about this year's International Wave of Light that took place on October 15 at 7PM.  I'll have to remember this for next year.  What a beautiful thing to be a part of—either with a parish or at home.  Did anyone else participate?

We Are Seven

by William Wordsworth

A simple Child,

That lightly draws its breath,

And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl:

She was eight years old, she said;

Her hair was thick with many a curl

That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,

And she was wildly clad:

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;

—Her beauty made me glad.

“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,

How many may you be?”

“How many? Seven in all,” she said,

And wondering looked at me.

“And where are they? I pray you tell.”

She answered, “Seven are we;

And two of us at Conway dwell,

And two are gone to sea.

“Two of us in the church-yard lie,

My sister and my brother;

And, in the church-yard cottage, I

Dwell near them with my mother.”

“You say that two at Conway dwell,

And two are gone to sea,

Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell,

Sweet Maid, how this may be.”

Then did the little Maid reply,

“Seven boys and girls are we;

Two of us in the church-yard lie,

Beneath the church-yard tree.”

“You run about, my little Maid,

Your limbs they are alive;

If two are in the church-yard laid,

Then ye are only five.”

“Their graves are green, they may be seen,”

The little Maid replied,

“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,

And they are side by side.

“My stockings there I often knit,

My kerchief there I hem;

And there upon the ground I sit,

And sing a song to them.

“And often after sun-set, Sir,

When it is light and fair,

I take my little porringer,

And eat my supper there.

“The first that dies was sister Jane;

In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain;

And then she went away.

“So in the church-yard she was laid;

And, when the grass was dry,

Together round her grave we played,

My brother John and I.

“And when the ground was white with snow,

And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side.”

“How many are you, then,” said I,

“If they two are in heaven?”

Quick was the little Maid’s reply,

“O Master! we are seven.”

“But they are dead; those two are dead!

Their spirits are in heaven!”

’Twas throwing words away; for still

The little Maid would have her will,

And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

Source: The Longman Anthology of Poetry (Pearson, 2006)

Online Source

Baby Constantine

One year ago this evening, while I was in the middle of making dinner in our Pennsylvania kitchen, I completed the miscarriage, at eight weeks' gestation, of our third child.

Little Constantine got his name when his Daddy returned home from vespers at St. Tikhon's for the feast of Sts. Constantine and Helen.

Andrew suggested this name, and I'll admit I wasn't crazy about it at first. I doubt I would have named any of my living children something so foreign-sounding. ("Constantine! Time for dinner!" just didn't sound like our family.) We read through an entry in a calendar containing saints commemorated on that day, and since nothing else sounded any more normal to me, I resigned myself to going with either Constantine or Helen.
  

"You know, with our track record," (which is two girls) I said, "it's probably a Helen." Since I was only 8 weeks along and the baby, according to the ultrasound a few days prior, had ceased developing around 6 weeks gestation, there was no way of knowing the sex.

My husband replied, "Well, this might be the only boy I get."

"Ok," I agreed. "He's Constantine."

I had been encouraged to name our third child by our family doctor in Chicago (who talked me through the actual miscarriage), and I became very glad I had. Not only did it humanize the baby that internet literature referred to, among other things, as "the products of conception," but it was practical.

Back in Chicago after our move, my girls and I were visiting our good friends who had just had a baby. My four-year-old daughter was delighted, as she always is by babies. Sometime into the visit, she turned to me and said, "Mommy, what is our baby's name?"

Somewhat confused, I asked, "You mean, Susannah?" We still, to this day, refer to her as Baby over half of the time, but I didn't understand why her older sister needed to ask what her name was.

Maggie shook her head, and a thought occurred to me. "Oh, you mean the baby that was in Mommy's tummy? The baby that went to live with Jesus?"

"Yeah!" she said.

"His name is Constantine," I replied, delighted that she still remembered her little brother.

I marveled after this exchange that my four-year-old didn't ask if our baby had a name, but simply assumed it. And later on, when we met a Baby Constantine visiting our church, Maggie was thrilled that he had the same name as "our baby."  She still talks about him, and continues to associate the name Constantine with "our baby who went to live with Jesus."

 
Here are some photos from last May.  We were blessed to have been able to retrieve the tiny amniotic sac and have a small burial service on the grounds of St. Tikhon's Monastery in Pennsylvania where my husband was attending seminary.

We adorned a tiny box made by Andrew's father with a fabric cross from the vestments my mother was in the process of making.

A small cross (intended to hang in a window) hangs over a brick engraved with our last name, which serves to mark the grave.

Two priest friends of ours lead the prayers for the soul of our departed Constantine.

Our parents happened to be able to be present, along with another seminary family with whom we'd become close over the year.

The children present were very much at home.  They were delighted by the other little markers in this section of the cemetery.  This one has a small sheep on top of the tombstone.

Father and grandfathers filled the grave with earth.

After the prayers were offered, we placed flowers on the grave.  A monk friend of Andrew's promised to tend the grave for us once we had moved back to the Midwest.

This cemetery is a beautiful place filled with many saints.  Only a few paces away rests Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

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Once again, I am pregnant, and very close to delivery.  This time, the baby will be full term, as I am already 38 weeks.  God-willing, our little one will be healthy.  But as God knows, anything can happen at any point in a pregnancy, labor and delivery, or life.  In all things, I pray that we are able to give glory to God

Whatever happens during the course of any of our children's lives, they will all be remembered and have a place in our family.

  

This mosaic icon is located on an obscure rock wall at St. Tikhon's Monastery.  It's up a little hill, so of course kids want to run up to it, climb the uneven rock steps, and venerate it.  Perfectly placed.

But Jesus said, "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."  ~Matthew 19:14