A Love Worth Having

SMILING THROUGH THE PAIN

My pregnancy went by quickly and I enjoyed being pregnant more than I expected I would. My office had been made over into a nursery. I still left the bed in there but my desk and PC and all of my office supplies were moved into the basement. All of my family helped to make the nursery beautiful. Kassidy was a huge help because let's face it no one knows how to decorate a nursery better than a woman who had four kids in five years. Cordell was so amazing and involved during my pregnancy, he was at my every beckon call. He attended almost all of my Dr. appointments with me and the few that he did miss was because he had a show to do. He made $10,000 per show so he tried not to miss a performance unless it was completely unavoidable. My due date was April 4th, 2011 and things were going according to plans. I had gained a healthy amount of weight and I was eating properly so there wasn't any cause for concern during my pregnancy. My last checkup before I was scheduled to deliver the baby was April 1st. I had been having contractions on and off for a couple of days but they were far apart so it didn't warrant me going to the hospital at that time. During my pregnancy, I had become increasingly clumsy and Cordell and the boys helped me around the house with just about everything. Cordell always helped me in and out of the shower and tub because he was concerned by my new found clumsiness. I went to my last prenatal checkup by myself because the kids were at school and Dell was on his way home from an out of town performance. According to my doctor, everything had progressed well with my baby and he or she was expected to make a debut within a couple of days. We didn't want to know the sex of the baby we just wished for a healthy baby but we chose 2 names; Cordelia Demetria Lowery for a girl and Cordell Demetri Lowery for a boy. It was a combination of Dell name and Meechie name.

On my way home from my final checkup I called Cordell and I told him that everything went well and he assured me that he would be home within an hour and a half. I decided to take a bath and relax, after all I was days away from giving birth so I needed to relax while I still had the time. I stayed in the bath tub for a long time. While I was in the tub I started experiencing excruciating pain in the lower right side of my abdomen. At first, I ran more hot water hoping that the pain would subside but it didn't. The pain was very intense and I was frightened because I was home alone. My phone was in my bedroom and I tried to get out of the tub because I needed to call somebody. As I climbed out of the bathtub I slipped fell and landed on my stomach.

I woke up in the ICU the next day and I had no recollection of what happened after I fell but I was in a tremendous amount of pain. Dell was in the hospital room with me and he looked disheveled. He explained what happened after my fall. According to him, I made it home from my appointment at 11am on April 1st. I fell on my stomach at somewhere around 11:45 and Dell walked in the house to find me naked and crying on the bathroom floor an hour later. Naturally, he panicked and called the ambulance who came and transported me to the hospital. The pain that I experienced was from appendicitis and what my doctor and I thought was contractions was actually the beginning of the appendicitis symptoms. My appendix ruptured en route to the hospital and I had to have an emergency C-section to remove the baby from me and I also underwent an appendectomy. After he explained everything I nervously asked "how is the baby? Where is the baby?". He smiled, so I saw a glimmer of hope and he said "He was 7lbs and 5oz and he was so handsome. He had the best of both our features, he also resembled Zay and Valente" his voiced cracked a little with each word that he spoke. Mind you I had not one but 2 serious surgeries in one day and I was highly medicated, so I said "was?" He showed me a picture of a very handsome lifeless baby boy. "Our son passed away," he said. He was trying to be strong for me. Due to the fact that an appendectomy and C-section aren't ordinarily given to an individual on the same day, doctors didn't know if I would make it. Our son Cordell Demetri Lowery was stillborn. Incidentally, we had talked about what we would do in a situation like that so Dell had the baby cremated. I started crying and Cordell held my hand and I stated "I knew I was clumsy; why didn't I wait for you? You told me that you were on your way home. It's all my fault". He said "baby it wasn't the fall that killed him it, he died because of the appendix rupture and no one could have predicted that. If it's any one's fault, its mine. If I was home and you complained about pain, we would've made it to the hospital before your appendix ruptured" and he was crying. I gripped his hand tight. He said, "I promised to make you my number one priority when I found out that you were pregnant and I left you when you needed me most, so yes it's my fault". It was a very sobering experience but he had been there by my side ever since he found out the baby's fate. A nurse entered the room and told Dell that visiting hours were almost over and he went berserk saying "I'm not leaving, so you tell everyone out there that I'm not leaving my wife's side. I lost my son yesterday and I almost lost her too. I'm not fucking leaving and if someone tries to make me leave you guys are going to have a real problem on your fucking hands. If you have any compassion, you would walk away. Don't come in here again with that bullshit". She turned away and no one tried to bother him again about leaving. When medical staff entered the room they didn't acknowledge him they just played like he wasn't there. We spent the rest of the night holding hands not saying much of anything.

I had to stay in the hospital for a week and my husband stayed by my side every waking moment, he slept in a chair and he only left when I was sleep so he could shower and change clothes. He would brush my hair into a ponytail and help me groom myself. He actually did more for me than the medical staff did. The boys were being cared for by his parents. Cordell didn't let anyone visit me in the ICU because he knew that I was overly emotional and he didn't want me to have a setback. I didn't get a chance to see the boys until I was downgraded from ICU and moved into another ward. Valente and Zay were very cautious around me and they carefully chose their words when they spoke to me.

When I went home, I had flowers and sympathy cards from everyone including my older sister Cynthia. Naomi stayed in the nursery for a while and she helped Dell and I get through our ordeal. She made sure the boys were well taken care of. Dell and the boys dismantled the nursery furniture and donated it to Kassidy's daycare. All of the baby clothes were gifted to a shelter. I felt so helpless but not just for me for Dell too. So often the fathers' feelings are not tended to in a situation like ours because everyone rushes to aid the mother and the father is left to grieve in silence. One night Cordell and I were in bed; I was supposed to be sleeping but I heard a video playing in the background. He had a video on his phone of the C-section and he was watching it, but I didn't say anything in that instance. I let him grieve the way he needed too. My husband had been through so much and he experienced 2 great losses in the span of a couple of months, he lost his son and his best friend, but he tried to be strong enough for the both of us. The next day I asked him if he could show me the video because I had never seen it. He acted as if he didn't know what I was talking about. I explained that I heard him watching the video during the night and he reluctantly showed me. He tried to walk away after he handed me the phone so I grabbed him and said "you are more man than anyone that I have encountered in my whole life, you can be vulnerable in front of me. I told you a long time ago we are in this thing together". I started to cry as I said "if you need to cry, do it. We lost our son and we need to deal with those emotions together". I hugged him with my right arm and held the phone with my left hand so we could both see the video. He rested his head on top of mine and we looked at the video together. I said "he's so handsome Dell, me and you made a beautiful child" and we hugged each other.

Kassidy checked on me just about every day. It was so nice to have people that genuinely cared for us. Dell and I turned our tragedy into art, he got a tattoo of the baby's' name, footprints, and the date that he died on his chest right above his heart. I got a tattoo on the back of my neck that read "CXVC" which stood for Cordell, Xavier, Valente, and Cordell Jr. His tattoo meant so much to me because I slept on his chest almost every night and it was as if I could feel our babies' heartbeat through Dell.

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