Dad Michael tells the story of the birth of his son Jalen Jeremiah during the COVID-19 pandemic. His wife Bianca had an incompetent cervix and they put in a cerclage, but it failed. When the medical team was trying to remove the cerclage, they broke the water, and they had to deliver their son at 20 weeks and 6 days. Because he was so young in gestational age, there was nothing that they medical team would have done. Jalen was born still after Bianca labored for a short time. He was tiny, but he was perfect.
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Listen here (podcast):
Time Stamps:
Timestamps:
0:00- Jalen Jeremiah
0:08- Introduction
5:28- Birth story
8:03- Hospital trip
9:41- Water breaks
15:24- Funeral
19:29- Recovery
22:17- Support Group
26:55- End
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You might appreciate these other episodes:
- Watch/listen Bianca’s (Michael’s wife) birth episode of son Jalen: Click here
- Watch/listen to Bianca’s and Michael’s advice episode after Jalen’s death: Click here
Full Transcription:
Michael 0:00
My son’s name was Jalen Jeremiah.
Michael 0:08
One significant thing about him was, he was a spitting image of me from the eyes, the nose, and to the mouth. One thing I laughed about to myself was that he was really very active at five months, nothing but jumping around in there kicking. So when he came out, I laughed that his inch and a half foot was the one that was kicking her so hard. It was funny to me. That was funny to me.
Winter 0:43
Welcome to Still A Part of Us a place where moms and dads share the story of their child who was stillborn or who died in infancy. I’m Winter.
Lee 0:51
And I’m Lee, we are grateful you joined us today. Please know that this is a story of loss. It has triggers. Thanks to our loss parents who are willing to be vulnerable and share their children with us. If you’re listening to this podcast, just know that on our YouTube channel, there are pictures and videos that are related to the stories that are being shared.
Winter 1:07
Subscribe and share it with a friend that might need it and tell them to subscribe. Why? Because people need to know that even though our babies are no longer with us. They’re Still A Part of Us.
Lee 1:19
During the times you’re getting kicked in the ribs and in the stomach wasn’t the funnest thing. But
Bianca 1:26
Yeah, definitely.
Lee 1:28
It is quite amazing how small those feet are. New born babies are. Welcome. Welcome to welcome. Welcome and thank you for coming. Thank you for coming on to the podcast. It’s always good to connect and to speak with fathers. Sometimes I feel that I’m sort of forgotten in this whole process. I’m glad that you have come to talk about your son. Tell me a little bit about yourself. How long have you and Bianca been…I don’t I don’t know. Are you married? Are you guys together? Or-
Michael 2:04
We’re married. We’ve been together since we’re 14.
Lee 2:06
Whoa.
Michael 2:08
Now we’re 28.
Lee 2:10
Oh man! More than half your life. So are you both– Were you both 14 and you’re both 28 now, or were you both 14? I’m just gonna say you’re now married.
Michael 2:20
We got married at 20 now feels like what this feels like with this situation that happened. We’ve been through everything now.
Lee 2:28
Sort of true you have.
Michael 2:29
Little bit on me? On a day to day morning. I’m in the retail business. I’m the only one that leaves the house. She works from home. Some hobbies that I do that we all like to do is to be outside. I like to play video games with my son and basketball with him. We all love to watch movies together.
Lee 2:48
What kind of movies? What genres of movies?
Michael 2:51
We’re going on comedies really.
Michael 2:55
Rom coms?
Michael 2:55
Something to keep us all up. One person wants to watch something and the next thing you know you look over another person’s sleeping. We try to stick to the Comedies so everyones awake.
Lee 3:07
That’s nice. Yeah. Because comedies are always fun. When you said you guys like to be outdoors. Being outside is awesome! Do you guys do anything in particular outdoors? Are you guys like you go hiking or camping?
Michael 3:22
We like everything pretty much. Bring the kids to the park. Walk around the park.
Bianca 3:28
Gardening.
Michael 3:29
Gardening.
Lee 3:30
It’s starting to become garden season here in Utah. Are you guys planning your own garden?
Michael 3:36
Yes, finally.
Bianca 3:38
It’s not quite it’s still like kind of really cold and–
Michael 3:42
Waiting for that season to switch over so you can finally let go of the cold weather.
Lee 3:48
So I like the cold, but it’s wonderful. Basketball. You play pretty competitively?
Michael 3:58
I’m not anymore. I did. I’m waiting for one of the big kids to play. So I can-
Lee 4:04
So you could shut stuff down?
Michael 4:06
Yeah. Like how I was rundown. Yeah.
Lee 4:11
Well, good. Now, what position would you say that you’re more of a guard? Are you, you know, shooting?
Michael 4:17
I played guard. Well, I played 1-3. Really the guard played a guard a lot in high school. Um best times best three times three times.
Lee 4:31
I was gonna say whenever I played basketball, I was always the position I played was go in and foul. I was the bruiser. I could rebound and I could bruise I couldn’t shoot. I couldn’t shoot. You know, I could be alone underneath the basket and miss every single shot, but I could out rebound and I can make them pay. I would get ejected a lot, you know, just from time church ball and stuff like that I’d get ejected from games.
Michael 5:02
But we all need a bruiser. Always need somebody on the team that’s a bruiser.
Lee 5:10
I was the punisher. So yeah, I don’t play basketball much anymore. Nobody wants to play with a bruiser when you’re an adult, so.
Michael 5:20
Right, right.
Lee 5:21
Well, wonderful. Thanks for telling us a little bit about yourself. Should we start on your guys’ birth story?
Michael 5:28
Yeah, so that day, previous to that day, he came on a Sunday. But Previous to that day on that Thursday, Bianca was having a lot of complications. Probably two weeks up until his death. Um, she was five months pregnant, but she was two centimeters dilated.
Also, the doctor was like, you guys have to put in a cerclage which is pretty much like a staple. A stitch to stitch up her cervix. That way we can try to keep him in as much as possible. As well as she had to take progesterone shots. To keep him confined.
Lee 6:08
I don’t really know what progesterone is. So would it sort of stop the advancement of birth?
Michael 6:16
Correct. So the progesterone shots would slow down the inducing.
Lee 6:22
Oh okay, that makes sense.
Michael 6:26
She had to get that put in on a Thursday. They had to put her to sleep. Of course, I couldn’t go with her because of COVID. So she had to go to it by herself. When she woke up from the surgery, she was in nothing but pain. They wanted to keep her overnight, but luckily they sent her home. She was going through immense pain.
That Thursday night, pretty much half of Friday. The doctor kept saying just take Tylenol, it’s because you felt a lot of contractions. So the doctor is like, just keep taking the Tylenol. You’ll be better. You just got to give it some time. So we said okay.
Michael 7:04
Saturday came, she was in immense pain. She couldn’t walk. She couldn’t talk. She felt like she was having real contractions. She felt like he was coming. She asked me She’s like, “Should I go down to the ER?” I said “No, call the doctor.” I’m gonna be honest. I’m the type of guy I hate going out to the ER because all they’re going to do is keep us for six hours just to give you Motrin and Tylenol and send us home.
She called and he was like, “Oh, I think you’re gonna- I think you’re okay. But come on in. If you want to come on down, we can evaluate you.” So she went down. I think it’s probably about a half hour to an hour. Well, she had called me she goes “You need to get down here right away.” And I’m like what’s wrong?
Lee 7:45
Were you at work, or home with the kids?
Michael 7:47
I’m home with the kids.
Lee 7:48
Oh, you’re home.
Michael 7:47
I’m home with the kids on that Saturday. It’s probably like two something. I’m starting dinner. Actually, I’m just getting done with it. She was like, “Come down to the hospital, we need you here ASAP.” I’m like, “Why is everything okay?” She’s like, “I don’t know. Just come down.”
Michael 8:03
Now I gotta race to put some clothes on. Get two kids dressed. I’m doing 80 down the highway. I drop them off to the in-laws. I get down there. She’s crying. I’m like, “What’s wrong? What happened?” She’s like, “The doctors are gonna have to tell you.” I said, “Okay.” I waited about 10 minutes. The doctor came in, and she’s like, “The stitch broke. He forced his way through the stitch. Then we hurt her sack that went into her vagina.” So they’re pretty much like she’s having a stillbirth. I’m still trying to process.
I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t even know what a stillbirth was. I’m like, “Slow down. This is all confusing.” So she’s like, “The stitch broke. We thought it was gonna hold in. But it didn’t. It didn’t work out.” I said, “Is there anything we can do?” I mean, I’m like, we just had this done Thursday. I mean, I’m not gonna say that. Of course, you can’t guarantee that something is gonna work. I’m like you said this would work. Their like, “Unfortunately, he just broke through.”
Michael 9:09
After I asked, “Is there anything they can do?” They said “No.” But they followed up with “Also we’re gonna have to make a decision on what’s going to happen.” She said, “If the liquid in the sack broke in her vigina it’s toxic. Now, at this point, I’m thinking like, they’re telling me I have to choose between our son and her. I can’t make that decision right now. They’re like, don’t worry about it. We’re gonna, we have to admit her. We’re trying to get a room set up for you upstairs.
Michael 9:41
20 minutes later, we went up there. The doctor goes, okay, we’re gonna have to take out the stitch. So I’m like, Okay. It took them 20 minutes to half an hour to take out the stitch. Which in my opinion was way too long because the surgery only took an hour. So I’m like what’s going on you using a bunch of Using all these spec alone appointments, she’s screaming in pain after them finally getting it out. When he first went in he goes, um, I’m going to try not to break her water. It shouldn’t. But I’m going to try very carefully not too. So we said, okay.
Once he got it out, he broke the water, but he didn’t say anything to us. I see a bunch of liquid rushing from her. I can see her face that she knew her water broke. So we asked, “Did her water break?”. Dead silence for probably about 20 seconds. And they said “It did.” At that point, it was set in. All the emotions set in. The doctor’s left. They said, “We’re gonna go get the medicine to induce labor. We’ll be back.” It’s like sitting in a labor room with no EKGs hooked up to her. That was hard for me. They finally came back. Gave the medicine-
Lee 11:02
May ask, about how long did you guys have to wait until they came back? Because sitting with your thoughts, sitting with your thoughts is always just?
Michael 11:11
Yes, in our thoughts. Well, it was bad. We got-
Bianca 11:15
There like at four. Then they told us at four that we were going to be admitted. And then it took them to about seven that night.
Michael 11:25
We’re sitting pretty much in a labor room. Dead silence. The nurse is constantly asking if we need anything trying to process. Once that time came. The labor felt like the labor took an hour. We wanted to keep him in as long as possible, but he was ready to come. After he came out. That’s when our little bean was. He came into the world. He wasn’t alive. He passed away in labor before he came. And I think that was the hardest time. I’m sitting with a newborn who was 11.. What was he?
Bianca 12:08
Oh, he was 10 and a half inches long and he weighed 11.5 ounces.
Michael 12:14
So I’m sitting with him in my hand and I don’t even.. My hands are wide open. I don’t even know how to hold a baby that small. So it was very hard. We pretty much stayed in the hospital for a day and a half. Had him the whole time. Was it two days?
Bianca 12:33
Not only stated.. We left that day that morning. So he came at 1:13 in the morning, and we left by 10 o’clock that morning, the same day.
Michael 12:45
He was everything that we wanted. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.
Lee 12:51
You think he looked just like you? Tell me a little bit about his features. Did he have lots of hair or did have a little bit of hair?
Michael 12:58
He didn’t have any hair.
Bianca 13:01
Like a little fuzz.
Michael 13:02
Yeah, little fuzz. Little fuzz up there.
Lee 13:05
He did have sort of nice, perfect little fingers?
Michael 13:11
Perfect fingers, perfect fingernails. Came out with his hands crossed. He he.. Everything on him was perfect.
Lee 13:22
Everything. Everything. Yeah. Just perfect. And it hurts that you couldn’t keep him.
Michael 13:29
He was perfect. He stayed with us the whole time. Luckily the nurse that we had was amazing. It seemed like she was there with us through her whole shift. She was bringing us everything. She was laughing with us, crying with us, rubbing our backs. She even set up a photo shoot for him. She put him in a nice Winnie the Pooh blanket, a nice blue knitted hat. She gave us the certificate of life because since he wasn’t born, we couldn’t get a birth certificate. So they gave us a certificate of life, which was nice. She signed it. The hardest part of it was leaving him at the hospital.
Lee 14:17
Yeah.
Michael 14:18
The hospital was going to set up a funeral service by– we would give them his remains. They would set up a plaque at a local cemetery with all the other babies and the other still babies. But we didn’t want it. We wanted to be in charge of how the funeral service went. So we actually set up our own funeral service.
Michael 14:41
I have two other kids. Now we couldn’t even tell them up until he was here that of what happened. We have an 11 year old daughter and a six year old son and even just explaining it to them was hard. It wasn’t fair. My son was ecstatic to have another brother to run around with and cause trouble. He took it the worst. To this day he just walks around just wishing his brother was here. So they finally got to meet Jalen at the funeral. We had immediate family there with a couple of close friends.
Lee 15:24
Now, I remember when we had to figure out our funeral services I had no clue what to do, like I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to go about planning for a funeral. And it really, if it wasn’t for my family, knowing a family who runs a mortuary. I wouldn’t know what to do. But I was like, well, I guess we could use these people. Because I grew up with these people.
How did you guys go about finding a service to use? How was that process for you? For me, it gave me a purpose. And I was so determined to do that. And I did it. Like, I need to do this, I need to do that I need to go down to the cemetery and need to find plots. And once I had done everything I was lost again. But that little rest gave me a purpose to do for my son. How was planning that for you guys? Was it just completely? I’m sure it was completely new to you. But was it confusing? Was it? Did it give you a purpose for a little time, or–
Michael 16:39
Planning that funeral was hard. We used a local funeral home. Both our families have used the same funeral home in the past, so we knew who to call. She was– the woman at the funeral home was very helpful, very supportive, throughout the way. Very patient with us. We didn’t know anything about planning a funeral. I still don’t even know how we got through. I don’t even remember anything.
She was just pretty much like, how do you what do you want him to wear? And I’ll take care of everything else from there. Which was very helpful. We decided to cremate him. We don’t plan so we live in Massachusetts now. But we were planning on relocating in one or two years. So we didn’t feel comfortable burying him and just leaving.
Lee 17:31
Yeah.
Michael 17:31
So now he’s in an urn in our room. We look at him every day. We talk to him every day like he’s here. We feel like he’s with us. One way we celebrate him after the funeral was we did a balloon release. Everyone that went to the funeral with us. We bought 24 balloons and everyone that went with us wrote a little message. Sharpied a message on a balloon and released it at a park. I think that helped me out a lot.
He came on February 1, of course Valentine’s day was right around the corner. So what we did was we wrote a note to him as if he was a long distance relative. It was also hard for us because actually our anniversary was on the 23rd of February. So it seemed like we didn’t even want to do anything for that. He was the perfect little man.
Lee 18:26
You’re about a month out-a month and a half out at the time of recording. How has your recovery been? How have you guys been? It’s still so raw, it’s still so fresh for you guys. And at the time of recording, we are still in the Covid 19 pandemic. So there’s still all those, you know, social distancing. Here in Utah, they’re sort of easing up on the, you know, limiting the social gatherings to small groups.
You guys mentioned you’re in Massachusetts. How have you guys been able to recover? I don’t know. You know, of course, family will always be there for you. But, you know, how has your personal recovery been? Michael, how has your wife Bianca’s recovery been? How has your other children’s recovery been? You mentioned that your younger son is just distraught and really missing his brother. But how are they doing?
Michael 19:29
My personal recovery? Every day is different. When you feel like okay, I’m starting to make ground. I’m starting to recover, I’m starting to heal. You get something as small as seeing– like going out to the store you see a baby in a stroller, or a baby crying and you feel like it just you feel like you’re just ready to go drop it and leave the cart right where it is and go on home.
Lee 19:57
Yeah, yeah,
Lee 19:58
Bianca’s recovery has been worse. After he came, she wouldn’t eat for two weeks, there she wouldn’t eat, she was barely drinking. Luckily, she started to ease up a little bit, we have a strong support system behind us. They are there for us whenever we needed whatever time, whatever the request was, someone would come right over.
Lee 20:30
That’s a big, that’s a blessing. That’s a huge blessing.
Michael 20:33
Huge blessing. The kids recovery, we all kind of got to mourn together, which is good. Like, sometimes a person would want to or unfortunately, a lot of the mourning came in the middle of the night. While everybody’s sleeping trying to get the kids remote learning up or something crazy, we only got to really relax at night. The more so the mourning, a lot of mourning came during the morning, our early early morning hours.
It was nice for everyone to wait, everyone would hear Bianca cry, and we all would wake up and go consult her cry with her. So I think this definitely brought us together, closer, closer together. Um, the kids are slowly gradually getting better. Um, of course, they have their days where they’re crying, or they say, you know, we miss Jalen. But you know you just try to say, he’s still with us and we’ll see him again.
Lee 21:38
I was just thinking when you were talking about the mourning and at nighttime, you know, because the day you’re so occupied with so many other things, once you’re finally able to sit and be at ease and calm, and then the emotions overtake you. I just remember the three o’clock in the morning just sitting and weeping. It’s so beautiful to be alone and in mourning and having somebody come and then comfort you. I remember those–
Michael 22:14
Probably the best, the best feeling.
Lee 22:17
I do remember that. Now, Michael, there’s a support group that we go to. And they talked about how do you parent a child who has passed away? And Winter. My, you know, Winter? And we talked about it? And how do we parent our son who’s passed away? And we’ve set up you know, we have found some ways to parent through service through stuff like that.
And I know this is sort of an on the spot question, but have you guys thought about how you are going to parent Jalen? Or is there anything that you were like, you know, we would like to like the balloon, the balloon release? Or when you wrote the note to him? Are there other things that you guys do to quote unquote, to parent him?
Michael 23:09
Yes, I think we try to include him like we plan on taking family photos. We’ll bring his urn with us. We’ll meet, we’ll have like a boy balloon. Anytime we will, we’re planning on taking the trip. We take trips every summer. So we plan on bringing him with us. Not just leaving them in the house.
Lee 23:37
Yeah.
Michael 23:38
I think it’s just pretty much including him and stuff like that. This is the biggest thing for us. Will we talk as if he’s sitting right next to us all the time.
Lee 23:50
Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anything else that you would like to tell us about your son Jalen, or how you and Bianca are doing or anything in particular?
Michael 24:06
Me and Bianca are just trying to get through this. We appreciate life differently now. Um, we always seem like we’re telling each other and other family members that we love them all the time. Because you never know when’s the last time you’re speaking to someone you just never know. So, I think this is definitely an eye opener to just appreciate being in the moment and appreciate everything.
Lee 24:36
Like you said, you never know. And harkening back to the very beginning of the interview you had said you never even heard of stillbirth.
Michael 24:47
Right.
Lee 24:47
But now you are so much more willing to show love to those that you love and telling them that you love them.
Michael 24:56
Definitely. We are actually in a support group too, called empty arms, they have zoom meetings all the time. Bianca’s in it a lot. I’ll sit next to her. I’m not really comfortable yet being in the zoom call in front of everybody, but I think finding that group of support outside of family to help just means I know they’re there.
After the two weeks, when you said it’s not like it’s dried up, but when that’s not there anymore, there’s definitely the support group that’s there for us that can relate all the time. Any little triggers we have, we can tell them and they say it’s okay. It’s normal, thinking over this idea or ways to maneuver a conversation. When talking about it. Facing tough questions facing the people who asked why, or how has been huge for us.
Lee 25:58
It really is amazing how a support group who have gone through what we have gone through and what you have gone through is able to sort of help you navigate, like you said. Because people are going to say things in pure innocence, that you’re just like that was not something that you should have said. Having that well of knowledge thing. Yeah, you know, this is a way that you can address that.
Michael 26:32
Right.
Lee 26:33
So I’m glad I’m glad at least you’re sitting next to Bianca during that so well Michael, thank you so much for coming and telling us about your wonderful son. Jalen. Thank you and I hope your healing path is one that you were able to embrace and come to follow you.
Michael 26:55
Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai