Return to Zero is a film that premiered on Lifetime this last weekend. The film is based on writer-director-producer Sean Hanish’s own experience, as it tells the story of Maggie and Aaron (Minnie Driver and Paul Adelstein) in the aftermath of stillbirth.
**Spoiler alert** DO NOT READ THE REST IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE.
The following are bits and pieces of the movie that really spoke to my heart. The movie while it is about still birth shows a lot of feelings that I have experienced through miscarriage. It was an AMAZING movie. I have been looking forward to it for a long time and it was everything that I expected and wanted in a movie on this subject. Minnie Driver did an excellent job.
The part of the movie that spoke to me the most was when Maggie was talking with her Dr. "This pain I feel, I love it. I embrace it. I'm afraid if I let it go I'm gonna lose the last little piece of him I have." I think that's why it's so important for us loss mom's to talk about our children. We don't have them physically here, so talking about them is the only way we can be close to them. Also, it validates their existence. They were people. They matter. Their life matters.
The fear Maggie felt about getting pregnant again definitely resonated with me. Recently I have become so afraid to get pregnant. Just because you hit a certain week marker doesn't guarantee anything. It could be still born. You could have a healthy born child and as a story I've recently read about a little boy, he could turn 5 yrs old just to get brain cancer and leave this earth anyway. Once you've had a dream stolen away from you its hard to dream again from fear of losing hope again.
The conversation that Maggie had with her mom was the perfect conversation to bring loss moms together. We as loss moms need each other. No we may not understand fully each others pain if we've had a miscarriage vs still birth or vice versa but as her mother said "it's still a loss. It still hurts... It's the loss of the possibility of what might have been. And that is exactly the same." Everyone's loss is hurtful and painful. We already feel like outsiders to the rest of the world, let's not alienate each other.
As Maggie's leaving the hospital with her newborn daughter and the male nurse says "you are so good with her she can't be your first. How many kids do you have? " and she replies "2". This is the question every loss mom dreads. It is so hard for moms to know what to say when people ask that question. Somehow when you dont tell the truth you feel guilty that you're letting your sweet little lost babies down by not acknowledging their existence. But yet when you do tell the truth you just ruined whoever you were talking to's day. They surely didn't expect you to tell them about your dead baby/babies. How awkward can this thing get?
I love at the end when Maggie tells her new baby girl about her big brother who is looking down on her and looking out for her. Precious...
Thank you to the Hanish's for telling your story and for breaking the silence!!
