This evening, I watched Outlander. I saw the character of Claire Randall Fraser experience the stillbirth of her baby daughter, Faith. Fans of Outlander know that the plot revolves around time travel. As I watched, I was myself cast back in time to the stillbirth of my baby son a decade ago.
This episode got stillbirth right.
One of the psychological effects of trauma is a loss of time. People experiencing trauma very often report a sense of disassociation that occurs in tandem with the event.
As I watched Claire lie in a hospital bed hovering between life and death – light and darkness – I could not help but to recall my own novel discovery.
As I lay postpartum from stillbirth, I wanted to die as much as I knew I had to live. There was a nearness. An intimacy to life and to death. Before, I had understood them as polar opposites. As I lay there – high on sedatives, and deep in shock I started to see them on a nuanced continuum.
I found this Outlander episode to be beautifully rendered. We are reminded that histories – both global and personal are shaped by degrees. The slightest variance in action produces ripple effects in the histories of nations, but also of families.
I had an Aunt Emily who died as an infant because of hospital staph infection. My grandparents divorced. I cannot know whether their divorce was related to Emily’s death. Still, a degree. And it extrapolates out.
Outlander did not obscure the agony of a woman post-loss. We see the literal shattering of the Virgin Mary. We know that Claire imagines her anticipated maternal role in the world to be irrevocably decimated.
The primal longing and need for mother and child to be joined is also shown as Claire begs for her baby to be brought to her. I felt some small measure of relief when I saw that she had, in the end, been provided that opportunity.
I have often written that stillbirth leaves too much to the imagination. Claire talks about holding the baby as necessary. She speaks of seeing her so that, “[I] would not need to imagine.”
As we see Claire cradle her daughter, the viewer understands what stillbirth means. That a child is conceived, carried, dies and is born. Once again, it is time all out of order – misplaced, cleaving and warped.
Father Jamie Fraser is absent from the stillbirth. This is not for lack of love or interest. Nevertheless, his absence symbolizes the wedge that couples experience both during and after loss. Prior to the loss of the baby, we see an anticipatory Jamie talking tenderly to the baby through Claire’s pregnant belly.
Claire is a strong female lead. She expresses herself sexually and intellectually. Her response to loss reflects the complexities associated with procreating. Of being female in a society that does not always honor the woman – or her total experience of living and losing.
On Outlander, we learn that baby Faith was illegally baptized. Today, women who have stillborn babies are not issued standard birth certificates – many states offer alternative certificates, but procedures vary and continue to evolve. Bereaved mothers often feel negated by this lack of acknowledgment.
It is hard to take possession of an experience for which there is an undercurrent of denial. The degree of this loss trauma is largely underestimated. Often, those who are confronted with a loved one whose baby has died are surprised to discover that their loved one labors.
I gently remind: babies who will be stillborn don’t disappear.
Claire struggles with guilt. The viewer wishes to remove this burden. As she lies there, apparently dying, she is asked whether she has sins to confess. She says that her sins are all she has left.
In the ensuing weeks, she must grapple with clanging solitude.
This episode offers comfort to viewers. They are not presented in simple terms. We start in the future and we see Claire as the mother of a healthy, living girl. Back in the past, Claire and Jamie mark their daughter’s grave. Together.
It is integration of pain by degree. It is as good as it gets.
What were your thoughts on the episode concerning Claire’s stillbirth?
:eave a commentCREDIT: 2016 Starz Entertainment, LLC
Copyright: 2016 Transactional Pictures of NY LP. All Rights Reserved.
