"As I walk through the darkness"

WEBVTT - This file has cues.

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Hey, how's it going?

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If you're new here, welcome.

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Something Shifted is about identity after interruption.

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It's about who we become after a lifequake hits and the stories we tell ourselves when
everything changes.

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And I think you're gonna like it here.

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My name is Sean and this is Something Shifted.

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Today's story is about

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a stillbirth and belongs to Marilize.

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Please listen with care.

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cannot live in the past, I've been given a future.

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Yes, it's without her, I would have loved her to be here, of course.

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And that's a daily process.

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That's next, right after this.

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If you're one of those people that believe rest is a luxury, we can't be friends.

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Real change is exhausting and even when your mind is ready, your body has kept the score
and it can't keep up without proper recovery.

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So I've started taking Solal's magnesium glycinate.

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It helps with muscle energy, nervous system support, and I'm honestly feeling a lot less
fatigued.

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You can learn more about Solol and their full range of supplements for healthy aging on
solal.co.za uh

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dot zed A.

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uh

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But when you meet Marilize, three things are immediately evident.

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One, she is very beautiful.

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And my wife, Rue, who is the executive producer of the show, has told me to say that.

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Two, Marilize has exquisite taste.

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Well, everyone knows my passion is fashion.

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And three, her faith is at the centre of all she does.

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Fashion is just what I get to do, but I also see it as an instrument to minister to women
and to help them because it's a thing that women struggle with.

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It's their self-image and I can talk about that because I struggled with it for so many
years.

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There are deep, deep insecurities.

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And here Rue would like me to tell you that a personal style session with Marilize really
boosted her confidence.

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There is something so incredibly gentle yet enthusiastic in Marilize's manner that she can
coax you out of your self-critique and into clothes and colours you would never think to

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try.

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Marilize is Capetonian through and through.

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Oh, Northern Suburbs.

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Afrikaans meisie

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and she credits her love for the arts and fashion to the woman who raised her.

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Her grandmother was an art teacher and her mother's wardrobe became her first stylist
playground.

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I love decor, I love anything beautiful and making things beautiful.

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I just got to choose the fashion one.

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After school, Marilize chose to study at AAA School of Advertising.

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I was going to study interior but yeah, I ended up in advertising which is really helping
me till to this very day.

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It made me understand branding and how to brand not even yourself and how to position
yourself or other brands.

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You may even have seen some of Marilize's work while flipping through a magazine or
watching shows like Top Billing, Expresso, All Access and Pasella where she's dressed

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local and international celebrities.

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And if you ever see Rue wearing anything but black, that's the power of Marilize's
influence.

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They were both in their late 20s when Marilize and Chris met each other through mutual
friends.

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And it was a true meeting of souls who shared the same values and dreams.

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In fact, Chris ticked all 49 boxes of Marilize's secret list of an ideal partner.

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Like many newly married couples, they began building a life together filled with hope and
expectation.

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One of their biggest dreams was to become parents.

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In 2013, Marilize sadly experienced a miscarriage on Mother's Day.

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The couple continued to hope and pray and were therefore over the moon when a few months
later they were pregnant again.

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This time with a little girl.

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They named her Gia.

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which means God's graciousness, gracious gift.

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And like many first-time parents-to-be who have longed for this season, Marilize wanted to
do it right.

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I did everything by the book, health-wise, know, don't eat this, don't do that.

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And you know, some doctors can say, no, you can still have this, you can still have that
ice.

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I'm like, no, I'll just cut it off.

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But I lost that, my appetite coffee.

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Can you believe it?

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I remember the day I put that cup down and I was like, that is the last one.

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I cannot take the smell or the taste of this.

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Ooh, the sushi was hard to give up.

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I must be honest.

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Okay, that's the one I remember, the sushi.

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But I didn't have any cravings really.

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I could have sparkling water and apples, I think.

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That was not our pregnancy journey.

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Rue craved potatoes.

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All.

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Time.

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The saltier and the more vinegary, the better.

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In fact, I couldn't chop potatoes fast enough and had to resort to bags and bags of those
pre-cut frozen chips just to keep the cravings at bay.

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and I absolutely couldn't stand sweet things.

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I couldn't even smell or look at tarts and puddings and stuff or even people eating it.

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So that was also a blessing in disguise.

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I'm like, thank goodness.

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So it was a pleasant pleasant journey.

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Now, as someone who only had the privilege of observing a pregnancy, I find it amazing
that some women enjoy the experience, or at least have fond memories of this incredibly

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intense physical metamorphosis.

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Rue also only remembers the good parts when she reminisces, completely forgetting the
nausea, her carpal tunnel syndrome and difficulty breathing.

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For her, it lives in her memory as a magical time.

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I loved it.

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I loved it and everything that went with it.

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The growing, the uncomfortableness, the itchy skin, the nausea in the beginning and
everything was healthy.

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I had a beautiful pregnancy.

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I really remember talking to God about it and praying over you dreaming, you're really
dreaming and you're really falling in love and feeling your child and every scan seeing

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how you know you can physically see now all angles how your child's growing and I felt
like

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million bucks.

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I was smiling from ear to ear wherever I went and then at the end where you start walking
like you said you never would.

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and Gia was loving it too.

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She was a little bundle of joy in my tummy already.

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So some of her scans, she was just jumping up and down and joyful.

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Of course, given her eye for style, Marilize had created a beautiful nursery in
anticipation of Gia's arrival.

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So the room was ready, Marilize and Chris were ready, and Gia was almost ready to join
them.

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During her pregnancy, Marilize experienced Braxton Hicks contractions at times, those
false labor cramps that start preparing the body for birth.

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They're normally short, 30 to 60 seconds long, and they don't get closer together or
stronger.

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So when she felt some slight cramping during the 39th week of her pregnancy, she wasn't
all that alarmed.

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was quite familiar with it but it felt very intense and I was like maybe this is the time
it's happening

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But eventually it settled.

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Two days later, it was officially one week before Gia was due.

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And something had changed.

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Something in me knew, but I didn't want to say anything.

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Marilize and Chris made their way to the hospital close to home.

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It was June and the roads were wet, maybe.

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Marilize can't recall.

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But she does remember the breathtaking silence of that drive.

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I was quiet.

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It's like you don't want to think for those few minutes.

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You don't know how to think.

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You don't know what to think.

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I kept thinking, Lord, you rose an army of skeletons, gave them flesh and rode them.

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All you could think is, can she just move?

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Can she just move?

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On arrival at the hospital, the parents-to-be were ushered into the emergency room, with
its harsh lighting, flurry of activities and loud noises in the background.

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I remember seeing the first scan, because this was just quickly um in the emergency, and
the nurse um not being from the maternity ward, said, let me just go get someone.

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When the nurses started the sonar, all ears were strained, listening for Gia's heartbeat.

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by that time I knew.

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We did hear something but I knew it was more heart

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After all, mom is at every scan, and by now, Marilize could recognize the heartbeat she
was hearing as her own.

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Once again, the silence became deafening.

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The electric hum of the overhead lights was the only sound anyone could hear.

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Then they said let me quickly just go up to my gynae and they took me up and they got
another gynae to come in and just confirm everything.

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Marilize, Chris, all of the medical staff were all hoping for a different outcome.

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But you could hear there's nothing.

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There's nothing you can see on the scan.

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There's nothing.

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And then her words were just to me, sorry, Marilize And I remember the first thing I said
when she said to me, I screamed, I love you, Jesus.

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Chris completely collapsed.

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was, you really, it is, it's the worst to hear that the trauma that hits you is.

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It takes everything out of you, really.

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It is like a tornado of emotions spinning around in a room.

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And the doctors need to manage it in such a way that they need to cope now with this as
well.

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It's traumatic on doctors as well.

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um Although in that moment they have to be strong and they have to just continue with the
process.

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m and to guide you through it.

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After the worst possible moment, when your world shatters, all you can do is move from one
minute to the next minute.

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From there they took me to a wheelchair and they take you to a ward and prepared you.

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And I remember family coming in, my pastors at that point coming to visit and pray for us.

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Marilize moved from one terrible moment to another in a daze.

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that point what do you do what do say to someone how do you manage this it is so there's a
lot of emotions to deal with and to

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and you sitting with your child inside of you, it's a lot to deal with in that specific
moment.

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And while she was trying to deal with incomprehensible loss, Marilize needed to make
decisions while only being able to choose from a list of terrible options.

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Ultimately, she chose to be fully sedated while they delivered gear via c-section.

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Chris had said to me, I want you to see her while you know her body is sort of still warm.

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That'd dress her and that'd bring her to me.

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But I remember in that moment that I wish I was more awake because I was so drugged I
can't remember clearly.

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It was petite, very petite, dark hair, beautiful.

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Everything was perfect.

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I would love to have had that moment for longer.

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Even, I know it sounds...

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Some people might think, ah but to have had more photos even, to have had something and
it's not that you hold on to the past and go back.

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We all have been looking at our children and go back to their photos every birthday.

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When Marilize and Chris were dreaming about being parents, the plan was to leave the
hospital with a healthy baby girl.

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Instead, they walked out of the hospital doors into a reality that they hadn't prepared
for.

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So it's a reality that doesn't make sense.

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It's really like in a movie, a horror movie that you're walking into.

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You almost didn't want to leave the hospital because you're really stepping into reality.

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Now with living on the day of the hospital and the car chair that's empty, the car driving
the way that you would have had that baby in the back of the car, it's surreal.

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is living a nightmare.

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It really is.

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uh It is a pain that

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you've never in your life felt.

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It is a loss that is so intense that you weren't ready for ever.

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No one should lose a child.

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It's almost like a 24 hours of blank but yet chaos.

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There's so many emotions that's running through you, you don't even know where to put it.

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You don't even know where what to reach out for.

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Even with all the support from your loved ones, there is something so isolating and
alienating about loss.

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The horror movie that you walk into isn't necessarily filled with monsters.

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It's more like a greyscale version of The Stepford Wives or The Truman Show.

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Because life looks normal, but somehow the color has drained from the world.

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And people continue doing

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normal things.

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But you?

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You've seen past the veneer and you're forever changed.

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But somehow you still need to participate in life.

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Do normal things?

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Interact with normal people?

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But it feels like you're performing a role you once played effortlessly and now you're
reading from a script you no longer believe in.

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I didn't want to leave the house for a month and a half.

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I didn't go into the shops where people would know me for years or knew that I was
pregnant because I didn't want to have people asking me where's my child and then having

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to constantly go through that and so many things just go through your head and at that
point I don't even know if you know you're coping or whether you're living or whether

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because it's the worst reality what's happening around you and it's it's beyond but you
never prepared for this never.

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But even if she could avoid the questions and sympathetic head tilts for a while, Marilize
couldn't live in a bubble forever.

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She had to learn to smile when her heart was breaking in conversations where others would
vent about the challenges of parenthood.

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The baby that mothers always complain about, the baby that's screaming that you have to
stop halfway because there's a bottle or the baby vomited, you miss all of it.

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All of it that you wanted is completely stripped of you.

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You get married, you fall pregnant, you didn't even struggle, you're grateful because you
know how many people struggle with falling pregnant and all that.

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And the last thing you expect is to have a stillbirth, to sit with your child's lifeless
body in your arms.

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um

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And to hear a doctor saying, sorry, that changes everything.

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It changes the entire picture that you're in.

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You knew having a baby in a child is going to change your life.

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And we all know that.

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But to lose a child is definitely life changing in every way.

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I never understood, and it's not something that you want people to understand.

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When we say that your heart is aching and it's broken, it aches.

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It aches in a way that you've never experienced.

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I don't say this to lot of people, but it's almost like you were aware of every part,
every cell in your body and everything was aching.

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At that point you don't know how to continue with life.

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But that is now 11 years later.

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That is my story.

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The deep feeling of missing out on something you wanted so badly stays with you.

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For Marilize, it meant learning how to live with answering the same questions over and
over again.

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And even more than a decade later, the questions never fully disappear.

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Because people would say, how could this happen to her?

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She's a Christian.

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People would say things like that.

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And how do you process even that?

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Marilize processed it, one moment at a time.

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I say to God, I'm just struggling, I've got to process it because my favorite scriptures
that I prayed over her doesn't make sense to me right now, but we'll work it through.

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You get used to, this is my story.

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I have lost a child, like many people in this world have lost children, but I do live in
this world and things do happen.

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And I cannot go back to what if I did that wrong and

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been there.

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What if I just didn't and why didn't I go there Tuesday?

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What?

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But that holds you hostage.

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I cannot live in the past.

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I've been given a future.

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Yes, it's without her.

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I would have loved her to be here, of course.

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And that's a daily process and it's your child.

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It will forever be my daughter that I've lost.

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Gia might not have taken a breath in this world, but she has forever changed Marilize's
life.

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One thing I've learned with Gia grace for people.

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Because people would say the weirdest, oddest, worst things, but to have grace because
they don't know.

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You have to look at the heart of what people are actually trying to say and forgive them
for the wrong that they're saying and the lack of what they're not saying.

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Forgive people for not being there where you wanted them there because people sometimes
just don't know how to deal with loss and what to say to you.

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Over time and anchored by their faith, Marilize and Chris slowly learned how to carry
their grief alongside their love for Gia.

00:19:20.131 --> 00:19:25.133
It wasn't about moving on, but finding a way forward together.

00:19:25.713 --> 00:19:36.322
And along that journey, new joy found its way into their lives too, in the form of their
son, Christian, born in 2016.

00:19:36.366 --> 00:19:41.246
He is joyful, he is delightful, he is everything.

00:19:41.706 --> 00:19:44.146
He just makes my heart sing.

00:19:44.326 --> 00:19:46.586
He's actually very good at his aural and stuff like that.

00:19:46.586 --> 00:19:48.046
He gets very good marks.

00:19:48.066 --> 00:19:49.286
He's a little communicator.

00:19:49.286 --> 00:19:51.232
I love him so much.

00:19:51.232 --> 00:19:55.580
and Gia is still very much part of their family.

00:19:55.650 --> 00:19:56.380
He knows about her.

00:19:56.380 --> 00:19:59.431
When he was old enough, we told him about her.

00:19:59.431 --> 00:20:02.222
And he's intrigued about the story.

00:20:02.222 --> 00:20:05.313
I share it always with him in a delightful way.

00:20:05.613 --> 00:20:06.403
I don't focus here.

00:20:06.403 --> 00:20:07.793
I don't camp there.

00:20:07.974 --> 00:20:12.290
And there is days where he will go, uh I wish I had a sister that was here.

00:20:12.290 --> 00:20:13.385
I would have been fun of Gia.

00:20:13.385 --> 00:20:14.566
I'm like, I know, right?

00:20:14.566 --> 00:20:16.136
Imagine how we would have loved.

00:20:16.756 --> 00:20:18.687
I don't mind people asking me about Gia at all.

00:20:18.687 --> 00:20:22.078
The thing is, the story is not about me.

00:20:22.604 --> 00:20:24.203
It's not about me getting attention.

00:20:24.203 --> 00:20:26.643
It's not about, how did you deal with it?

00:20:27.904 --> 00:20:34.648
It's a story about the healing from inconceivable pain and finding beauty in the ashes.

00:20:34.806 --> 00:20:38.390
as I walk through the darkness, I walk through that place.

00:20:38.831 --> 00:20:41.294
You don't camp there, you don't stay there.

00:20:41.715 --> 00:20:44.428
Don't become that, that is not your identity.

00:20:46.914 --> 00:20:51.375
These days, Marilize lives a life guided by her faith.

00:20:51.395 --> 00:20:57.577
Fashion is still a driving force in her work as she mentors ageless style and beauty.

00:20:57.898 --> 00:21:07.560
With a coffee close by and a life full of passion, laughter and grace, she's a reminder to
us all as much as we try to move on from pain.

00:21:07.961 --> 00:21:12.172
The truth is we move forward with it.

00:21:14.698 --> 00:21:25.024
If Something Shifted has moved you, made you feel seen or simply kept you company, the
best way to say thank you is to leave us a 5-star rating on your listening platform.

00:21:25.024 --> 00:21:28.726
It takes 5 seconds and honestly means the world.

00:21:28.766 --> 00:21:37.521
Subscribe so you never miss a human-centered story and check out the show notes for the
Something Shifted soundtrack playlist, a compilation of songs we've listened to while

00:21:37.521 --> 00:21:38.812
making this season.

00:21:38.812 --> 00:21:43.434
Songs that make us feel a little less lonely and a lot more empowered.

00:21:43.948 --> 00:21:51.638
Many thanks to Rue, my executive producer, additional writing on this episode, and as
always, thank you for listening.

00:21:52.121 --> 00:21:52.882
Bye.