Return to Zero (a movie review)

5.24.14

      The previous weekend, there had been a lot of buzz on Facebook about this new movie on Lifetime called "Return To Zero." It is the true life account of a couple who has a stillbirth at 37 or 38 weeks, and the husband is actually the director of the film.
       Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep had posted repeatedly about the film because the organization as a whole was excited that there would finally be a semi-documentary about stillbirth widely released on a major network. The lead is played by Minnie Driver, and she ultimately gets nominated for an Emmy award because of the role she portrays (at the time I'm writing this, the Emmy Award Winners haven't been announced, so I suppose she could actually win an Emmy and not just be a nominee).
       Part of me really didn't want to watch the film because I was afraid it would hit way too close to home. But the other part of me was morbidly curious (this is even why I started this blog in the first place: I am nosy about details and I figure everyone else is, too).
       Early Saturday morning, I settled in to start watching the movie. Read that as I got a box of kleenexes and my trust lapdog was sitting right next to me. Alex had gone to the gym, which was not unusual for him on Saturday mornings. Plus, this is a complete chick flick so I had doubted he would have wanted to watch it with me anyways.
       The synopsis of the movie is fairly simple: couple is in love, they get married, they become pregnant with their first (a boy), then the mom has some slight bleeding (blown off by her doctor as one of the very first signs that your body is preparing for labor), and then she goes into the office where they can't find the baby's heart beat. "Your baby's dead" is the phrase the doctor uses, and I absolutely cringed. I am so thankful our doctor and nurses didn't have to use that sentence to get across to us that Kaitlyn was gone.
       Throughout the rest of the movie, the couple goes through the ups and downs of grief, one of the low points being that the husband has an affair with a woman from work (I could have watched this movie without that little twist in there, thank you very much), and they eventually conceive their second child, which ends up being a little girl.
       Most of the movie is pretty accurate for what we go through as parents when you lose a child, but there were a couple of scenes that I have to write about because I disagreed with them so much.
        The first is that the husband buys the wife a little necklace to remember their son by. He says to her that he thought she would like something to remember the birth by, to which she replies, "Who wouldn't want a reminder of the worst day of their life?" This just irritated me really badly. I pray that I was never this rude or callous to anyone that offered up a gift to us to remember Kaitlyn. I still wear several pieces of jewelry that was given to us to remember her, and Alex still wears his gift from Jan (a dog tag with a cross on one side and KSO with her date of birth and weight on it) every day. They aren't reminders of losing her, but that she lived.
        The second scene that bothered me was where the mom ventures out to a baby shower for the first time. In one portion of this scene, a lady comes up to the mom and says (boldly... boldly), "God is a light for each of us to follow to find our way to His plan, His plan that is perfect, perfect in every single way." The mom responds with, "So, God's perfect plan for me was to suffer a loss so great, so devastating, that I would lose my faith in God. Is that right? Because that is a mystery."
         Ugh. Where do I start. First off, this is a great example of what not to say to a grieving family. Any family, I don't care whether their loss was a parent, a child, or a grandparent. Part of me just wanted to yell, "STOP TALKING" at the TV as I listened to this lady blather on trying to console someone she really had no business talking to (from the interactions, she was a distant friend of a friend).
          Secondly, God's perfect plan. That phrase just drives me nuts and has driven me nuts since I watched this movie. I don't believe that God ever intended us to live this way. His perfect plan was to never be separated from us by sin. His perfect plan was to walk freely with us in the garden of Eden and never have us question his goodness or even his existence. God longs to be with us, but we walked away from it, thinking that we knew better. Thinking that we had a better idea of what was best for us. I don't know if we get to be pregnant in heaven, but I can guarantee you that if we do, not a single baby will die or have a disease. That's promised to us by the one who made us.
           Lastly (like I said, this scene really irked me), if we take the word "perfect" out of what the mom says back to the Bible thumper (sorry, its true), "God's plan for me was to suffer a loss so great, so devastating, that I would lose my faith in God." Phew. Okay. That is a lot of meat in one sentence. To start, God's plan for everyone on this earth is restoration to Him. So no, His perfect will would not drive a wedge between you and Him.
           But it would cause you to draw close to Him. I believe that God allows challenges in our life to draw us close to Him, for us to become so desperately lost in the explanations of this world (these things just happen; you must have done something awful in the past; etc) that the only way we find peace is to dive head-first into His Word and read the things that were written nearly 2,000 years ago but seem like they were written for us yesterday by a friend. I know that God uses these difficult moments to wake us out of our sleepwalk and make us reevaluate our lives and what we consider important. Like my friend Jenn said very early on, "God gives us more than we can handle so that we constantly turn to Him." I couldn't agree more.

             The last scene of this movie that I'll write about is the very end where she gives birth to a daughter (spoiler alert?). After the baby arrives and is crying, the mom holds her for less than a minute and then hands her off to a nurse shaking her head.
             Holy. Cow. Now I haven't been through this yet, but I can say that my stomach turned at that moment. I know that when this baby gets here, he/she will be so spoiled and probably won't put down for the first three months of his/her life. I can hardly wait to have a squirmy bundle of love in my hands, and it is going to be so hard for me to let anyone else (except Alex) hold him/her. Because I want to. Because I have loved this child since before I knew they were even promised. I loved this child since the instant that Kaitlyn left us. I am ready to feel the weight of a newborn in my arms again, but this time with their own source of heat. I'm ready to see if they have hair, because the heartburn has already started. Most of all, I'm ready to hear a voice that I haven't heard yet: a combination of me and Alex all bundled into one person. I'm ready to hear that giant gasp of air as they prepare to make their presence known.
           I'm ready to have sleepless nights as I watch a little chest move up and down with rhythmic breathing. I'm ready for kicks that happen outside my body.

           As much as I appreciated the Return to Zero movie for finally documenting something that happens so frequently in our world, I couldn't help by feel drained by it. I felt sorry for the parents. They had no hope, no joy even in the birth of their second baby. There was no happy ending for them. I doubt that they know or understand that their baby is safe in heaven with the One who created him. They don't understand that in just the absence of a breath they could be reunited with him and their creator.
            I honestly don't know how people who aren't believers can breathe after losing a child. To not have the hope and promise that we will see our loved ones again, I can't imagine the darkness that would overtake your life. Always the sadness of what could have been, instead of the joy that comes with the divine promise of life with Christ.