Our Only Time

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Our Only Time

I wasn't sure if I could contribute anything positive to the anthology, considering my overall experience in hospital was not a pleasant one. But the night before I was due to respond, I remembered just one thing. A single moment: in the delivery room, my doctor and anaesthetist took care with my baby. Not as a stillbirth or miscarriage, but as a baby. They asked her name. A bereaved mother knows the significance of this simple act of acknowledgement and kindness.

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The other side

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The other side

I thought another child would stitch some of my wounds closed. I thought she’d allow me to walk confidently into the next baby shower, naturally ask spontaneous questions about the pregnancies of others, not cringe when I walked past the New Baby section of a greeting card aisle. I thought I would stop crying behind closed doors when so-and-so announced she was pregnant. That none of this resolved neatly is another revelation, another betrayal.

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The nightmare

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The nightmare

I begin to wonder if perhaps no one sees me. I don't utter a word, but no one says anything to me either. Maybe I am an apparition. Maybe I have died and am floating around looking at other people carrying on. Maybe I am visiting from another planet. Maybe my species cannot be identified by the human eye. No one seems to notice I exist. I am not sure if I do either.

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Presumptuously hopeful

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Presumptuously hopeful

I bear the weight of each new loss while they dare to continue to draw hope (for me!) from what happens to the average woman. Perhaps I could hear the compassion in their hope if they were willing to acknowledge my interlaced fear. Right now my own hope is too desperate, too fragile. I reluctantly allow some slivers of it in, but these moments feel intensely private.

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