reinventing rogue realities since 1994.

On a bright-eyed March morning, I opened an email from this woman with cautious optimism, thinking she was set to give birth in the next few weeks, wondering how she was doing, hoping we could perhaps mend fences. Instead of good tidings, though, there was unfathomable sadness, described matter-of-factly over the Internet: Three weeks earlier, after weeks of nesting, getting their house ready, my friend had stopped feeling the baby move inside her. She had gone to her doctor and to the hospital for tests. They could detect no heartbeat. The baby, it was determined, had died. They induced labor at 36 weeks into her pregnancy. My friend gave birth to a stillborn son who she and her husband held and named Henry. Spontaneous fetal death, they called it. Autopsy showed no reason, gave no comfort. Since it happened, my friend had been hiding in quiet, taking long walks. She couldn’t find words to speak about it. She wondered if I had any insight into talking with others about Henry, helping them to feel better. For my friend and her second child, I wept my eyes dry and sobbed my throat raw. When she and I finally spoke, I told her that I was certain there were no words that could help; no words she could speak that would make others feel better, not yet anyway. She should rest in the quiet if it brought her comfort. And I would be there in the quiet with her if she wanted. We were sisters once more, bound by unimaginable loss. 

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It doesn’t help that I feel somehow trapped. There is no feeling more exposing than that of vulnerability. I am trapped, yet I am exposed. I am tense, yet I am vulnerable. Not exactly a state of polar opposites, but quite bloody confusing. 

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[ trigger warning ]