AND then came the outpouring: for weeks after, people I barely knew would come into my office, gently shut the door and burst into tears. I heard stories of single and serial miscarriages, pregnancies carried nearly to full term, stillbirths — all the lost, lost children. Grief hauled about, and nowhere to put it down. Some said they had never told anyone; who would understand?
“And then came the outpouring…”
September 21, 2008 by Amy
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As my mother ages, she talks more freely and more frequently about the four children she had who died prior to birth. She talks about looking forward to seeing them again when she dies, she imagines my grandfather taking care of them, or my father (who was notoriously awkward around small babies). She prays to them, asking them to look over us, their siblings who have survived. It’s clear that, in more than forty years, the pain of losing them hasn’t lessened, but has instead become integrated into her personhood and motherhood.
As the youngest, all these lost siblings of mine are older than I. I never saw my family deal with the pain of an expected pregnancy that ended so tragically. Still, I know, they are my brothers and sisters, and are a part of my family – a part of me.
Inspired by my mother, I’ve begun invoking their intercession.
Oh my, I bought the NYT this morning in hopes of getting a handle on this banking thing, only to find myself in tears over this article. I am so glad someone else noticed it way in the back. What a beautiful article.
I haven’t been moved by a piece of writing in this way in a long time. Thanks for the link.
Thanks. A lovely, if so sad, article.
I was thinking of the temptation not to ‘count’ those children in our society. We could chalk it up to liberalized abortion laws, but I don’t think that is the case.
In adulthood, I learned that my aunt delivered a full term, stillborn girl in the 1930’s. I had never heard that story – and certainly didn’t hear it from her. “What is the point of talking about it?”
My grandmother (different side of the family, different ethnicity altogether) raised four of the eight children she bore. I once tried to find out all their names. No one seems to remember. (These children all lived and died in the 1920’s.) These were babies who were born and baptized. Again, “What is the point in talking about it? It was a long time ago.”
What I can’t figure out is whether we hide the pain because we can’t deal with it – or we can’t deal with it because we spend so much time burying the pain.
But, as this writer attests, it is the secret pain that many bear.
Thank you, Amy. So often we hear the mothers’ side of the story (when we do hear it), and not as much from the fathers who suffer as well.
Thank you. Immense feeling. We were not able to conceive. I went through a sort of mourning each month that we found we were not pregnant. [We have adopted 2 lovely boys.]
Take a moment or two for the politic man
With his working-class pies and his battlax plans.
He refuses to buck, he defuses to fall,
And he’s metric at home pin’t his back to the wall.
And he hangs on his paint like a tan of no more,
Putting ethics with grace and glaceau on the snore,
And he likes to be known as Fe patent, young man.
Causa dolor, mi metra, parvar qui dadact
In la loma de duba di nuxo detract,
Con be beni bototi batagt gobidel,
Dagdodol limoli os memary fell,
Dinatina warina monil paccakust,
Doxafora Didoca dibanero Hust,
Labeaesqu’uua golombia mascerol NAM.
Thanks for the link to a great story. It brought tears to my eyes. It brought a lot of memories back to me. As a Labor and Delivery nurse I assisted many mothers and fathers who were experiencing miscarriages or stillbirths. At one point I thought of becoming a bereavement councelor. I have since left my job as a nurse. I have recently decided to start a charity to assist mothers and fathers who have lost their babies. On October 25, 2008 for Make A Difference Day, I will be at a local library making hats and blankets for babies who die to soon. When mothers come into hospitals they don’t bring outfits with them for their babies. By providing the local hospital with blankets, the babies have something nice to cover them.
That’s a beautiful story, and the excerpt you posted is the most poignant part. My husband and I were able to see and hold our little baby lost to miscarriage (though I delivered at home, and earlier than the couple in the article) and it was very moving to be able to hold the baby and know that it had existed.
I agree, this was a beautiful story to read from a Dad – thanks for finding it.