On Sobbing and Dancing

October, Pregnancy Loss and Awareness Month

As a high-risk OBGYN I have been privileged to help bring thousands of tiny souls into this world. But it’s the ones my patients lost that stay with me. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. What many people don’t realize because they haven’t been in the spaces where that loss first begins, or is officially pronounced, is that it isn’t just the loss of the baby that brings these families to their knees, it’s all the accompanying losses. The loss of a vision of their family. The loss of a sense of themselves as parents. And, worst of all, sometimes, the loss of hope.

There are all kinds of ways this loss can play out, a miscarriage at home with enough blood to traumatize a family for life, the unnatural eerie quiet when a baby is delivered still, an ectopic pregnancy rupturing, the baby that never could have been and could have taken the mother along with it. I have sat with women who have held their stillborn babies for hours, refusing to let go. I have figured out how to get 22-week-old footprints and find a priest to baptize a pregnancy destined to end in grief. I have been through the darkest of hours with women whose worlds and hearts are breaking. What I have learned from them is grace.

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