An Article on Stillbirth from the NY Times

Mainstream press about stillbirth is always a welcome surprise, and though I'm a bit late to pointing this out, the NY Times published a piece about stillbirth on August 15th. I'm happy to see it, though I have to take issue with some of the language used, like this paragraph:

"It often is a devastating experience. “As soon as they learn they are pregnant, most women consider their unborn baby their child, and for many a stillbirth is like the death of a child,” said Dr. Robert Goldenberg, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Drexel University College of Medicine."

It isn't often a devastating experience, it is a devastating experience. And a stillbirth is not "like" the death of a child, it is the death of a child! My son was full-term, full-size, perfect and ready to go home, except that he was dead. He was a perfect child who happened to die three days before he was due.

While this article is welcome and necessary, we still, as a society, need to work on the language we use to describe stillbirth. But maybe we are starting to get there.

This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)

Home. It's where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there.