Every year, 26,000 babies are stillborn in America. In 2003, one of them was my son.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

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.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)


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