Sympathy and Comfort

Reading about what had happened to others helped, but talking to others helped more. My mom told me about her experience, and that helped me not feel so alone. One by one co-workers, parents of the children I teach, and friends told me stories of what happened to them, their mothers, their sisters and cousins. I felt less and less alone with each story.

Several stories were accompined by insensitive statements that had been made to the mother. Something said by someone well meaning, but that cut to the quick, and hurt them for a long time afterward. I began to feel lucky that noone had said anything really hurtful to me during my experience.

I heard stories of pain and blood and unexpected loss. I began to feel lucky that my baby was taken from me while I was comfortable and asleep, and that I didn't have to lose it at home on my own. I heard stories of babies nine months in the womb born dead, and I began to feel lucky that my baby had died early on. I heard about women who had had three, four, five miscarriages and then gone on to have healthy babies. In all my pain and grief, I was starting to see that I could have been much worse off, and that there was still hope.

A friend of mine at work told the parents of the children I teach so that I wouldn't have too. And the parents then talked to the children. The nicest thing about the children I teach is that they are very empathetic. They told me how sad they were that my baby died. They said they missed me while I was at home.

The sweetest thing was something a little boy said to me the first day I came back after I had found out. I sat next to him at lunch time, and he said to me, "I know what happened to your baby. It died."

"Yes," I said in a matter of fact tone, "It did. And I was very sad, and that is why I stayed at home for so long."

"I hope you're going to grow it again," he replied, "because I was sad when it died." My eyes welled up with tears. "When my body gets better, I'll try to grow another one." I said. It reminded me that all was not lost, and that I still had a chance for the future to have a baby.

Most of all my husband comforts me. When my eyes well up, and my nose starts to sniffle, he draws me close, and rubs my back. "Don't worry," he says softly, "It will happen." And I cry into his shoulder hard, even though I know he's right.