The saddest sound

[ailbhe]

Today I heard the saddest sound, queueing for paperwork at Ultrasound. A woman went into the room I had used to see my baby wriggling inside my womb. She was held by a midwife, and helped by a nurse, and her face was tracked with tears, and she shook. And then as I stood in the queue for the forms, I heard her crying.

I heard her crying.

I heard over and over and over and over a cry without words and without control, a cry that came from the depths of her soul. I knew - we all knew - you couldn't help knowing - her baby was dead. Her baby'd stopped growing. Her baby was gone. Her baby is gone. And the gone-ness will just go on, on and on, forever and ever, her baby is gone.

I heard her crying.

I cried myself. And so did the nurse at the filing shelf, and the admin assistant who booked me my next scan, and the midwife who waited, and the elderly man who I think was her father. The woman who came out saying "I must call Sean, where can I use a mobile phone?" I think was her mother.

I heard her crying.

Comments

warning! sad story below

[flybabydizzy.livejournal.com]

I, also, have been that woman. It was 22 years ago for me, after having a premature baby die, then a miscarriage, then finding out at the scan that the 3rd baby had died. It may sound really strange, but it was far easier to deal with than just losing the previous baby. I had been able to see that the baby just hadn't formed properly, through no fault of mine. About 8 months later I had another scan, and seeing that little smudge with a blip of heartbeat meant so very much for me, that smudge became his nickname for many years. I have since successfully produced a girl, as well. My losses were so long ago that it has become part of me, now, rather than something that happened to me, and it has given me almost enough love to cope with the fears and horrors that come with being the mother of teens.
I feel for that mother.