"I'm sorry for your loss"...is that enough?

One thing that pregnancy books gloss over is the inordinate amount of time a mother-to-be and a new mother spends worrying and fearing for her unborn or newborn child or for that matter her 32 year old child. It's our way of feeling that we're doing something for the kid. Most of the time, we know deep in us that we are just worrying for the sake of worrying and that nothing will come out of it.

I worried about the twins from day 1. I worried I would miscarry, especially when I read all these forums about how with carrying twins meant a higher likelihood of miscarriage right through to the last trimester. So I worried. I didn't want to tell anyone about my pregnancy. Much less that I was carrying twins. I didn't want to buy anything in case anything happened. I think I only it was much later in the pregnancy when I realised that if I didn't stop with the incessant worrying and waiting till it was all clear to tell people about the twins, they'd be 18 and people would still be oblivious to their existence.

I think it never really crossed my mind that something could actually go wrong and at the risk of sounding condescending, I thank God every day and every second that I never had to discover that something did indeed justify all my worrying. And in the last week, I've come face to face with someone who has had to and just seeing her go through it and imagining myself go through it has been a horrific experience, second probably to her's and her husband's. It is a fate I would never wish on anyone.

This person shall remain anonymous because she is someone I love very dearly and I am fiercely protective over her. When she fell pregnant, I was ecstatic for her and was looking forward to our children being playmates. As it was, I felt upset that she hadn't told me about the pregnancy from the outset. Her excuse was that she was worried that it might end up the same way her previous pregnancy did- all to naught.

I think it's cruel cruel fate that despite her earlier hesitations and her coasting through her second and most of her third trimester that at 35 weeks, her worst fears come true without warning. One day the baby was moving and the next, it was dead, in her, for no obvious reason. She and I are as close as sisters and that meant we have some connection that had given me the sense that something was wrong before I'd actually found out for real what had happened. And all the while, I tried to convince myself, that I was being silly, that at 35 weeks, a foetus is viable and if anything was wrong, an emergency c-section would save the day. But she didn't even get to that point.

I have spent the last week coming to grips with it. I have gone through some of the stages of grief which included me wanting to hurl bricks at the sky, me sobbing inconsolably for hours and tearing at the slightest thing. Through all this, I'm constantly reminded that I'm not the one going through it and I'm already taking it so hard, what more if I were her. That's when I break down again and talk about how it is injustice on a cosmic level. My mother has tried to rationalise it with God. Ironic but true. That God knew best, that if the baby had a problem and was having a problem in the sheltered, protected environment that is the uterus, what more in the cold, cruel world. I accept that and understand that, on a purely intellectual level. But instinctively, it was of disbelief, of vain hope that when she delivers the baby, the baby will draw a breath, that he was just sleeping. But the 12 hours of labour came and went and the child was born and the room was silent. She never saw her child because it was thought that it was better this way.

My heart hasn't stopped bleeding for her. That she never saw the child she grew for close to 9 months. That she didn't get to say goodbye. And when I look at my children, that's when the floodgates open. Because I know that what she wanted more than anything was to have a child and I look at my two little munchlets and ache knowing that she will never have her little boy on her breast, go through colic with him or just stand there and stroke his head like I do with the twins before they fall asleep.

There's nothing I can do except stand and hold her hand when she needs me to. There's nothing I can do but ache for her and her child. And I hate that feeling, especially when it is me feeling helpless and someone I love and grew up with is in need of so much help and comfort. My prayer is that she will one day, discover God and that God will show her her child and that he is happy and at peace. And that's all I can do. Pray for her, pray for her husband. Pray for peace for them.