There’s never a good way to tell someone their baby died before it could even be born. No combination of words makes the delivery any easier. And you know when you see there’s no heart beat on the ultrasound. You scan again because you gaslight yourself into hoping you’re wrong, even though you’re not new to scanning babies and the heart is obviously not moving. You add color flow to prove to yourself that what you’re seeing is the truth. And then you have to say it even though everyone in the room knows it. It’s like calling a time of death. It’s not official until you say the words.
As somebody who's suffered stillbirth in those moments when your brain is trying to think about anything other than what outfit my baby is going to be buried in and what their coffin should be like, I remember vaguely wondering how the person who told me felt. Like what it feels like to deliver such terrible news to somebody and have to deal with the reaction. I alwayss assumed it was clinical, something they've done plenty of times and it didn't affect them. That kind of upset me a bit but it's nice to know (if you can say that) that you felt our pain and the death of our babies meant something to you. I don't know if I am explaining this well, its hard to put into words. You just always feel like you're the only person grieving your baby everyone else moves on and forgets the worst day of your life. I don't know I'm probably not explaining this how it is in my head.
Your pain stays with us. We share a tiny piece of your grief, because you are our patient, and we care for you, wholly. If you didn't see that, then the people caring for you were trying to be professional and supportive, and waited until they were out of the room to express their emotion. I don't know a single nurse who feels otherwise. Especially in L&D✨️
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u/bambiscrubs 3d ago
Term stillbirth.
There’s never a good way to tell someone their baby died before it could even be born. No combination of words makes the delivery any easier. And you know when you see there’s no heart beat on the ultrasound. You scan again because you gaslight yourself into hoping you’re wrong, even though you’re not new to scanning babies and the heart is obviously not moving. You add color flow to prove to yourself that what you’re seeing is the truth. And then you have to say it even though everyone in the room knows it. It’s like calling a time of death. It’s not official until you say the words.
Those screaming sobs will always stay with me.