Especially during Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, we’re surrounded by numbers. Percentages. Miscarriage statistics. While they help medical personnel, these numbers fail to tell the story behind each statistic.
I carried the one.
The estimated 1 in 4 pregnancies that end in loss.
But instead of adding to our family, something was subtracted. Lost. One day I was carrying a baby and the next my womb was empty, my baby gone. One day I was carrying the fourth member of our family, and the next we’d shrunk back to three.
I carried the one.
The 1 in 4 pregnancies that didn’t reach the stage of viability—a baby who was made, but wouldn’t make it.
The 1 in 100 pregnancies that ended in stillbirth—a baby who was born, but had already died.
The One
I carried the one.
The baby who never knew life outside the womb.
The baby referred to as a statistic rather than by name.
The baby no one wanted to talk about.
The baby who lived life unseen.
The baby not celebrated by others.
The baby gone too soon.
I carried the one.
The one who people are afraid to mention.
The one who makes people uncomfortable.
The one who isn’t counted, because to most people, a baby who isn’t brought home doesn’t seem to count.
