Morita Ui Chongaile
Our hopes to hold all of you are gone!
That dark scanning room confirms no heartbeat
Why the same results over and over again!
Same remedies of black cohosh and caulophyllum
The constant sipping of raspberry leaf tea
6 years on this treacherous journey
My body knows no more, only loss and labour.
Down on all fours
I want to avoid the awful DNC
Little one, now it is time
You only stayed a short time but our love for you knows no end.
Every butterfly and wagtail remind us you are near
People can't cope with our suffering.
We are marginalised.
Unspoken words!
People treat us differently as they assume we don't have kids
But we know we were parents 8 times over!
Millie our dog is more understanding
Her paw for hours on my belly, she knows my continuous journey but never leaves me.
She comprehends me more than the entire human race.
Her eyes, full of empathy, love and loyalty.
Millie, although you are fur and don't resemble the human race
You are my daughter and always will be
Walk in my shoes, human race!
And you won't make those insensitive comments in the staffroom daily.
" Will she have a girl or a boy?"
And you proceed to ask around the table what we all think.
Ignorant to those who are struggling to conceive, to those who can conceive but lose it early with no answers, to those women who have been refused fostering or adoption due to a history of child loss and a year hasn't passed so they are still grieving.
The list goes on.
Nobody knows any woman's story. Invitations to baby showers. Waiting for DNCs with a room full of women waiting for their C sections. Outside the recurrent miscarriage clinic surrounded by 32 heavily pregnant women. Ignorant in laws speaking about how amazing their sons are with their grandkids since they became fathers yet my husband and l sit in silence. Burying our foetuses in silence in our backyard.
Stop judging and open your eyes.
We are suffering but are still worthy. This is disenfranchised grief. I am a Godmother to my nieces and nephews. They are my whole world like my doggy Mill. I matter, so does my husband and every woman and their partners. Goodbye stigma. Childless but not by choice. Let's start moving forward.
Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash