Three months you’ve been inside me, warm
and safe, like anyone should be at home
My placenta embraced you, caressing you in love
and nourishment. This pulsing cord infusing life
and blood, has spared no maternal physical loss
to shelter you in my scarlett from worldly grief
Creating you carried small daily griefs
Sickness, pain, diabetes raged me to keep you warm
I wilted while you grew- lamenting no loss
With permanent physical change I became your home
And still joyously waited with bated breath for your life
This all, imbibed in you for but the sake of love
After this holy, blood smeared, pledge of love
where I swore to encapsulate you from fear and grief
you ceased to move. No. There must be life.
No longer is blood drumming through your tiny, warm
fingers? Am I the only one home?
No. It cannot be loss.
No, it is fire. A Raging red reality- not loss.
You said I needed to nourish and love,
still within me a grave replaced her home.
Fury overwhelms with no thought of grief
Nothing and no one is good nor true nor warm
Why God, did you give, then cruelly rip away my child’s life?
Broken down soul begs divine to restore lost life
What I would give to reverse the loss
of my child, what I would give to hold her warm
body. Take her out now. She needs to know my love.
I ache to hold her and know full grief
Remove her, so my arms can briefly be her home
A mother is not made to have empty arms at home
What was wrong with me, that she lost her life?
There is nothing to dull ineffable grief
There is nothing comparable to this loss
She was my one and only love
The sun has gone, cold. Ice, void is warm.
I take refuge that your home was safe, you never knew loss
I take refuge that your life has known naught but my love
I take refuge in my grief, that you were real and that I kept you warm.
*Though miscarriage statistics widely vary, UpToDate reported in 2016 that 8-20% women with known pregnancies will experience a miscarriage. In unconfirmed pregnancies the rate soars to 30%.
Tulandi, Togas. "Patient Education: Miscarriage (Beyond the Basics)." UpToDate. July 16, 2016. Accessed November 17, 2016. http://www.uptodate.com/contents/miscarriage-beyond-the-basics.