Babies Born Sleeping

It's odd that I haven't really blogged about this or tweeted about it or even hardly spoken about it. Babies Born Sleeping is a project I've been in the process of setting up alongside some really wonderful women.

TheBand doesn't know much about it, nor do my family or friends. I have unconsciously kept it separate from the rest of my life. I've confined it for fear that it might spill over, perhaps even burst through the very neat, convenient and surprisingly sturdy wall I've been building round my heart. Today it did.

I'm such a narcissist. Forgive me, invisible readership. This is not about me. it's far bigger than that.

Round the corner from my house is a smallish public hospital with a high risk maternity ward. The aim of BBS is to be there for moms who go through stillbirth.

The tragic reality is that the maternity ward of a public hospital is a busy, chaotic, under-resourced place.

The tragic reality is that moms of stillborns recover from labour in the same ward as all the other new moms with their visitors, their smiles and, of course, their babies.

The tragic reality is that these moms would have little to no understanding and no answers offered as to why their child is dead, whether it was their fault and whether they can have more children.

We hope to be able to be some semblance of comfort to them. We will pray, we will listen,we will most likely cry with them, we will ensure that their babies are wrapped in a soft blanket and given a hat, we will take photos where possible and we will honour their babies.

I went to the hospital today to meet the matron. We are prepared now and its time we got started.

There is no morgue at this hospital and so dead babies are left in the laundry room. The. Laundry. Room.

Today my friend, who was showing me around, showed me this cluttered, untidy, utilitarian room. She pulled out a plastic crib from under a counter explaining that this is where babies are placed before they are collected by a funeral director. And then she swore in shock.

There was a baby. He was wrapped in plastic. Plastic. Stored in the laundry room. Stored.

The rest of my day was a busy one. Work. A friend came over to tell me about her blossoming romance. And then.

And then the friend I'd gone with to the hospital smsd to check on me. Isn't it always human kindness that breaks us?

I'm not crying for me, or even Sophia. I'm crying for the tragic reality of our public health system. The tragic lack of dignity. The countless additional wounds that moms will suffer.

I hope and pray our project will bring even a small bit of dignity and love and hope.