Pregnancy loss is painful, confusing, and isolating. Even without a halachically prescribed period of mourning, parents can learn to grieve for the loss of a life that never was,
S taring at the static unmoving figure on a sonogram screen Malkie Klaristenfeld was practiced enough to figure out that this marked her third stillbirth and 14th pregnancy loss.
It had been 15 years since she’d birthed her first stillborn an unbearable loss and experience of yearning hope and grief. It was 15 years since she’d realized that the prevailing belief — move on and forget the loss — was at best ineffectual and at worst a betrayal of her experience and the life she had carried.
“I couldn’t just move on” she says. “I couldn’t make myself forget that wrenching nightmare of leaving the hospital fully cognizant of the growing distance between my child in the hospital morgue and myself. Nor could I fill the aching emptiness of arms bereft of a live bundle of joy. I knew I’d either have to bury myself along with that baby or do something. There was no forgetting.”
Prevailing medical belief about stillbirths was two-pronged: swift and clinical. The baby had to be removed at the earliest opportunity to prevent maternal infection. As soon as the baby was delivered the baby was whisked away to the morgue and the bereaved parents were left with the task of making burial arrangements. And then came the task of “moving on” forgetting about their loss. For many years the pervading belief had been that if you don’t see the baby you don’t connect to it and can forget about it easily. Malkie knew this wasn’t so; despite mothering a crew of healthy children she carried the searing agony of loss with her every single day.
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