A birthing room for a stillborn baby is quiet. Eerily so. No howls heard from the baby freshly delivered from the deep, dark womb. No exclamations of joy, relief, and of a job well done. You lie in the hush and watch nurses care for your silent infant. You soon hear cries—yours and his, the nurses—but they aren’t the kind heard at a living birth. These are tears tainted with the ache of injustice.

The house, once a haven, instantly transforms into a set of rooms filled with landmines to avoid. The would-be nursery door remains closed, the empty cradle is relocated to a closet, and Goodnight Moon is tucked away on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. You had prepared to live amid the sounds of infant gurgles, burps, and squeals, but instead, you live in a sort of mausoleum.

The middle of the night brings unyielding loneliness. You wake up, and for just a few seconds, you forget, or you wonder if you dreamt the whole thing. But the truth soon engulfs, flooding your feeble seawall of hope. You roll over and look out the window, searching the dimmed skies for something you can’t even name. You lay your hand on your belly. She’s really gone. 

First conversations are careful, an awkward dance of what to say, and what not to say. Friends don’t want to intrude into your private grief, and you don’t want to burden them. They watch you, at the ready if you fall apart. You watch them, unable to find words. You sit together silently.

A stranger in a strange land, you make weary and cautious forays outside your home. The world feels either too fast or stuck in slow motion; it’s either muted or deafeningly loud. You move through your day trapped in a Plexiglas bubble, wondering if you’ll ever get out—or if you’ll want to. People in the supermarket look alien, co-workers talk but make no sense, and your neighborhood feels unfamiliar though you’ve walked its streets countless times.

Her first birthday arrives: a landmark, an anniversary, and a day to remember her. As if you’d ever forget. You imagine the birthday cake, the singing, her chubby fingers reaching for a balloon. You picture delicate wisps of hair framing her smooth cheeks and her smile revealing tiny teeth. A year has remarkably passed, and the day feels oddly peaceful. You send a silent prayer of gratitude up to the heavens for the unexpected gift of serenity on her day.

Time forges ahead, and you are back among the living. New friends ask if you have children, and you no longer deliberate. No is the simple answer you learn to report without flinching. Yes is what you want to say, although Yes requires explanation, and sometimes you wonder if Yes is even true anyway. So No is your answer. Later, you whisper apologies to her, wherever she is.

More years go by. You feel joy again, find purpose, and enjoy a busy and full life without her. You don’t expect or need anyone to remember the day she came and left this world so quickly without a trace. But she is seared into your memory, and you’ll quietly count her birthdays forever.