In a Lifeless Birth, a Midwife’s Opened Eyes

The case was straightforward. The mother was close to term with her first baby. One day she noticed that the baby wasn’t kicking as much as usual. She waited to call, thinking maybe she was worrying about nothing.

The next day, the baby still wasn’t moving, so she came in for a routine evaluation. There was no heartbeat. Just a previously healthy baby who stopped kicking and died.

I entered the room and greeted the patient, whom I’d never met. My job, as I saw it, was to cheer her up. The time dragged, the monitor spewed forth paper, and I kept chattering. I remember that I was proud of myself for coping with this difficult situation with diplomacy and tact. I was not afraid of birth, but I was afraid of death. Thus far in my career, it had stayed neatly out of sight.