“Don’t kill me!” my young wife cried
as the nurse–quite frantic–pushed
her, the half-born baby, and
gurney down the hallway. “Dead!”
she kept shouting, “The baby is dead…”
…
E. R. folks, following all
procedures had brought a wheel-
chair to the car at my yell
she was giving birth while still
lying in the back seat.
…
…………………………”I’ll
carry her,” I growled, and sent
chair careening down the street
with a kick. We’d faced the fact
that the child had died and that
natural birth was the best
…
three sad weeks before. We cried
then. Now we both just wanted
closure, as they say…to find
out what caused her life to end.
“Just a mystery,” we learned.
…
It took years before we tried again.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urban, Illinois