A Deafening Silence: Pregnancy Loss in an Increasingly Political World

I stand alone in the dimly lit, quiet room, holding a baby that isn’t mine. Hardly bigger than my hand, this tiny being was born at 20 weeks gestation—too early to survive, no matter what modern miracles may occur in the NICU two floors above us. I look at his tiny face, his tiny hands, eyes still sealed shut, his chest still with no urge to breathe. He is wrapped in a standard issue hospital blanket—pink on one side and blue on the other. The same blanket that my own son had been wrapped in, 6 pounds and screaming, just down the hall from where we stand.