{"id":2804,"date":"2008-09-21T19:35:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-21T19:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/stillbornbut-still-born.html"},"modified":"2008-09-21T19:35:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-21T19:35:00","slug":"stillbornbut-still-born","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/stillbornbut-still-born.html","title":{"rendered":"Stillborn…but still born"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you read nothing else on this late summer evening, read this heart-rending account<\/a> of a father remembering his first son, and hearing the news that he would be born dead: <\/p>\n

On the drive home, we were mostly silent. As if exchanging telegrams, Lisa and I said what we needed to and no more. We each assumed there was only one possible decision, so when we talked, we talked logistics: appointments to reschedule, job responsibilities to manage. We asked questions we might have asked the midwife, about recovery time.<\/p>\n

Then we realized we weren\u2019t in agreement. I was talking about the D and C, while Lisa had decided to give birth. Incredulous, I asked why she would want to go through all that pain. She said she couldn\u2019t imagine just getting rid of our child by a surgical procedure; she wanted to see him.<\/p>\n

So I had to ask myself: Why didn\u2019t I want to meet my own son? Clearly, it wasn\u2019t Lisa\u2019s pain I was worried about. We pulled into the driveway, phoned the hospital, turned around and drove back.<\/p>\n

Going to the hospital for a stillbirth is the photographic negative of going for a live birth. You carry the overnight bag, check into a room in the maternity ward and so on. But they put a marker on your door to alert the nurse-midwives that, in this room, things are different. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest<\/a>. <\/p>\n

h\/t Charlotte Was Both<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you read nothing else on this late summer evening, read this heart-rending account of a father remembering his first son, and hearing the news that he would be born dead: On the drive home, we were mostly silent. As if exchanging telegrams, Lisa and I said what we needed to and no more. We…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us"],"yoast_head":"\nStillborn...but still born - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/stillbornbut-still-born.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stillborn...but still born - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you read nothing else on this late summer evening, read this heart-rending account of a father remembering his first son, and hearing the news that he would be born dead: On the drive home, we were mostly silent. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}