The impact of words.

It's hard watching celebrities lose babies.  Hard, not only because it takes me sad, but because of the media response to it.  I'd never heard of Lily Allen or Amanda Holden before they had their recent stillbirths.  It made me so angry, though, that both Lily's and Amanda's losses were termed "miscarriages."  Now, I'm not saying that stillbirths are "worse" than miscarriages, but it is so very different.  And in the mainstream media, when people consider miscarriages nothing more than a late and bad period (a rant which deserves it's own post), it doesn't really help people realize the devastation of going through labor and delivery and holding your baby's lifeless body, and then having to give that body to someone else to never see again.

Further disturbing to me is this quote from Amanda's article

She went to West Middlesex Hospital in Isleworth, west London, after the baby stopped moving. It was later stillborn.

Is it so very hard to say he was later stillborn??  Is it so hard to give that baby boy the respect of personhood that he is due?  They didn't just lose a pregnancy, they lost their baby boy.

It's hard to read those things, because if they would say that about a celebrity's baby, what would they say about mine?  Would they rob Cora of her personhood, too, relegating her to an "it"?

I feel so bad for these ladies, and have said prayers for them.  I hope that they get the support and privacy they need.