Sad news

The baby which one of my colleagues was expecting (due last week) didn't make it through the birth alive. It seems deeply unlikely and unfair that a tiny foetus can - against the odds - make it all the way through the pitfalls and miracles of pregnancy, that it can be protected and thriving for nine months, and then not be out of the woods. It made me realise all over again that in fact there IS no 'out of the woods', that every life is stupidly fragile from the moment of conception until the moment we die, whether that death comes tragically soon or after many flukey, healthy years.

You always know that losing a baby must be the worse thing ever, but I know it more sharply now I'm pregnant myself (even though I still can't imagine what they're going through). It's such a horrific reversal of the preceding nine months of expectation, planning, congratulation, excitement, happiness. When you're pregnant everyone celebrates with you; if you lose your child when it's barely arrived you must feel totally alone. I now feel terrified for my own little bump, of course, but mainly horrified that my colleague will eventually return to work and have to experience my pregnancy and happiness (assuming nothing DOES go wrong, universe forbid.)