Following a recent video in which Mark and I discussed the Foetal sentience bill, we received a beautiful email from a viewer, who shared with us a poem he had written following his wife's ectopic pregnancy.
With his permission, we wanted to publish it here.
"til in heaven we take our place" - a poem to our ectopic child.
You began, unsuspected,
held within your mother;
only when you declared yourself in pain,
bursting your small confines,
we guessed
...then medical procedure took its sway.
We glimpsed you in the scan
"a live ectopic", the doctor said
and that was all we knew.
Your mother in theatre unconscious, I in darkness praying;
only dry dark groping thoughts; the moment of death
unknown;
then quite sudden, inspiration: now you hold us, all is in its place.
A double loss: no body to see, to grieve;
nothing to bury, no liturgy of passage
only, lost in your mother's blood, anonymous cremation.
How name you, child, boy or girl?
No clue to sex or face, till, all reborn in that final place,
our earthly ectopia ended,
we hold you and hear from your lips
the name He gave you
when we too were but a yearning in the divine heart.
Very moving
How beautiful. Thank you.