I feel a lack of poetry.
Like words cannot begin.
Like every day starts and finishes in the same breath.
Like my heart, which is now so full, is aching something awful.
Is that pleasure or pain?
My hands smell of latex and even after I have scrubbed them, the rubber scent from glove after glove after glove lingers.
Like an animal I miss my old scent.
The one that was salty sweet and mine.
Will I be able to find my way home without it?
I wash again, this time my whole body.
The shower is cold and I feel my teeth chattering on their own.
I slather in salt scrub, rub dry with coconut oil.
That’s better.
I notice my feet are still a darkish red/brown color, like burnt clay.
It’s all I can do to describe the moment.
This body.
I feel such gratitude. Such love.
Mixed with such anger. Such sadness.
The combination is saltysour and it burns my lips.
And so I feel anxious, something small on the edge
I want to sleep it off
or run it off
peel it off in layers
watch the center drop between my legs
trickle to the floor in
silent droplets
of dissolusion
processed like sugar into something digestable
sweet
place it moist to my lips
The most beautiful poetry is what is not said.
What’s between the lines…

… I enter a dimly lit room in the back of the hospital. There are no windows so the only light comes from the hall. Becky (my friend with epilepsy who spent a week in early labor) is laying on a straw mat in the corner. She is sleeping. I know that something is wrong by the shape of her stomach. She has delivered in the night. But where is the baby?

This is the center of the story. The middle. I begin here because this is where every good story starts. In your gut. In the moment where you know it is a story and not just another moment passing. It only becomes a story in the moment when it is told. It doesn’t matter much where you start, because to trace its origin would be to go all the way back to the conception of all of those involved, the conception of their parents, grandparents, and friends. Start in the middle. The moment. Just start.

…Becky’s baby died.
Aimee calls me on the phone to tell me.
I vomit.

The doctor grew impatient with her slow labor and gave her cytotec to speed things along. Cytotec, while used in the USA is extremely controversial and is not FDA approved for use during labor. It is not FDA approved because it kills people. It also has a different name. The abortion pill. The doctor gave her two pills, four times the amount used in USA to induce a labor. The placenta detached from the uterine wall and the baby died. She gave birth twelve hours later to a dead baby. A girl.
I want to scream. Not again. Not this one. Will it ever stop?

Aimee and I write up a report and document many of the cases that were mishandled since we have been here. We highlight three cases that ended with either maternal or fetal death (or both) as a result of negligence and misuse of druggs. I state concerns and create a long list of simple suggestions. We share it with the head midwife. She is receptive. She says thank you and gives us gifts of sim sim paste. She shares it with the doctor and he becomes angry. He confronts me on the labor ward. I am gloved up and ready to catch a baby. He paces the room until I finish and come to him.
He wants to talk about Becky’s baby since she was in the report. He says the drug is safe. Otherwise why would the ministry of health give it to them to use? Especially since abortion is illegal here. I show him the passage in a midwifery book that talks about its dangers. He looks surprised. Says he will have to read more literature. I suggest he read the literature before he administers any drug. He says then he will become very tired. He is right and he is wrong. He is right. He has not been trained properly. He needs to read more. To be supervised by senior doctors. He is overworked. The issue is larger than him. He is wrong. His ignorance, forgetfulness and apathy are killing women and babies. Every day.

…I go to Becky in the evening and she is still sleeping.
She has not woken since she gave birth.
I sit with her.
Rub her feet with arnica.
She wakes after some time and smiles at me.
Rachel, she says
Yes
Can you buy for me some ice cream?
I feel the urge to cry.
Yes, I can buy you some ice cream.
I return with a frozen bar melting in my hands.
It is growing dark.
Power is out and the room has no windows.
I know I need to go home. Dinner is waiting. My body aches. I need to cry.
But not here.
Wait, she says, don’t go. I feel scared of the dark tonight.
Ok. I sit a bit more. I tell her to close her eyes and lead her on a visualization.
Down safe tunnels of light that carry her and the spirit of her baby.
She begins to weep.
I ask her if she has named the baby.
She laughs and says Rachel, the baby is dead.
Right. The baby is dead.
But it may help you. Even if it is just in your head.
She shakes her head a little and falls asleep. Her breathing is deep.
I leave and feel my hands shaking.
They smell of rubber. I wash them but the scent lingers.