Charlene Chambers
Room 7. The dreaded room 7. You may not know when they check you in there, but it means there is very little hope for your baby to survive. The looks of sympathy as you enter and exit don’t register, because you try to hold hope. But this is the room where pregnancies end. Where your baby is born yet dies. This is a room of complete devastation.
I birthed my daughter in room 7. I have been at the feet of the exact same bed as others lost their babies. The room is filled with so much energy it is palpable. I cannot even pass by the room without feeling the emotion of every parent before me, and every parent after me.
Stillbirth. A word no one wants to utter.
But room 7 is so much more than that. It’s a room of love, of laughter. Of what could have been, hopes, and dreams. Of families coming together.
We are not the sum of that room. Room 7 does not define us. We are parents who have to parent a child no longer with us. We support each other on a level no one else can understand. Our children did not cease to exist in that room.
We are not room 7. But room 7 is all of us. All of our love, and all of our spirits. Room 7 is the power of grief, the power of healing, the power of love. Room 7 is room 7.
Room 7. The dreaded room 7. You may not know when they check you in there, but it means there is very little hope for your baby to survive. The looks of sympathy as you enter and exit don’t register, because you try to hold hope. But this is the room where pregnancies end. Where your baby is born yet dies. This is a room of complete devastation.
I birthed my daughter in room 7. I have been at the feet of the exact same bed as others lost their babies. The room is filled with so much energy it is palpable. I cannot even pass by the room without feeling the emotion of every parent before me, and every parent after me.
Stillbirth. A word no one wants to utter.
But room 7 is so much more than that. It’s a room of love, of laughter. Of what could have been, hopes, and dreams. Of families coming together.
We are not the sum of that room. Room 7 does not define us. We are parents who have to parent a child no longer with us. We support each other on a level no one else can understand. Our children did not cease to exist in that room.
We are not room 7. But room 7 is all of us. All of our love, and all of our spirits. Room 7 is the power of grief, the power of healing, the power of love. Room 7 is room 7.