STILL

A stillbirth results in grief that touches a whole community in Del Valle’s memoir.

The author, a psychologist, was more than eight months pregnant with her second child in the early 2000s when she noticed that the fetus had stopped moving. The developing infant, whom Del Valle’s toddler daughter, Eden, had nicknamed “Baby Long Beach,” had never been very active, but the worried author rushed to the hospital for reassurance. There, she was told that the unborn child had no heartbeat. This emotional book tells the story of this loss and its aftermath. The author writes that the staff induced labor, but they offered little help to Del Valle to ease the process; for example, she writes that her doctor had promised that she’d have a timely epidural, so she’d feel no pain during delivery, but this didn’t happen. In addition, as her husband, Dennis, grieved and cared for Eden, Del Valle writes, she felt abandoned. The couple were able to hold their stillborn baby a few times, she writes, and then it was time for them to go home. She effectively writes of painful feelings of loss when thinking of joys denied: “There will be no balloons, no congratulatory signs.” The memoir moves back and forth between the sad day to past events in the author and her spouse’s relationship as they grew closer over the years; it clearly shows how, after a crushing loss, the anguished couple were able to find solace in each other. It also effectively shows how family members, friends, and church members showed up to keep them company, even when they didn’t know what to say. Along the way, occasional poems by the author vividly tap into deeper emotions: “We all come with something. / Spoken and Unspoken. / Fragile. / Tenuous, / Unbreakable.” Overall, this is a chronicle that deserves attention, especially from readers who have suffered similar pain.

A moving story that seeks an understanding of one woman’s overwhelming grief.