Day 47: A Heavy Heart

A woman came to the office today with extreme pressure in her chest. She was three months and five days pregnant. 

We took her blood pressure and it was slightly concerning, so we called the ER. Paramedics came and took her to the hospital. 

A few hours later, I got a teary call from her that she needed to be picked up immediately. The volunteer who was sent to meet her found out that though she was doing well now, she had lost her baby. 

For hours after I received the news, I tried to wrap my head around the deep pain of going through a miscarriage compounded by the loneliness and fear of being in such an unknown and new place. She came here alone. 

The worst part of the story for me is the fact that the hospital gave her medicine to speed up the miscarriage but released her before she passed the pregnancy tissue. I try not to believe that it was because of her lack of citizenship or her inability to speak English. 

We have volunteers who are sleeping on cots next to her now, waiting for the baby to pass. She has serious cramps and threw up an hour ago. 

We plan to take a picture of the baby, but I have no idea what we will do with the remains. Will we bury them? Give them to her? 

No one here seems to know either. 

I'm tired, frustrated, and angry at the way things work out sometimes. I can't stop asking myself if I should have called the paramedics earlier or done something differently.