still born boy

I found a poem I wrote for my son. He was born and died August 29, 1976. I called him my bicentenial baby while I was carrying him. He died a week before he was born. I think what the doctor did was inhumane. I was very young and in shock , he was a doctor so I didn't question his choices. Back then the technology was not anything like it is today. The doctor would use a particular kind of stethescope to listen. Part of it was worn on his head and he would press the bell of the stethescope against a pregnant stomach. This is the only way that was available at the time to hear my babys' heartbeat. He had stopped moving earlier in the day and I was concerned so I called my doctor. He wanted me to come in to be examined so I did . The doctor listened, didn't hear anything and sent me to the hospital for an x-ray. Yes, an x-ray. I don't know if it was usual or not in 1976 , I never asked. I remember being in a wheelchair and hearing someone say "her baby is dead". After the x-ray I returned to the Dr, and he told me to go home and let nature take its course. I carried a dead baby around for a week before I started labor. I was asleep when he was born , so didn't get the news until I woke up. My son weighed 10 lbs and 2 oz, and he was dead at birth. Noone came to show me my baby. Noone made footprints so i would have a memory. Noone counseled my husband and I about an autopsy or any kind of genetic tests. I was moved to another floor and everyone pretended that I didn't just have a baby. My mother in law even gave him his name. I was in the hospital when he had his funeral. My brother in law held his casket on his lap for the drive to the cemetary. His casket was blue for a boy.

After he was born I wrote this.

For nine months I carried my son,
prepared him for a life of his own.
As best as I could.
And that life was snatched away,
before it really started.
It all seems so useless.