Bearing Witness
by Vinita Ramani, Griselda Gabriele
Suffering from postpartum depression after the birth of her first child, a 42-year old musters up the courage to try for another baby. Struggling through two trimesters of nausea, exhaustion and recurrent, intense dreams, she hopes to hit the 20-week milestone and see light at the end of the tunnel, only to discover during the routine ultrasound scan, that her baby has passed away. She is hospitalised to induce labour, and give birth to her little 20-week old son. And so begins a surreal life on the other side of loss, where grief and ecstasy are often bedfellows, tears come from nowhere, other people’s babies become the objects of intense affection and where the baby that never came to be, shows up in stars, stones, seeds and her toddler’s imagination.
