Two Words

**This is something I have been thinking about for awhile, but wondered if I would share. It's a balance for me (sharing deeper stuff) that I don't always do well, but I want to be honest about what losing a child is like.**

There are two words that I hate to hear. Though medically accurate, they instantly dehumanize and in my opinion, attempt to devalue. It's a pair we hear a lot when we meet with doctors to discuss losing Ethan and the conditions that caused it.  Fetal Demise. The first time I heard it, what a gut check. One breath outside my body and the words would be different. His chances of survival would be decent, and the medical community would see him as a child. I think I could tolerate the fetal part if they would just say fetal death. Demise to me doesn't admit he was living in the first place, like he's just an object. Argue to me that he wasn't living because he wasn't born yet and you might bring out the mama bear in me. That's like saying I'm not a mom.
 
I get that their jobs can be hard, and they see a lot of loss, particularly high risk doctors. They have to be detached in some ways and I understand that to a point. I guess that's the difference in the way we view things. For me, it's a personal experience and for them it's a clinical experience.

Regardless, I will continue to pepper the conversation with his name and try to bring the humanity back into the conversation of statistics and medical terminology. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to avoid the clinical discussions, they are necessary! But Ethan will always be mean more than those two words. Much more.