We need a word for mothers whose children have died

I remember the phone call with my friend Rebecca, as she recounted the moment the bleeding began—in the airport, returning from vacation—and how many sleepless days passed before her first child was released into the toilet bowl in a rush of scarlet and sweat. I was not there, but I can see her: her blond hair, her feet pressed into the tile floor to steady herself. I worked as a doula for two years, and I’ve witnessed 20 births. I understand the stages, the way the baby flips and bends through the canal, the way a woman writhes.

Yet this birth would have been different. Rebecca’s child had already been dead for weeks; the only anticipation that remained for Rebecca was the certainty that her labor pains would end with the child’s expulsion. After Rebecca’s loss, more friends revealed their own stories of private blood, a future ended. They felt a sense of betrayal—the pregnancy wasn’t supposed to end in death. Their body ­wasn’t supposed to fail. They were supposed to become mothers of living children.

Now, what to call them? Were they to stand on Mother’s Day Sunday for the applause, the roses passed along the aisle to their waiting hands? I began to wonder what title to give the women who have lost their children too early, one that can honor their unique pain.