A poem to our ectopic child

"'til in heaven we take our place" - a poem to our ectopic child, 11 November 2010

("Ectopic: Occurring in an abnormal position or place.")

You began, unsuspected,
held within your mother;
only when you declared yourself in pain,
bursting your small confines,
we guessed
...then medical procedure took its sway.

We glimpsed you in the scan
"a live ectopic", the doctor said
and that was all we knew.

Your mother in theatre unconscious, I in darkness praying;
only dry dark groping thoughts; the moment of death unknown;
then quite sudden, inspiration: now you hold us, all is in its place.

A double loss: no body to see, to grieve;
nothing to bury, no liturgy of passage
only, lost in your mother's blood, anonymous cremation.

How name you, child, boy or girl?
No clue to sex or face, till, all reborn in that final place,
our earthly ectopia ended,
we hold you and hear from your lips
the name He gave you
when we too were but a yearning in the divine heart.