can someone help me out?
Obviously, a very important issue for many people (maybe for most people who have experienced the tragedy of a stillbirth) is to have their state issue legal certificates, similar in concept to a birth certificate, acknowledging a stillbirth.
But I just don't get it.
I hated having to go down to city hall and stand in line behind a bunch of people pushing strollers and try to explain to a bored and uncomprehending clerk that, yes, I needed both a birth certificate and a death certificate (though, to be fair, she became a lot nicer to me after I burst into hysterical tears).
It was a huge relief to me that I didn't have to do anything at all for the other twin, the one that was stillborn (or perhaps miscarried, depending on which week you pick as the dividing line).
Can someone please explain it to me?
edited to add: thank you everyone for your thought-provoking explanations
13 comments:
Well, first of all, here in Ontario, no one has to go anywhere to do this. We can do it online or by mail. And in the case of an infant loss the paperwork is usually filled out for you or with you by the social worker, nurse, or funeral director.
The documents arrive by mail, in a plain old envelope, with a return address, so you don't have to even open it to know what it is.
I have a feeling it would not be so awful for you to go through this, if you didn't have to go there? I'm wishing I knew which city you were in, so I could call the buggers myself and tell them to be kinder and change their system.
As for why, my losses were truly minimized and my feelings dismissed as if they were irrelevant. Getting some official person somewhere on earth to recognize that this event happened to me, is part of my healing, simply because, for me, people denying the truth I am living is a big trigger.
For me, it's a validation issue. I lost my daughter to stillbirth before Piglet was born, but somehow, to most people, the only loss that "counts" is the loss of the baby that was born living. I need my loss acknowledged by someone other than myself.
I agree with Aurelia that perhaps this whole process would not be so horrible if you didn't have to physically go anywhere to get the documents. I'm not sure exactly how I'd react, since I don't have any chance yet to receive a birth certificate for my daughter, in person or by mail.
I have been thinking about this one a lot lately. They gave me papers at the hospital that I could send in to have the birth certificate arrive in the mail. We haven't done this, and I am not sure we will.
To my thinking, having the paper won't make my son any more real to anyone-- those who understand will understand anyway, and those who don't won't. But I have a friend who is encouraging me to get it as a means to prove to idiots out there that he existed. She also thinks my hypothetical future kids might like to see it someday.
I am not sure how I would react if the state told me I couldn't have it. Perhaps if I can answer that question, I will know whether I want to get it now...
I want to be sure I understand; I think you are asking why any of us would want to go to the trouble of acquiring a certificate of birth and/or death for a child that never lived outside the womb.
Is that what you are asking?
pengo -- I think that's it. A lot of people are extremely passionate about this issue and I guess I'm trying to understand why it's so important to them. It's less the "go to the trouble" part, it's that I want to hear their feelings and thoughts.
Got it. I am not an advocate of the birth certificate/death certificate idea. As much as I have sympathy for those who want some acknowledgement of their child's reality from the larger world, I believe such a document would inevitably be co-opted by those who seek to destroy a woman's reproductive opportunities.
In other words; a legal document that says an unborn baby is a person? Let's not go there.
I wanted and needed that acknowledgement, after two miscarriages, one of which was just expelled in a hospital and god only knows what happened to it afterwards, I needed the recognition that I went through a pregnancy for something. All I got was a lousy death certificate but it helped me heal so much faster and when I come across it in our family documentation, I feel like her short period in my womb wasn't just forgotten.
One day my daughter will ask me once again about her, and I will be glad to say, she existed, here's the proof. I wish I could have done that for my miscarried babies whom I never met and only saw on a screen.
I would HATE to be told that because she never lived per se, she merits no birth or death certificate. I would absolutely have hated that!
A grieving parent should do whatever gets them through the ordeal, some see a point in a certificate, some don't, its all very personal.
To me, my husband, my family, and my close friends, C. was very much a person. A baby who was alive one day and dead the next. Two significant events happened in his life. He died. Then he was born. When any person dies or is born it is documented by Vital Statistics. I think that both those events should be marked in C.'s life, too. I guess, for me, it is an equal rights thing. Everyone else gets two pieces of paper, why shouldn't C.?
By legislation, we had to fill out a Registration of Stillbirth form. He had to be buried or cremated. That pretty much acknowledges that he was a person in the eyes of Vital Statistics. He "stood up and was counted". So give me the documentation.
I will apply for a certificate of stillbirth as soon as possible, if it becomes available to me. I don't know if any of this answers your question, but it is why it is important to me.
Where I live, we have a certificat de famille, which was issued to us when we got married. It states who we are, who our parents are, when we got married, and as you have children, it gets updated.
My son is inscribed on our certificat de famille, with the words "mort-né" next to his name. It was extremely important for us to have this. For me it is what Delphi said, our son was very much a person, an important part of our lives. He died a few hours before being born, I just don't see why that's different from dying a few hours after being born. He could hear us talking to him, feel our hands poking him, kicked in response.
Over here, the certificat de famille is updated for all children after 24 weeks. In navigating the utter shock, mapless grief and incomprehension to drown in after his death, it helps to have tangible proof that he was here and he is officially recognised by society. Because even I sometimes have difficulties in remembering that he was really here.
And just to come back on this, whilst I get Pengo's point of pro-life groups absuing the document, yes, I have a document that says my baby was a person. He was a person. He wasn't unborn, he was very much born, just a few hours too late for him to take his first breath and to open his beautiful blue eyes on his own.
There is usually a timescale involved for such documents, at least in Europe, here it is after 24 weeks gestation, which is also the time limit after which you legally get your full maternity leave entitlement. There is also usually also in law a legal time limit for abortion, apart from medical terminations. I'm certainly no expert, but personally I don't see a conflict in the two points.
Rosepetal explained my feelings very well. Since Nicolas was born in France, i got their version of the 'certificate of stillbirth' (it is once certificate, not two), and if we had had a carnet de famille, his name would've been inscribed in it. Of course we didn't have one, because we hadn't been married in France -- and if Nicolas had been born alive they would have issued us one on his birth but since he was stillborn they did not want to do it. I asked them for one, but that particular beurocratic battle was beyond me so i let it go. However, i also went through a great deal of trouble to get all the official papers necessary to bring his ashes back to the states (i should probably blog about this at some point). My dh asked me why i was bothering, when his urn was so small i could just slip it in my pocket anyway and noone would know better. But i explained that i wanted all documents relating to him and his existence that i could have, and if there was a paper available with his name on it, i was damn well going to get one.
So for me, the recognition that here was a person who had lived and died (even though he had done so in my womb) was very important. It was in some sense a official validation of my grief, of the importance of my child and the fact that his loss matters. I know not everyone feels that a piece of paper makes any difference, and i am pretty sure that none of the current legislation in the states mandates that you *have* to get this certificate...it is just an option.
By the way, i agree with rosepetal that in other countries these documents have not been co-opted for political, anti-abortion purposes. I think that regardless of our personal stands on abortion, those of us who are for the certificate of stillbirth have to guard very carefully against it's use in this way by the 'pro-life' movement. There is potential for 'slippery slope' here but the two scenarios (elective abortion versus stillbirth) are vastly different, obviously.
I wanted one for the same reason I wanted their hats, their footprints, their hospital bracelets (even though they never wore them)...I wanted every single bit of them that I could to take home with me. I don't need anyone's validation or acknowledgment...I wanted them for ME so that I could, in a sense, have something of them.
I'd like it so I could take it out and stare at it, touch it, run my fingers over it, maybe even smell it. I swear I smell things of Jimmy that he never even touched. Why, because they remind me of him and I want to take them in. Yet I've never gone down to the county office to get his death certificate. I think if he had some sort of birth or stillborn certificate I might do that.
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