A Lost Baby, and the Pain of Endless Reminders in the Mail - New York Times

My daughter died in my womb at 31 weeks. It was a freak accident. Her umbilical cord twisted around itself too tightly.

"A lightning strike," my doctor said, "to an otherwise perfectly healthy baby." She had kicked to her heart's delight, developed an intuitive dialogue with her ecstatic mother, and then, suddenly, died.

Six weeks later, my husband, Ira, and I were opening our mailboxes in the vestibule of our building. To my surprise, I pulled out a handful of advertisements for baby products. "The mailman must be on vacation," Ira grumbled.

In an effort to protect me from unnecessary stress, Ira had asked our mail carrier to put any baby information addressed to me in a designated mailbox. Ira would then throw out the advertisements and hide the pregnancy magazines, hoping that we might have a happy reason to read them again one day.

But not even Ira and the mail carrier could shield me from the onslaught of baby product promotion that accelerated just before what should have been our daughter's birth date. A couple of days later, I came home to find a large box of baby formula in the vestibule of our building. The "gift" was addressed to me with congratulations on my "Welcome Addition."

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