My Pen, My Friend

Abstract

At 18 weeks' gestation, we were told that our son was not going to live. Left to cope on my own, I turned to the paper and pen and poured out my feeling and fears on paper. For the next couple of years, I was to spend many hours dotting all the “i”s and crossing all the “t”s to make sure every detail was correct. In this short article, I share briefly an introduction followed by a poem.

KEYWORDS:

• life-limiting diagnosis

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pauline Thiele

Pauline Thiele completed her bachelor of nursing in 2003. Following the death of her second son in 2009, she returned to university to pursue an honors thesis in narrative (publication) with the aim of educating health care professionals about more empathetic ways of treating those who receive a diagnosis that their unborn baby will not live.