Thread by @gempari, It's clear to me from the number of news headlines, well-intentioned tweets [...]

Mitra Parineh

gempari

It& #39;s clear to me from the number of news headlines, well-intentioned tweets and IG comments, etc, referring to "miscarriage" that the pictures Chrissy Teigen posted couldn& #39;t have been more important for us as a public to see. It turns out we don& #39;t even know what we& #39;re looking at.

Swipe and there& #39;s a story, one you& #39;ll recognize if you& #39;ve given birth in an American hospital, especially, or been with someone who has.

When I had my daughter at Mt Sinai, they gave me those same tic-tac grip socks. I remember the sheet of plastic they spread over my back for the epidural, and I remember wondering why (I have no idea still). In these photos, in other words, they& #39;re prepping a woman to give birth.

My birth story ended with life. I have the receiving blanket tucked into a drawer. I have the wrist band, snipped and saved. I have the little hat with a dash of blood dried on it. (I have the kid, running through my house.)

CT& #39;s photos show these trappings of labor—the socks, the IV, the blanket—evoking a physiological memory for me, and a cultural familiarity at large, but with an outcome so devastating, we don& #39;t even recognize it. We call it by a wrong name.

In this tragedy, in this black-and-white short, the hospital paraphernalia pairs with death instead of life. Stillbirth is the correct name—but it& #39;s more than terminology we are after. It& #39;s the right to tell this story and be heard.

To end a bit more lightly (because I, too, cried very hard for a woman I haven& #39;t met, but whose humor gives me grace), when Judd Apatow makes the dumbest version of pregnancy and labor in "Knocked Up", let& #39;s, like, turn it off and go make something better.

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