Synopses & Reviews
"What an amazing story. . . . I applaud you for staying honest with yourself and listening to your feelings and what you needed to do to love and grieve and remember your son."comment on Elizabeth Heineman's Salon article, "My Stillborn Child's Life after Death"
In our mother-blaming culture, women who make unconventional choices find themselves under fire. And Elizabeth Heineman makes unusual choices. She has a baby at an advanced maternal age, chooses home birth with a midwifeand then, when her baby is born dead, she spends time with him. In Ghostbelly, Heineman's brave, disarming, and stunning memoir, she recounts her indescribable grief after delivering a stillborn son, her extraordinary and intimate bonding with the baby's body before the burial, and the impossible task of saying goodbye.
In 2008 Elizabeth McCracken's memoir broke the silence surrounding stillbirth, which account for one in 160 pregnancies in the United States. Now Ghostbelly provides this necessary tale of motherhood the need to invent our own rituals of grieving, and the unexpected space we occupy when birth and death coincide.
Elizabeth Heineman is a professor of history and gender, women's, and sexuality studies at the University of Iowa. Her published works include Before Porn Was Legal, Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones, and What Difference Does a Husband Make? She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
Review
"[Heineman's] story reveals the depths of emotional pain associated with stillbirth and reveals that parental love has no boundaries."
Publishers Weekly Ghostbelly is by far the most beautifully written and intimate account of something a lot of us have gone through, which is the death of an unborn child. It's an incredible and moving book, and I'm so thankful for it.”
Jane Pratt, founding editor of xoJane and Sassy
"Ghostbelly contains some of the most powerful and heart-wrenching sentences about mourning the loss of a baby I have ever read." Perry-Lynn Moffitt, author of A Silent Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss
Review
"[Heineman's] story reveals the depths of emotional pain associated with stillbirth and reveals that parental love has no boundaries."
Publishers Weekly Ghostbelly is by far the most beautifully written and intimate account of something a lot of us have gone through, which is the death of an unborn child. It's an incredible and moving book, and I'm so thankful for it.”
Jane Pratt, founding editor of xoJane and Sassy
This is a book about birth and death seen with a smart, sensitive, well-trained eye.” Barbara Katz Rothman, author of In Labor and Laboring On
Ghostbelly illuminates the complex emotional landscape of stillbirthputting into frank and poetic words the unspeakable experience of simultaneously grieving and mothering a baby who has died. Groundbreaking for its exploration of the unexpected benefits of reclaiming traditional rituals around birth and death, Ghostbelly brilliantly demonstrates the value in determining what holds meaning for you, and then unapologetically going for it, no matter what others might think.”
Deborah L. Davis, author of Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving the Death of Your Baby
"Ghostbelly contains some of the most powerful and heart-wrenching sentences about mourning the loss of a baby I have ever read." Perry-Lynn Moffitt, author of A Silent Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss
Synopsis
You may not think you have assumptions about motherhood and grief, but you do. And this book will shatter them.
Synopsis
Ghostbelly is Elizabeth Heinemans personal account of a home birth that goes tragically wrongending in a stillbirthand the harrowing process of grief and questioning that follows. Its also Heinemans unexpected tale of the loss of a newborn: before burial, she brings the baby home for overnight stays.
Does this sound unsettling? Of course. Were not supposed to hold and caress dead bodies. But then again, babies arent supposed to die.
In this courageous and deeply intimate memoir, Heineman examines the home-birth and maternal health-care industry, the isolation of midwives, and the scripting of her own grief. With no resolution to sadness, Heineman and her partner learn to live in a new world: a world in which they face each day with the understanding of the fragility of the present.
Elizabeth Heineman is a professor of history and gender, women's, and sexuality studies at the University of Iowa. Her published works include Before Porn Was Legal, Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones, and What Difference Does a Husband Make? She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
About the Author
Elizabeth Heineman is a professor of History and of Gender, Women's, and Sexualy Studies at the University of Iowa. Her published works include Before Porn was Legal, Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones, and What Difference Does a Husband Make?