Dear Editor:
Thank you for the favorable treatment you gave my book “Life Touches Life: A Mother’s Story of Stillbirth and Healing” in your November 28 issue.
For the sake of accuracy, however, I note that when I was in the hospital and starting to jot down the words and phrases that eventually found their way into my book, I was in a fevered state – not a hallucinogenic state, as the article states. I never said I was in a hallucinogenic state because indeed I never have been. As a journalist, playwright and author with a master’s degree in writing and one who has taught journalism on the college level, I was surprised to see that The Hudson Reporter printed one term as if it were interchangeable with the other. No part of anything in my body of work in this book or otherwise, has ever been written “during hallucinogenic stages,” as your article states. I consider this point crucial to my reputation.
Also, I did not say I was “hopped up” on morphine, as I was quoted as saying. This is not a phrase I use at all, and indeed the morphine administered in the hospital had the opposite effect; it allowed me to rest during intense pain.
My book makes many points about the reality of stillbirth, not the least of which is that it happens to healthy, drug-free, and loving mothers-to-be all over the United States. It takes them, and often their doctors, by surprise. It happens in spite of conscientious actions and intentions, partially because we research, and therefore know, so little about it. Stillbirth happens because we have not developed the monitoring systems that allows us to intervene before it’s just too late and another precious heartbeat, and little life, is lost.
Lorraine Ash