My story--Sympathy and Empathy

It's been nearly 4 months now, and I'm still dealing with people asking me how the baby is.  And that's hard.  I wasn't really prepared for what I heard on what was a very ordinary lunch outing on a very ordinary Monday.  The general manager of our local Einstein's shared her family's misfortune with us.  Her son and daughter-in-law lost their baby 5 days before her scheduled delivery date.  9 months pregnant with their first baby.  I can't even imagine how devastated they are.  Losing my baby with 2 months to go was hard, but I was so fortunate that I had Whitney already.  I knew that I didn't do anything differently this time, and it was just bad luck for me.  I know that next time I get pregnant, I'll approach it the same way, and odds are that I'll have a healthy baby.  It's one thing to mentally know it, but another to truly believe it.  This couple hasn't had a successful pregnancy to keep them grounded.  And worse than that, their nursery was ready.  Their registries were completed.  Probably the clothes were all washed and put away.  And when they came home, they had an emptiness in their nursery that I didn't have to deal with.  And, with a first pregnancy, you get so excited and that's all you talk about.  And I'm sure it was announced to everyone in her world.  I told more people about my pregnancy with Whitney than I did with Miri, and I showed belly pictures, had showers, and kept people updated with every new event with Whitney, but not with Miri.  Whitney even had her own website in utero.  She's probably got so many people to tell.  My heart literally aches for them.  As horrible as I had it, they have it worse.  I gave the manager my phone number in case her daughter-in-law wanted to talk to someone who had recently been through a stillbirth, but I wished there was something I could do to take away their pain.  This is a pain no one should ever have to feel, and learning of their loss saddened me in a way I hadn't expected.  In retrospect, I suppose this is the difference between feeling sympathy and empathy.  Never before has the difference been so pronounced for me.