Architect and Mrs Dantata

38: ZAYD

"I can't find a heartbeat, Amal...Your baby's not moving anymore. It's not breathing either."

It's been hours. I don't know exactly how many hours it's been but all I know is that a lot of time has passed since Iris shattered the blissful bubble Amal and I have been living in since April. A lot has happened in all that time.

Watching Amal go into denial in front of my very eyes hurt more than Iris's words did. I was in denial myself but Amal? I can't even imagine all she went through in that moment. She told Iris the machine probably had a fault. There was no way our baby didn't have a heartbeat. We literally felt it move this morning and we laughed about it because Amal claimed our baby was being very biased towards me when she was the one carrying it.

It took us five other scanning rooms to reach the painful realization that no machine had a problem. Our baby had no heartbeat and with no foetal movement, we knew what it meant. Our baby was gone. He or she was never coming back.

What followed that painful realization is something I sincerely pray we never experience again. Amal asked for a moment and when Iris left with the others, I watched her shut down little by little until all I had left in the happy woman I married was someone who was barely holding on to anything within reach. I didn't tell her it was okay because I knew that was a big lie. I didn't tell her I was sorry either. I didn't say anything. All I could do was step forward and hug her as though both our lives depended on it. Fisting her hands against my chest, Amal wailed.

I've always heard people say that wailing is different from crying. I now know what they mean. It's loud, it's hollow, it's painful and it breaks even the strongest people. It can be laced with shrill screams too. It hurts even more when you realize there isn't much you can do except cry too; my exact situation.

The medical team let us be until we had let it all out and could face them. I never let go of Amal's hand and Dr Judith let us know the options we had; going home and waiting for the miscarriage to start on its own, getting a surgical procedure done to take out the baby or being medically induced so labour can begin in hours. She advised against going home and waiting for the miscarriage to start on its own because it was a dangerous option for a woman in her second trimester. It could lead to the loss of too much blood, she said, and that was the last thing we wanted.

She told us we didn't have to make the decision immediately and that we could take some time to think about it; at least until the day ran out. Amal and I never got the chance to even think about it. She doubled up not long after and her screams pierced through my chest, scaring me and everyone else.

I can't tell anyone much of what happened in that particular hour. It was blur of movements, tests and a natural labour that couldn't be avoided and then our baby was born. If it were in an alternate universe where we weren't the ones affected, I would have been in awe of Allah's wonders. But this isn't another universe and we – Amal and I – are the ones affected. Amal delivered an intact sac; our baby folded inside, exactly the way it's shown in sonograms and in the movies. A baby we had to meet under very painful circumstances, in a way that was the opposite of what we'd dreamt of.

Amal asked to be alone with it and although I didn't want to leave her, Dr Judith said it was best if I did. So I stood on the corridor and listened to her wail again and scream until her voice grew hoarse. I made the necessary phone calls then and by the time our family members arrived, our baby had been put in a box; ready to be buried.

I didn't want to be the one to bury it but it was my baby too and it was the last respect I could pay. I didn't go alone. Baba, Muhammad, Mahmud and Mas'ood went with me while everyone else stayed with Amal. No one told me sorry and I was grateful. They offered Duas and I offered mine too.