They’re full of remorse. Yet sometimes it’s too late for remorse

As told to Miriam Klein Adelman

For my newly born grandson, life is short.

It lasts only 120 seconds.  He will never see the sun rise, he will never have a birthday, he will never meet his big sister. He will never feel his mother’s embrace, nor experience the thrill of his father lifting him into the air, making him squeal in delight.

Before he has a chance to live, he’s gone.

The pain is greater because the delivery is punctuated with the doctor’s mistakes. Had the doctor been in the room, he would have noticed the fetus’s lowered heart rate, heard my daughter’s distress, recognized the signs of uterine rupture, acted quickly to ensure that the baby be born safely.

If the midwife had realized things weren’t right and had called the doctor when the baby’s heart rate dropped, if medical staff had listened to my daughter’s entreaties for an emergency C-section, if, if — he might have been saved.