What I Mean When I Say, “My Daughter Was Stillborn”

I don’t think that most people understand me when I say that my daughter was stillborn. That phrasing makes it sound passive, like it was something that just happened to me, externally. But that’s not what a stillbirth is, and I imagine that’s not what a miscarriage is either. A stillbirth isn’t something that happened to me, or my daughter, or my family. It’s something that happened inside me. That I was forced to participate in.