Baby Talking to Mom

On Dec. 4, 1991, I had a miscarriage after approximately eight weeks of pregnancy. The staff of Balboa Naval Hospital, San Diego, did tests of the embryo to try to determine the cause of the miscarriage. They found nothing genetically abnormal about the baby, and also were able to determine that it was male. The miscarriage occurred between the births of my two daughters.

One night in 2001, both of my girls were sleeping over at a friend's house. Around 2:00 a.m., I woke up- I had slept on the couch, as my husband had passed away some years before. A voice was calling from the direction of the dining room, "Mom....mom!" At first, I thought it was my younger daughter, as the voice resembled hers. Then I remembered that neither of my daughters was home that night. The voice continued, except now it seemed to be coming from directly behind the couch. What the voice was saying was indistinct, but it was clear that it was a boy addressing his mother. Though my husband and I had grieved the loss of this child, and had buried him in a cemetery where many of my relatives are buried (and where my husband is also now buried), I had not thought of him a great deal in the years since. This was an experience that was completely unexpected and totally out of the blue. I was fully awake, and not dreaming- in fact, was awakened in part by the voice calling "Mom....mom!" Neither was I experiencing sleep paralysis (I have never experienced that). I was capable of moving, however I was quite alarmed by hearing this voice, and totally incredulous. Needless to say, I didn't get any more sleep that night. I knew what I had heard, and there was no explaining it away.

Another time- after that episode- I heard a single syllable of expression from a small voice upon waking in the middle of the night in my bedroom. My older daughter also once heard unexplainable sounds in her bedroom on one occasion- she described it as "rustlings over by the bookshelves"- her cat, who often sleeps with her, was not in the house that night. These experiences were comforting and disconcerting at the same time. I think of the child that would have been my son more, now, than I did before these things happened. I would like to hear the voice again, but at the same time I think my "fear of the unknown" prevents me from being receptive to it.

One other thing: A few years before I heard the voice, my girls and I were at a family picnic in my parents' back yard, where there is a swing set with two swings. One of the girls was swinging; presently, I noticed that the swing she wasn't using was moving back and forth, straight and in a wide arc, as if someone were swinging alongside her.