Ballad

Teach said write a ballad: 4 stanzas, 4 lines each, a story that ends tragically, iambic, rhyming, 8 beats 6 beats 8 beats 6 beats. Here's my poem:

December 18, 2007

I told him, “Ben I’m pregnant, babe.”
His eyes just glowed with joy.
We’d tried so long to have this child,
Our second girl or boy.

We told our friends, our parents, start-
ed thinking of a name.
This baby stuff we knew by heart:
We planned on all the same.

I called him at his office. Said,
“I’m worried something’s wrong.
My stomach hurts; I’m bleeding, too.
I think the baby’s gone.”

She told us, “There’s no heartbeat.” Shock
Subsided and we cried.
He said he’d never heard such sobs
As when our baby died.