October 15

October 15 is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.  I’m humbled and grateful for Ronald Reagan and the other people that fought to make this an official day to acknowledge our babies.  At 7PM, people are encouraged to light a candle in memory of their angels.  Due to the different time zones, a wave of light will cross the world in memory of our loved ones.  We’d be most appreciative if you would light a candle in honor of Abby and our many friends’ angel babies.

In the past few months, I’ve learned a lot about grief, myself, and the pain of losing a baby.  Miscarriage, or in my case, a missed miscarriage (when the baby passes away, but your body doesn’t let them go naturally), changes you.  It hurts you so deeply that as you wade through the grieving process, you have to find out what your new normal is.  To the outside world you might look the same, but your heart is missing a piece and nothing can replace that piece.  So you cook and clean and grocery shop and go to dinner parties and work, and you may smile and you may laugh, but inside, you ache. 

 People wonder why a parent that has lost a child grieves the loss of someone they have never even met.  But as a parent, you allow yourself to daydream from the first time you discover you are pregnant.  You think about who your child will be, how they will change you and your whole family.  When you lose your baby, no matter how early in your pregnancy, you lose the hopes and dreams.  You lose the first giggles, the first tooth, the first “Mama,” the first steps, the first “I love you,” the cuddles with favorite story books, the first day on the school bus, the Christmas morning joy, graduation day, walking them down the isle….…everything.  You lose an entire piece of your life. “Just like seeing that extra pink line on a pregnancy test, a miscarriage changes your life in an instant.”

Because other people haven’t met the baby yet, it’s hard for them to understand.  Even though one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, people just don’t know what to say or how to be supportive.  Many times they try, but their words end up hurting more than helping.  Or they don’t talk about it in fear that bringing it up will make us sad.  Trust me – we haven’t forgotten that our child died.  Not a day goes by that we don’t think about them and by you bringing the baby up, it shows us that you remember them too and that is a great gift to us.  It makes us feel like we aren’t alone.  When a baby is born, its mother’s instinct is to protect it.  When a baby dies, its mother’s instinct is to protect its memory.  We don’t want the world to just move on and forget our precious angels.  Acknowledge those special days – the days our babies were supposed to be born, the days that they passed away.

I’ve been a part of a support group and an online miscarriage group and over and over again, I hear these phrases said as a way to support women who have had a loss, but in fact, the woman is hurt by them.  I’m sharing them so that if you are reading this, you will know what NOT to say to someone you love experiencing a loss.

1. You are young and you can try again! Maybe so, but this downplays the baby we just lost.  We want THAT baby, not some other baby.
2. You’ve been grieving long enough now.  You have to move on. Grief is cyclical and it takes different people different amounts of time to determine their new normal.  My support group leader used a great analogy – Losing a child is like carrying a large boulder around on your shoulders.  It is stifling and heavy.  Slowly, it gets smaller and smaller until it is a pebble that you will carry in your pocket for the rest of your life.  It may get easier, but it never goes away.
3. I know how you feel, I lost a dog, niece, cousin, etc….. No, you don’t. Even if our stories are similar, we all walk a different path and you don’t know how I feel.  Honestly, most days, I don’t even know how I feel.  These feelings are new to me too.
4. Calling a miscarriage or a D&C an abortion. My missed miscarriage devastated me and when I opened the twenty-some  invoices from the hospitals, doctors, anesthesiologists, surgeons, ER, etc., it was referred to as a missed abortion and I cried each time I saw it.  My friend who has had 6 miscarriages is referred to as a “habitual aborter” on her medical paperwork.  The word abortion seems to infer that it was consented upon or that we wanted it or agreed to it.  It breaks our hearts all over again to see it referred to as that.  In fact, I talked to Allina about it and just last week I received a call that they are changing the description in their system company-wide.  No other woman will have to cry because of the word abortion on her hospital invoice.
5. It wasn’t meant to be.  Maybe not, but that doesn’t make us feel any better.
6. There is a reason for everything.  Again, that might be the case, but it doesn’t ease our hurting hearts. It’s hard to find or understand a reason for your baby to die.
7. Be grateful for what you have.  I can speak personally and say that I am extremely grateful for the miracle I have in my son, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t yearn for my angel baby girl.  Why do other people have the right to keep having babies but I have to just sit back and be grateful with what I have?
8. God needed another angel.  But why does it have to be mine?  Would you be okay with just giving up yours? 
9. Lots of women go through this all the time and make it through, you will too.  Yes, and if you lost your husband, would you feel better if I told you that lots of women lose their husbands and that you’ll get through it?  Nope.  We get that you are trying to tell us that we aren’t alone, but think about it in terms of what you’d want someone to tell you if you lost your husband. 
10. You’ll be a mom some day.  I already AM a mom.  My child may be an angel, but I am a mom.  I carried that child inside of me. Tell me Happy Mother’s Day, send me a Mother’s Day card, let me know what a good mom I was to nurture my baby while it was growing in me.  There will be days that I may doubt or feel “less than” a mother – remind me that I am indeed a mother.

To sum it up, you don’t need to say a lot.  Say you are sorry for our loss, say that it hurts so much because our baby mattered, say your heart breaks with us, say that you are praying for us, say it is okay for us to grieve and be sad.  Don’t ask us what we need or to tell you if we need anything – just do things that let us know you care.  What we need may change by the minute and it is exhausting to think about having to tell people what we need. I was lucky in that I have had a great support system.  People brought meals, sent flowers, sent cards for weeks – I got one today in fact, sent emails, prayed with and for us.  All of these were more appreciated than the senders ever will know.  Sometimes a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, or an ear to listen is all that we need.

 Another thing that I saw that was so true said, “A woman that loses her husband is a widow, a child that loses his parents is an orphan, but there is no word for a parent that loses their child.  That’s how awful the loss is.”

Lastly, if you are a friend or family member and are pregnant or just had a baby, you might be hard for us to be around.  It’s nothing personal!  We love you and your baby and wish nothing but happiness for you, but it makes us think, “That’s what my bump would look like right now,” “That’s what my baby would be doing at that age.”  Have an open conversation with us and tell us that you are here for us and that you understand if we need to have some distance from you. Then don’t take it personally if we do!  It should go without saying, but don’t complain about morning sickness or labor pains.  We’d trade places with you in a millisecond.  Let us take our time with your baby – don’t force us to hold them and please don’t be upset if we get emotional.  We think your baby is beautiful, but we can’t help but look into your sweet baby’s face and wonder what ours would look like.

I know this was a long post and if you’ve made it this far, thank you.  I hope what I’ve written will help you be a supportive person if someone you love loses their baby.