and then

I wrote that, and then went to bed. And then I cried my heart out. Not for my own baby; we're on good terms.

It's been a long week and I've been rotten to my girls. So as we mamas do when the dam breaks, I hugged my girls extra tight, gave them an extra kiss, and let my eyes linger over them in wonder.

I cried for all the mamas who went to bed tonight with one less baby to kiss. No snuggles, no fuzzy hair in the nose, no precious lips, toes, or knuckle dimples. For them, looking into the stars will never be enough.

But sometimes it helps.

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Wave

**On October 15th, a wave of light will cross the world as we light candles for the pregnancies we have lost. Today (and always), please take the time to let the families in your life know that their lost babies are not forgotten.**

Yesterday was exhausting and I felt stretched in every direction. I tried to go out in the evening for fun, but in the end, the baby who had whined and fussed all day long was now crying inconsolably in the car seat. I hopped out of my car into the dark, clear night and looked up, relieved to find the stars.

There is something so comforting in a clear night sky - looking up, overcome by vertigo and infinity, feeling the presence of every spirit that has ever existed. To the stars, our lifetime is a mere breath. There is peace in that feeling of unity - that we are all infinitesimally small and the two feet or two thousand miles that separate us mean nothing. The ones who are so far away, the ones who have left us are right there whenever we pause to look up.

In that brief moment, something stirred in me and the sounds of Lillia's wailing faded. It has been so long since I last needed that calming spirit around me, so long since I felt it. Here I am, over three years since I felt my world falling in, and the baby I lost is just a passing memory, a spirit I barely have time to recognize. And yet, he is still there ready to breathe encouragement into my heart when I need it the most. The ones we love are never gone, but stay by our sides to remind us to cherish every moment.

For you, baby, I will light a candle tonight and carry the wave of light across the world.

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Confession

Bella has not been in my camera's limelight much since she started healing. My eyes are drawn to the new imperfections on her face, tiny little craters still red where the scabs once were. My perfect baby girl has scars on her face. Once again I feel overly protective - she should be too young for this - and simultaneously foolish that a few scars should matter so much to me.

~~~~

For the first time in her entire life, Dave and I are putting Bella to bed and letting her fall asleep alone. I'm starting up my photography business and need the time to work, and as adults, Dave and I just need the space. The routine this week has been a half hour of cuddles and stories and listening to us chat about our days. Then a kiss, and off we go.

Thirty seconds of crying feels like an eternity to me. Common sense tells me it's practically nothing. She's too distracted to fall asleep with me by her side anymore, but I don't want her to think I've deserted her. When I'm ready for bed, I tuck in beside her, give her a kiss, tell her I love her, and fall asleep to the rhythm of her breath.

~~~~

Tonight was my chance to catch up on my much neglected google reader. As I started chipping away at the 400 some odd posts, I came to a photographer's blog that I follow, reading it in reverse as I caught up. But it didn't make sense. I didn't recognize it. Whose blog was this? And then as I scrolled down someone sucked all the air out of the room. No, no, no. In all those days I was away, her beautiful baby boy had died.

I was struggling through Christmas and family and scholarships and chicken pox and websites and collectors calling and a winter without snow. And she said goodbye to her youngest boy. Her sweet little two month old caught pertussis and died.

I couldn't help but cry as I caught up on her life, feeling guilty to have missed it, feeling now like chicken pox was a walk in the park and unemployment was a gift. Suddenly it felt like my baby had died and my own world had been turned upside down. The internet is a funny place, that way. Motherhood is a funny thing, that way.

~~~~

Events like this break into that primal motherhood fear - the knowledge that, try as we might, there is only so much we can do to protect our babies. That everything is okay until suddenly it isn't anymore. I can't help but succumb to this feeling, crying for mamas everywhere, and for a moment I'm reminded why my voice cracks every time I try to sing the second verse of You Are My Sunshine. I have had to wake up without a baby in my belly; never once since Bella was born have I woken up without her. It's unfathomable.

Yet, there I was, reveling in the fact that my baby (now sporting scars as testament to how sick she was just two weeks ago) had gone to sleep with a teddy that night - relieved that I might get four months to reclaim my life before I give it away again. And this mama would give anything to see her baby's brand new smile again, to kiss him on the forehead one last time.

~~~~

My tears change to sad, guilty tears of relief as I sneak away to check on my own baby, to crawl in beside her to feel her warm soft cheeks, fluttery eyelashes, wiggly toes and sleep whimpers. Yet this mama's story has ripped me raw again and it's a long sleepless night as my heart keens for her. Bella inches closer to me in her sleep to grab onto my arm, knowing finally I'm there to replace her teddy. Instead of repositioning her back into her crib, tonight I don't mind sleeping like a sardine. Tonight the kicks will come from inside and out, and one night's lost sleep doesn't seem so bad.

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Snapshots of a Lost Pregnancy

**On October 15th, a wave of light will cross the world as we light candles for the pregnancies we have lost. This is my story, which I initially wrote last year and am finally posting. This week, please take the time to let the families in your life know that their lost babies are not forgotten.**

4:15 am on a cold winter morning. Sitting, hands on belly waiting for my car to warm up. I stare through my reflection at the stars above me, wondering what it will be like to share this with my child one day.

~~~~

Dave and I are standing in line at Starbucks. I'm wondering if the kiddo wants a pumpkin spice steamer. Dave doesn't like the name nugget, that's what we call our rabbit. Acorn, he says. And it fits.

~~~~

Wednesday morning and I'm putting together a stroller I received from Freecycle. Cramps run down my back and legs every so often and I try to push it out of my mind, as I have work later.

~~~~

Wednesday afternoon and I'm in Erika's bathroom, panicked as I pass a clot, frozen over the toilet, wondering what to do next.

Having left messages in tears with my family doctor, I'm now on the phone with a midwife I've never met, looking out the bathroom window. She's telling me it's okay to take Advil or Tylenol, that it won't harm the baby if everything works out. She cautions me that my stronger and stronger cramps are indicative of a miscarriage.

~~~~

Erika chides me for not yet having called my mom. I hadn't wanted to worry her. I'm afraid of what she'll say. She's at work. I would want to know, Erika says, and waits for me to promise to call.

My mom's at work and I hear her trying not to cry as I tell her I think I'm losing my baby.

~~~~

Late Wednesday night I'm at the local emergency clinic being checked by a doctor. They take my blood and tell me they don't have an ultrasound machine, so they can transfer me to the bigger ER if I'd like. My mind hurts. My cervix is closed but I'm still passing clots. I need to have an answer. The uncertainty is unbearable.

We spend the rest of the night waiting at the very very very busy ER. They take my blood and admit us further inside, where we wait hours for the ultrasound. I'm cramping and trying not to think about the day. People sick and in pain in every direction, all wishing they were not here. Anywhere but here, waiting.

~~~~

They escort me down a dark empty corridor to the other side of the hospital. Dave had gone to get a snack and I'm terrified to be separated from him. He finds me and afterward we're escorted back to the ER to wait for the results.

No heart beat. Maybe it's just to early to see it. Eight weeks is on the cusp, after all. The doctor is talking, but it is apparent that everyone feels that the situation is useless. I'm wishing we had never come here, wasted our last night pregnant here. Dave is sniffling and I'm lost as the doctor hands us follow up instructions, a work exemption notice (2 days? I haven't even miscarried yet, I need more than that...), and photocopied literature entitled, "If you are having a miscarriage". I stare at the word. Me? Nothing in my life has ever gone this wrong.

~~~~

I stupidly decided to take care of the kids the next day, hoping their life would inspire me to get out of my panic funk. I'm still in denial. How bad could it get? My cramps are in and out.

As the toddler naps, I rest my head on his bed, crying. My vision is starting to falter from the power behind the cramps. I am all alone and am dreading him waking up. I manage to get him downstairs and put a snack on the table and decide to call his dad. I don't know what to say, I don't know what he knows. Come rescue your nanny, she's losing her baby and can't take care of yours. He is very kind and I retreat to the bed downstairs, curled up and in pain. My body, my heart. I know it's happening. Somehow I'm on the phone with Jessie. It's happening. The reception is crappy down here so we hang up. I give in and call for Dave to come get me.

~~~~

I hide in the bathroom to pass the time. And there it is. I remember the doctor saying I would see tissue. Grey tissue. My baby is just the size of a bean, I wonder where he is in all this. It feels morbid to flush the toilet.

~~~~

Dave ushers me outside, loads me in his car. As we drive away, I watch my car get smaller, the questioning look on the seven year-old's face is burned into my eyes. She's almost old enough to understand, yet no one will offer anything. Nana's sick, she has to go home.

~~~~

The scenery goes by. Contractions come and go, wracking my body. I grab onto the door handle and try not to hate my body for what it is doing to me, to my baby.

At home, waves of pain come and go. The cold bathroom floor feels good, I curl into a ball on the floor now knowing the pattern, ready for what is to come. Only, I'm not ready. It's too final.

~~~~

Two days later Dave drives me to the woman's wing of the hospital for my follow up blood test. Dave is at the welcome desk finishing the paperwork. This is where they discharge mothers and their newborns. Families and cameras and brand new car seats covered in fancy new blankets. I call my boss while I choke on my tears. I can't come in tomorrow, I'm just not up to it yet. Twenty percent of our customers are pregnant, and I know I won't be able to handle it. She asks if everything is alright. No, I say, but it will be okay. As I hang up, I wonder if I was too cryptic. But I can't say it yet. The words will not form in my mouth.

~~~~

All these hormones and no baby to use them on. No baby. How did I get here? I spend most of my time in bed crying. The emptiness is unbearable. At night I can't sleep without music blasting the thoughts out of my head until I crash from exhaustion. I head to the mall and stuff myself a bear so that I have something to hold. It softens the pain of useless longing.

~~~~

Back at work, all the people who I wish knew don't know, and all the people I never even told I was pregnant magically know that I no longer am. A few people approach me. One tells me her friend had been through this a few times, so she knows where I am coming from. I am not heartless, but all I can think is, I couldn't care less about your friend.

A truly caring friend keeps looking sideways at me and asking if I'm okay. I keep saying yes, but knowing this is not true, he keeps repeating himself. Finally, I blow up. No, I'm not okay. I lost my baby. I'm not at all okay. He was one of the few who had not yet heard. I felt ashamed. And mad at myself that I assumed he would know, since everyone else seemed to.

Two women hugged me. I'm so sorry, said one. I've been there, I know, said the other. I'm so sorry. In me they hugged their daughters, through them I hugged my mom. The hugs got me through the day.

~~~~

Two weeks later I show up at the birth center for what should have been our first check up. The midwife had told me to keep the date and just come in for a follow up, since that's protocol anyhow. Except no one has flagged my file and if I have to explain one more time that it is not a clerical error and I am no longer pregnant, I am going to break down. The nurse taking my blood pressure notes that it is through the roof and asks me if I get anxious in doctors' offices. I didn't used to, I think. My eyes are burning and all I can do is shake my head. A sticky note on my file would have been nice. Anything.

~~~~

A week later, two weeks later, almost a month later, and I'm wondering who would think of me on the anniversary. Would anyone? Suddenly I understand loss like never before. Nervously I get a card for a friend whose grown son died in a hit and run last year. One year ago. I remember all the mothers in the store crying that day. I've always felt detached from death, but now I understand how one mother losing her child is real pain for every mother.

I'm afraid to give her the card. What have I lost in comparison? I'm still not a real mother. It feels presumptuous to tell her that I understand the hardest part of losing someone is losing them in memory. I tell her that I think of her and I think of her son, and neither are forgotten.

The day I hand her the card happens to be the very anniversary of the day he died. She cries on my shoulder and thanks me as I hold her tight. Suddenly I understand grief like never before.

~~~~

How are you? becomes a burden. The word fine no longer rolls carelessly off my tongue. I test myself before each answer. No, not fine. Not today, not yet. But to say not well invites looks and offers and I cannot go through my day sharing my pain with everyone. Sometimes I wish everyone knew and sometimes I want to hide behind anonymity.

~~~~

A coworker is proudly parading his new nephew around the store. I'm so happy for them and they had generously planned to give me his newborn clothes. Do I want to hold him? I panic. No, I would probably never return him. I want to turn and run. Choking on spent tears, I escape just in time and watch from afar. Tell them I'm sorry. They were so kind. I would have liked to meet him, but I just can't.

~~~~

It's Mother's Day. Do I count? Was he my son if we only met in our dreams?

~~~~

I can't remember the day I first replied fine to a casual How are you, but I remember the feeling in that moment. Relief and fear. If I feel fine, does that mean that I am starting to forget?

I remember the first time I said miscarriage and I didn't stutter and tears didn't burn at my eyes. It was over a year later. Now I say it all the time. I say it because I have a beautiful daughter now, and there is a bittersweet relief in that. She gives me the strength I need to remind people what a miracle every healthy child is.

I say it because people need to know. Pregnancy loss happens. It's sad, and sad things are taboo in our culture. But to me it's bitter sweet. A beautiful soul chose me for this journey, and we were together only eight weeks. And now I understand the world in a completely different way, and every time I look up at the stars, I send out a prayer to all the lost babies. They existed and deserve to be remembered.

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an okay anniversary

So today I was planning a post that I started writing well over a year ago. But, time runs fast these days and it's still not ready. Or perhaps it's me who's not ready. I have the need to share, but maybe not in this moment, when life is stressful but still sweet.

One year ago I was relieved to find Easter falling so early. A blessing, because I was so full of life and the anticipation of being 9 months pregnant and yet faced with the sad anniversary of my miscarriage the previous year. There was mingled happiness and sadness and the need to understand it all or push it away with a busy day of celebration.

This year the anniversary falls on a weekend so busy that I barely have time to think. But, it turns out I don't need the distraction. This year is so different, so distanced from what I experienced last year. A healthy pregnancy, a beautiful birth, a happy baby, writing and time have done so much healing. I doesn't hurt anymore, at least not in the way it used to.

The word miscarriage falls easily into my Story now and doesn't trip up my tongue and make my eyes burn. I've even transitioned past that time when it aches to stop hurting and just accept. Accept that the subsiding grief is only changing forms, and to let it mature is not the same as abandoning memories. Now it just is and I'm finding a new place in my heart for these feelings to live, slightly more distant from my daily life, and I'm okay with that.

Instead of bitterness in seeing those happy, seemingly unscathed pregnant couples, the times that the grief resurfaces are in moments of sympathy. Meeting another babylost mama, hearing of yet another tragedy no matter how long ago, no matter how it may differ from my own experience. It's always yesterday. My heart doesn't ache as much for my own lost baby, but keens for the loss of all the babies. One loss is everyone's loss. It's always like it happened yesterday.

The hardest part is finding a way to share, to grieve an invisible loss, to rejoice in a short life, to remember an existence in a society that is uninformed and afraid to recognize pregnancy and infant loss in the open. Grief is awkward and ugly, and as a society we are poorly equipped to comfort each other and lift one another up in times of true need. I hope by sharing, we'll slowly break this taboo, this lack of understanding. As I share mine, other mothers share theirs, and together we give our hearts openly and listen and receive one another. We hold fast to our memories and the lives we have known and validate each other.

So I will share my story. Not today as I thought I would, but sooner than later. It's just a small story, but it's mine and if it helps just one other person understand, acknowledge and support with a babylost mama, it's worth sharing.

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Supersaturated New Year

The way Christmas should be celebrated, photo by PapaRazi

2007 was a slow year. Sadness and fear spattered with hope have a way of drawing out time. It was our newlywed year, the year we decided to start a family. I took our first loss as a sign that it was time to reevaluate where we wanted to live and make the cross country move we had always imagined. 2007 was a year of drastic changes, always looking forward as we trudged through it all.



Cue 2008, the last of the Slow Years. A year goes by so fast when you have a purpose in your life and it's amazing so many memories can exist in one time-space. Once Bella was born we were simply trying not to get whiplash from looking back as we struggled to catch up with the new pace. And the last couple of months went by at breakneck speed. It's like 2008 saw the New Year coming and was like, Oh Thank God, and started to run to pass off the relay wand.

Everything else from here on out will fly past our eyes and it will be my mission to savor it as much as possible.



I had an inkling, or perhaps mild dread, about how quickly life moves when children are involved, but I didn't know that it would go from five miles per hour to 50 over night. It's nice to have endless photographs to be able to freeze a moment and say, Yes, I remember that, but they really put things in perspective. No more scrolling through photos trying to look for the subtle clues deciphering which Christmas, which party, which season, which year we are reminiscing. Even photos without Bella still shout She's Here! A toy in the corner (or littering the floor), extra bags under my eyes (and coffee in my hand), that look that says Mama all over me (forgot to brush hair again). She's our little hourglass, each day another grain topping off the pile, another inaccessible moment added to our long list of memories.



After a wash of (joyfully generic) Christmas after Christmas, this will be the only one Just Like It, everyone together, one little baby happily soaking it all up. I can't fathom having a toddler running around next Christmas, I don't even try. On New Year's Day we waited for a table in a restaurant lobby with piles and piles of families. My mom asked a fellow mother how old her baby was, and then corrected the phrase since the girl was so much bigger than Bella, technically a toddler. To me she looked ten feet long and ready to start school. Twenty months, the mother replied. And I noticed it, that phrasing, a mother clinging to those last few months before resigning to years for age descriptions.

Twenty months. Exactly the age Isabelle will be this time next year, when I will be calling her by months, hoping that everyone still remembers she's just a baby. Once a baby, always a baby.

2009 here we come.

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A bonfire would not suffice

Today, October 15th, is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Around the world, families will light candles at 7pm in remembrance of the children they cannot hug and kiss each day, but who live on in their hearts. I initially thought I would try to post the story of my first pregnancy today, but it is not ready and I am not ready, and as you know, my mom is in town, so I am short on blogging time.

My heart goes out to everyone whose babies are no longer with them. Losing my pregnancy was by far the hardest thing I have experienced, and I cannot even imagine multiplying it by more months of hope, more moments of dread, more unbearable surprise as so many have felt.

Some babies are lost before we've hardly begun to recognize them. Some are born still. Some are completely healthy and give us no reason to fear, but are taken by surprise, betrayed by birth. Some fight for all they're worth, and never make it home. Each one is real and alive inside their families' hearts. Each one is a genuine heart wrenching loss.

Parents of lost babies are not uncommon, but hidden away by the taboo of loss, taught by our culture to keep the pain from showing and causing discomfort in others. Parents are expected to cut their grieving short, under the pretense that the child never lived, or that they barely knew him, (and can try for another one). But parents deserve a chance to share and validate each of their children, not be shamed into hiding the ones you can't see or be avoided for the awkward silence of misunderstanding that floats along in their wake. Child loss is a painful reality. The grief is unimaginable and the lingering love, with so little direction now, is overwhelming.

Every child is a gift. The ones that find their way to this world are amazing miracles. No matter how hard parenting can be at times, if your children are here, take a step back and breathe in the miracle that they are. Talk to the ones you've lost, share them, love them, and if you are lucky enough to have all your children in this world, offer your ear to parents who don't. Have the courage to listen as they share with you their love for all of their children. Give them a chance to remember their children to you and in that moment they will live again.

~~~~

My heart cries out, He would have been one this month. Your cousin's baby turns one this October, and yours doesn't. Reason viciously chimes in, But you are lucky. You have a daughter in your arms who is six months in a few days. You love her and she could not be here if you had him. You cannot have them both. You don't have the right to mourn a child you barely knew when you have a healthy, living child wriggling about this very moment in your arms.

It is not painful like it used to be. I have Bella to soften the blow, overlapping the bad milestones with good ones. But still, like all mamas of lost babies, every so often I dream of what could have been, and the result is tears. Babylost Mamas come in all shapes and sizes, every story the unimaginable. This guilt of overlapping dates is the sole terrain of miscarriages. The impossibility of having both, one life exclusive of the other, but dreaming of them all the same.

~~~~

Society has trained me well. I tell myself that I have no right to grieve, that the feelings of loss should have faded. It was just a pregnancy and others have lost more. But my heart knows better, and I try every day to let my heart lead the way. Another soul lived inside me, for eight short weeks we were one. The pain is not just in the loss of a child, but the lost potential and the unbearable unknowing. Whose fingers would he have had? Would his voice have sounded like mine? What could we have been together? And it is for those questions and more that my heart is justified to always miss him, forever yearning to mother a child I will never know. It is for those questions and more that I will light him a candle and promise him that he will never be forgotten.

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