I read a piece a sister of mine shared on Facebook. (I say sister without quotes, without italics, but she’s not blood… doesn’t make her not family. Regardless, I wanted to clarify- my big sis, Jessica, is OK!) THIS was the article. It broke my heart. Just the day before, Dave and I had learned she had lost a pregnancy.
I won’t mention who, how far along, of if she has other children, if it’s happened before… because it doesn’t matter. There is never a “hardly pregnant”. Or a “get over it”. ALL experiences are different, but knowing how many women suffer in silence, I beg you to reach out.
My own story makes it hard for me to not cry for my friend. I recall the day I read “PREGNANT” across the digital screen. Dave and I had only been “trying” for a month! But I didn’t feel sure. I couldn’t get excited… I felt so tired and scared. Something in me wasn’t right. Two days later, the same test read a different story. So I took more tests. Different types. The digital screens kept differing. The second line was growing more faint. Finally, on a Friday morning, I knew it was the end. I sat blankly at our dining room table looking at my breakfast and told Dave we weren’t having a baby. I was bleeding, differently than ever before. I was in pain. Serious pain. I asked him to not tell anyone. I got up, took a vitamin for whatever reason, and left for my first day at a new job. I didn’t eat, I didn’t stop working except to tend to myself using the most giant pads I could find and a lot of Tylenol. This idiotic reaction is what got me the full-time position I held up until the day I gave birth. “You’re so determined,” the boss said. “Yes,” I replied with my eyes down. I never told them why.
Keeping the secret was killing me. I finally told my Mom, who was the only other person who knew I’d been pregnant. I tried to rationalize and tell her that it was only 5 weeks. I shouldn’t have tested so early. I had nothing to cry about when she had lost my brother- a live birth- at 27 weeks. But she cooed through the receiver, “You are in pain as any mother would be…” I was a mother. For the briefest of weeks, I was a mom.
My mother-in-law pressed me about my withdrawn demeanor and I told her. A friend finally pushed my buttons and I broke. The walls came down. I was bruised on the inside. I was hurt… and talking to other women, friends and family healed me. We made Addie… life goes on. But I will never forget that my body decided that the child I was carrying was not fit for this world. Maybe that’s why I know Addie is so special. Why I know she was meant to do great things. Why I know that the odds that we have to beat in life are not things we cannot handle.
But it still hurts. The piece that I read said it best: Miscarriage is death.
There is no hardly or not real yet-s. There are children we, as mothers, never get to kiss, to nurse, to carry, to send off to school, to watch graduate, to live their dreams and ultimately fill ours. Even at 5 weeks, I’d imagined the next 50 years.
I band together with you, sisters. There is nothing that we cannot face together. So share it, scream it, cry it. Do you feel that? It’s my arms wrapped around you. Blessed be to all of our lost ones who watch over us daily.
Love,
Beautifully written….. and painful still….just a whisper after so many year for me, but more so nearing that time of year. Yet, life has replaced sadness with joy and tears with laughter…as it will when you let go. Prayers to all who are going through this most-sad of life’s experiences
Beautifully written. I had a scare but everything turned out ok. For that 24 hours though, it felt like my world was crashing down on me. You won’t ever forget that baby you loved and lost, but you have a beautiful little girl, who brings much joy and love to you. Praying for you and all those who are going through such a sad loss.
Nicole@runningwhilemommy recently posted…Race Weekend Part Two
1 second or 40 weeks , a mom is a mom <3 I personally have never been through the loss of a baby, but my heart feels for those who have. I could not imagine the wonders and what ifs <3 as you said blessed be to all those babies <3
When you said that at only 5 weeks, you already imagined the next 50 years, that is so true. After my first loss, my doctor said it’s ok to grieve-People might not understand and think you shouldn’t feel that way but you aren’t just crying about what the baby is now at only 7 weeks, you are grieving the loss of the child you had already envisioned as a perfect little bundle, the kindergartener, the graduate, the newlywed and so on. I think her advice was so true. We deserve the right to grieve, be anxious the next pregnancy as the “date” of the last loss approaches, and not have to listen to people’s “helpful” advice. But I have learned a couple of things: it doesn’t matter if it’s your first or your third (or more, though I have blessedly not had to experience more), it always hurts. Second is that, like any other death, that pain will always be there, but time helps it go from something that crushes you and is the only thing you can think about, to more twinges when random things will bring it to mind. And you survive- like the previous poster said-life’s joys take over the pain.
My heart feels every letter, every word, every syllable, every sentence. I know this pain through my daughter Audrey and my daughter-in-law Aimee. I know this pain as a Grandma… the Babies who “moved over” for other Babes, siblings, to be born into this world… Babies who changed everything, EVERYTHING… Babies for whom we grieve and love and who light up stars and sky and make the sun brighter and the sky bluer because they are there, covering us in colors and calm and beauty that we don’t understand yet. I have 3 Grandbabies who make me pause every single day to see in others, understand in others, feel the pain in others and take away the pain, too. I think I may have lost a Babe early in a pregnancy before Audrey was conceived… I cannot be sure… but everything was so different that month, so painful, so bloody, so mysterious… but I cannot be sure because we didn’t have any idea of very, very early detection of pregnancy… but I know it was different. I know Audrey’s 2 Babes and Aimee’s Babe and maybe my own Babe are with us as much as I know I am writing this tonight. And I know your Babe will never be a “hardly” because you love this Babe for eternity… where he or she waits as a Baby Angel… xo
Sharon – MomGenerations.com recently posted…Fashion Report: Recap of Fashion Forward Conference 2013 #FashForward
As always beautifully written, I could feel your pain, your fears, your dreams. Reading this brought up memories I had not thought about in at least a year. 7 years ago we this week we were about to start our last cycle of treatments to hopefully start a family, after 2 years of trying this was it, now or never. I pushed my body to the extreme, pumped myself up with fertility injections, hormone injections, put my own life in danger all for a baby to call ours. At one point we were told we were running a huge risk of carrying a high multiple pregnancy because of what the drugs did, they produced so many eggs but even then I was ok with that. But still no certainty I would get pregnant. We often joke that my husband wasn’t even in the room when we technically conceived, he was in the waiting room.
We went through the next two weeks waiting, looking for any sign. Our Dr had told me not to take any tests at home because of the possibility of a false positive, but I couldn’t resist so on October 17, 2006 I did exactly what he said not to do and peed on the stick. It was positive, the results I waited 2 years for, the lines I wanted to see. After confirming with a blood test we were ecstatic, and also obviously scared at the prospect of having a high multiple pregnancy. A few weeks later I began bleeding, and after a series of ultrasounds and blood tests we were told the news we feared, we were losing our baby. The baby we fought so hard for, the baby we wanted. I’ll never forget that weekend, for as long as I live. I’ll also never forget the tears of joy I shed when I went in for yet another ultrasound 72 hours later and there was Hunter’s heartbeat. The Dr told me the reason for the sharp decrease of my HcG levels was that I was most likely carrying more than one baby and that I was now only carrying one. There is no way of ever knowing for sure, except that my body knew, my heart knew, I knew that I was carrying more than one child, from the beginning I knew. And sometimes I still find myself wondering, wondering whether or not Hunter had a buddy for even just a short time….
That weekend we thought we were losing him, I remember being pissed off at the world, being pissed off that this was our last chance, being pissed because so many people were pregnant and I wasn’t. I will always hold that little piece of our story in my heart…..
Pregnant is pregnant, no matter how far along. And the pain is real. I have never experienced the pain first hand, but I have through friends, through family. No matter how long it was, those babies conceived made anyone who carried them a mother. And we know what it is like to see our children hurt, to feel a mother’s pain. Beautifully written Chelley. As always. xo
melissa at marching to a different beat recently posted…Stream of Consciousness Sunday: The power of 2