How it is You don’t know what’s just happened, all you know is the bottom just fell out of your world. A trapdoor opened and you fell. If you’re blessed, people rush to comfort and support you, for the first couple of weeks. If you aren’t so fortunate, you are left totally alone, as people ‘give you space’. You get some sympathy cards, most of which were clearly written for the loss of an ancient aunt, not a tiny baby that didn’t even start its journey through life. You continue to get baby updates from online companies, you once excitedly signed up for. And discount coupons start hitting your doorstep, for nappies, you now won’t need. For months and months and months they will relentlessly arrive. Even if you hit unsubscribe on these sites, they often refuse to believe you may not want to hear how old your baby would be today, so continue to send them anyway. You secretly weep when you see pregnant women, as it’s a reminder of what you no longer have. However If you envy that woman, it’s always tinged with guilt, as you are acutely aware that she might be one of the one in four- expecting a baby following loss. It seems like the whole world is expecting a baby……apart from you! You have baby stuff hidden around your home. As you had believed, you had hoped, you had prayed that all would be ok - You never imagined you wouldn’t need it. You feel lost. At the shops. At parties. At the dinner table. At Christmas. Driving. At work. The baby you never got to see grow, has now changed every part of your life. Every single part. Forever. You see baby clothes, prams, Moses baskets, and they bring tears to your eyes. You get sick and tired of crying. You never knew it was possible to cry this much, surely one day the tears will dry up. You find yourself angry at everything and everyone. Angry at yourself. Angry at God, Angry at the world - Just darn angry. You swear you can feel your baby kick, but that’s not possible, they’re gone. They call them phantom kicks. I call them agony, all kinds of terrible. But comforting too, that you body hasn’t forgotten your baby, your child. You can imagine what your child would have looked like, and been like. You see a child in a magazine and you question would my baby have had that hair colour, those dimples, that sweet smile, and suddenly, you miss your child even more, if that’s even possible. Then one day you suddenly laugh, or smile at something that just happened, and the guilt swallows you up – you panic that this will mean something thinks you have forgotten your baby, your child and life has now moved on. So the smile disappears and the tears return. You remember all the painful details like its yesterday. The look on the sonographers face when they saw what they didn’t expect to see. The expression on your midwifes face, when she was explaining what was going to happen next. The feeling of raw primal pain, like your chest has literally been ripped open. Time goes on and you manage to convince yourself that you deserve happiness. Because you really do. But in the happiest, purest moment, there is still that hole that only can be filled by your baby, your child. People try to de-value your pain to make themselves feel better, ‘well it’s not as bad as this or that’. All this comparison makes you feel more lost, and more alone, as if they truly don’t get how the loss of a baby, a child is different to any other loss or situation, you know you will never be able to explain it to them, and they will never truly be able to empathise with your story, your journey. Babies are not supposed to die. End of story. reposted from Hazel Anderson
Posted on: Sun, 04 Aug 2013 00:29:05 +0000
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