So many things out in the world are there just to help Baby Loss Moms. I’m always amazed by the talent and love that so many mothers put into their art. Some highlights
I know this week is bittersweet for many of us. You’re here because at least one of your sweet babies didn’t make it into your arms.
Mother’s Day is forever a mixed blessing for me. My first one, just two weeks after losing Casey at 20 weeks gestation, was so terrible I have blotted it from my memory. And even now, 14 years later, I still feel the pull of emotions in both directions as I think of the babies I lost (Casey, Daniel, Emma) and the ones that I got to keep (Emily, Elizabeth), and now, the one we’re trying for (our friends call him Thor even though he doesn’t exist yet…)
I want each of you to remember that whether that baby is in your belly, in your arms, or in the sky—you’re still a mother. It doesn’t matter who recognizes it or who doesn’t—your baby most certainly does.
I’m kicking off a week of give aways! You can comment here or on the Facebook page for chances to win! Feel free to comment both places—I’ll be giving away items both here and at A Place for Our Angels.
The first give away is a new book of poetry about infertility, pregnancy, and loss that came out just a few weeks ago by Nicole Breit, called “I Can Make Life.” This collection was a finalist in the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize this year.
Check it out below, or if that’s too small on your browser, click through to check it out bigger here!
All the mothers who win any of the give aways over the next few days will be notified on Mother’s Day this Sunday (if I remember! If not, on Monday.)
One of the hard things about losing a baby that no one else felt, or saw, or touched is that everyone wants you to get over it quickly. They don’t have the same emotional investment. Pregnancy, with its sleepiness and dream-like quality, encourages the visions of the baby to come, the moments ahead. It’s how you get through the hard stuff—throwing up, bone-tiredness, caution and fear. So we’re wired to already see and experience this baby well beyond the sensations in our belly.
In her book Virgin Blue (which has lots of miscarriage and pregnancy trauma within it), author Tracy Chavalier’s characters, both midwives, talk about how the pregnant mother is always ”listening” inside her. She’s distracted, taken out of the outside world, and focused on what is happening within.
It really doesn’t matter when the conversation stops, the day after the positive pregnancy test or during the birth, when some tragedy takes the baby during its final journey to the outside. It’s still a cutting off, a silencing of a relationship that had become the focus of your life.
Fourteen years ago today, I didn’t realize my connection had been cut. I suspected—but then every pregnant mother seems to always have some fear—but until the Doppler was silent, until the doctor was rushed in and the sonogram machine powered up, until he moved and moved and moved the paddle, trying to find an elusive heartbeat for a 20-week baby who should have filled the screen with movement and sound, but didn’t. Until I had proof; I hadn’t known.
April 28 taught me how to listen, how to hear, how to know when the conversation ceased. My next two losses were no surprise. I had learned the difference between the hum that reverberates between a mother and an unborn child and the silence that means the child is gone.
And this year, at 42, I am getting married again and, next month, taking that journey one more time. I don’t even know if the conversation will start. I may not be able to get pregnant at all. The chromosomes in my eggs may be too sticky to divide properly and get the baby on its journey. But I will listen, and I will hear. And whatever conversation I might get, however many days or weeks or months I may get to feel that hum, I will take them.
One thing I’ve learned in 14 years—I am not afraid. I hope, for all of you, who may be finding this page for the first time or the fourth, that you find that courage too.
UPDATE: The three Olsen angels won the movie credit!
Over at A Place for Our Angels: Memorials for Miscarriage and Stillbirth Babies, we’re having a HUGE Mother’s Day contest. We’ve already given away several books to moms on the page.
At midnight on Friday, May 13, we’ll be giving away something extra special. We’ll donate $100 to the movie Peekaboo in your baby’s honor to get the baby’s name in the Thank You credits. You will also get a DVD copy of the movie when it comes out.
Peekaboo is a movie about a mother who loses her stillborn triplets. Read more about them in the post below.
To enter the contest, go to A Place for Our Angels and post a PICTURE of anything that reminds you of your baby (bear, jewelry, sonogram, photographs) between now and 10 P.M. Central Time on Sunday. Don’t forget to tell us his or her name!
Find a picture and click on the image below to go!
Mother’s Day is a really tough day for a lot of people. I blog about the holidays all the time (read some here).
I know many of you this year were expecting a baby, but tragedy struck, and this Mother’s Day will be spent in grief rather than celebration.
Other Moms will be celebrating with their children, but lost their own moms or grandmothers this last year, making this the first Mother’s Day without them. I lost two grandmothers last fall myself.
I’m asking everyone I know to reach out fellow grieving moms on Mother’s Day in a very simple way.
I have designed several digital cards that recognize that Mother’s Day often comes with mixed feelings. These cards emphasize peace and love for those who may not feel joyous on the holiday this year.
So choose the one that you think fits that person in your life who may be having a bittersweet Mother’s Day. Then right click to Save As and email it this weekend.
Feel free to upload them to Facebook if that’s where your friends are.
They are also already uploaded on Facebook if you just want to use the “share” feature. Find them on one of these pages
My Personal Facebook Page (You don’t have to be my “friend” to see them, but feel free to friend me!)
And bloggers, feel free to post them in your own blog posts to help them spread. They are free to use for personal use.
Even if you aren’t close to some of your Facebook friends, take note if you saw things happening to them this year. Do something. Remember. Reach out. It’s amazing what a difference such a simple thing can make.
At this site you will find information and a place to come in your dark and frightened hours. The special features of the site are listed in the next column, as well as topics ranging from causes of miscarriage, to prevention, to when to try again for a new pregnancy.
A Reminder:
The only person who can really tell you what is happening to you is your own doctor, who peers into you with a light and a speculum, who samples your blood or urine, or who presses a sonogram paddle into your belly. If you are in trouble, bleeding, scared, or more depressed than you think you can handle on your own, you must find help. Read and research all you can, but remember that the one-on-one assistance of a real doctor is the only thing that will give you answers that count. If you don't like or trust your doctor, then find one you can.
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Cradle, Broken Heart
