To the Children We Hold in Our Hearts

Almost an entire year of trying to get pregnant and I couldn’t understand why we weren’t.  With all of our other children, I felt like all we had to do was look at each other and we were expecting.  Now, I had apps downloaded, calendars marked up, heck, I was checking horoscopes daily, and it seemed like it was never going to happen.  And then it did! We were just a few weeks pregnant, but our joy couldn’t be contained. We told the kids, and our family because we had never experienced a miscarriage…what were the chances something could go wrong???  But just a few weeks later the pain and bleeding started and I knew right away.

In your head, you know the statistics, you know that it’s truly not your fault, you know you probably shouldn’t have told anyone you were pregnant…but life isn’t about statistics, life is emotional and in this moment in our lives it was raw and painful. 

Explaining to a 6 year old who had started coloring and writing letters to their new baby sibling that the baby wasn’t ever going to come is not a conversation I knew how to deal with. Calling and telling family that we had lost the child and to stop planning vacation time to visit was hard, but the worst part was waking up everyday and trying to act like life was normal.  

There is no mourning for a miscarriage, everyone just has to suck it up and act like life is normal.  I heard the dreaded, at least you weren’t far along, you have other kids, it happens but none of this made me feel any better. We had started dreaming of this baby coming into our lives, we were picking out names and planning rooms (I know it’s a little crazy, but that’s my personality).  And to make matters worse with everything else going on in the world today, I couldn’t even surround myself with my tribe for hugs or support.

I think as women, we don’t know how much our friendships mean to one another until they are gone.  It’s not easy to reach out via FB or text and say I’m struggling because we are all struggling in some way right now.  The feeling of being selfish to share even more bad news was something that I couldn’t bring myself to do. So hardly anyone knew, I felt alone.  And then, one day, it does just get a little bit better.

I do realize that I have other children who depend on me and who need me to get out of bed and do things. I realize that I still have a future to plan and things to do, but I also realize that life is forever a little bit different.  No matter what, I had a baby. A baby who, in the 6 weeks I carried it, I loved unconditionally, and my outlook on life is maybe always going to be a little bit different. That doesn’t make me crazy, or anything else that, as women, we were taught to believe.  Our lives aren’t just a statistic; They are emotions and they are memories. And motherhood isn’t just about the children we can hold in our arms everyday, but sometimes it’s the children we can only hold in our hearts.