Four Year Anniversary

Four fricking years. My god.

I remember him. His loss colors so much of my world. I'm so happy where I'm at now, but I often wonder - would I be even happier? Is it possible to miss him more than anything and wish it hadn't happened, since if it hadn't, chance are I wouldn't have my two rainbow girls? I wouldn't take them back for the world, but I would also give the world to have him back. I just want all three of my babies together. I want the girls to have their big brother. I want to have my little boy. 

It's not a fresh pain. It's not an open wound. It's a rarely seen scar. It's a lingering thought, a shadow out of the corner of my eye, an unexpected reminder when I least expect it. 

Sometimes I find it so hard to believe that this happened to me and that it's my life that played out in the pages of this blog; that it's me who has a little wooden box in the closet that contains all of a life not lived. 

That's all. 

How Do I Lose Thee?

I just read a fantastic piece over at "Hang Your Hopes from Trees." Even after two rainbow babies, it still resonates.

Just a snippet is below - I highly recommend going over for the full post.

How Do I Lose Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

"When we ‘lose the baby’, what do we really lose?

We lose hope. Hope for the future, for a child in our arms.

We lose plans. Plans for a life, for a family, for happiness.

We lose faith. As our bodies seems to fail us, we lose the most faith in ourselves.

We lose security. We lose a sense of trust that things will be okay. That blissful ignorance that it won’t happen to me. We lose innocence. What happens if we try again? We risk losing a connection, a happiness, excitement. We risk losing all these things we deserve..."

(source: http://hangyourhopesfromtrees.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/how-do-i-lose-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/)

Just Those Few Weeks

I can't remember where I first came across this poem, but it's so beautifully reflective of everything that is felt after a loss - even for a very early loss. 

______________________________________

For just those few weeks
I had you to myself.
And that seems too short a time
to be changed so profoundly.
In those few weeks,
I came to know you...
and to love you.
You came to trust me with your life.
Oh what a life I had planned for you!
Just those few weeks...
when I lost you,
I lost a lifetime of hopes,
plans, dreams and aspirations.
A slice of my future simply vanished overnight.
Just those few weeks...
It wasn't enough time to convince others
how special and important you were.
How odd, a truly unique person has recently died
and no one is mourning the passing. (But me.)
Just a mere few weeks...
And no "normal" person would cry all night
Over a tiny unfinished baby,
No one would, so why am I?? (You would too.)
You were just those few weeks, my little one.
You darted in and out of my life too quickly.
But it seems that's all the time you needed
to make my life richer
and to give me a small glimpse of eternity.
~S. Erling

Can you see us? (A Poem)

A very dear and very brilliant woman I know lost her little boy at around the same gestational age as I lost Caleb. She wrote an incredible poem about it that brought memories just flooding back, and I wanted to share it (with her permission) with anyone reading this.

Can you see us?
(link to original post)
By Vanessa at Navigating Through Silence

Can you see me
Curled up in a fetal position
Sobbing
uncontrollable guttural cries
that come from so deep within
few of us know such crevices even exist.

When we saw you
When we spied on you
thanks to the technology that liberated and confined all of us
us - our family
We learned you loved that position

We watched you punch and kick
when the tech tried to unfurl you
from the fetal position
that you knew so well
but you refused
we called you stubborn, like your dad.

We saw you
But you never saw us.

Can you see us now?
See the people who made you from love
Who created the little you
and loved you from the moment
you presented yourself
as a mere hormone
via a pink line

We made you
and we love you
unconditionally.

Can you see our pain?
How we ache everyday that you are no longer here
that every where there are reminders of the you
even though you no longer exist
outside of your hearts, our minds,
our souls.

You were a piece of us.
The first true piece of us.
An amalgamation of your mother and father
our strengths
our weaknesses
our faults
our visions
And we couldn't wait to watch them transform
into you.

Can you hear us now?
I used to hear your heart beat.
Every morning and every night.
Your father could hear it.
But sometimes you preferred when it was just me.
Our special moment
my spying on you
You with little space to retreat.
It was truly the most beautiful sound
Such a strong sound,
the doctors said,
as they assured me you were right where you should be.

Could you hear us before you left?
Could you hear our voices?
If so I hope you heard our laughs
Our giggles
Our joy
The sound of my heartbeat,
did it lull you to sleep?
Would you recognize it,
if you heard it now?

If you can see us,
and you can hear us,
you hold a precious, precious gift,
and I wish it was through a two way lens
So that we could see you
and know
that you made it alright
That there's no pain anymore
That there's peace where are you are
and that you've come to call it home.

I feel so hollow without you.
But if you can see me,
and you can hear me,
I know that you can also feel me.

When you feel me
You know that without you
Such a vital piece of me is gone.
Which is why you hear the guttural sobs
and see the constant embraces between your father and I
that leave me weak in the knees
is because I can no longer feel you.

The next time you look at us,
The next time you touch us,
I hope to feel the warmth of your little hands radiate from within
telling me
that you will always
see us
hear us
and fill me with your warmth.

Three Years

Three years on, it doesn't hurt as much - it even takes me a moment to realize what day it is. Three years on, that makes me feel like a terrible mother.  Three years on, it feels like a dream and I have to read my own words to remember everything. Three years on, that makes me feel like a terrible mother. Three years on, I still have random moments of sadness, when I see a little boy that is the age Caleb should be, or when I see a cute outfit for a baby boy (though he'd be long out of baby clothes by now). Three years on, that reassures me that I haven't forgotten him and haven't moved on without him - but that life did go on...no matter how much I didn't want it to three years ago.

Two Years

I keep thinking this is the one year anniversary, but no, sure enough, two years have gone by. It doesn't matter; I can remember it all with the slightest provocation.  I wonder what you would have been doing now. Two years old. A toddler, for sure. Dark hair like mine? Light like your dad? Brown eyes? Blue? It pains me that I'll never know. You'd be talking a mile a minute, I'm sure. Running. Playing. A sturdy little toddler boy. A sweet kid, no question.

I wish with all my heart this would have had a different outcome.

Love you, little one.

Remembering

I was just reading a post on the blog written by one of my (too many) loss buddies. She, too, lost a son and now has a beautiful daughter at home.  Her second pregnancy was a much more difficult journey than mine, but reading her blog today about pPROM just brought memories flooding back.

It made me remember the bleeding, my water breaking (twice), the emergency room, the option to terminate the pregnancy given by one doctor, the tiny bit of hope by another, the optimism I felt at home (of course it would be okay!), the confidence I felt while doing research and doing every single thing right during those days of bedrest, and then the horrible, horrible, horrible feeling of realizing I was going into labor.  I remember my family being around me when I started to feel off, I remember going to rest in my bedroom, I remember Chris checking on me, I remember hoping hoping hoping praying hoping it was just gas. I remember realizing that I could time the pains. And that we needed to go into the hospital. And being on the maternity ward with my comparatively small belly. And god, just everything from that awful night. It was awful. I was lucky that he was born alive and I got to "meet" him, but that doesn't mitigate the fact that I have those terrible memories burned into my mind.  I left the hospital less than 24 hours later, with Chris but alone. I still have some flowers that people sent that I dried. A couple plants sit in my kitchen. A box crammed full of cards and 20 weeks of memories sits in my basement. A music box engraved with his name is in Carys's room.  Baby boys still make my heart hurt.

I was feeling terribly guilty about that; that I still hurt at announcements that people are having boys. Carys is my world. I wouldn't trade her for anything. But that doesn't mean that I stopped wondering what could have been or about the little boy who would have been her big brother.

One Year

It's frankly impossible to believe that one year ago today I delivered Caleb. Impossible in every way - how did I survive a full year after my baby died? How has it been that long? How hasn't it already been a lifetime?

Happy birthday, tiny man. I miss you.

Blame Game

Last year, on April 5, I was 18 weeks and 3 days pregnant.  Late that night, I felt a sensation like a water balloon popping and a gush of blood. I was sure my water had broken. First thing in the morning, I went to the midwife's office. The baby's heart was beating away, loud and clear.  She gave me a fern test, which tests for amniotic fluid. It came back negative. My big anatomy ultrasound was scheduled for 20 weeks exactly; she decided to move it up a week - three days from then.

Two days later, my water broke for sure. This time it was clear, and I immediately went to the ER.

Five days after that, Caleb was born.

I'd had very minor spotting at the beginning of the pregnancy, but around 15 or 16 weeks it picked up, and there was bleeding to some degree nearly every day.  I learned later that bleeding like that can be a very typical symptom of cervical changes. I also learned later that the fern test isn't accurate when accompanied by blood and the blood can obscure the amniotic fluid, giving a false negative.

I question everything.  I blame myself, but I trusted my caregivers. I thought they would take care of me and my baby.

Why didn't the midwife tell me, after I'd gone in several times for bleeding, that I wasn't a candidate for midwifery care anymore?  Why didn't I get an ultrasound to look for the source of that bleeding? Why didn't she know that the presence of blood could give a false negative on a ferning test? Why didn't she order an ultrasound immediately upon my coming in with the concern that my water had broken?  In retrospect, waiting three days was completely insane. But I trusted her when she said everything was okay.  Why didn't she consult with one of the doctors at that point?  The midwife practice I was seeing was in a hospital, and shared office space, staff, and the L&D area with both the regular OBs and the high-risk doctors. Why didn't I insist on a second opinion??

I'm convinced that my water broke that first time, and that it broke a second time two days later (the bag can reseal, temporarily or permanently, after breaking). 

If I'd gotten an ultrasound at 15 weeks when I started bleeding, would they have discovered that my cervix was shortening?  Would I have gotten a cerclage at that point? Would that have saved Caleb?

If she'd used ultrasound to check on my fluid levels instead of using a ferning test, would she have discovered that my water had broken 48 hours before it broke "for real"? Would I have been admitted to the hospital at that point, given antibiotics earlier, gone on bedrest earlier?  Would the bag of waters resealed and stayed resealed?  Would that have saved Caleb?

We'll never know if different care would have changed the outcome.  Maybe it would have been the same and he would have died no matter what we did.  But maybe he would have had a chance if I'd been more knowledgeable; if she'd have been more aggressive.

I still believe in the standard of care that most midwives provide for low-risk, uncomplicated pregnancies and births.  I do believe that when I started bleeding at 15 weeks, the midwife should have bowed out of my care.  I do believe that when I was sure my water broke at 18 weeks, she should have bowed out of my care.  I don't blame midwives in general.  I'm not even sure I blame her specifically. I should have spoken up. I should have insisted on an ultrasound. I should have asked for a second opinion. I didn't.  At the least, we share blame. At the most, as his mother, the blame falls on me for not protecting him.

The what-ifs in do nothing but frustrate and sadden me, so I try not to think about them too much.

But please. Be an advocate for yourself and your baby. If something doesn't feel right or you don't feel like the care you are receiving is enough, speak up. Your baby's life may depend on it.

Life is like a Blackboard

I was reading one of the many, many baby loss blogs I follow, Awful But Functioning. In a recent post she mentioned that several years ago, she'd written a post about political candidates that had lost children. And Elizabeth Edwards responded with a very, very beautiful analogy that was so eloquent and TRUE that I wanted to share it here. Even though it's three years old I just saw it for the first time.


I have often described the death of a child in this way: in life we have a blackboard on which we write all the things we are doing -- our jobs, coaching soccer, working at Goodwill, going to basketball games, whatever. And the board is full, so when the next thing comes along, we find a corner or the board to add a computer class or a space between other things for book club or sewing Halloween costumes. It is full and lively and seemingly all important.

And then your child dies, and all the things that were so important that you worked to squeeze them in? Well, they are all erased. And you are left with an empty blackboard. Everything you thought was important was not. And the next time you write something on the board, you are very, very careful about what it is. Your choices about what to do and how to do it are so much more deliberate. Doing something that is so patently important as public service -- whatever your politics -- well, that seems like an easy call. That is worth some of the space. And putting something on the board, well, it allows you -- in your words -- to function another day. And each day that you find something else worthy of the board makes it a little easier to put one foot in front of the other. And each day you functioned the day before makes it easier to function again. Are there still bad moments, even bad days nearly twelve years later? Sadly, there are. But they are not as frequent and they don't happen in that same emptiness you feel today. Now when they happen, we can turn to something that we have written, something worthy of our time, of his parents' time and we can function through that pain. As you will -- not without [your child], but with [your child]* not as a living, breathing daughter [or son] but as an inspiration and a helper to decide what is worthy of your blackboard. 

How beautiful and so spot on is that?

*Tash, I hope you don't mind that I changed this...I wasn't sure if you'd want your daughter's name out on someone else's blog, and I thought it was such a beautiful sentiment that I wanted anyone to be able to see their child's name there. Let me know if it's not ok!

Please

Sometimes I am overwhelmed with fear that this will happen again.  I think anyone who has suffered miscarriage or pregnancy loss or infant loss goes through the same emotions. It's occasionally enough to make me not want to try again. To just give up.  But what if? What if it doesn't happen again? And what if I missed out on beautiful, wonderful children because I was scared?

But.

But what if it does? Would I be okay? Would Chris be okay? What would we do? My heart shattered on April 12 and it doesn't quite fit back together the way it did before. If it broke into a million pieces again, would I be able to put the shards back together this time?

Does that thought ever go away? I hate that I can't take comfort in the things most women do.  I just want to be naive again. I heard the heartbeat. I made it into the second trimester. I was days away from being halfway through the pregnancy. If I get pregnant again, will there come a day when I'm able to relax and consider the possibility of bringing an actual baby home with me, and not just a box of memories?  At this point I can't imagine it.

The Ship

I am standing upon the seashore.

A ship at my side spreads her white sails in the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, "There she goes!”
Gone where? Gone from my sight…that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There she goes!,” there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”

- Henry Jackson van Dyke (1852-1933)

They just don't understand.

Note: This is a post that I wrote but never published back in May, just a few weeks after Caleb was born. I'm not sure why I never published it. I'm sharing it now because I know it contains thoughts universal to those who have experienced similar losses.


I know a lot of people don't understand. They don't understand why I'm grieving at all, much less why I'm still grieving. It's not like I lost a "real" baby, you know? But I did. I lost a real baby, a real baby who I held and named. Yes, I was only pregnant for five months. I don't even know what color my baby's eyes were. Once he was born, I was only with him for a few hours - alive for far less than that. If you've never been pregnant, you might not ever understand what it's like to lose your baby like I did. You must think I'm insane to let five months affect me like this. But if you have had a baby, perhaps you can imagine. You must remember how excited you were. How you loved that baby - the idea of that baby, if nothing else - since you peed on the stick. How comfortable you were after that 12 week mark passed.  How you fell hard for that little baby doing flips at your NT scan. How all of your future hopes and dreams centered on the little baby you planned on bringing home.  The baby was literally a part of every decision you made - what you ate, what you were going to do today, what you were going to do in a week, month, year, ten years. By 20 weeks, you'd made some concrete plans. I was in love, utterly and completely in love with Caleb before I even knew who he was. I was in love with the idea of him, of my hopes for him, of my dreams for us. Once he was born, I feel in love with him - concretely in love with HIM, the tiny little baby I held in my hands, and not the vague future I'd imagined. You loved your baby beyond words the first time you saw him, didn't you? I did too.

I didn't just lose my son. I lost all those hopes and dreams and imagined futures.

I didn't just lose all those hopes and dreams and imagined futures. I lost my son.

National Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day

I'm sure every single person who reads this blog is already aware, but today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.  Please visit IAmTheFace.org to donate, upload a picture of yourself, and show support.  They are trying to get 2,000 pictures from 2,000 women who have experienced loss in order to represent the number of women and families who lose a pregnancy or infant every day. Every day. Can you imagine?

Sunday my parents and grandma and I went to a memorial service that the hospital holds each year for all the lost babies and children. Tuesday marked six months from Caleb's birth and death. Today is this important day, and in honor of Caleb, I'll be going to the hospital to donate some outfits for babies born too tiny - they had nothing that would fit Caleb except a hat.  I'll also be going to a candlelight vigil and balloon release tonight (anyone in Omaha: Heartland of America Park at 7pm!) to remember Caleb...

and Adrian
Aidan H.
Aidan
Aurora
Avery
Avery and Alexander
Babies Holmes
Brody, Logan, and Wyatt
Christian
Ella
Evel
Evelyn
Isla
Jacob
Jillian
Joel
Jonah and Noah
Liam
Maddie
Nolan
Oliver
Olivia H.
Olivia
Peyton
Reid
Ryan
Sawyer
Sophia
Stevie
Sylvia
Valentina


and all the names I can't list here (if I missed your child, post in the comments and I'll add!), and all the babies that were gone to early to have names.

To all of them, I remember.  You can remember by lighting a candle in honor of today at 7pm to take part in the Wave of Light.

Emotions

I don't know why, but this week has been really hard. I made it past Caleb's due date, and it was hard, but I survived. A couple weeks later our good friends had their baby girl, and I'm just thrilled for them. Insanely jealous, of course, but I think that's to be expected. I love seeing pictures of her.

But for some reason, I've just been really emotional and sad this week. I don't know exactly why. I know I'm disappointed that I'm not pregnant yet. I know I'm sad that I don't have a newborn. I know I'm sad that I never got to complain about stretch marks or swollen ankles. I know I'm so frustrated that all these sixteen-year-old girls with no jobs and no insurance and no support keep getting pregnant. I know that I'm just so stressed and mad at work and every day that I'm there reminds me that I was going to quit after the baby was born and work from home on my own business, and take care of the baby. I know that I see babies and pregnant women everywhere and while it no longer sends a knife thought my heart, I still think about how unfair it is that it's a breeze for most women, but the women who seem to want it the most have to fight for it the hardest, and some of them never achieve it. I know that I got in a fight with Chris yesterday and started crying and couldn't stop and I'm crying now and I have to suck it up and stop because I need to leave for an engagement shoot in seven minutes.

My surgery is in just a few days, and I'm so excited. Not scared, yet. Talk to me again when they're coming at me with a scalpel and I might feel differently. But not yet. I'm excited, but I'm worried. For the vast majority of women who get the TAC placed pre-pregnancy, there's absolutely no impact on their ability to concieve. But for a very few number, it does seem to make it more difficult. I should be able to relax in comfort knowing that almost everyone is able to go on and have a baby with no problem, but once you're on the losing side of statistics, you never find numbers comforting again.

God, I just want to be pregnant. I just want a baby. Sigh.

Due date

Just trying to make it through today.

Crawl under a rock

Tomorrow is my 30th birthday. Friday is Caleb's due date. I'll never be able to forget his due date because it's so close to my birthday. I had it in my head that maybe I'd go into labor a few days early and we'd share a birthday. Or even better, he'd be born a few days early and I'd still be able to say I was 29 when I had him. I should be worrying about my mucus plug falling out or my water breaking in the middle of Target, not worrying about whether surgery is the right decision and whether I'll ever be lucky enough to be pregnant again. Can this week just please be over?

I miss him so fucking much.

Conflict resolution

Hmmm.

HMMMMM.

That's all I can really say. Once again, I'm super conflicted and left to sort out the pieces on my own. I said it in one of my other posts, but I'll say it again: I hate that the lives of future children depend on me making the right choice in treatment. This is why we GO to doctors! So they can tell us what to do! I want to blindly be pointed in the right direction, please.

I had the Maternal-Fetal Medicine appointment today and it was a mixed bag. On the plus side, he agreed that the loss could very likely be the result of an incompetent cervix.

On the down side, that's about all he agreed with.

He would place me on progesterone shots, though there's no evidence that they are helpful one way or another with 2nd trimester losses like mine - they're proven to help later in pregnancy, but studies haven't shown they are helpful at 20 weeks. But then, they haven't been shown to NOT be helpful either, so there's no reason not to use them.

Where we really derail is regarding the cerclages. He believes that a TAC - or any cerclage, even - is overkill. He wouldn't place a preventative vaginal cerclage at 12 weeks, but would place an emergency one if the bi-weekly* cervical scans showed funneling or shortening of the cervix. He listed the risks of TVCs as the main argument against using one unless absolutely necessary, such as risk of rupture, infection, the cervix rejecting the stitches, etc. When I brought up TACs, he repeated the conventional wisdom: that they are only used when TVCs fail. He also said if a TVC is overkill, a TAC is beyond overkill; that it's riskier to place a TAC; that you always have to deliver via C-Section (all of which I knew).

I asked if there was a chance that your cervix could go from "okay" to "Houston, we have a problem!" in the two weeks between checks, and he said it's possibly but not likely.

Dude, it wasn't likely that my water would break and I'd lose my son. NOT LIKELY means nothing to me at this point. When you're on the losing side of statistics, numbers are never comforting again. (Ahem...a bit of frustration apparently, there.) I asked if doing weekly checks during the timeframe when my water broke would help at all, and he said it wasn't necessary but if it would make me more comfortable, he'd have no problem doing it.

I wasn't processing very well at the time, so I missed questions that I now want to ask. Like: "If you think it's IC, I don't understand the 'wait and see' approach." Like: "I thought that placing emergency cerclages were riskier than placing preventative cerclages. Is that the case?" And: "If so, why wouldn't you just do a preventative one?" And: "Please can you just give me a magic pill to fix everything?"

So now, I have a consensus on the diagnosis but two very different treatment plans.

If it happens again, would I ever be able to forgive myself for not moving forward with a TAC? Really, that's all it boils down to.

But the idea of going "behind" my doctor's back and doing something he specifically said wasn't needed makes my heart race, like I'm cheating on a test and scared of getting caught. Only this time I'd have to tell the teacher I cheated. How do I even do that, anyway? "Hey, I'm pregnant..and I'd like to be seen by your high-risk group...and, um, I had a TAC placed, despite your recommendations." For a majority of doctors out there, having a TAC placed with just one loss is...I don't know, equivalent to having chemo started with one abnormal pap smear. I'm sure they'd think I was crazy...and probably that Dr. Haney is too. I know he's on a mission to eradicate the TVCs because of the risks associated with them - namely, that they fail up to 25% of the time, and in the 75% of cases where they work, you still end up with premature babies up to 40% of the time. And the skipping the TVC to go straight to the TAC - that's an out there proposition that few doctors prescribe to today. But I get it. I'm on board with it.

Don't get me wrong - I really, really like the doctor that I saw today. I have full confidence in him. If I hadn't talked to Dr. Haney, I'd be all over this treatment plan. But he doesn't have the stake in this that I do.

I suppose the next step is a third opinion. Sigh.



*One of those confusing words with multiple meanings. Here we're looking at every two weeks, although I'm not going to lie - I'd love twice weekly. Or even daily. Hourly, perhaps. Maybe I can just permanently hook an ultrasound machine up to me?

Why have this blog?

A blogger - who in all other regards I would generally agree with and probably get along with in person - recently devoted two posts to these "baby loss" blogs. She questioned why anyone would have one, why people feel the need to post pictures of their children who have passed away, and the general mental health of someone who keeps this type of blog. She believes it "cheapens" death and the emotions of grief and sadness, and is disrespectful to the dead. It obviously sent a ripple through our little close-knit community and hurt deeply many of the bloggers that I love. Because I know that these aren't uncommon thoughts, I wanted to share the response I posted to her blog (things I added afterward for clarification in brackets):

I just wanted to let you know another side, maybe. I lost my son at 20 weeks pregnant. I loved him for five months that I carried him, and for the 20 minutes he lived after he was born. Losing him is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. It absolutely broke my heart. I blog about it for many reasons, but mostly because it's cathartic for me to get my feelings down on paper (per se) and because it allows me to point friends and family to one place for updates on how I'm doing, rather than having to repeat it constantly. In five months of pregnancy, I grew attached to the little being I was feeling every day, and I had plans for the future of our family. So many plans. On top of the loss of an actual physical person, I'm mourning the loss of all my plans for the future.

I started my blog as a pregnancy blog, and after he died it turned into a loss blog. Hopefully if I become pregnant again in the future, it will be about that. While right now it certainly talks about my son a lot, it's a life blog...and right now, in this point of my life, I'm mourning him.

I know it bothers you, and I know it bothers other people, but the other "baby loss" blogs out there have helped me tremendously in the healing process. Knowing that I'm not the other one who has suffered this loss, knowing that the feelings I've felt are normal, knowing that missing my son is totally okay - that has helped me come to a good place. While obviously the subject is controversial, I also enjoy the pictures. It makes their children more real, and gives them substance. It lets me see other babies that passed away around the same time as my son, and validates my experience and my journey. Believe me, blogging has not hindered my healing or caused me to focus on my loss. It's been the complete opposite. If those blogs didn't exist, I'd probably be in a dark corner cradling his baby blanket and trying to feed it.

I have pictures of my son. I took them while he was alive, but it's likely that they would bother you or anyone else just as much as dead baby pictures do. People see a small, under developed baby...I see my son. I think he was beautiful and I'm proud of him, and I enjoy sharing his pictures when people ask to see them. No, I don't have any on my blog, but it's not because I don't want to post them. It's because I'm scared of the reactions of people who might stumble across them. No one should have to censor what they post on their personal blogs - your posts are great examples of that - and I hate that I'm scared shitless to share my pictures.

For many years, taking pictures and celebrating the dead was the norm. Death is and was an everyday occurrence. It's only been fairly recently that people have stopped talking about it and stopped being open about it. The community is trying to change that and to get rid of the stigma associated with dead babies. Yes, it's disconcerting and maybe even traumatic for people who haven't suffered losses to come across these types of blogs, but they are vital to our little community and essential for our healing - since death [particularly baby death] has become such a terrible, unnamed thing in our society, we have to find connections through things like these blogs. And it is terrible and unnamed - after my loss, six people who I've known my entire life came up to me and told me that they suffered similar losses....and I had no idea. These people all have carried an enormous amount of pain inside them for years (one was 80 and still cried on a regular basis because of a loss 60 years ago) because of that stigma - if it was a brother or parent that died, they wouldn't have thought twice about sharing their grief. And yes, these babies didn't life a full life, but we imagined a full life for them, and losing that hurts as much as anything else. Hopefully [because I've had the chance to be open about my loss], when I'm 80, instead of having this secret [grief], I'll remember my son and the small amount of time we had with happiness, and to everyone who knows me it will just be a part of me - not a good thing, certainly, but not a bad thing. I had a baby who died, I loved him, and that's just a part of my life.

Anyway. I would never expect you or most people to be comfortable with these blogs. But perhaps this will give you some small insight into the world of why they exist.

Book Club

Betsy mentioned in her latest blog post a book about baby loss that she read and enjoyed (linked below). I can't second her recommendation more; it was an amazing, powerful read. When I finished, I had a huge smile on my face and tears streaming down my cheeks. I was overjoyed at having found this book, heartbroken at her story (and mine), thrilled with the happy ending. While the details she wrote about are hers alone, in the overall story she could have been writing down the the music to a song from my own heart. And that song is one familiar to all DBMs. I started highlighting passages, but had to stop when I realized that on one page more was highlighted than was not. At one in the morning, the second I finished it, I emailed her to let her know how much it touched me and how perfect it was. I'm sure the email was completely nonsensical and full of grammatical and spelling mistakes, but I had to let her know how it touched me.

The book is called An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken. I can't recommend it enough. I wish I could buy a copy for everyone who has gone through this and I wish I could make everyone who doesn't understand what I'm going through read it.

Two other books that I also found comforting and enjoyed (well, as much as one can enjoy a book while they are in the throes of grief) are Naming the Child, by Jenny Schroedel and A Grief Observed, by C.S. Lewis (yep, that C.S. Lewis). Both great books. A little more religious, but I'm not a religious person at all and didn't find that aspect overwhelming with those books like I did some others. A Grief Observed is about the death of Lewis's wife, but his insights are universally applicable.

All three highly recommended, and all three are fairly quick, easy reads.

(C.S., Jenny, Elizabeth...I take kickbacks.)

(C.S. I know you're dead but you can send some winning lottery numbers my way and we'll call it good.)