Welcome to the club. No one wants to be here. No one ever longs to join. It will make you sick to your stomach. You will spend months in a fog. You’ll wish you never knew. But the choice was never yours.
Loss Mamas
You’ve heard the words:
I’m so sorry, there’s no heartbeat.
I’m sorry there’s nothing more we can do.
I’m so sorry.
Your life is forever changed.
Your foundations tremble.
Your innocence is lost.
You’ve planned a funeral for a child you never met, one you barely knew.
You know the horror of a room full of tiny coffins and horrible tiny urns.
You have cried for days at a time. You have seen the darkest darkness. Your arms ache. You’ve been told “I can’t imagine” but you didn’t have a choice. You’ve been told you’re too sad or not sad enough. You’ve stared at the 150 photos you took that day, but they’re never enough–you should have taken 100 more. Maybe you never even got pictures. You’ve been paralyzed by days on the calendar, days you used to count down to. You have screamed, cried, begged.
You’ve been told you haven’t made enough progress, even though it’s only been six weeks. You sat numbly, knowing your organs hadn’t even fully moved back in place yet. You’ve gasped for breath. You’ve lost sleep. So many sleepless nights. Your milk may come in. Your hormones will spike and fall leaving you feeling insane. Fantom kicks–they’re real, and awful–a reminder of what isn’t.
You’ve questioned every decision you’ve ever made, every action taken. Was it that bath? The coffee? That stumble? Did I not eat enough? Did I pick up my kids too much? Was it the sushi? The froyo?
I’m so sorry.
I’m sorry.
I can’t find a heartbeat.
I’m so sorry.
There’s nothing we can do.
I’m so sorry.
It echoes through your head on an endless loop. I’m so sorry. The sights, the smells, the hollow of that day never leaves. You feel the texture of the paper under your bottom, hear it crinkle as you curl up and sob. You’ll never forget the slime from the ultrasound gel. The black and white image on the screen seared into your mind.
There will be days you feel need to be celebrated, even if you don’t know how. There are days that will hurt more than others. You will feel weird for wanting to remember, pain for wishing you could forget. Remember this, your process is yours and yours alone. Don’t compare your progress, your pain, your timeline. If you need to throw their first birthday party, do it. If you need to over-schedule that day, just so you can make it through, do it. If you need to join all the loss support groups, do it. If you need to walk the remembrance walk, do it. If you can’t stomach the thought, don’t.
You will feel like your life is over. And it may be for a while. But time will pass. The grief & loss will morph, you will never forget. But one day you will find a smile. One day you will see a little light. It may come slowly or it may sweep you up by surprise. You may be crying right now, shaking your head telling me I’m a liar. I did. But you will take it one step at a time. And some days you’ll feel you’ve made so much progress. Other days you will feel the ground break beneath you, you’ll look around and realize you’re right back where you started. You will find other loss mamas. You will cry together. You will know, they know. You will wish they didn’t.
You’re in the club, you wish you weren’t and I wish you weren’t either. But I will lift you up in every way possible.
