While reading other blogs about pregnancy loss, I’m reminded that this type of tragedy often leaves us feeling isolated in our grief.   It is not a grief that is easily understood unless you’ve experienced it yourself. And I know that I could have never imagined that a journey like this would take me to such dark places. And I know I was not able to say the helpful words or offer the support needed to anyone else in this situation until I lived through my own terrible miscarriages. While in this space of grief, I go through the day facing people at work and in my life like it is just another day. And I smile and look normal. But on the inside, it just hurts so badly and only certain people know it’s there. And keeping it there for so very long is just plain exhausting. This has a lot to do with why I started writing. This blog is my grief that just sits and waits on the inside. The grief that nobody sees as they just walk on by. My words are the window that I’m opening for you to see my story. Are you brave enough to look inside?

While time heals grief and loss, there is something so different about losing a baby, no matter how early in pregnancy. There are just too many things to grieve. It is not just the beating heart inside of me that I fell in love with that is no longer there. It is every thought that entered my mind while pregnant that showed me a picture of that baby growing up. That showed me the sound of what it would be like to say their name or hear them giggle. A million beautiful, exciting, hopeful thoughts enter my heart and my mind and I think that maybe this time, I will be lucky. That this time I can experience the joy of pregnancy, instead of the fear of it being taken away. The grief is so raw and confusing when these lovely thoughts are so abruptly and shockingly halted and stripped away so violently and unfairly. And then there is another reason to grieve…that thought that never goes away…What if this is one step closer to me never having a baby? That is the fear that is sitting with me now.

Sometimes I can tuck the grief safely away and enjoy the present and everything else that my life is about. I will certainly not give up on happiness. Having a baby is not all life has to offer. But sometimes it is all consuming and overwhelming and while in this space, I just need to feel it. I need to let it be what it has to be until I can find my own way out of that darkness.

I have to give the sun a chance to shine through my window until the smile you see on my face is a real smile and what you see on the inside shines back again.

Photo by CJE – Paris