I’ve been sitting here for weeks trying to think of what I wanted to write about, putting all kinds of pressure on myself, wanting to write the “perfect” articles. I want to help as many people as I could, so I wrote this article full of fluff that came out more as a cold, generic how-to guide than anything else. It wasn’t honest, and it wasn’t me, so I scrapped that and now I’m doing this over. Here is my story. It’s not pretty or easy, but I want it to be known that that’s okay. I want to be more open and honest about my story than ever before, and that means being honest about every detail, not leaving something out because I’m scared.
I have had two miscarriages. They were 3½ months apart; we named the first baby Connor and the second one Melody. I’ve lost two nephews, one born still three weeks after my first miscarriage, the other passed away due to a fatal birth defect the day before my first OB appointment with my now three year old. It took us three years to have a successful pregnancy the first time, and we’re in year 3 of trying to have another one. I was diagnosed with PCOS in February, meaning I now have a medical cause of my infertility.
This is the first time I am publicly telling my story with my name and my picture attached, for all of the world and everyone I know to see. I have hidden this side of me, but not for the reasons one would typically assume. I hide this side because I know people who I think are grieving more, who have a harder story to tell. I personally know people who I feel have a harder story. My sister and brother-in-law, losing their boys the way they did, and always having that gap in their family alphabet. (They have every letter from A-H, but F and G are in heaven.) I felt like my losses aren’t as important as theirs. Not because of anything they have said or done (they have been quite the opposite, actually), but because of my lack of willingness to acknowledge my own loss. I “just” had miscarriages, I was “barely” pregnant. Because of this, I have discounted my own children, and my own heart. I lost my babies over 5 years ago, and I feel like I’m just now starting to understand myself post-loss.
I am so incredibly grateful that I have a husband that doesn’t always handle me with kid gloves. He is a very black and white person, and that (usually begrudgingly) helps me focus my perspective on my own life. He has been by my side, helping me realize that my babies mean just as much as everyone else’s. My babies mean the world to me, and when it comes down to it, that is all that matters. So what if there are hateful people in the world that will try to tear me down and tell me they don’t matter as much? Those are the people that don’t matter. Whenever I start feeling like I have to defend my loss, I turn to Horton (from When Horton Hears a Who): A person’s a person, no matter how small. My babies were specks when they were lost, no bigger than a peanut. I only knew of my Connor for 4 days before we lost him, and I found out about and lost my Melody in one phone call. But I love them just as much as my Preschooler, Sean. That’s why I have spent days and weeks and months and years crying over them. Size and time doesn’t matter. What matters is that I love them, and there’s nothing anyone can do to take that away from me.
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