To my pregnant friends who haven’t experienced loss,
I am so thankful you are on this journey. It’s a long and life-changing journey for you. I know you looked at me with worry as you told me your news. You probably thought: I hope what happened to her doesn’t to me. Believe me, dear friend, I hope this for you as well.
I am so happy for you and the new joy and life you are growing. I’m also silently counting how many other pregnant women I know and hoping that this one won’t be the 1 in 4 statistic of a loss. And for me – I hope this pregnancy after loss is a baby I will keep.
Related Post: Pregnancy After Loss is Complicated
You must look at my pregnant belly and think we can chat about all things pregnancy and baby. But know sometimes I feel like I’m just too scared to talk about being excited to breastfeed again, or the wonderful baby snuggles. I had to grieve the loss of this when it was cut so cruelly short for me.
With my second pregnancy, I hadn’t known loss.
I was still in the great place you are now, and I don’t want to burst this for you. I know what that carefree pregnancy felt like. Now that the glass is shattered talking about plans and the future is just something I can’t let myself get too excited about. My mantra is everything is ok at this moment. Thinking about the future makes me think – I will just laugh at myself later for trying to make plans.
Oh, how I miss the days where I would look in my closet and not think about how I wore that maternity dress to a funeral or I wore that one hiking when I would lose him just a few weeks later.
So often, I try not act like a crazy person when I tell you I’m anxious.
I know it’s normal for me to live with joy for one and mourning another. It’s just hard to explain when other moms only know joy.
I so wish that I could go back to when I believed in the power of birth and trusted it to all come out ok, that I wasn’t the mom friend you turned to when your friend suffered a loss. I wish I was referred to as my child’s mom at the playground. I wish I could just be called Logan’s mom instead of by my name.
I hope you never have to be this mom.
Cherish this time and please take time to remember your pregnancy with this little one. Get pictures of your belly, write down what foods you craved, what names you called your baby. They are the milestones and memories of your relationship that deserve to be cherished no matter how small the life is growing inside you right now.
Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash
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About the Author: My name is Sara DeVoto, and I’m a mother to four children. One living, two in heaven and one still growing inside me. Our loss journey began when our son suffered an umbilical cord accident during birth and died 15 hours later. Pregnancy now has a new and special time of joy and grief mixing together.
I have my own blog I share at https://www.facebook.com/
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