Smack dab in the middle of the awkward days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve where no one really knows what day it is, I unexpectedly delivered our neonatal baby boy, at 24 weeks gestation. With just 48 minutes of life together in the wee hours of the morning, my husband and I wept through every second that we had with our sweet boy. In the immediate, my physical body was handling the birth trauma and physical recovery with a lot more strength than I knew I had. But in the coming days, as the shock wore off and the messages of sympathy slowed down, the emotional grief, abrupt physical changes, and a drastic hormone shift flooded in like ocean waves during a hurricane. I didn’t know where delivery pain stopped and grief started. It was all interwoven and every bit debilitating.
My milk came in on New Year’s Day and I laid in bed all morning with a fever and a broken heart while my one year old played with her Christmas toys downstairs with her dad. Would Christmas be ruined forever now? How would we keep going for our first born when our hearts were so crushed? How would I go on knowing that my milk was here and my baby wasn’t? These were the heart wrenching questions I asked myself as I laid in bed trying to suppress the milk from coming in. Tears flooded my eyes as I thought about all the trauma I had overcome when I birthed my first child and all I had learned about being a mom: how to fold the little onesies to fit just right in the dresser drawers, when to expect various milestones, how to provide nutrition to my baby through breastfeeding and so much more. And I was ready to do the same for our little boy. The loss was so much greater than the grief of a precious person; we were also grieving all we were anticipating life with him as a part of our family to look like. Now all I had was a physical reminder just days after his passing, that my body was still being his mom, even if he wasn’t here to experience it. I had never quite known how intertwined a mother’s physical and emotional wellbeing truly were until I needed to grieve his loss in both ways.
Almost two years later, the details of our story still feel so raw. The photo of my baby boy on our dresser is still the last thing I look at every night before going to bed. Time has a way of helping us to keep going and to look for joy in the blessings that we have. And yet in these quiet moments of reflection I still feel like there’s an empty space in my heart and in our home where our boy would be. And I think that’s okay. We loved him deeply and so we miss him in the same way.
Through my own pain, I am reminded that every mother has her own story. Every journey is different and more often than not, there’s a hurting woman beneath the mother that’s putting one foot in front of the other. She is a woman who has her own story and is likely going through more than she is showing on the outside.
So, whether you’re navigating the waves of loss, walking a tough season, or supporting a mom who is, the grief of the loss of a child is an unfathomable journey; a journey that we are very much still processing ourselves. We still have a lot of questions and pain, despite our commitment to walk the hard road well, so that we can be healthy people for ourselves, each other, and our living children. Having a baby is a huge transition for the whole family, and losing one is also. As we all processed in different ways, I learned that we didn’t owe anyone an explanation for how we were processing our pain within our own home, even if that meant we were late for a commitment, or it looked like I was crying, or my husband was extra quiet, or my daughter’s behaviour was off and we were extra sensitive to it. Grief is a lot to navigate, and we try to do only what we need to get through the moment that it hits, even now.
North American culture prioritizes privacy but in the moments of deep trauma and loss, I wanted the help of our community and friends, and I didn’t know how to ask for it. Friends dropped off thoughtful meals but few wanted to come in and grieve with us. It took us a long time to let go of the offense that was intended to be a blessing, and to just say what we needed when we really needed it to the people who felt safest to do so with.
So if you’re navigating pregnancy or infant loss, I am so sorry. Nothing that anyone can say will bring you the peace and healing you deserve to feel from the trauma you’ve been through, but I hope these words can be an encouragement to you that you are not alone. And in time, the heaviness of missing your little one will get even just a tiny little bit lighter to carry with you as you keep walking through life.
Written by: Amelia, mother