I caught a glimpse of my tattoo in the mirror the other day. The days move so quickly lately, sometimes I forget it’s there. Sometimes I miss the burning underneath my skin, how it felt when everything was new.
Your sister was offered a daycare slot and it brings up memories. People around me are having boys and it brings up memories.
The lead up is different this time. It’s quieter. I’m not sobbing. I sit here with your sister and most parts of the day I feel fine. It’s only in those random moments, those echoes of memory — and I still wish I could feel more of you.
A heavy, beautiful day today, and Peanut is officially laughing. Forever finding that balance in all of the feelings in life after loss.
I saw his body laid out on the concrete and all I could do was scream. He was 11 weeks old, barely seven pounds. I was convinced he was dying. And it was my fault. I couldn’t lose him too, not after everything else I had lost in my world.
I think somehow I felt like I would be healed now, like your birthday would be a healing event. Like I felt about that cruise. I will never be healed.
I miss those moments now, that time when I felt complete in my grief. Because now I yearn for community, and it’s missing.
The first night I left the house after Alexis* left, I was in a daze. I had walked these streets playing Pokemon Go not even that long ago. It felt like another lifetime.
I’ve been feeling funny all day. I can’t really put a name to it. Off-balance, yes, and a little bit sad. I’m still processing pieces of my last relationship.
They left me alone. After you were born and we had taken pictures and they checked all my vitals and everything was as okay as it was ever going to be, they all packed their things and went away.
29 June 2017: The day my son died – When she couldn’t find a heartbeat with the doppler, I think the idea started to form in my head, but I wasn’t quite ready…I remember the doctor’s face as he said the words, “I’m sorry.” My next memory is of someone screaming. It was me.
I have never struggled with the shape of my body; it’s just not something that has ever bothered me. But when my son died in my 41st week of pregnancy, I learned there were so many more components to the body image equation. I had a postpartum body and no living child.
Nobody tells you that stillbirth is a possibility. I still remember, even while screaming, that I was thinking about the three other women in that testing room, and how I must have been their shocking introduction to the fact that babies die.
People said some (mostly unintentionally) hurtful and insensitive things after the death of my child. This is what I wish I’d said in response.
When a Type A personality grieves, at some point grief becomes her job. She finds old focus and determination. She reads books and attacks her grief with her previous energy.
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