Loss

It doesn’t take much to send me hurtling back to the moment I realized that the baby I had only just begun to accept as real wasn’t going to be in my arms this side of heaven.

Lying on the exam table in the darkened room, alone except for the tech, I had just begun to process the day’s first discovery: two little shadows, not one. Nestled nearly against one another, one barely indistinguishable from the other.

Twins.

And yet …

No heartbeats. Not even one.

 

Maybe I was earlier along than we’d suspected, the tech observed. How certain was I of the dates?

I was sure. He started measuring. It did not add up. He apologized, but told me I’d have to wait to hear from the midwife before a final conclusion was drawn. But I knew. My heart, so elated on the drive over despite having spent the day mothering a child with strep, still fluttering from the discovery of not one, but two babies … my heart was broken.

Each and every October, when the little pastel blue and pink feet that herald National Infant and Pregnancy Loss Month pop up on Pinterest, on blogs, and in my fb feed, I am transported back to those places where I can literally taste the loss. I can’t describe it to you now, in words. But if you have been there, you know. You know exactly what I’m talking about, and you are fighting it back, right now.

Because it never, ever stops hurting all the way, not ever.

Having walked this road more than once, I can tell you that the pain doesn’t grow less dim with each loss, nor does it fade when you finally feel the weight of a healthy baby pressed into your arms. Oh, it creeps back into those untouched places of your heart, for sure. It’s no longer on your sleeve, ready to burst out each time a friend announces that she’s expecting, or an invite to a shower comes in the mail. It is tamed, made weaker by the passing of time and the strengthening of faith and spirit. But it’s there. Once you have lost a child, you are changed. There’s no going back. There just isn’t.

The worst part, I think, is that the change is invisible. It’s a quiet, internal shift that those around you miss or forget. Too, there is awkwardness, and a rush, often, to say something, anything that will make this loss less bitter. In the end, though, it is the woman–sometimes the couple– alone, in her bed at night, looking into the dark and asking God why. Why even let me get pregnant? Why did this have to happen? Why me, again?

For a long time, I had a difficult time speaking in person to others about the babies we never got to hold. I could write about it. I could share with my friends online. But those who should have known me best were shut out. I don’t know why, but something too personal, too vulnerable sat in those missing babies. And to talk about them, well … I just couldn’t. Not without losing a small piece of the precious little I had to hold onto in my heart.

Then something shifted, in me, and I realized that the talking, the sharing … it brings understanding. It allows others the chance to say, “Yes, I have been there, too.” It lets grandmothers admit that they grieve unborn grandchildren, and husbands open up about how they, too, hurt.

It makes us all a little less alone. And that is never, ever a bad thing.

So while the days of October hold out, please … talk to someone. Share your story. Chances are, you have one. But if you don’t, listen. Be the ear that hears how much that baby was wanted, and the mouth that says, “I love you, and I am sorry,” but nothing more. Let’s all remember how precious life is, and how great a gift we are blessed with when that little pink line actually does come screaming and kicking into this world, alive and breathing. And let’s never forget that those who never made it that far were real, were loved, and are missed.