Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.
If you’ve experienced this kind of loss, you know what it’s like for a dream to be shattered. You may know what it is like to feel completely alone with your grief. If you know someone who has gone through a loss, you might know what it’s like to want to comfort them, but maybe you felt as if you couldn’t find the words or know exactly what to do.
My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage over eight years ago. Yet I still remember the deep sadness, my heartbreak compounded by the fact that I had been so early along {about 7 weeks} that I hadn’t told anyone, outside my family, that I had been pregnant. It didn’t feel right to just blurt out that I was having a miscarriage. Part of me thought that since my loss was so early, it didn’t really “count.” I knew others who had suffered far “worse,” so why did this hurt so much? I told myself I had to put on a facade of feeling “normal,” when inside, I ached. I mourned alone.
To find some consolation, in my anguish I turned to books. And I didn’t find much, except for very clinical books about miscarriage {which I actually found fascinating}. How I wish I had found a book written by women who knew, who could put into words some of what I was feeling when I was too deep in my mourning to even process what I was going through.
And now, a book that attempts to do just that exists. I am honored to be a contributor to Sunshine After the Storm: A Survival Guide for the Grieving Mother. This book is an anthology of over 30 essays written by mothers and fathers who have experienced devastating loss ~ from infertility and early miscarriage, to stillbirth, and infant and child loss. The essays are raw, profound, inspiring, reflective, and comforting.
In honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, the book will be available as a FREE Kindle download now through October 17th. {Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can get the Kindle app or read the book on your computer for free}.
I read through the essays last night, and I was so moved. There is a great deal of wisdom and advice in this book, but these are the messages that resonated with me:
- You are not alone.
- Your loss counts. No matter when it happened, no matter how far along you were. It counts.
- Everyone grieves differently. You must grieve in your own way, and on your own time.
I would like to share with you an excerpt from my contribution to the book. I wrote about how a component of my isolation in my grief was that, given my worldview that did not include a belief in God or angels or heaven, I felt separated from online communities and resources for those with “angel babies.” In this passage, I share how my study of Buddhism in recent years has given me a different perspective on grief and loss, and what I wish I could have told years-ago-mourning-me.
Even though this brief spark of life, this tiny grain of sand, would soon pass through my body, my body and spirit would be forever changed. The cells and chemicals of my body had been transformed. Our bodies are constantly dying and being reborn through cellular renewal and breathing and living. Though new life hadn’t been created this time, something had been born….
We all grieve differently. I think part of that grief is owning and reclaiming how we conceptualize that loss…. If you want to embrace your loss as your angel baby, then claim, remember, and honor your angel baby. An embryo may not have [even] developed, but conception occurred. However brief, the spark of life was alive inside you.
But if you don’t want to call it your angel baby, if you don’t even think of your loss as the loss of a baby, that’s okay too. And you are not alone. Though many resources and websites and grieving mothers will speak of angel babies, you can name and own your grief in the way that resonates with your worldview and comforts you….
[I would tell myself], she was always a mother. She is always changing and being reborn. She still continues the forever letting go that is the universal path of motherhood, whether the babies are angels, dreams, animated breath, or a sacred trinity of all three. She was a mother from the moment the universal light settled briefly within her.
If this is a book you need, you have my deep empathy and compassion. If you know someone who needs this book, please share it with them. No one should grieve alone.
*****
For more information, you can visit No Holding Back, and read other posts that women are linking up today about their experiences with loss. You can also visit the Sunshine After the Storm Facebook page.
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