I’m devastated. I just received word that yet another friend lost a baby. I struggle even writing the words. I am angry, I am sad, I am helpless. I contemplated not writing about Pregnancy and Infant Loss this year. I don’t know why. It’s an awareness I feel so strongly about but I struggled this year. Here I am, 5 AM with too many words running through my head, two days away from a very much fought for day of awareness. Thousands of words, signatures and tears to get October 15th declared Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. One day a year to publicly acknowledge that secret hurt some woman faces every day of our lives. October 15th, one little flickering, wavering candle will be added to another until all across this world, there will be a candle somewhere, representing those small fragile lives that are gone too soon.
1 in 4 women will have a miscarriage – ONE in FOUR!! We aren’t even talking babies born sleeping or or who slip away in the very young time of their life in this number. We are talking miscarriage. This means that MORE THAN 1 in 4 women has been devastated with a loss so deep it can never fully be described. Women everywhere know that horrible moment when they lay in an ultrasound room in complete silence, feeling the shock and emptiness as that monitor does not make that whooshing sound or blink that little heartbeat. Women everywhere feel that helplessness as they start to bleed, bewildered, worried, scared, devastated, as there is NOTHING she can do. Her body, and absolutely NOTHING she can do to grasp to that little life that is slipping away. That horrible pain of labor, knowing her baby has been taken before he/she could breathe even once but still having to go through that labor she so long envisioned ending in joy. That horrible painfully beautiful memory of stroking her baby’s cheek just one time or those few days, weeks, months she snuggled her baby close, breathing in that baby scent.
There are no words to convey that sense of agony and pain when you as a mother know that no matter how hard you fight, no matter how perfectly you followed all the pregnancy “rules”, no matter how much you love, you simply aren’t enough.
October 15, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. Light a candle, 7 PM YOUR time, for one hour. Look at that flickering, dancing little flame, and REMEMBER. If not for you, remember for us. No woman ever thinks it will happen to her but it does – every single day. Remember for her.
Love,
Heather
Remembering for
Lynsey
Cori
Michelle
Angela
Becky
Shannon
Kari
Janet
Tammy
Alisha
Brandi
Tricia
Anne-Marie
Jill
Julie
Deborah
Jen
Penny
Cori C.
Michelle J.
Mary Ellen
Hallee
Tracey
Kelsey
Cara
Janine
Kate
Dipika
Barb
Megan
If you would like to have your name added or share your story, you can do so in the comments, or shoot me an email if you need to talk. heatherlm4@gmail.com
Thank you for sharing this, Heather. I will be thinking of my Monica on Monday. I wrote a memoir about my loss, a very specific kind that maybe you or someone you know would be interested to hear about. Here’s my page: http://www.kismuth.com/dive
Thank you for writing this. I lost 2. The first loss was incredibly devastating made even worse by family. I’ve never forgotten that day.
<3