An Anniversary

Today I hold a stuffed bear instead of my son...One year ago today the doctors told me and my husband that our son was sick and had to be delivered. I was 20 weeks pregnant. How can this still be true? Today the pain is real. Even with questions and pain I know our beautiful son Liam is in Heaven with Jesus looking down on us. My heart hurts that he is not in my arms to snuggle to comfort to kiss. He would be a beautiful 8 month old today. I wonder what his smile would have looked like. I am left a with a few mementos of his tiny, short life, but today I found my favorite. Today my husband and I made a bear in honor of our son. It's a small, sad but beautiful way to honor our lost child but hopefully it will be for our new baby.  

Hopefully. That's where I'm at. Let me tell you a bit about the emotions and new world surrounding a pregnancy after a loss...Your fear is relentless. You are scared, no terrified, of losing another one.  Instead of telling people right away you hold on to this precious secret for a long as you can.  You know of everything under the sun that can go wrong with a pregnancy and sometimes (or all the time) you think it is all going wrong. You are labeled "high risk," what a lovely word. Not. You have a hard time seeing that you will truly ever come home with a child (I still cant). You struggle to buy things for the new baby because maybe you'll just have to pack them up again. You have to awkwardly tell everyone that no its not your first child and no the other one isn't living.  You don't want to celebrate this new life too much because maybe it will be ripped from your heart again. Maybe you'll have to cremate another child. Sure you love this new little life in your own way, but cautiously. If your heart is hurt again you don't know if you if you can make it through. Will I ever have a living child? 

 Its a emotional road but its a road you must walk. I don't know what's at the end for me, if I will ever see this new life I'm carrying. If I will ever hear the beautiful cry of my son or daughter. If I will nervously strap them into their car seat for the drive home. If I will ever see a smile or hear a laugh. I don't know and the tears come freely. 

 But deep in my heart, almost hiding today, is HOPE. I have hope that I will overcome all the fears, anxieties, and doubts and take a child home.

 Liam James was born on April 8th 2018 at 12:24 am and went to heaven at 12:56 am. Today I honor your sweet life my son.   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pregnancy Loss Awareness Month

Image
I never thought I would be a person to fit into a certain "group" in society, but now I do. I have lost a child and now get my own month of awareness, yay for me -insert sarcasm here. I am part of the 1 in 4 women who have to go through the hell of losing a child. Think about that for a moment 1 in 4...  that is 25% of women have experienced a miscarriage/ baby loss or stillbirth. That. Is. Crazy. That means if you know 10 women then at least two have experienced a loss. Maybe its you or maybe its someone you know, either way you can spread awareness about this month. A simple post on social media or a text message of acknowledgement will suffice to honor a family member or friend who's lost a little one. If you have personally experienced a loss maybe you choose something a bit more like lighting a candle, looking at old photos, or a remembrance walk with other loss parents. For me its this blog. A few months back when I began this journey with the loss of my son a...
Read more

Messy Grief

Image
Grief is something that, until the loss of my son, I had no frame of reference. Growing up I had had little experience with death besides an uncle die but I was too young and too naive to understand what was going on. All I knew of death was fictionalized. Books, TV, and especially social media do a horrible job of honoring death and loss. They portray it as something done quietly and quickly as not to offend or make anyone else uncomfortable. Death IS uncomfortable, as it should be, and I believe should not be swept under the rug. It is something to face, something that we must allow to change and shape us into something new.    I didn't realize just how grief transforms you and changes every part of your being into something else. Much of who you were has to change in order to keep on living. When I lost my son in April 2018 it was like a car crash, sudden and violent. He was there and then he wasn't, I was pregnant one day and have an aching hole in my heart the next....
Read more