Posts in Pregnancy after loss
Beauty From Ashes

Six months. Today, we celebrate six months of life. It’s your little brother’s half birthday. As I type this, he’s cuddled close to me, sucking on his pacifier, while his softie is nestled into his neck and lullabies lull him to sleep.  It’s beautiful. But it stings. It’s bittersweet...  I’m overcome with love for him and the joy he brings me to the point that I’m overwhelmed and brought to tears.  His breaths fall heavily on my arm, while you remained so still.  His little life, in my arms, because your life slipped through my hands.  Death literally passed through me, so a new life could be planted. Could grow. Could resurrect from the darkness and bring to fruition a redemption I had not thought possible.  There’s so much guilt.  But there’s so much love.  And grief, it still remains.

Read More
Pregnancy after loss, Trauma, Stillbirth, Stillbirth Survivor, Bereaved Mother, Say their name, control, Love, Searching, Stillborn, Capture your grief, Missing, PTSD, Life after loss, griefEmma Jamesblessing, grievingfather, stilbirthawareness, scars, realtalk, bereavedmother, infantloss, pregnancyafterloss, Love letter, longingheart, waiting, Finding beauty, wounded, 6months, infantlosssuppprt, resurrection, trauma, stillbirthsurvivor, childloss, sixmonths, healingafterloss, fearfactor, grief, healing, newnormal, achingheart, suffering, Capture your grief, grace, stillbirth, shame, ptsd, trust, stillgrieving, stillbreathing, stillbirthmatters, newblogpost, 1in160, newbeginnings, grieving, hope, infantlossawareness, alwayssearching, saytheirname, longing, consolation, exhausted, alwayslovingyou, his perspective, thankful, Pregnancy after loss, losingcontrol, missingyou, Wisdom, foreverloved, grievingmother, stillborn, 2017, childlossawareness, nothingispermanent, Purpose, newpost, newsong, Anniversary, dadgrief, 38weeks, chosen, lifeafterlossblog, sorrow, reallove, grievingfamily, alwaysloved, Bereaved Mother, love, postpartum, captureyourgrief2018, lifeafterlossblogger, purpose, ptsdrecovery, loving, stillbirthbreakthesilence, parentingafterloss, loveletter, woundsheal, Trust, Today, heavenmeetsearth, survivor, control, fear, notoverit, yourname, 1in4, alwaysmissingyou, babygirl, beloved, newlife, newbabyboy, stillbornbutstillloved, Stillbirth, forevermissed, may, Remembering, loss, gratitude, stillbirthblogger, memories, lovingyou, lament, stilborn, stillbirthsupport, transformation, weary, lifeafterloss, fighter, peace, dreamingofyou, surrender, nofearinlove, findingbeauty, dadsgrievetoo, findingyou, 6kids, anxiety, alwaysfindingyou, captureyourgrief, anniversaryComment
Transformed

Who am I now?  How has this experience changed me?  I hesitate to even call it an experience. It was and is so much more than that.  It was stillbirth.  It was losing a child. It is loss.  And it is grief.  But nonetheless, I am different.

Transformed, however, makes it seem as though I have come to the end of this difficult road. I am ever evolving. Ever changing. In each day, each moment, in each breath...I am transforming.

Read More
Healing

Healing has been a process of surrendering, remembering, and waiting. It has been allowing the emotions and the memories to surface.  It has been going through the pain and not stuffing it away. It has been allowing the gaping wounds to be exposed to the light.  It has been counseling, and writing, and graveside visits. It has been nights of endless tears and crying to the point of vomiting and being unable to breathe.  It has been going through your memory box and looking at your pictures.  Meeting others in their suffering and talking about real and hard things.  It has been allowing others to love me and admitting that I can’t do it all.  It has been an attempt to trust, and getting let down—but trying again anyway.  It has been acknowledging my pain, giving it a name, and being okay with who I am now.  It has been accepting what life after loss looks like, moving one step forward, one day at a time.  And it has also been taking steps backward.  It has been losing relationships, losing friends, and letting go of the expectations I place on myself and others.

Healing has been allowing the old wound to touch this new wound.  It has been waiting in joyful hope.

And healing will come because you existed.

Healing will come, because of you.

My healing baby.

Read More
A Year in Words

 “It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”  (Rose Kennedy)

Read More
Learning to Surrender

Last night while nursing him, he gave a slight resemblance to you, and I remembered staring down at your face in the hospital room in such disbelief.  No matter how much I willed you to breathe or to move, no matter how much I begged God to change the outcome, I couldn’t change a thing.  I was completely powerless.

Read More
11 Months (Revisiting)

I’m a day late, my love. Yesterday, it was 11 months. How have we happened upon one month shy of a full year? 

I know I haven’t written in a while, but so much has been moving and churning within the depths of my heart. It’s almost been too much to articulate admidst the exhaustion of daily life, grief, and pregnancy after loss.  However, I think you know. You’ve witnessed it all.

Eleven months ago, my world came crashing down when I received the most unimaginable news of my life...your heart had stopped beating just two weeks shy of your expected due date.

Read More
Dreaming

Sometimes I like to sit and dream.  I like to dream that I’m living in an alternate reality. I allow my imagination to run wild and replay events of everyday life, which have you in them.

Read More
Erupting

My anger hasn’t been lying dormant by any means, but recently it has been making its way to the surface in bouts of explosions and eruptions.  And today is no different.  Can I make excuses for myself?

Read More
Divided

That night, at mass, the message of surrender.  Giving it all to God.  Living with open hands.  Wanting God more than anything.  The story of Abraham, willing to sacrifice his son for love of God...I felt ashamed.  Because in the midst of all of this, if I had a choice, if I could go back in time, if I could write this story’s ending...I wouldn’t choose loss.  I wouldn’t choose your death.  I wouldn’t choose sacrifice, or this cross, or this grief.  I would choose to be your Mom this side of heaven.  The words of our pastor carved into me, and I thought I might bleed out, but I didn’t want to release my emotions. I swallowed them down hard and pretended to be unbothered.  I was convicted, but not convinced.  I was divided.

Read More
Parallel Lines

My heart knows that if it is truly God’s will, then I may indeed lose again.  And I’m struggling to live in a state of acceptance with that truth.  Because right now, I want what I want to be what He wants.  And I want to understand.  To see the bigger picture.  And how this journey ends. 

Read More
No Fear in Love

I am learning that your love is molding me and shaping me into someone new.  That the old me is a discarded shell, and that’s simply okay.  I’m learning that loving you came with a cost, but I would never change it. 

Read More
Watching Life Unfold

How is it that you’ve been gone for as long as you were with me?  From 38 weeks of growing you, to 38 weeks of life without you.

Time looks so differently.

Read More
My First Born

How could I have ever imagined the journey that motherhood would take me?  11 years, 3 months, 13 days, and almost 12 hours later from that moment, I would be holding you.

Read More
Finding You

When I stepped outside the front door this afternoon, I walked half way down the sidewalk, then turned around.  Do I really want to go? YES.  I do.  I knew I needed to find you.

Read More
The Secret Place

You know me inside out. You know what I can’t comprehend or articulate.You know me. Let me know who I am. Let me know you. 

Read More
Feeling vs. Wanting

“O soul, steeped in darkness, do not despair. All is not yet lost.  Come and confide in your God, Who is Love and Mercy.”  (St. Faustina) 

Read More
Eight Months

I do not know where I am going.  But I need to go SOMEWHERE. 

Read More