Could it be that I am starting to feel at peace? There will always be something raw about baby loss, a part that doesn’t heal. There is no way around that. But I find that the better I know my grief, and the more I welcome its manifold effects on my life, the less it prevents me from authentically reconnecting to people who live on the surface.
Read MoreNow Wigglette will get a chance to play the role of the daughter I always wanted to raise. At first it was a comfort to know that some of that aching gap will be filled. Then came the pain from realizing that being my girl will no longer be something that is only yours. Once I get to witness her developing into a little girl, I fear that my sense of you will become even more obscure, and that I will be forced to leave some more of you behind. There will not be much left, I worry, beyond the knowledge that you were an infant and that I would have cared for you and that I still miss you deeply.
Read MoreI bear the weight of each new loss while they dare to continue to draw hope (for me!) from what happens to the average woman. Perhaps I could hear the compassion in their hope if they were willing to acknowledge my interlaced fear. Right now my own hope is too desperate, too fragile. I reluctantly allow some slivers of it in, but these moments feel intensely private.
Read MoreYour sister died but you became a big brother nevertheless, and I can see you itching to fulfil that role. If only you knew how much I want you to experience the healing that would come with a brand-new life. Sometimes when we talk about babies I will put my hand protectively over my lower belly but I don’t tell you about the changes going on inside. You don’t need to know how often our babies die, you don’t need to share my fear. So I just hug you and tell you that I would also like to have another baby, very much, and that I hope it will someday happen for us.
Read MoreRelationships live in the spaces between people, are held in place by those people, each one on their own end. When one person drops their end, the other one is left trying to find ways to hold the entirety of the lopsided connection on their own.
Read MoreThese images assault me as soon as my guard is down, when I drift from waking towards sleep. I jolt awake, but even then I can't fight them off. They are too vivid, too real to disperse by an act of willpower. I don’t bother trying to convince myself that my fear is not a realistic one. I simply get up and check on my boy. I press my hand to his back, feeling the air go in and out. Breathing. He is breathing.
Read MoreBereaved parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion, and the other side of getting through this mess called grief.
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Parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion we learn for others, having been through this mess — and see it reflected back at you, acknowledged and understood.
Thanks to photographer Xin Li and to artist Stephanie Sicore for their respective illustrations and photos.
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