"Wow I didn't know that about you!" I'd just drawn upon an experience in my life for an analogy I was providing a new colleague last week. Of course when he said those words the thought that ran through my head was of how ridiculous those words of his were. I feel like I carry so much unsaid with me. I find I now assume everyone does the same. How could anyone be surprised by anything anyone said? Am I really supposed to announce after shaking hands with a new acquaintance, "This is my fourth pregnancy. My soon to be ex-husband told me to get an abortion when I was 10 weeks. My brother has profound disabilities. My father is an alcoholic?"

Instead, I quietly and offhandedly mention that I'm pregnant and shyly hide my ringless left hand. I wouldn't want to make anyone too uncomfortable with the nastiness of truth.

Mostly I am, although very few know the whole of truths. Mostly people know the bare bones of what happened. When most real life folks were willing to talk, I could hardly make the words come out. Now it seems a bit late.

Yesterday, for some reason, I "outed" myself during a daycare interview. They handled it well, nicely enough.

My God- This is why I come here despite that I do not share the same exact grief. It all applies and generalizes. I know this is different but when my H. cheated on me I was so humiliated as though I was defective. I didn't want to talk to anyone about it, and in fact never have except for my best friend who merely guessed and the set of friends that the two of us chose to open up with due to needing to be open with someone not too close and not too far (if that makes any sense). Thus was born my blogging- the receptacle of my grief and story. And honestly, I regret telling the couple since they have,especially the wife, treated us a bit differently- as though it is contagious- and not been honest about how they feel. Which is why we didn't share ... But it is still a heavy burden. Why did I come to work every day like a zombie? Does no one notice that I am a small pile of rubble? Am I invisible emotionally? I guess I can be if I really want to. :..( Thanks for the beautiful and en pointe post!

I'm sure that everyone's story is hard to tell in its own way, but I think the whys and whats of your story are particularly complex and difficult to explain. My story doesn't really have much more to it than: I got preeclampsia and lost the twins.

The other thing is that I've found that telling people doesn't matter all that much because they immediately forget. It just isn't part of their frame of reference.

Gosh, note to self, do not read blogs at work because now I am crying, hoping no one comes to my office in the next few minutes.
This was a great post Tash. It struck such a cord with me. What a great quote- it is such an eloquent description of how I feel. My friends and family know the barebones, but no one really KNOWS, except for the people here in my computer. How do you explain to someone what it's like to have a doctor tell you there's no hearbeat, what it's like to hold your dead baby,what it's like to have that day play over and over in your head, what it's like to think of your baby and physically wince from the pain of remembering her, and what it's like to know that despite everyone around you wanting you to be better, there's no getting better, that there's only being able to mask the pain better? It's so overwhelming and literally impossible for anyone to understand unless they have been there themself. So I try to spare people the gory details and let them think I am healing. I guess I am, but not like they think I am. It's just so unfair that it seems "impolite" to talk about our babies. And it makes my hate everyone for being so damn uncomfortable when I do mention her that I know I should change the subject.

Damn you for making me cry. Obviously I don't really mean that. I should thank you for that actually. I have been wondering where all my tears have been lately.

She was beautiful, and sadly, not meant for polite conversation.

This statement makes me just want to scream and cry, Tash. You are so right. And it's just so wrong.

I find myself outing myself less and less these days. The desire for EVERYONE to know has waned some. And, some days, I just don't have the energy to get into it. It still takes enormous energy to have a dead baby. It takes what's left of my emotional reserves to describe any memory - good or bad.

I've realized, almost 9 months out, that I cannot control the responses I get from the people I tell. I cannot make them respond without stupidity or unease. I cannot stop them from trying to impart their trite explanations. What I look for in their response is true compassion and understanding and I've realized this is not something they will ever get, so why bother?

This is a beautiful, provocative post, Tash. I'm starting out the day in tears. But, it's good to think about this stuff. When I am home and I can. It's good.

Just this weekend, at a summer get together for Monkey's school, one of the other mothers asked me "now, I forget, does [Monkey] have a sister or...?" The woman had seen me at pickup nearly every day for a year. And she is a nice woman, with a dry sense of humor. I froze for a second, trying to figure out how she would get there or what the hell this was, and then I said "[Monkey] had a brother, who died." There is a separate part of a discussion as to why I said "died" and not "was stillborn." I think when I give a short version, I really want the biggest impact, I want people to know he counts with us.

But there is also a doctrinal issue-- the woman is Orthodox, and doctrinally babies under 30 days old don't really count as people for them. So if I was going to give her a short version, I was going to make sure that I imply the way we feel about A, and do not allow her to dismiss him based on her doctrine. If that makes sense. I don't even know if she would, that's the thing. The one mom in the class who spoke to me about it, she didn't dismiss it, and she is also Orthodox. It's individual, but I guess I don't want to take chances with the parts that are important to me. Especially, I think, where Monkey is concerned. To her he was a real brother, and anyone who wants to know her story should understand that she lost a brother.

I don't wear a scarlet letter on my chest, but I talk about all my pregnancies and all my children. It's rare to find "an opening" in conversation where my dead babies are relevant, but those occasions do come up every now and then. I'm in a place where most everyone in my life (who is important to me in any way) knows about Alex and Travis. But that's because I've never been a fan of doing "the polite thing."

So when someone comments on my bracelet with my boys' names, I tell them the story. When women talk past pregnancies, I do too. When people talk about the fun things they've done during the past three years or so and I draw a blank, I explain why. I don't make it the FIRST thing I talk about with new people. But I'm not going to hide who I am either.

Our son was born this past May at 31 weeks and died ~1.5 hrs later due to fatal abnormalities. We had declined the 20 week ultrasound, and so we could have known earlier, but we didn't. For that, we bought an extra 11 weeks of blissful ignorance, and were able to hold our son in our arms after he was born and as he died.

I am out to family and close friends, or to those who directly ask b/c I dont want to lie about my son. But for the most part, I remain in the closet. Their ignorance of the underbelly allows their empathy to better approximate our grief. It makes me angry to watch their expression of shock or sadness melt away when I say that he had abnormalities and would never have lived. "When you told me that he had abnormalities, I felt this weight just lift from me." As if the fact that he had abnormalities makes his death okay or should mitigate our grief.

But I am also in the closet because "What happened?" is always followed by, "You didn't know?" Which, to my rawness, implies complicity and guilt (regardless of whether the speaker intended it). Because there is a part of me who feels, however irrationally, that his death was due payment for running outside the pack. Despite the fact that it wouldn’t have made a difference. He would have died at 20 weeks, or 31 weeks, but his death was already certain.

Somedays I want to tell people all the tarry underbelly of it, but like C mentioned, you never get exactly what you want out of those exchanges. You want compassion, you tend to get, "but you are doing better now, right? You are going to get pregnant again, right?"

My husband recently had to explain to someone what happened after getting the "How is Fatherhood treating you" question - I forced to him to explain to me the details he gave. I wanted to know what version, whether he used the right words for this person to understand the enormity of it. I wanted to know if our cleansed versions matched.

This is a beautiful post, Tash. Thank you for it. Now I may have to get the book too.

It's really hard. Most people know the bare facts. They know that I was pregnant, we had a son born 15 weeks early, that something went wrong, and he died. That's what I call public information.

But the agony, the difficulty of choosing my life over his, the pain that other's have caused me with their cruelty, the decisions based on statistics and mortality and the likelihood of my death, those are the underside.

A family member assured me that Gabriel would live if he had been born in the US. That was when we stopped talking about the decision to let him go. It was too painful to have other's second guess our choices.

Yes, there is a painful and messy underside to the questions. It's what we let so few people into, it's what so few people want to join, it's what they don't abide with.

oh, that line (and a few others) really stuck with me too. I read it over and over, kept coming back to it. in fact I may have to sit with this post too, and return to formulate a more thoghtful response. (or maybe I sense a new post coming?)

absolutely there is the underside. the basic fact, for anyone who cares enough to remember, and the more vivid ugly underbelly that we lived and suffered. in truth, I know it makes people uncomfortable if/when I mention him and even the basic fact that he died. he was not "real" to anyone but us and very few family members. I'm tired of being responsible for others' discomfort.

I'm thinking a lot about what julia said too, about saying my son died instead of saying he was stillborn, to indicate how very much his "life" meant to us. yes, I think I'll need to sit on this for a bit...

This post is so perfect and so sad and so true. I want to hear these stories, the ones from the underbelly, I suppose that's why I read these blogs even though my DH is constantly asking me if I'm reading another one as I sit in front of the computer and cry. I would love to be able to sit with all of you face to face and hear you stories and even though I wouldn't know what to say, I'd cry for your babies because they are real and important and they stories should be told.

As far as me, I try to be open with family, a few close friends, and then the entire blog world...but it is the acquaintances that are troubling. I made the mistake of sharing my pregnancy last fall with a playgroup I had been going to for a while. I didn't mean too (I had one m/c before having my son so I was hesitant to share), but when another mom shared about being do the month after me I was excited and it just popped out. The hard part came a few weeks later when someone asked, "How are the pregnant ladies?" It had just happened the week before, I was only at playgroup because I was desperate to get out of the house for my son's sake. I just blurted out, "I'm not pregnant anymore." And my God, the reaction. I stood in a room full of women and bawled my eyes out and no one would look at me, let alone hug me or offer condolences. They all looked at their feet. The woman who asked said, "I'm sorry, I didn't know," but not in a sorry for your loss way, more of a sorry for asking way. No one said anything. It was silence for several minutes until someone changed the subject and then the group sort of moved around and left me standing there crying. I moved to a corner and sat in a chair and one kind woman tried to sit with me and talk about the weather (as I tried not to stare at her huge pregnant belly). Sad that the biggest piece of kindness I received at that group was a crappy conversation about weather.

And of course I didn't tell them when I was pregnant again a few months later, or when I lost that baby too. It's hard for me to be around them now. Sometimes I just want to scream at all of them that I have three dead babies and it matters. I also would like to tell people that my babies died rather than I miscarried, although it is easier to say I had a miscarriage...but sometimes I feel like that lets them off easy, like a miscarriage is a loss of a pregnancy and not a baby.

the same line that c. pulled out really struck me too, Tash. the whole post, but especially, "she was beautiful, and sadly, not meant for polite conversation."

i felt that so cruelly in the first days...Finn was born the day we closed on our house. i'd been sent away for bedrest after my water broke, but Dave had been busily making arrangements re. paint and flooring and window contractors and real estate agents, and b/c he had to return to work immediately after we arrived back, it was me who dealt with all these people. and every one of them simply knew that i was supposed to have a baby, that he'd been called away suddenly b/c i went into labour. so every one of them asked. and i'd say "the baby died" or "he didn't make it." and with every one of them there was this sudden wall falling down, like i'd just taken off all my clothes and flashed them. a few didn't even say sorry, just "oh god." and i felt awkward and exposed and guilty for being so publicly inappropriate.

so i said nothing, to anyone unless asked, for the longest time. now, it's far enough in the past and known enough in my circles that i'm often in conversations where one person who knows will reference that this is not my second pregnancy in front of someone who doesn't. and i see the curious eyes and will sort of fill in the gaps narratively while answering the other question, treating Finn simply as a part of my life...or rather, i suppose, my past. so it does happen that our children CAN become part of polite conversation. but somehow the emotional baggage of them has to be disengaged first...in order for politeness to rule, to not make people too uncomfortable. and there is something tawdry in that somehow.

"Warning them that the universe can be horrifically unkind when you least expect it?"

I have found that in relating my own stories to people of a certain age - although that is a stereotype that condescends to younger people who really have already been through hell and back and who don't always wear in on their public face - that this is a truth that they already also know in their soul. The circumstances may be different and I've come out on the other side of any attempts to measure my pains against the pains of others - but there is that solitude in pain, in aloneness even in a room full of people who have suffered similar sorrows, the desperation and hollow acceptance and then drawing close of the knowledge that no matter what I say, what I try to convey, that the core will never be fully understood.

But that is where I finally feel less alone and feel some "healing" as trite as that word may sound. That deep down, I think that there are many, many humans who know this to be true and who are, really, after a fashion, willing to listen, really...to hear me, and to hear their own voice, to say "I know", and to stand with me in awe of the horror and sublime love that usually leave us standing so alone in our experiences.

Oh wow, Tash. That line about "not meant for polite conversation" slayed me too. For months & even years after Katie was stillborn, I endured questions from people (mostly at work) who had seen me pregnant & wanted to know, boy or girl? It got so that I started avoiding certain people when I saw them coming, because I knew they didn't know, & I'd already had to explain myself twice that day & just didn't have the energy to do it again.

It's now 10 years later. Obviously, our families & close friends know what happened to us, but rarely if ever refer to it. On the rare occasions we mention it ourselves, it's painful to see how uncomfortable people get, how quickly the subject gets changed.

I find it hardest at work, since that's where I spend so much time. Turnover being what it is, there are only a handful of people in the department, probably less than 1/3 or 1/4, who were here 10 years ago & know what happened to me. I doubt most of them give it much thought. I have a pregnant woman working a few cubicles down from me, a 40-year-old dad who proudly announced at our staff meeting today that it's his daughter's first birthday, and a bunch of starry-eyed 20-somethings who aren't even married, let alone pregnant yet (whose own parents aren't much older than I am...!).

None of them has ever asked me why I don't have children. Even if I was inclined to tell them -- how do you bring up the subject, let alone work it into polite conversation?? How do you burst that bubble of innocence, especially for young people who have that whole part of their lives ahead of them?

I did tell one person at work once. She had just found out that she was finally heading to China to adopt -- a single mom-to-be who'd been on the waiting list for five years (this was just before China changed its policies). She said she'd wanted to be a mom for so long & since Mr. Right was taking his sweet time to come around, she decided to take action herself.

For some reason, I told her that I'd been pregnant and lost the baby. She looked shocked & said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." I hastily added that dh & I had decided not to adopt ourselves, but if we had, we probably would have gone to China. (She turned in her resignation on the last day of her parental leave, & we haven't heard from her since...!)

I probably wouldn't go into the gory details with anyone until & unless we became really good friends. That hasn't happened in the last 10 years except with other babyloss moms. We do have the outlet of the support group we facilitate (although as facilitators, our role is to listen more than to talk ourselves), & I've become good friends with a couple of our former clients. I feel like I can be "myself" around them, whether we're talking about our babies or not. Thank God for that!!

What a post, Tash. You always manage to rip my heart out in some ways. Like many others, I also have a version I just cannot tell. Not even to fellow medusas.

This post is eerily relevant today. Of all the people I could have run into today, I found myself face-to-face with Ann, who I have not seen long enough to have a conversation with in more than six or seven years.

I first read this entry before I left home this morning, and as Ann and I exchanged hugs and phone numbers, I found myself thinking again of this post. I was there to witness the ugly underbelly of Ann's memory as it unfolded before her all those years ago. I know of the memory as it stands in my mind, and I couldn't help but wonder what shape it takes in hers. How does she handle the two sides of the memory?

I just wanted to say that this post is absolutely beautiful. All the posts here are quite lovely, but this one really touched me. Thank you.

just this morning i was imagining a possible conversation with a particular person about why my house and family life are both in such a disarray. it's been a tough year, i thought i might say. we had a death in the family.

i have never had that thought before. i always say "my daughter died." but the realization that i could say "we had a death in the family" hit me: this was such a polite way to give the listener an out -- a way to offer condolences without asking for details or feeling too, i dunno, close to someone else's disaster.

i'm not sure i'll ever say that out loud to anybody to describe this past year. but it was interesting to realize that in the same way it popped into my brain it might pop out of my mouth, unbidden.

No one has ever asked me for specific information about the circumstances of Charlotte's birth and death. Nearly everyone, a result of living in a small town, knows the short story- I got sick, premature baby, baby died- but that's it. During the whole event emails were sent from person to person passing information that was not always accurate, so I never really know who knows what. The handful of people that were there have an accurate story, and those are the most important people in my life anyway. The rest, well, they probably know enough.

The "real", unbridled, horrible tale takes too much energy to tell. I can't even tell myself- there are some memories, some words spoken that day and vivid pictures in my mind, that cause too much pain to fathom again, even these months later.

This was such an incredible post, tash. I don't think anyone knows my side of the memory except for my husband. I don't think I'd have the strength to share the moments that stand out for me (despite my best efforts to replace them with more peaceful ones).

You know, I have pretty much been "out" since the day she was born, but I have found myself skirting the subject in conversations - not for my sake, but for others'. I just have this desire to protect them from feeling uncomfortable, so I don't mention my loss, even if they already know about it. When I became pregnant again, I was actually glad that I would have to answer the question, "is this your first?" because it would give me a natural opportunity to talk about my daughter. What I didn't anticipate was how draining it would be. "No, this is not my first. I had a daughter who was born extremely prematurely, and she died fifteen minutes after her birth. Yes, I did give birth to her. No, there was nothing wrong with her." And then there's the flip side - people who don't know, and there has not been a natural opportunity to share the information. At our vet clinic, all the techs gush over me when I come in - excited to see and touch my round belly. And then they share the stories of the births of their own children, as if to prepare me for something I know nothing of. I can't bring myself to tell them that I have been through childbirth, and that this pregnancy, while indeed joyous, is also terrifying. If any of them were to ask, I would tell them, but to say anything without prompting feels like cruelty. They were talking about the weights of their babies the other day - five and seven pounds. The mom of the seven-pounder was talking about how tiny the five-pound baby was. All I could think was, "you've clearly never seen a one-pound baby."

Hi, I'm Michelle. I just found this site and today is my first time posting here. I appreciated reading this post and I struggle with this question myself.

There is the first part of my story - the part that goes "I lost a baby to Trisomy 18" - which I try to share whenever the opportunity seems appropriate. After I went through this loss, I learned of several other women in my circle of family/friends/colleagues that had the same experience. I think "I wish I'd known about them when I was going through it... would have been good to have someone experienced to talk to". I've decided that I want people to know what happened to me so that they know that this DOES happen, and God Forbid it happens to someone else in that circle, I want them to know they can come to me.

Then there is the other part of the story. The part that not everyone knows. The part that I wish I could forget. The decision I made to end the pregnancy early rather than wait for nature to take its course on its own. Sometimes that part makes me feel like a monster rather than a mother who was only trying to do the best thing for my child.

So, there you have it.

Definitely. Two sides. As the years go on the sterile story is even told less. It's sadly easier not to involve others and I hardly ever let people know the true pain of William's story. The blog is my release these days.

The shared story: unexplained stillbirth, full term.

The secret story: the last appointment, low heart rate, the intuition; the panic attack--the eternal guilt for leaving the office without demanding an induction that day.

I already feel that when I tell people, they must be thinking, "Babies don't just die without any reason. She must have done SOMEthing that killed her baby." If they knew the secret story, I would just be giving them justification for their condemnation.

This post is so relevant to me right now, as I am struggling with this very issue as we just moved to a new town.

Losing Avery and Sophie was very public for us, as everyone quickly knew at least the edited version. For the first time now, I find myself in an environment where nobody knows.

And I struggle. I want people to know that we have two girls, and yet, how do you do that without the shock, fear, and horrible awe it often causes?

Oh and may I add- reading the comments is a gift! People are so incredibly giving. I get inspiration from all of your courage and beauty.

"Beautiful and not meant for polite conversation" hits the nail on the head.

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/readers/photograph-of-a-dead-baby

This made me want to go hunt down the person who was dissatisfied with pictures being published; if the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep photographer hadn't come, I would have exactly two blurry, badly coloured cell phone photos of my daughter, not the beautiful shots of her tiny feet and her cradled in her granny's arms getting a kiss.

Yes, how impolite of us to remember the children that aren't here with us. Smack me with a ruler, Miss Manners. I can't pretend Aeryn was never here, that we hadn't been frantically getting things ready for her, that we don't still hurt because she's gone. The burden should not always be on us to have to sidestep, to cover, to allow others to be in their comfort zones, simply because it's impossible to hide your grief that much. Everyone picks on it now, but the ritualization of grief that let people wear mourning bands or have some other way of showing that they are grieving had a purpose, and I for one wish there was some way to let other people know that no, things are not so-called normal.

I am out to everyone, because my son died very recently. I returned to work 2 weeks ago, and they were so awesome and gracious and decorated my cube. My friend in HR asked me how I wanted to be treated and let everyone know. I have had my small share of weird moments so far, but I dread the time passing to where I will constantly have to make the decision of whether to be "out" or not, each time someone asks The Question.

For me there is comfort in everyone knowing and not having to explain myself, But telling it, wow, that is HARD. It gets a little easier each time, though, I've noticed

For me, there is this awfulness associated with how seemingly "out" I am with my story: I seek holes in any conversation into which I can plug references to my Charlotte, my group that I run, or other babylost families that I know. It's as if I have to consistently remind myself and others that yes, this is who I am, I have not left it (or her) behind.
Parts of being this way feel comforting, I feel satisified and relieved that nearly everybody knows that my first daughter died, so that they don't see my Liam as my first baby, or Aoife as my only daughter.
But it also haunts me, as it rolls off my tongue, "Oh, I had another daughter before Liam who died at birth." and then move on to discuss something else, as if what I had said was in fact, "Liam's hair was black when he was born, but it fell out and turned blond." Because there it is, the very tiniest layer of surface that I have exposed, and there is nothing beneath it. There is nothing of the awful, echoing silence in the labor and delivery suite as they struggled to find a heartbeat, nothing of the feeling of the most intense longing I have ever felt, of holding my daughter in my arms like the sweetest temptation ever: this is what you could have had, except that you can't have her. Somehow, in integrating Charlotte so fully into who I am, I have swept all the terror and anguish and agony and locked it up very tightly from others, to the point that it sometimes feels uncomfortable and sad. Why is that mother tearing up as I tell her my story, yet my eyes are dry?
This tugs at me often.

Oh, the way you write about not knowing how to fit any of this into "polite conversation" is so devastatingly true. And you put it all so beautifully.

You got me thinking specifically about how what people like me say about our type of loss. I just posted about it on my own blog.

I would have to say that I don't intentionally hide our medical termination from anyone. But I no longer feel as much of an urge to tell everyone who inquired whether this is my "first pregnancy," or "first baby." Frankly, it just takes too much effort for casual conversation. ("

Recently, at my own baby shower, I found myself talking with a brand new mom about epidurals. I cheerily was talking about my own experience with the epidural when it fleetingly occurred to me that perhaps it made others uncomfortable to hear me talking about my labor and delivery of a dead child. Oh, to hell with it, I thought--this is MY shower. I think part of it is that I want people to accept that Zach's death is the truth of me. It's a part of my life, messy though it is.

I have a hard time with the question "are you having more?" after one beautiful daughter and two "missed miscarriages" at 12 weeks each. I can't imagine how hard that kind of question must be in your situation. Thank you and all your commenters for sharing, and helping others, and me, understand.

I too found this line ("She was beautiful, and sadly, not meant for polite conversation.") so meaningful. She should be mentioned. All these babies should! How can we change that about polite society except by listening when you all talk? I don't know. I guess it's just one willing mama at a time. I'm on the other side so all I can do is listen. But I would. And that's why I come here too, I guess.

I used to have a short version of "my son has Down syndrome and a heart defect" or "my son has Down syndrome but his only delays seem to be in speech" but I gave up. He's just my son and I talk about him as such, or I lay out the whole bloody thing. I especially like the part where we hand him over to the surgeon and ask that man to please crack our boy's chest open and stop his heart. I think I've said it 3 times in the last week. And I think that it's because the shock of it is what I'm trying to convey.

So let the tales fly, Ladies! You'd be surprised what the woman right next to you has gone through. Give us a chance to be the person you are just so sure we are not.

Hey, Tash, got your comment on my blog. :-)

I'm mostly out, but I pretty much always tell the sanitized version. I'm lucky, I guess. I have recurrent pregnancy loss, but my longest pregnancy went to 7 weeks.

I do tell the sanitized version, but I tell it often. In fact, any time someone talks about pregnancy, I talk about mine. I can't not do it. I was there too. I experienced it too. Just because they took away my "mommy" card doesn't mean they can take this away from me too.

At the very least, people are really hesitant to talk about their pregnancy to me.

The sad thing is, my husband hasn't even seen the ugly version. No one has. And he wonders why I feel so alone all the time.