Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Gretchen

Mom to "Star" Baby

Lost on Mother's Day, May 9th, 2010

Folsom, California

I became an expectant mother on March 13th, 2010.  It was the happiest and most thrilling day of my life.  I lost my baby on Mother's Day, May 9th, 2010.  It was the saddest and most painful day of my life.

At twelve weeks you are supposed to be safe. Every book, every person, everything says so. You are encouraged to wait and tell people until you get past twelve weeks. Then and really only then, should you shout it from the rooftops as you have been wanting to do since the day you saw your pink plus sign or double blue line or digital smiley face. Ever since the day you got your Big Fat Positive you have been losing your mind wanting to tell the world about your little one.  You have walked in the world differently and you have no idea how no one has noticed.  For weeks you have wanted everyone to know about the little life growing inside you but at the same time you have loved it being just you two (and maybe daddy included sometimes). You have a sidekick. A partner in crime. You have touched your non-existent belly to comfort the baby inside. You have eaten food with the whole goal of nourishing your baby, and you have avoided smokers, drinkers, cursers, and other unsavory types to protect your little one from a world unsafe, unclean and unkind. You have become a better person simply because THEY deserve a better person. You do everything you can...

And then you find out nothing you did worked, nothing mattered. The spinach you ate, the walk you did briskly (but not too briskly), the vitamins you took, the good thoughts you made yourself think. All the love in your heart didn't save the baby in your body.

You have betrayed yourself. Betrayed your baby. They want you to stop blaming yourself... 
 Well then. Who is to blame? There is no one but me left.

I have always turned to writing to cope with sadness in my life. This is a sadness that I have never felt before and it has taken months for me to even think about beginning to process all that has happened. I kept my loss from most people, in fact I only told my best friend. My husband and mother took care of notifying close family against my wishes. We had not shared our "happy news" with any one as we were waiting until we were past the 12 week "safe" mark. 12 weeks never came. We were told of our "non-viable pregnancy" at 10 and a half weeks and my miscarriage began at 11 weeks 3 days and ended at 13 weeks 3 days, on Mother's Day. How cruelly poetic.
  

For months now I have been comfortingly numb and somehow painfully raw simultaneously. Shuffling around my house looking for a baby who will not arrive. Wrapping my mind around a truth I cannot bear. Rubbing a belly that will not grow and wearing maternity clothes I bought too early in my excitement. I could swear at times my heart has stopped and at other times it has beaten so loud it seems to be punishing me with a sound my baby never had the chance to make. The life lost inside me never lived but it was still lost to me.

They tell you it's going to be okay. Okay doesn't exist anymore though. How can life ever be okay when I lost my pregnancy, my baby, lost my life inside me.  The baby's life and my own. I breathe, I eat, I sleep.  This heart keeps beating when it has broken.  The blood keeps pumping even when I bled so much.  The sun rises and sets, does it all over and over again and nothing is okay.
 

The world should have stopped. The clocks should have frozen.  I love my baby and nothing matters anymore. I feel no sadness for others and none for myself. Just empty and lost and weak and worn.
 

The body has healed but it is no longer mine, it betrayed me and betrayed my child.
 

I should burn in the sun, should fall when I step, and should sicken when I wake. Nothing about me should work anymore, now that the one thing that mattered has died. Nothing will ever be okay again, no rain will be as wet, no sand will be as warm. Smiles, Happiness, Tears, Anger, Laughter, Passion, Greed, Lust, Hope, Fear; I will feel them all again, but never as I did before. I lost the life inside me, nothing will be okay for ever more.

You can contact Gretchen at  gisaqt@yahoo.com