For everyone who has suffered baby loss…
This is for the families of babies born too small, born too sick or born sleeping. For, the 1 in 4 women- who have carried a baby that she never got to meet, that she never got to watch grow. For all of the broken hearts, tears, pain, loneliness, loss of hope, isolation that losing a baby causes.
I know SO many (painfully far too many), incredible families and amazing women who have faced this pain. Parents who have had one or multiple miscarriages. Those who have had babies born too small to survive. Parents whose babies have been born sleeping. Those whose babies were born appearing healthy, but never made it home. Often these women feel like they have to grieve silently, they feel numb, they need far more support. So many of these women manage to keep holding on, when it must feel like they are falling apart.
Losing one twin
I had a substantially large bleed at the start of my pregnancy with Florence which was around 7 weeks. The bleed was eventually attributed to the loss of a second baby. This is something that it took me a year and a half to even discuss with anybody. I constantly convinced myself that surely I don’t deserve to be upset over this? That as I’ve got Florence I should just put up and shut up? It’s so incredibly hard to know how quite how to deal with these feelings. I do know that depriving myself of a right to feel was just about the worst way to go about processing such an ordeal. I now know that I shouldn’t be shutting any of these feelings away. I’m entitled to every single emotion I have felt and every emotion there is left to feel.
I’m no longer convincing myself every time I hear bloody “everything happens for a reason” out of the fear of sounding unappreciative or ungrateful. I count my blessings for having Florence in my life every single day, because no medical professional could make sense of quite how she managed to stay. This was one of the reasons it took me so long to announce my pregnancy. I was convinced that I would lose her. People call ‘melodramatic’ when I refer to my daughter as a ‘miracle’- but when I think of everything we’ve been through and that she’s still here, I really feel that I am the luckiest Mummy alive.
Allow yourself to feel pain.
If your pain demands to be felt – Feel it. You’re not alone. You’re never alone! Please enable yourself to feel. Please never feel that you’re not allowed to be pained or upset because ‘you already have children’ or any other reasons you may find to invalidate your own feelings at an already very painful and very difficult time. Talking to my counsellor and being open with my amazing Mum – was the best thing I could have done for myself and I wish I did it a lot sooner.
Lots of love to all of the mummies we know. Your family, children, babies and angel babies are in our heart and prayers this week and always.
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