How to Use the Directory

Welcome to the Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss Directory. This blog is maintained by volunteers to act like a "telephone book" for blogs dealing with the loss of a baby. It is open to anyone who has ever lost a baby in any way - we do not discriminate by age of your baby or circumstance of your loss. If you think you belong here, then we think you belong here.

When you submit your blog, it is manually added to the list, so it may take some time for it to appear on the list. When you submit your information as requested below, it is easier to spot those emails that have been redirected into the spam mail.

Blogs are listed by category of loss. This is to help you find blogs that deal with circumstances that may be similar to yours. That being said, it can be a moving and healing experience to read the blogs of people who's loss is not similar to yours. You are welcome to read any of the blogs listed here.

Though there could be literally thousands of categories of loss, we have created 4 broad categories: before 20 weeks, after 20 weeks, after birth, and medical termination. Please note that most blogs dealing with extreme prematurity are listed in the "after birth" category even though the gestational age might suggest a different category.

As a warning to those feeling particularly fragile, many of the blogs listed here discuss living children or subsequent pregnancies. In the sidebar links, those blogs are usually marked with an asterisk(*). However, the circumstances of individual bloggers will change, and sometimes the listings do not get updated. It is possible to encounter pictures of living children or pregnant bellies on the blogs listed here.

We also have a list of resources (books), online links, and online publications that you may find useful. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to see the full listing of links.

We are so sorry the loss of a beloved child has brought you here. We hope that you will find some solace within the community that has gathered.
Please help us set up this resource for grieving families by:

Welcome

A. Submitting your blog information
(Email Subject: Please Add My Blog)
  • The link to your blog
  • The title of your blog
  • The topic of your blog (see sidebar - Personal Blogs)
  • If your blog discusses living children or subsequent pregnancy after loss

B. Submitting links to helpful web resources
(Email Subject: Please Add This Link)

C. Submitting titles of helpful reading materials or videos/films
(Email Subject: Please Add This Resource)

D. Adding a link to this site from your blog

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Friday, April 27, 2007

Friday Blog Roundup - Why?

In those moments when I can't bear to be strong - when I just need to be honest and feel sad, scared and helpless - I let myself wonder why life dealt me the hand it did. I wonder, why us? Why did we lose our son? Why did I have two miscarriages before him? Why can't I get pregnant now? Why? Why? WHY?

Sometimes it feels like the most logical thing to do is stand on a mountaintop and scream obscenities into the wind, tear out my hair in great angry clumps and pound my fists into the ground. But instead, I simply carry on.

We all just carry on, living lives that are unspeakably difficult in so many ways, and being unable to answer that one simple question - why?.

Everyone has sorrow. Everyone suffers. Everyone struggles. But not like this. Losing babies is a special kind of hell. And it makes so many things so very, very difficult. It makes us work harder than we ever thought we could - until we're so tired we can barely see straight.

This week Caro, who has had two miscarriages, talks about a friend who asked her if she thought her husband would leave her because of their losses. Just asked it outright. Later in the week that same friend announced she was 15 weeks pregnant. Caro went home to cry.

Were it not for Caro's struggle - for the sorrow in her heart that she feels every moment of every day - the friend would never have questioned her marriage. And a pregnancy announcement wouldn't have made her cry.

Why?

Rosepetal, who lost her darling boy less than a year ago, is now facing the possibility of having to terminate her pregnancy at 17 weeks. They're in the midst of the agonizing wait for amnio results, and in the meantime they're trying to schedule life around the possibility of losing a second child. They're trying to figure out if they can get an oil change or if they'll need to be at the hospital that day instead.

The incomprehensible horror of this is beyond words.

Why?

In a heartbreaking post about fear, Mother in Mourning talks about what it was like being pregnant again after losing her daughter, Isabel. She was riddled with fear - fear that lasted long after her healthy baby boy was born safe and sound.

"I thanked God for allowing me to see him healthy and crying and I just knew he wouldn't make it through the night. When morning came and he was still fine I felt like I had just won the lottery. Now not only do I get to have him one more day but I didn't have to be whisked away and hidden from all the others new mothers so I didn't have to hear their babies cry. Again.

For about the first year of his life I just knew that every sound was him choking, every sigh his last breath and every goodnight kiss a final farewell."


As she says, it's never over, it's just better.

Why?

Why should any of us have to suffer like this? Why can't it be easy, as this waiting mother laments?

Why?

I don't know. I will never know. And for the rest of my life I will have days that I wish I could find that perfect mountaintop from which to vent my rage at the ungodly unfairness of it all.

But I do know this - we are stronger than we think, my friends. Stronger than the sorrow and anger and pain that makes our lives so different than we wanted - so different than we ever dreamed. And so very, very difficult.

The question may plague us until the day we die, but we have already proven - in so many ways - that somehow we can live without the answer.

3 comments:

The Goddess G said...

"But instead I simply carry on". That is the most powerful thing that I've read in a long time...and exactly how I feel.
~Carole

delphi said...

I guess that there is the age old "why NOT us?" - but honestly, that has never given me much consolation.

This week I have been struck, particularly, by the amazing highs and lows that our community is experiencing. My heart is especially torn for our friend Rosepetal, who is facing another loss.

Thank you for this.

Caro said...

It was actually two different friends but that doesn't make it any less painful- especially since the pregnant one added some equally helpful assvice in her email.
Caro