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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Sunday, June 24, 2007

Weekend Blog Roundup

I was musing out loud on Friday (while My Beloved and I were on the hunt for a new Christmas store that opened up in our town - an incredibly soothing thing to do on a Friday night, you should try it) about the fact that I don't think people realize how hard this journey is for us. How hard everything is. Normal stuff that those not touched by our particular brand of sorrow don't even have to consider, can be exhausting for those of us burdened by grief.

You have to approach everything differently than you used to in order to survive the ordinary. Trips to the grocery store where newborns seem as plentiful as apples and bananas, rollicking conversations about labour and delivery in the staff room, family gatherings where all the children are playing and laughing - except the ones you've lost.

They're all an assault to your wounded soul. And they all require a lot of effort to endure. Work. We have to work harder at life than people who don't understand will ever know.

And maybe it doesn't matter that they'll never quite "get" how much effort we now put into our lives in order to make them livable and happy. But sometimes I just want to take them by the shoulders and shake them and tell them that it IS hard. Harder than they can possibly imagine. All of it. Every day.

Sometimes I want the world to understand so badly I could scream.

Janna at In Search of the Stork blogged about this on Thursday. While filling in for an absentee babysitter, she has twice had to field questions from strangers about the children they believed were hers.

"God I wish I had kids of my own! I want to be able to answer everyone's questions about my kids! I don't want to have to keep telling people I'm just their babysitter."

For someone not touched by loss, these questions wouldn't carry with them any particular discomfort or agony. But for someone like Janna, who has miscarried two very wanted children, it was agonizing. A stab in the heart is how she describes it.

Indeed.

Niobe blogged about this phenomenon too - about how normal things just aren't normal anymore, and about how sometimes we have no control over how we're going to handle that reality.

She went to a party, but as soon as she stepped into the house she found herself incapable of mixing and mingling. She is now "thinking bad thoughts" about her behavior that night...

"We went to a big party at my father's house last night. When we got there, everyone was listening to some indescipherable piece on clarinet and piano. One of my stepmother's friends, a woman I've known for years, saw me come in and smiled and waved from her seat. Suddenly, I just couldn't bear to see or talk to anyone. I went up to the third floor and sat in my father's study, listening to the music drifting up the stairwell and, later, to talking and laughter."

I understand (and respect) that she feels uncomfortable with the way she seemed to shut down that night, but I for one am jumping up and down and cheering her decision to do what made her comfortable. We don't do enough of that. We just don't. I can't count the number of times I've wanted to flee a situation (and I mean one that it would have been perfectly fine for me to flee) but I've chosen instead to force myself to endure personal discomfort to make others happy.

Sometimes it's okay to do what makes you happy (or, at least, what makes you less sad). It just is. So do it. Look after you for a change.

Because all that hard work - all the energy we use to make it through each day - it takes its toll. And then, as Rollercoaster of Love says so succinctly, you may find yourself buried under "the weight of a thousand worries".

Life isn't kind enough to just stop for a while and let us grieve in peace. It moves on and drags us right along with it, car payments, mortgages, health concerns, bills, toilet training, work conflicts and all.

It's why she woke up one day thinking, "I'm stressed beyond all comprehension and I haven’t figured out just why yet." Add grief to a long list of ordinary worries and you have a very challenging life indeed. It's why you're tired. It's why sometimes you snap at your husband when he hasn't really done anything wrong. It's why sometimes you just want to sit down and cry.

Chances are it's also why you blog.

And you know, the fact that so many of us do blog about our experiences gives me hope that one day more people will have a better understanding of the lives we're now living. It gives me hope that maybe one day the careless, insensitive remarks they make and the unreasonable expectations they have of us will cease to add to our already heavy burden.

It also gives me hope that we'll understand ourselves better too. And forgive ourselves when we're just too tired to work so hard and opt instead to give ourselves the break we deserve. And have earned - in spades.

4 comments:

Sara said...

Thank you for this. It explains things perfectly.

niobe said...

I think this is a great post. And that's not because (or at least not only because) it mentioned my blog.

delphi said...

Oh, I agree that it is so exhausting. When we first saw our grief counsellor after C. died, she explained that 85% of our energy would go to grief and the remaining 15% would go to survival. And that would change with time, but there would always be a small portion that would be directed to our grief. I think it is so important to give ourselves breaks every once in a while. We work so hard at grieving. It is important to get up and leave sometimes.

wannabe mom said...

thank you for this as well. it is so true. seemingly "normal" things that i do these days is so much damn work.