Weekend Blog Roundup

I think it's safe to say that there are few things as shocking as losing a child through miscarriage or infant loss. It's biologically counterproductive. It goes against everything we want to believe about nature, even though we know all about the circle of life.

When a tiny life begins it just seems only natural and right that it should grow. That it should keep growing until it has white hair, dentures and a cane.

So when something goes wrong - when the unthinkable happens and you experience this kind of tragedy - the natural human response is to try to make sense of it. To find and apply order where there doesn't seem to be any at all.

For some people, the idea that "everything happens for a reason" is enough. For others, the belief that everything is random is what they cling to for comfort.

So much of the healing journey is trying to come to terms with the fact that this horrible, horrible thing has happened. To us.

This gorgeous post by Missing One at A Mending Heart is beautiful in so many ways. She intersperses pictures of her garden with her thoughts about both what she has lost and what she has gained since her daughter Jessica died on Monther's Day.

It seems impossible to imagine that you could possibly gain anything at all from losing a child (particularly when you're in the horrible throws of those early days of unbearable grief), but through her lovely words and photos Missing One demonstrates that, inexplicably, sometimes you can.

I find it incredible that the process of grief often seems to wind it's difficult way to this kind of realization. And I'm always so thankful that it does. Nothing ever takes away the pain of loss, but finding a way to give it meaning helps make the process of accepting that it is now part of your life so much easier.

This post by BasilBean at The Littlest Bean was like drinking a big glass of ice cold water on a hot day. Somehow seeing someone reach a healing milestone that you yourself have reached validates your own journey. It makes you feel like you're doing okay. And it makes you feel so good to know that they must be too.

This is why I love the fact that bereaved parents blog. Being able to read about the different ways people face and live this kind of sorrow is absolutely invaluable, no matter where you are in your journey. There is so much to learn from people who are willing to tell their stories.

I mean, look at this:

" Life doesn't fit into neat little packages, and things don't always follow the script we think they should. I am happy and thankful for what we have and do not want to get off track by always thinking about what it seems we ought to have. I could go on, but I think that is where I will leave it for now."

But still, there are days when all the time in the world - and all the healing we've done during that time - seems to mean nothing at all, and it's hard to find meaning or purpose in our sorrow. The nagging thought that nothing makes sense creeps in and the days are long and hard. So often this happens around anniversary days. Birthdays and death days. The anniversary of the day we saw those two beautiful lines on the stick or the day we found out it was really all over.

Angel Mom is experiencing this. This past week marked the seventh anniversary of the ultrasound that delivered the agonizing news that her daughter wouldn't be coming home with them. While desperately trying to absorb this horrific news, they had to endure a joke-cracking doctor in dire need of bedside manner training (as so many are...).

She writes:

"Last night I had the strong urge to hold S in my arms again. Just one more time. Instead, I hugged a doll that I found at Target that shares her name. A poor replacement. I can't hold her. I can't even dream about her. My heart aches and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

It's all such hard work. Healing, living, surviving, remembering, grieving. People who don't know don't always realize exactly how hard it is. They don't realize that we have to work to makes sense of our worlds - and just how exhausting that task can be.

They don't get that, as Angel Mom demonstrates, it goes on for years.

At the request of two people (and because it happens to fit here) this is one of my own blog entries.

it's a little rant-y, but I'd just read a blog written by someone who lost twins only a few months ago. She's being told by her family that she's being selfish by not "getting on with things". She's being told how to heal by people who haven't got a clue what she's healing from.

And that made me angrier than I've been in a very long time. Partly because I worry that some of my family and friends think this of me, but mostly because I'm outraged that someone who doesn't understand would think it at all appropriate to put limits and restrictions on someone else's sorrow.

I just wanted to show that the monster of grief sometimes lies in wait, even when you think everything is just fine. Even when you've worked very hard to make sense of the world and your place in it.

I'll always try to find meaning and purpose in Thomas' life. It's what I believe I have to do to survive losing him and what I know I have to do to find happiness in this life I'm living without him. I know I'll still have agonizing days like Angel Mom's and I know I'll take refuge in reflective days like Missing One's. It's okay that this is the way it is.

It really is. No matter what anyone says.

Weekend Blog Roundup - July 1st

Sometimes I get a little lost in my grief. It's not so much that I'm wallowing in it (although I do that too - sometimes you need to do that), it's just that I forget to focus on things that aren't related to my lost boy and my subsequent infertility. I forget to hunt for the happy things. Not the silver lining (there is no silver lining here), but just things in general that bring me joy or brighten my spirit or help me to remember that life is good. Even still.

This week My Beloved told me that he thinks we have a good life, it's just that it's got a hole in it. Like a chocolate doughnut, he said.

Like a chocolate doughnut indeed. Still lovely and sweet, but missing something just the same.

So this weekend I decided to go hunting for chocolate doughnuts among the ever-growing list of blogs posted here. I wanted to find little things that made me happy so I could show them to you and maybe make you happy for a little while too. I'm not purposely trying to ignore the sad, I'm just choosing to focus on the happy for a moment instead.

Because sometimes you need to do that too. And it's totally okay. It really is.

So to start things off, there's this beautiful poem over at Beaten But Not Bowed:

Those of us who have traveled a while
Along this path called grief,
Need to stop and remember that mile,
The first mile of no relief.

It wasn’t the person with answers
Who told us the way to deal,
It wasn’t the one who talked and talked
That helped us to start to heal.

Think of the friend who quietly sat
and held our hands in theirs,
The ones who let us talk and talk
and hugged away our tears.

We need to always remember
That more than the words we speak,
It’s the gift of someone who listens
That most of us desperately seek.

~Author Unknown~

This touched me so much because it reminded me of a very dear friend of mine who was an invaluable source of support simply because she let me talk and talk and talk when I needed to most. I'm going to send this poem to her with a thank you note, because I'm not sure I really have properly thanked her for not being scared of me when I was in the deepest, darkest throws of that awful new grief.

This poem also reminded me that even when I feel alone, I'm not. There are people who care. People who will listen. And people who will always be there no matter what.

Chocolate doughnuts.

And here's a really, really good idea from MKV at Infertility I Wish I Could Quit You. She posted a list of resolutions for the month of July - just things she wants to work on and accomplish this month.

Brilliant. After all, why wait until January when you can make resolutions (or adjust any you might have made in a champagne haze back on New Year's Eve) right now? I'm all over this. I need focus very badly and I think this just might help.

Really clever chocolate doughnut.

Oh, and then there's this incredibly sweet entry from Lori over at Losses and Gains. She posted a picture of her son on his skateboard (an impressive action shot, I might add) and then wrote an open letter to us - to those who might see him in the street - asking us to be patient and kind to this beautiful boy she loves so much.

Reading the letter made me smile. Being allowed to peek into someone's heart at the biggest, most all-encompassing love imaginable will do that to a girl.

Total chocolate doughnut.

And you have to see the puppy that Wannabe Mom at One Big Maybe adopted on Father's Day for Wannabe Dad. So much cuteness. The fact that she joked he might be part bat (seriously, go look at this guy's ears) made me howl.

I love that they brought him into their lives. I love that he has such a good, loving home. And you know, I bet he'd love chocolate doughnuts if he was allowed to eat them.

Finally there's this little exercise that Caro at Third Time Lucky performed last Sunday.

She did what I'm sort of trying to do right now - she wrote down reasons to be cheerful. They included strawberries and dancing to Frank Sinatra. Nothing grandiose or unattainable, just simple pleasures that happened to be making her happy last weekend.

I know it's not possible to stay focussed on good stuff all the time. Sorrow depletes our energy stores and sometimes all that's left is just enough to keep us afloat. Barely.

But when energy permits, it feels very good indeed to hunt down the happy lurking in dark corners and bring it out into the sun to play. Even if it's just for a little while.

After all, no one ever said we were never allowed to smile again.

Now go look at Wannabe's puppy again. C'mon, you know you want to...

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.

Friday Blog Roundup - in celebration of Fathers

When we talk about Thomas, the pain in My Beloved's eyes mirrors my own; the faraway, lost look of someone with sorrow so deep it's virtually bottomless. We lost the same, small boy that sunny March day. We lost our son. No one in the whole world understands what it was like to lose Thomas the way my husband does. Because he was Thomas' father.

He is Thomas' father.

Fathers aren't represented here in blogland quite the same way mothers are. Women, let's face it, like to talk. Need to talk. Men deal with the complexities of sorrow and grieving in other, sometimes seemingly mysterious ways. And often those ways are specifically engineered to protect us, the mothers who they have seen cry rivers of tears, and whom they want so badly to shield from more pain. Even their own.

But there are fathers here. Fathers who bravely document their sorrow and their journey through grief in heart-wrenchingly open and honest posts.

And since tomorrow is Father's Day, I thought it only fitting to celebrate the words of all the fathers who have chosen to give us a glimpse into the hearts and minds of grieving dads.

And in doing so, I hope this will celebrate all fathers in mourning, even those strong silent types who keep so much of their sorrow to themselves.

If you are a father in mourning who blogs - or who occasionally contributes to his partner's blog - please post a link to your blog in the comments. I confess I'm only aware of one father blogger (Dad/Drummer, whose most recent post on the first anniversary of his son Aaron's death, is so beautiful it will make you ache) but I'm sure there must be more.

Now is your chance to stand up and be recognized by a grateful blogging community.

Because we love you.

Friday Blog Roundup

Although I know there are some men here (fathers in mourning), the fact is that most of the bloggers in this little part of the ether are women. We like to talk. We need to talk. And talk, and talk and talk. It's a form of therapy for us. Reliving, analysing, re-visiting, re-hashing, venting - it's what we do. Sharing the things in our heads - the wonderful and the horrible and everything in between - is how we make it through the tormented days that aren't easy, the ones that sneak up on us when we were sure we were doing so well. And it's how we celebrate the good days, the healing first steps, the leaps and bounds, the joys of new pregnancies or simply the first glimmer of hope and joy since the crushing weight of sorrow descended upon us.

Talking is good. And there's so much of it in the blogs listed to the right it feels cruel to only select a few of the millions of beautiful words to highlight here each week. But the ones that want to be here leap out at me. And I can't resist them.

Like Rachel. She lost her first child to miscarriage at only 10 weeks just three months ago. She is pregnant again, and this week wrote a beautiful post thanking everyone who has stopped by her blog and offered support when she needed it most.

Because that's what we do, isn't it? We rally around each other in a stunning display of support unlike any I think I've ever seen in "real life". Complete strangers brought together by common sorrow, but not so broken that they can't somehow find a way to offer comforting words of help and hope to other mothers and fathers who are struggling with loss and the crippling grief that follows.

And Rachel? Yes, she's very grateful for the support. But why did she start her blog in the first place?

"The day I started this blog, I was feeling really low. I had no idea how many people were in similar situations as me, I just knew I didn't want anyone else to go through this. I wanted to document how I was feeling and my healing process so that others could learn."

So that others could learn. Amazing.

And about that whole venting thing that we need to do sometimes? Here's a good one. Still nursing a very sore foot (a wine bottle accident that shouldn't be funny but kind of is, at least the way she tells it) Aurelia imagines how lovely it would be to give complaining mothers of living children what for...

"Kaz is still gone to camp and I miss him so much I'm practically hysterical. I'm beginning to really resent seeing these women at my school whooping it up because their kids are gone, and they are "free". I keep wanting to smack them and say, 'Hey, 3 of my kids get to visit nature 24/7, they're buried in the ground. How would you like to be THAT free, bitch?'"

It's so deliciously good, this little rant. And so very necessary sometimes, which is why blogs are so very necessary too.

Because the more you talk (write) the more you're able to work through the demons. I don't honestly know if there's enough breath in one's body (or life in one's fingers) to ever actually completely banish the demons and find total peace after the loss of a child, but I do believe that writing about it allows us to give a loud enough voice to the dark thoughts that they won't/can't drown out the sounds of happiness we can still find.

And writing helps us work through things that other people just don't get - and sometimes criticize us for. Like the way other people's pregnancies might make us feel.

The Impatient Patient talked about this earlier this week. Her 43-year old friend found herself pregnant after a few months of trying. She's never experienced infertility or loss and, in fact, doesn't even know how any of this "being pregnant" stuff actually works. Impatient Patient does though. In spades.

So how did this new pregnancy announcement affect her?

"How do I feel about it? Quite deliriously weird…. Like the universe is having another (indirect) dig at me, laughing square in my face. And that’s ok too. Really, it is. MY issues are mine, not anyone else’s."

Awesome. Seriously. I'm so tired of feeling guilty for the way I feel about other people's good news and endlessly punishing myself for feeling that inevitable "why me" sorrow mixed in with the "YAY them" joy. To have someone else say that all those "deliriously weird" feelings are "OK" is, well, excellent. Because it is okay to feel all those weird things you feel when someone passes along their good news when you're been so overburdened with your own bad.

It's normal

Impatient Patient totally gets that.

"Today I had a phone call from a friend of mine. A friend of mine who I used to be really close with but have drifted away from. She’s pregnant. She’s 43. AND you know what? I was ok. I don’t feel the need to do the disclaimer thing anymore as I had *insight* today. (you have to say insight like Lassie’s FlyGuy - you know, in-saht…. k?) Anyway, my in-saht was like a bolt. It’s about me - not anyone else. My problem dealing with pregnancy doesn’t impact my relationships with others as it’s not about them, 100%. I felt so happy for my friend, and kind of bemused as to her lack of knowledge about anything."

And finally, writing lets us ask the question we all want to scream to the heavens a zillion and one times a day. In our blogs we can ask it over and over and over again, never expecting an answer, but grateful to be able to ask it just the same. Any time we want. As many times as we need to. And in all its endless variations.

This week, Melissa asked it.

"Why?"

I don't know. I will never know, I'm sure of it. But I'll keep asking it too. And I'll keep saying "I don't know, but I'm so sorry" to everyone else who asks it.

Because that's what we do.

Friday Blog Roundup - a shorter version and a must-read poem

I just happen to be having one of those days (my apologies, but they still come. After all this time they still come), so I'm abbreviating the blog roundup today and just asking you to take a look at this.

It's a beautiful poem by Missing One over at A Mending Heart. She lost her daughter this Mother's Day - just weeks ago. With sorrow so raw it still oozes from every pore, she somehow still managed to pen an achingly beautiful poem about what she believes makes someone a true mother.

If you have wondered, even for the briefest of moments, if you can still be called a mother if you have no living babies or if the babies you carried and lost were too small to see, read this poem.

If you're like me, it will feel like drinking an endlessly tall, ice cold glass of water on the hottest afternoon of the summer.

If you happen to know of any other soul soothing poems or passages like this one (or if you're written any of your own), please consider posting them (or links to them) in the comments.

Thank you Missing One. I needed that.

Friday Blog Roundup - Now What?

Aside from all the obvious horrors of miscarriage, infant loss and the sometimes resulting struggle to conceive, there's the quiet little sneaking nastiness of uncertainty. It's the feeling of having no control - of being unable to move forward and unwilling to move backwards. Of being caught in limbo.

Plans are what you used to make. After a loss, you realize that plans are what people who don't know any better make. Well, people who don't know loss, anyway.

For us there's no such thing as planning to have a summer baby or waiting until after a wedding for fear of being a hugely pregnant bridesmaid. There are no guarantees anymore. There never were, I suppose, but we just didn't realize it back when the world made sense.

We know all too well what happens to the best laid plans, and because of that we can never look at pregnancy the same way again. Shattered innocence and the inability to plan with any certainly. That's what our reality is. It's just one more way your world has changed. One more thing to make sense of. One more sorrow to get used to.

Chris at Love, Hope and Faith Talks about this very thing.

"From as far back as I can remember I have always had a plan of some type. Everything I ever did was based on something else that would follow down the line."

She says it's unnerving to be out of ideas. Unnerving indeed. We are used to working hard to achieve the ends we desire, and suddenly no amount of work seems to make a difference. Life, Mother Nature, the gods, fate, the universe - something had plans of its own for us.

So, I suppose, the trick is to adjust. To use that determination to figure out the best way for you to survive and, eventually, to really and truly live again. And for everyone it's different - whatever works for you is exactly what you should do. Reading blogs of other mothers and fathers can sometimes give you incredible help and insight as you start your healing journey.

For instance there's a very beautiful post at Just A Cloud Away that urges us to watch for signs from our angels.

"The message could be a butterfly sitting on your nose for 45 seconds, an unusual, long, quiet stare from one of your other children which traveled to the depths of your soul, hearing the same song played at your child’s memorial service, seeing the first letter of their name formed by 2 airplane smoke trails, or a painting of a butterfly in the labor and delivery wall of a subsequent pregnancy."

It reminds us that we have no choice but to adjust our thinking and actively search for meaning and peace in our new, sorrow touched worlds. And yes, hunt for angel signs while we're at it.

Yes, maybe the ability to plan and to be fully in control is a thing of the past, but sorrow can't take everything away from us. There is still so much we can do. So much we can choose to do.

So many of the blog authors I read are actively engaged in charity work. For them it's a way to make something good from something so unthinkably bad. After all, loss doesn't take away that natural instinct we all have to mother - to nurture, care and help. In fact, in many ways it strengthens that desire. Which is why people like Inca work so hard to make a difference in a world she knows is so aching with sorrow.

This week she writes about the fact that her non-profit foundation in memory of her daughter Emma Grace is starting to pick up steam. Word is getting out, and you can hear the excitement in her words as she speaks about the start of the 2nd annual donation drive (Go check it out. Poke. Poke. Poke).

And you know, sometimes you just need a good laugh. Sometimes not thinking about the plans you can't make or the ones you thought you had is the very best thing you can do. A lot of the time it's the very best thing you can do lest your head implode from the sheer force of the suppressed anger, anxiety and confusions swirling around within its confines.

So after you check out Inca's sewing blog, you absolutely must read all about Karla's cats and their herpes.

So yes, planning is out the window. But there's still so much we can do, including searching for angels, helping others and laughing at the herpes cats.

There is life after loss. Even if we can't plan a damn thing anymore.

Friday Blog Roundup - Beautiful Mothers

It's almost Mother's Day - a day those of us without living children dread, and those with living children endure with outward smiles and inward tears. For some it's the first one since losing a child, and to you I send wishes for peace and my hope that you will somehow find a way to celebrate the fact that you are a mother.

We are all mothers. We created life, no matter how small. We nourished it, no matter how long. We loved, we lost and we learned that, if given the chance, we would have died for those babies if it meant that they could live.

The love that grew along with our children is what makes us mothers. Be it 4 weeks or 10 months, we have been forever altered by the tiny lives that lived in us and by the tiny hearts that once beat in time with ours.

Emm at 13 Years into the Journey brings a perspective I don't think I've seen before in this little corner of blogland. She writes as a mother who has been mourning the loss of her daughter for 13 years. In her words I found incredible strength, and I took great solace in the fact that she shows it's possible to survive the loss of a piece of your heart.

I often wonder if I'm doing okay - if I'm putting the same amount of effort into my healing as I am my grieving, but Emm explains that the feelings of loss don't go away, even after 13 years. There will always be a measure of pain.

"There's just this feeling everyday that something is missing. It doesn't hit when I first wake up - or before I go to bed. It's in the little things of everyday."

What I'm missing now I'll always be missing. There is a strange comfort in knowing that. I'm glad Emm found us and I hope she continues to write about her daughter and her journey.

I will never understand those who must endure sorrow heaped upon sorrow. Please send Rosepetal some love and prayers. She is losing her second desperately wanted little boy next week. The love woven into the words she writes to her sons is breathtaking. It's so intimate and personal I almost feel like I'm intruding on sacred ground when I read her posts. I'm awed by her strength, and once again astounded, comforted and touched by the depth of mother-love.

Carole's post about a trip to the cemetery to visit her son Joseph with her daughter Abigail in tow nearly made me cry.

"We are heading back the van. She is holding my hand. She looks up at me and says..."Joseph lives with the doctors, right?". I try to explain the whole heaven thing again. I wonder if she thinks we left him at the hospital. There is no telling what is running through that 3 year old mind."

This is life for so many mothers (and fathers) - trying to make their lost children a part of their living childrens' lives, and doing all they can to ensure that those tiny souls are never forgotten.

Abigail's innocent confusion was what brought me to the brink. She will grow up understanding loss in a way many children never do, and as a result she'll have compassion and maturity beyond her years when it comes to grief and healing. But that she has to know such sorrow to gain such wisdom is utterly heartbreaking.

Steering her living children through the minefield of sorrow must be mentally and physically exhausting. And yet Carole does it with the grace, love and selflessness that only a mother can.

Finally, there's Artblog, who was tagged this week. Her task was to write an "I Am" poem that would give her blog readers a sense of, well, who she is. Her poem ended with this:

I am happy, I am sad, I am playful, I am glad,
I am grateful, I am mad, I am tired.

I am.

And isn't that life as a mother in mourning in a nutshell? We are so many things at all once - even things that seem to be in opposition to each other. We are all those things all at once because we have to be. And because, by some miracle, we're strong enough to be.

Happy Mother's Day

Friday Blog Roundup - No theme, just some beautiful words

Some people simply have a title for their blogs - a phrase that somehow just works to describe their piece of real estate here in blogland. Others add a subtitle that helps to further explain what it is they're dealing with and why they're compelled to write about it. I'm often blow away by the power of those few words, and found myself feeling that way when I read the An Invisible Minority subtitle.

We are a group of people that represent approximately two percent of the population*. We may look like everyone, we may act like everyone, but we have a constant thought in the back of our minds. We are thinking of our babies that didn't have a chance to live their lives.

It's so simple. So straightforward. So heartbreakingly honest and so very, very real. We do look just like everyone else, don't we? And yet there's more going on inside than the other 98% can even begin to fathom.

Melissa at Infertility, I wish I could quit you talks about her experience with church as a child this week, and finds herself thinking about prayer. So many of us wage epic battles with our respective Gods after we suffer the loss of a child. Melissa's trust in God and her ability to believe that he hears her through the clutter of her life no matter where she is, is beautiful.

I wonder about God a lot. About his plan and, specifically, about what happens to my prayers when they leave my lips. Melissa's entry made me remember a time when I didn't dwell so much on this - when I trusted more. When my faith was stronger.

"I've learned I don't need to have my thoughts organized and coherent. They don't need to be elaborate or profound. I don't need to set aside a certain time or place. God listens and hears a sincere, "Amen," wherever I am. I know someday he will grant me the desires of my heart - even if I voice them from a snore."

Her words brought me a moment of peace.

And then there's AJW5403 over at My Pain I Hide who has been tormented by feelings of loneliness lately. Her words tore at my heart. She doesn't understand why she can't find a place where she fits in - why she can't connect with someone.

But sometimes I just get so lonely. And I also have this huge fear of hurting somebody’s feeling and not knowing that I have hurt them. So that makes me a little paranoid to say too much to somebody.

Sorrow is lonely. It's many things (anger, despair, fear, pain) but it is certainly very, very lonely. I hope she finds a place where she is comfortable sharing her pain. And I hope when she does, she is welcomed with open arms by people who truly understand and will help make just a little of the loneliness go away.

And finally, there's Thalia who thought she was having a boy and found out it was a girl.

I had always known how much I wanted a daughter, so when I thought I was having a boy, I was aware of the loss involved in not having a daughter. After you'd all written me such beautiful and thoughtful comments, I started to understand better the wonderfulness that a son would mean. So now that I know that I am probably carrying our daughter, I have a sense of the loss that not carrying a son means. The answer is that only were we having boy/girl twins would we not be anticipating a tiny sense of regret. Not a major regret, not a big sadness, but a knowledge that in having something wonderful happen to us, we also have to let go of another tiny dream, a different life that might have been. I am delighted, but I am greedy.

It's so easy to love a baby - even a baby whose parts are still too tiny (or frustratingly hidden), making gender identification virtually impossible. Or incorrect. We love them - and we dream a thousand dreams for them. We love the idea of that mysterious little stranger so much, that we mourn the loss of their identity when there's a surprise midway down the line, like Thalia's little boy who turned into Thalia's little girl.

And then we turn around and start loving them all over again.

The idea that there exists love of this magnitude never fails to take my breath away.

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.

Friday blog roundup coming soon, but in the meantime...

It's a half an hour until Saturday and I haven't been around all day to write the Friday blog roundup. I will (it'll just be a day late, and I'm truly so sorry for the delay) but in the meantime, I thought we could all ponder something together...

Healing is different for everyone who grieves. The process I mean, and what you do to help yourself find the comfort, support, and validation you need to take those tiny steps forward into your new life as a grieving parent. Some people join support groups, some read books on loss, some seek counseling, some rely on friends, some volunteer, others write, knit, sing and craft their pain into something tangible that can be touched, heard or seen.

What did you do? What do you do? What has helped you find solace, peace or the strength you need to get out of bed each morning and function in a world that's so new, so difficult and sometimes so very sad?

Reading about the way you have chosen to confront and live with your pain may be just what another mother or father desperately needs to hear. So if you can, please tell us what has helped you survive your loss. If you have website or book references please include those too.

There really is strength in numbers.

Friday Blog Roundup - Beauty

They would never admit it, but I imagine those on the outside of this sad little world sometimes find the things we say and do - the things we need to say and do - very strange indeed.

But it all seems so normal to me now that I barely notice that my life is very different than it once was. In fact I need to immerse myself in this world every so often simply because it feels so normal to me now. This place, and the blogs of other mothers and fathers who have lost their children, make me feel like a regular person in a world that doesn't often get me anymore.

And what makes me feel so buoyed - and what keeps me coming back - is that despite the undeniable agony emanating from the blogs listed to the right of this entry, there is so much beauty in them too.

Beauty in simple, ordinary things that aren't ordinary at all to people who haven't been touched by the greatest kind of loss imaginable.

There's Samantha over at Pieces Of Me who lovingly ponders what her little Makenzie would have looked like in her Easter dress this past weekend, her thick hair held back by a matching barrette, her eyes wide with wonder. Samantha calls these moments lost milesones, a heart-wrenching term that describes all the special moments we believed we'd have with our children, but somehow don't. It's agonizing to ponder these lost milestones, but it's also just something we do. It's a way to stay connected and to remember. Even though it hurts.

Easter was on the mind of Wannabe Mom this week too. She and her husband took two sweet little Easter basket full of treats to the cemetery for Cerina and Nadia. What might seem morbid to those on the outside is so very, very normal to us. And tender and sweet. Cerina and Nadia are part of this family and always will be. Finding ways to make them part of holidays and celebrations and special days shows the strength of the bond we have with our lost little ones. And being allowed to witness these little moments of intimacy and affection is unbelievably heart-warming and healing.

Kate is knitting for her unborn twins. The urge suddenly struck her and she bought some delicious yarn to make them each an outfit. As she says, "...if i can get off my duff and make them, the babies will have cashmere-and-silk coming-home outfits. Well, we'll call them that anyway. I mean, even if they die they need something to wear, right?". This struck me as sad and hopeful and beautiful all at the same time. It's sad that she has to wonder exactly how those little outfits will be used, but the love and hope - despite the sorrow of losing a son four years ago - that's fueling her desire to knit is so very life-affirming. And just so wonderful.

And speaking of love, reading love letters to a child from his mommy is one of the most powerful ways to witness it in action. In her Week 45 letter to Aaron, this mom demonstrates, in an intimate and tender way, that it's possible to forge a relationship with a child who is gone. Love doesn't die. Our children aren't forgotten. There is mother-child love that lives on despite the separation of death. There just is, even if people don't understand that or the way we deal with it. It's there just the same. And it's more beautiful than anything on earth.

Things are undeniably different after you've suffered the loss of a child, but if you look closely, you'll see that there is still a wellspring of beauty in the lives of those in mourning. There is sorrow and despair and anger and helplessness too, of course. But by some miracle there is also love and beauty - and people willing to let us see it each and every day.

Friday Blog Roundup - Scars

I've been kind of obsessed with scars lately, both physical and emotional. I had laparoscopic surgery last week and I was quite shocked by the intensity of the repressed fears about hospitals, doctors and surgery that surfaced in the days leading up to the procedure. Fears that I clearly haven't dealt with since our son died. And afterwards, well, there were the new physical scars to deal with.

So I've been thinking about scars. A lot.

They're badges of honor - reminders of the physically painful events we have endured and survived. You can point to a scar and let it tell your remarkable story of hurt, healing and survival.

But those same proud marks can also be very painful reminders of a devastating event, like the sudden loss of a child born via c-section. Seeing the scar that marks your child's entrance into a world she didn't live to see is difficult. Touching the tiny sliver of a line that was your body's last contact with your child is devastating.

And sometimes strangely beautiful too. HE WAS HERE, it seems to say. And when there is no proof left but that scar, it can be a very beautiful reminder indeed.

Emotional scars are an even greater mystery. They are lonely scars, visible only to you. A month after a miscarriage you might look perfectly composed. You might function the way you used to - the way people expect you to. But on the inside, the wound in your heart is still open and raw. And no one can tell. It's the loneliest feeling in the world.

Everyone who has lost a child through miscarriage, stillbirth or perinatal death has scars. Blogging is one way to deal with them - to exorcise the demons - as is evident from the posts I read this week.

In a beautiful and heartbreaking entry by Vegetarian Mom, she shows pictures of her scar running in a large arc from the top of her tummy to the bottom. She shows them because she has to - because it connects her to her darling Birdie and because she has found a way to see the beauty in it.

It might be hard for some of you to see, I understand. But I feel I need to share this, after all it is where our Birdie was born from, it is a hard scar of a woman to have but it is also a reminder of the birth of our babies and so it somehow transforms and becomes beautiful. It is still very hard for me to look in the mirror and see my scar, it's still so recent. At the same time when I run my fingers over it I am connected to Birdie.

Niobe also wrote an evocative post about her c-section scar this week. She cringes at it - at the fact that is seems to smile at her. Right now it seems that there is no beauty in it for her, and maybe there never will be. This kind of loss is sorrow at its most devastating and raw. It is what it is. You feel what you feel. It's never wrong.

The scar from my c-section curves between my hip bones, pinkish, raised, and slightly off-center. Though, for the most part, I try to ignore it, occasionally I look down and cringe. It will fade, with time, to a thin pale line, a permanent memento of loss and failure. But what bothers me most is that it has the shape of a smile.

Michelle is pregnant again after the loss of her second daughter, but her scars still linger. A subsequent pregnancy doesn't erase the sorrow - it isn't a magic salve that heals the pain of losing a much loved and wanted child, even though people who don't understand might think it is - or should be.

In fact, a new pregnancy brings with it fears and challenges that we never had before, as Michelle is discovering...

I accidentally found myself looking at crib bedding yesterday and found the most adorable crib set that has sock monkeys on it. I totally love it. I cannot buy it.

Rosepetal knows this all too well too...

I can't bring myself to type (or say) b-a-b-y instead of foetus. I'm experiencing all the head vs heart stuff again. I know with my head that this foetus has no baggage to bring into the world, that s/he is not responsible for what happened in the past, that s/he is not Moksha.

It still doesn't mean that I'm spending more time thinking about what's actually happening, nor entertaining any possibility that this could end in a live baby. As I told the OB, the concept of a pregnancy of mine ending in a live baby has become completely alien to me.

Scars are markers of a moment when life changed irreversibly and when we changed with it. Perhaps the most interesting thing about them is that they never fully heal. By virtue of what they are, they are just always there - even if no one else but you can see them. They fade, soften and change along with our bodies and minds, but they are always there.

Both a blessing and a curse.

Friday Blog Roundup - Coming Soon

First of all, I want to make it clear that I take no credit for this idea - I was asked to contribute to this wonderful site by its creators and I'm very, very happy to do so. And honored and grateful too.

The support and gentle understanding from people who truly do know what you're going through is invaluable when you find yourself struggling to navigate the terrifying and lonely road to healing after the loss of a child. The words of fellow mothers (and fathers) in mourning can be a salve on days when the pain seems almost impossible to bear.

It's those beautiful words that I'll be looking at and collecting at the end of every week, starting Friday, April 6th. It's called a Blog Roundup, made familiar to me by the good folks over at Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. But while they roundup blogs on infertility, parenting and loss, the roundup here will only focus on blogs written by parents in mourning.

Even though our blogs are public, our thoughts, feelings and reactions to our losses are very private and personal. That's why I will only be referencing blogs listed on this site. If you have listed your blog here, then we assume it's okay to reference it in a blog roundup every now and then too.

Please spread the word. If you know someone who you think would like to be listed here - and included in the roundup - tell them about this site. Maybe even post a link to it on your blog if you're so inclined.

There really is strength in numbers. And unwavering support and an incredible amount of understanding and love.