To the mother who miscarried

To the mother who miscarried,


I want you to know that I was there too.  I was there at the doctor's office, shaking with fear and praying with everything I had that it would be alright.  I lived those excruciating long seconds with the ultrasound wand inside me, waiting to hear a little heartbeat.  I was there too when there was nothing.  I tried to walk as fast and I could past the happy, round pregnant women in the waiting room too.

I know you blame yourself.  You keep thinking about what could have happened and what you might have done or not done.

I know you're angry.  You replay every moment that has been stolen from you.  You play over and over in your mind what it should have been like to hold that baby for the first time.  To watch them take their first steps.  To cry for them on their first day of school.  All of it is just gone.

And the bleeding doesn't stop.  For two weeks your body pushes out what should have kept your little one alive.  And every time you relieve yourself you see the blood and are reminded all over again that it's over.  That your baby is already gone.  And it hurts.  Your body and your heart.  Your back aches and the cramping is awful and you keep thinking that you were supposed to go through pain like this for a baby but this pain is empty.  There's no baby at the end of this pain.  I know what it's like too when it finally comes out.  To hold it in your hand on the bathroom floor and feel like you'll never be whole again.

I know how lonely you are.  I know that for your spouse and your family it wasn't real yet but it was real for you.  You started talking to the little seed inside of you as soon as you knew it was there.  Saying goodnight every night and patting your stomach throughout the day with a little smile, knowing a baby was growing inside you.  You loved your baby from the moment you knew it was there.

I know how terrified you are to try again.  I know that you'll hear it over and over that you can "just try again" like it's easy, like it's nothing, but the very thought of risking this again puts knots in your stomach.

I know how hard it is to be around pregnant women and babies right now.  And now they're everywhere and you can't get away from them.  And your heart aches.  Everyone around you will have forgotten about it but you feel the constant aching.  And you wonder if it will ever stop.

You walk around feeling like you're missing a part of yourself and the emptiness is just screaming inside of you and no one else can hear it.  It feels like where there once was life is now just a black hole, sucking everything into it, pulling you deeper into the dark.

I know all of it.  Here's something you might not have heard.  It's ok to talk about it.  It's ok to say you miss your baby.  That you feel lonely.  It's ok to cry to someone about all the 'would have been's' that keep you up at night.  Here's another thing too.  It's ok if you don't want to talk about it.  It's ok if it's your darkness to carry and you don't want to share it.  We are all different and we take the pain our own way.  But know too that there's a sisterhood of us out there.  It changes you, when your baby dies inside you.  We know that.  And it helps a little to hold out our hands and say I've been there.  My story is different but my baby is an angel too.  We are stronger when we know we aren't alone.

I don't know when your aching will fade.  I can tell you that it took months but the pain did finally turn into something else.  After a while, I felt peace instead of hurt.  I haven't forgotten, not for a single day.  I still wonder what my baby would have looked like and who they would be today.  I believe though that I will see my angel one day.  That one day my angel will put their arms around me and tell me, "I'm the one you lost."  I hold onto that.  I wish you peace too.  Hang in there momma, you're going to be ok.  I'm praying for you and for our angels.