If you are one of the 20,000-plus new readers of TSOH from the last several days, welcome! I wish you didn't need this kind of support, but I am honored and humbled that you are finding it here. You may find additional encouragement from the articles listed on this page and in this follow-up article, "10 more things that babyloss parents do that feel impossible but aren't". Also, I have an e-book, "Dear mom of a baby in Heaven" for subscribers to this blog (see the sidebar). And please contact me if I can be of any other help. May God fill you with His peace.
For a long time in 2009, I felt like I was going crazy. Over the course of the year, we had lost two babies during pregnancy, Naomi and Kyria, along with multiple surgeries and cancer scares. Especially after Naomi's death, I found myself behaving and thinking differently than I had in the past, and differently than most people around me. It wasn't until I started talking with other parents who had lost children that I realized that I wasn't going crazy. The things I was doing were NOT evidence of unhealthy grief or lack of recovery or an inability to move forward. Instead, they were part of my new normal, common to most other parents who had lost a baby, and most of them are true for me even five years later.
If you are a babyloss mom, maybe you can relate. If you do these things and wonder if it's normal, it is. You are. You're not alone.
1. See our lives as very clearly divided into before and after our loss.
2. Keep a list, mental or written, of things people should and should not say to a babyloss mom.
If you are a babyloss mom, maybe you can relate. If you do these things and wonder if it's normal, it is. You are. You're not alone.
1. See our lives as very clearly divided into before and after our loss.
2. Keep a list, mental or written, of things people should and should not say to a babyloss mom.
3. Check to make sure our living children are breathing every. single. night.
4. Hesitate to congratulate someone making a pregnancy announcement, because we know too much.
5. With our own subsequent pregnancies, either announce immediately (to celebrate every moment no matter how long we have) or wait until we are practically ready to deliver before telling the world we are pregnant (so we don't have to deal with others' questions).
6. Know the route to take in Walmart that avoids the baby aisles.
4. Hesitate to congratulate someone making a pregnancy announcement, because we know too much.
5. With our own subsequent pregnancies, either announce immediately (to celebrate every moment no matter how long we have) or wait until we are practically ready to deliver before telling the world we are pregnant (so we don't have to deal with others' questions).
6. Know the route to take in Walmart that avoids the baby aisles.
7. Think hard about how to answer the question How many children do you have?
8. Wear memorial jewelry to keep our babies with us.
9. Stare, for just a second, at that child in the grocery store who is probably the same age ours would have been if only.
10. Remember...on our due date, our anniversary of loss, our birthday, Mother's Day, Christmas, Easter, dinner time, bedtime, summer vacations, when school starts in the fall, on random Tuesdays...
8. Wear memorial jewelry to keep our babies with us.
9. Stare, for just a second, at that child in the grocery store who is probably the same age ours would have been if only.
10. Remember...on our due date, our anniversary of loss, our birthday, Mother's Day, Christmas, Easter, dinner time, bedtime, summer vacations, when school starts in the fall, on random Tuesdays...
11. Wince when we hear someone complain about their kids or about being pregnant.
12. Wonder how our lives would have been different if only.
13. Appreciate our living children so, so much. (Really, we don't need to be reminded to do this.)
14. Have a ready-made excuse for why we can't go to a baby shower.
15. Find ways to reach out to that acquaintance in our circle of friends who has just had a loss.
12. Wonder how our lives would have been different if only.
13. Appreciate our living children so, so much. (Really, we don't need to be reminded to do this.)
14. Have a ready-made excuse for why we can't go to a baby shower.
15. Find ways to reach out to that acquaintance in our circle of friends who has just had a loss.
16. Think about what we can do for others that will honor our child in Heaven and give that life purpose.
17. Think about Heaven more than average.
17. Think about Heaven more than average.
18. Pause a moment when we hear our child's name spoken, even in a random location.
19. Notice the gap - in our family pictures, at our dinner table, in the car, everywhere.
20. Think about our baby in Heaven. Every. Single. Day.
19. Notice the gap - in our family pictures, at our dinner table, in the car, everywhere.
20. Think about our baby in Heaven. Every. Single. Day.
RSS Feed
