October is Worldwide Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. This is the month that we tell our stories, remember our babies, and break the silence.
I have a lot of words that I want to get on to "paper" but my brain just jumbles it all up. I am sad, I am having a very hard time in my grief of Alexander. In 5 days it will be the 1 year anniversary of his memorial service, which is the day I said good bye. This month has been harder on me than his actual angelversary was. I have been very moody, short with the kids, irritable, depressed, and have really had nothing good to say for a while. I usually repress things for a long time and either forget about them or don't think about them ever again. However, I think this is something a little bigger and I may have to deal with it sooner rather then later.
I really thought that I had said good bye, thinking that I could just let go of it, and my entire pregnancy with Kayla I did pretty well, but I watched a show on the weekend, called Long Island Medium, where the medium was telling everyone messages of their loved ones. One lady in particular, she had lost her child in the 5th month of her pregnancy, and this child acknowledged her via the medium, the child "said" he know who she was, that he is there with her and that he saw her say good bye. I need that. I need the validation that Alexander was "there", that his smile was a smile and not an illusion. That, though I could not physically hold him, that having him near me, praying and talking to him, that he heard me and that he took that with him. I have been such an emotional mess since I watched that episode. Then it makes me think of all my other miscarriages, do I really have that many tiny angels growing in heaven? I have my own sports team up there. I always pushed the miscarried babies to the back of my mind, yeah, I had 10, or more early miscarriages in my first trimester, I saw ultrasounds with embryos, some with heartbeats, some that never developed that far, some that developed farther but stopped somewhere a long the way. And it never really effected me until Alexander died, Alexander lived until he took his first breath without lungs.
A loss of a still child, I really cannot compare it to any other emotion I have ever had in my entire life. I have never lost anyone so close to me. I do realize that Alex never breathed a full breath, that he didn't leave an imprint in the social world, that he more or less only exists in me and Chris heart and mind, but he made a huge impact on me, he was my son, Isaac's little sibling that he prayed so hard for. I am so blessed to have been able to give him Kayla after all of this, especially since my uterus was basically destroyed by Alex's pregnancy, but, she is not a replacement. I did not carry her to replace Alex, she came out of pure love and want for another physical child. Alex was his own person, a little life, and he died.
Sorry for rambling, but I really think this is part of the healing process. I need to get this off my chest, regardless of who reads it or not.
October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. Let's take some time to remember the babies who were born asleep, whom we carried but never met, those we have held but could not take home, or the ones who made it home, but could not stay. Baby loss is still a taboo subject. I am breaking my silence. In memory of Baby Alexander and my many unnamed angels that sit upon his shoulders.
October 15th, World Wide Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day
Sheena D.
