7 things this Angel mama wants you to know…

After experiencing a loss, any loss, it can be hard to imagine how your days will go on. With such a big part of your life gone, there is adjusting you have to make to continue living with a hole where your love for them used to be. But somehow we manage to make it through each day, one at a time.

Days are all different. I have different things on my to-do lists and different classes to attend. No two days are ever alike, yet still there are recurring themes. Though all my days are different, each day I wake up with my husband and get to get ready with him. Everyday he says, “I love you,” to me. Everyday I remember how blessed I am. And, everyday I feel these things sometime throughout the day…

1.The Guilt…

Sadly there is a big part of any mother that will blame herself for what happens to her children. Even when (sometimes especially when) it wasn’t her fault, and she could have done little to prevent it. But our kids are ours, and our role as mothers is to protect, and serve our babies… So there will always be the small amount of guilt, and self blame for the deaths of our angels.

Please don’t try and tell us “it’s not your fault,” because as I said, we know it isn’t, but it often feels as though it should be, because then there is someone to blame- something to fix- a way to change the outcome next time.

2. What if it had ended differently…

We all wonder what our lives could be like if our baby(s) had been able to stay on earth with us. We see the updates other mothers make, the monthly pictures, first days of school or school picture days. What would *my * kids be doing/thinking/saying today?

Pregnancy, especially experienced by one who is untouched by this kind of loss, is a magical experience when you are building a body for your baby as well as building dreams and plans for their future. So it makes sense that there is another universe playing constantly in my head of what would be happening now if they had lived… Whether I’d have taken the same classes, or less classes to have more time at home with them. If we’d even have the apartment we have, or if we’d be somewhere else entirely.

3. This grief…. it’s unpredictable.

Grief is a forrest we are all making our way through. We all experience highs and we all have lows.

There are times when everything could seem right with the world, I could be on a vacation with my husband and be having a blast, when something abruptly tugs my mind to my babies. Sometimes its simply the aforementioned case of “what if…” Suddenly I’m more solemn and contemplative because in almost any case, no matter how grand, I would trade it for the alternate universe I imagine with my sons.

But that universe is not my universe, and I have to turn around and be thankful for those fun times, as well as for the short time I had with them.

4. The Baby-hunger…

I want you to understand that I don’t hate the pregnant woman you may see me eyeing, nor the brand new babies being paraded around by proud new parents. In fact, I think highly of these people for being willing to take on the responsibility that is children. But accompanying than that is the sticky green jealousy for the obliviously happy people. I want to announce to the world, “Don’t take one little bit of it for granted!”

You think you know the feeling, but I assure you nobody is truly baby hungry until their body, more specifically their hormones, think there is supposed to be a baby in the picture. I have [my] babies on the brain, and it takes some work to get anything else there. I want so badly to be pregnant again and to have the chance at my own rainbow after this rain.

5. The Worry…

As much as I want want want another baby, I am scared and worried about everything. You can imagine why. With the experience I’ve had with pregnancy and child birth, suddenly everything is cause for caution and care. I crave to be pregnant again, to allow myself to make plans for a new baby, and to finally have that warm bundle of happiness home with me… But I can’t imagine what loosing another child the way I lost my sons would be like. Or even loosing a child much earlier than that. It all scares me.

The worry and anxiety- it’s understandable, yet so often shamed.

6. Post-Pregnancy, but Baby-free…

There is no easy way to explain this feeling. I walk into each class where a good 80% of the other students don’t know me at all, and are too polite (or don’t care anyway) to ask why it is I look like I do (I’m still trying to loose the baby-weight.) Because surly if I’d recently had a baby I couldn’t be coming to classes all day- who would be taking care of the child? Luckily, only a few ask, and even less ask past the point of, “Do you have kids?”

Its a question who’s answer will forever now be “yes” but a little awkward and confusing for a time with no live littles running around you, and maybe a little less sleep deprivation seen around your eyes.

7. Melancholy

I am grieving, and I will be grieving for quite some time. Don’t try to rush me, or judge the process I am going through. Don’t wonder why every smile and laugh seem not quite full. I am happy, but still sad. I keep going, but still wish I could go back. I push through it, even though sometimes it would be easier not to.

I feel happiness, I truly do. But I am still sad to accept a life without my babies.

Thank you for asking how I’ve been.

Thank you for letting me talk about my pregnancy, birth and babies with you.

Thank you for telling me your great news of pregnancy/births.

But mostly thank you for understanding the process.