I try not to hang on to dates that cause me pain. Having been through as many losses as we have I could effectively spend all year near a date I lost a baby or a due date or a bad hospital appointment.
I make an effort to forget and I feel guilt for this.
It doesn’t mean I loved my babies any less. Just that I could allow myself to be swallowed by the grief and never be able to move on or I can choose to let out my tears at the time, feel the losses at the time then pack them into a memory box and put those thoughts to the back of my head.
I have chosen the latter. Mainly. I refuse to let infertility take from me more than it already has!! I get mad, sometimes my anger is all I have had to give me the strength to just get out of bed.
To look at me no one would know, I hide it well. No one knows the times I have hidden in the toilets at work while a colleague came in with their new baby, or have seen the many sleepless nights from the discomfort of a procedure or general side effects from the PCOS or the times I have sat in the bathroom with a pregnancy test saying “NOT PREGNANT” silent tears falling into my lap. No one knows these things because I choose to dry my tears, reapply my make up and smile and I act like I am totally fine.
It’s harder sometimes, and for some reason the baby I lost in 2015 seems to be the worst, I think because we weren’t trying it was a total surprise. I know the due date of this baby, and I know s/he would be almost one by now. The more it approaches the more that I wonder how to let it go.
When we grieve a baby, some I am sure would say that it wasn’t ever here so perhaps the grief isn’t as real as loosing an actual person. I want those people to know, that’s not true. When you are trying for children or find out you’re pregnant. You instantly start to form hopes and dreams for your child.
You imagine the birth, the nursery, how your husband and family will love the baby, who they will grow to be, first days of school and so on. I have imagined every moment of my life with our child, how s/he would look, even how they would laugh! To have hope and then have that hope ripped from your body. It leaves an emptiness that no words can explain.
The ache is unbearable. Your heart feels like it’s smashed to pieces. I didn’t really comprehend “heartache” until I lost our babies. It’s a real physical pain and while time helps you process it, for me the pain has never really gone.
I read something recently following the story line in Coronation Street ( a soap in the UK) one of the characters lost their baby mid way through their pregnancy I think around 23 weeks and received no birth certificate. She said “Who will know that he ever existed once I am gone”
I cried uncontrollably while alone again in my house. This is it, this is why it hurts so much. No one will ever know about our babies, or how hard we tried. We will simply be a childless couple.
I think that’s why I find writing so therapeutic. It’s proof of what we have been through and helps me to process. I may not make a big deal out of those important dates, it’s how I can survive, but I will never ever forget how much I wanted them. They were so loved and very much wanted. That’s all that matters to me.
So no it’s not the date that matters, but the fact they exsisted for however brief the moment was. They exsisted and they were ours.
Xoxo
The Childless Mother 