National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day
In the spring of 2004 I lost my first pregnancy.
I had only known about that wee tiny baby for about a week, but that week was a wondrous week, full of joy and love and hope and potential. I floated through the days, thrilled and full.
And then I crashed harder than I have ever crashed in my life.
I had known the OB/GYN who followed me through the rest of my pregnancies for a whole ten minutes when she confirmed that I was miscarrying with a gentle, “I am sorry…” She didn’t need to say more. Scott bravely held my hand as I wondered what I had done… how I had messed this up… how in space of those three words, “I am sorry” our hopes had been blown out as quietly as a whisper.
I know now that, because of that loss, I have Milo. He was conceived before the due date of our first baby. I can’t imagine a life without him and realize that HE was the child who was supposed to start our family.
But every now and then, as I look through my nightstand, I come across the pregnancy journal I had started for our first child. The handful of entries illustrate a mother who desperately wanted the little life she carried, a father who was over the moon in love with a baby who was still an idea, a song, a dream.
I know that I am lucky. I have Milo and I have the twins because of the losses I suffered. I also know that some of my sisters in losses are not as lucky — that they grieve with empty arms and full hearts, waiting yet for a child to touch and see and smell and hold. It is because of them that I cherished every moment of pregnancy, that I held my complaints silent. Because I can remember those moments when a friend would complain of morning sickness or swelling feet and I would die a bit inside, willing to trade all the morning sickness and swollen feet just to know that I was carrying a healthy baby.
Please take a moment to remember them today…
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