October is infant & pregnancy loss awareness month. I’m going to get a bit personal here and share a story that not very many people outside of my personal circle really know. It’s a hard topic for me to talk about and it still drudges up some painful memories; though I believe that healing comes from sharing and I hope my story can bring hope to other women.
When I was 19, I was diagnosed with Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS or PCOD depending on who you ask). It was and still is a painful diagnosis, I was told from a very young age that my hope of having children was very slim without some serious medical intervention. I brushed it off, I was young and believed I was invincible, when I wanted kids, I’d have them!
Turns out, that wasn’t the case for me. 4 miscarriages and no viable pregnancies led me on a dark path of longing. Through my 20’s and coming up on my 30’s, I wanted nothing more than to be a mom. To be responsible for a tiny person, someone to watch over, raise up and love on every day. I tried pretty much everything at one point, any medications that they would throw at me, eating only organic, exercising tirelessly, I would have given my left arm for something to have WORKED.
Well, nothing did. I had sort of accepted into my late, LATE 20’s that I was always going to be the crazy aunt.
4 miscarriages. 4 of my babies I never got to meet.
In my head, it was over. I had fought a hard battle but I had lost. My own body had betrayed me, the one maternal thing it was supposed to be able to do it fought me every step of the way. I thought maybe I was being punished, I didn’t deserve to be a mom, pretty much every dark thought ran through my mind during those trying times.
I longed. I missed, I blamed myself. I dreamed of babies I would one day meet.
I have a healthy daughter now, but it was an uphill battle. She is my rainbow baby and I am grateful every single day for her. She isn’t my only child, my heart rests also with the babies I never had the chance to hold. They are my children, they are OUR children.
Every day, 13 babies are lost to SIDS or other sudden infant deaths, nearly 70 new parents will listen to the silence of their stillborn baby and countless, far too many to count, parents will suffer the pain of a miscarriage or other causes of infant death.
Countless families grieve in silence, never fully coming to terms with the loss in their family. It is important to talk. To remember and to know that you are not alone.
For more information – Remembering our babies
Support – Now I lay me down to sleep
I am the face, are you?
