capture your grief day 25

lrichmond86

Day 25. #SayItOutLoud: Say It Out Loud is The STILL Project’s famous hashtag. STILL is a feature-length documentary film project aimed at breaking the cycle of silence surrounding pregnancy and infant loss. If you could say anything out loud about your journey with grief with the death or your baby, what would it be? What do you want the world to know? Is there a cause that touches your heart that you want to raise awareness for?

Noethola

***SIGGY WARNING***

Say it out loud:

I recently changed my profile picture to the picture below. It still strikes me that people pass over her life as if I did not carry her long enough for her to be a real human. They ask why we would take pictures with her, why we would want the memories of those few hours with her body, how we could count her among our children. DH and I are both very open about our loss and how much she impacted us. There is so much I want to tell people about baby loss. 

schulme2

I did this because I feel like people always want to compare their loss. "I lost my grandma, my uncle, my dad, etc." or "I know how you feel, I had a miscarriage at 6 weeks". Losing a child is different from any other loss. It's not the loss of good times or a wonderful past or present. It's the loss of a future. It's the loss of your hopes and dreams. It is having your future in your hands and having it slip away. It is the loss of innocence. It is the brutal awakening that a healthy pregnancy does not mean you get a healthy baby. It is the loss of everything you thought you knew... Because parents are not supposed to bury their children.

BrittianyM

Day 25. #SayItOutLoud:

After Brooke grew her wings from SIDS, I said two things, "It feels like we are part of a secert club no one wants to be a part of" the other is "SIDS happenes to a friend of a friend, I am that friend of a friend".  Still to this day, I can not believe this is our reality and that I will never get to hold my little girl again in this lifetime.

I want the world to know that losing a child can and does happen and to anyone! We didn't do anything wrong to deserve this to happen to us. Our little ones also did nothing wrong and they are just as real and as important as the one that are still here with thier families. They are still are children and we will always love them! Its ok to talk about them and incorpate them into our daily lives. Its ok to carry them into our futures.

A cause that I want to raise awareness for is SIDS. We need to find a cause and stop this from happening to anyone else. The CJ Foundation for SIDS is a great foundation. They are always researching hopeing that someday, we will know why this is happening.

lrichmond86

Day 25. #SayItOutLoud: Say It Out Loud is The STILL Project’s famous hashtag. STILL is a feature-length documentary film project aimed at breaking the cycle of silence surrounding pregnancy and infant loss. If you could say anything out loud about your journey with grief with the death or your baby, what would it be? What do you want the world to know? Is there a cause that touches your heart that you want to raise awareness for?

So many times after we lost baby Gary other moms would say to me, "you'll be a mom someday" or "someday you'll see what it's like", as though just because I never got to nurse or diaper my baby I wasn't really a mom. Those statements always hurt the most. I was as much a mother to my son as any of them were to their children. I carried him for 31 weeks. I went through the pain of an induction and labor and delivery. I had to heal physically post partum. The difference was that I had to do all of that and then hand my baby back to the nurse, leave him forever, and go home to plan his funeral. In my opinion, I did the hardest job a mom could do. I buried my son. I don't need diapers and bottles to tell me that he was here, that he was real. I know because I held him. I held an angel. MY angel. And that gives me the profound privilege of calling myself his mother.

irons633

@lrichmond86 you took the words right out of my mouth. I am sitting here now with full breast and no baby to nurse. We have all the reminders of our babies but no baby to hold or lull to sleep. So sorry dear.

TwinkleTor

I hate hearing "you'll be a mom someday" or "someday you'll see what it's like". First off I work in a daycare I raise other people's children I already know what's it's "like", second I went through all the post partum stuff like every other "mother" out there. I carried Domenik for 27 weeks, I was forced into labor, felt every contraction, and pushed him out, just like the next mom. I needed my time to heal, my breast filled with milk, my ears were listening out for cries that never came, and my arms yearned to hold a baby that I had to walk away from forever. No mom knows how hard it is to be an angel mom more than one that has dealt with lose. Like you said @lrichmond86 "I buried my son. I don't need diapers and bottles to tell me that he was here, that he was real. I know because I held him. I held an angel. MY angel. And that gives me the profound privilege of calling myself his mother."

irons633

@TwinkleTor so sorry for your loss and I understand you when you stated," milk full of breast and no baby to nurse." My breast are just finally starting to go back to normal which is bittersweet because it shows that my baby has come and gone and all I have is memories.