Capture Your Grief 2012 - SHARE!

johnnys june

I saw there were a few of us participating.  Feel free to post your pictures for Day 1-4 (one day, or all days, your choice).  I'd love to see everyone's perspective.  I've been posting mine to my blog daily too (www.themistylife.blogspot.com).

Day 1: Sunset/morning

A certain 3 month old kept me from seeing the sunrise, so instead, this is "morning" from my car window as I leave for work.  It's the few seconds I get to enjoy it every morning. 

Day 2: Self Portrait, Before Loss

Pregnant with Logan, 2 weeks before he was born early.

Day 3:  Self Portrait, After Loss

Pregnant with our rainbow baby girl, 1.5 years after Logan died.  This was done for a photo challenge "Faceless Portrait."  I wanted to capture this new dynamic of motherhood, the struggle between fear and excitement, the grieving heart holding onto an ounce of hope.

Day 4:  Most Treasured Item

Picture.  Proof {to myself and the world} that he existed.

 

pottermommy

Day 1- Sunrise.  This was cool b/c theses are storm clouds, it stopped raining just long enough for a picture.

 

" mce_src="">

Day 2- A picture before

 

" mce_src="">

 

Day3- A picture after: this is one of the maternity pics for Gabriel.

 

" mce_src="">

 

Day 4- Most treasured item- this is a blanket made by my aunt, it is made with pieces of Kam's baby blankets.

 

" mce_src="">

katyms7

Thank you for sharing. I was not sure if I was going to be able to stay strong enough to participate. I thought about it and decided I was going to start today. I will be catching up on the few days that I missed.

My pictures are being posted to the facebook page for capture your grief. I am also going to start working on a blog and I will put my pictures in the blog.

weddedwife

Thanks for sharing, ladies! I'm not participating but I love seeing others' pics.

jbranden12

Thanks for sharing, ladies! I have posted a few on the FB page Carly made. It's a wonderful project.

xxswebbxx

****SIGGY****

 

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing. 

I've loaded Days 1-6 on to my blog.

https://missingourangelolivia.blogspot.com/

The link is also in my siggy.

philfemgal

Here is what I have posted so far:

 Day 1--Sunrise, ~7:10am Michigan

 

 

Day 2--Before Loss. This photo is from a 2008 trip to Disney World--me with Alice in Wonderland. This was years before my wife and I decided to try to have a baby, but even then we always had the name "Alice" in mind for a little girl. We imagined that one day we would bring a daughter named "Alice" to Disney World and she too could get a photo with Alice in Wonderland. We now do have a daughter named Alice. But as she was born at 19 weeks gestation this past January, we will never get to bring her to Disney World.

 

 

Day 3--After Loss: We lost our first twin (twin in early December 2011 at 14 weeks. Then a month later, I went into preterm labor and delivered Alice Joe at 18.5 weeks. We have no photos at all from the first three months after the loss (other than a few precious photos of Alice immediately after birth). I am not sure how we got through those first few months. It is all a blur now.

The photos below are from 4-6 months after the loss?a kind of collage of our attempt at recovering after the initial months of just trying to survive.

The middle photo is my wife and I in May on a cruise. Just a few weeks before I was supposed to be giving birth to our full-term twins, we took a cruise. We needed to get away. It was nice, but it was the saddest vacation we have ever had, thinking that we were only taking the vacation to try to sooth ourselves given the loss of our babies.

The kittens on the upper right (Blaise) and lower left (Roz) are unexpected editions to our family (on top of the dog and 2 cats we already had!) whom we acquired this summer when we found a litter of feral kittens living in our yard right around the time I should have been due to give birth. We couldn?t help but attach emotionally to those kittens and before we knew it, they were ours.

Just a few months later we found the mother of those kittens (Diane) who was still feral and living around our yard very pregnant and suddenly very affectionate. Turned out she was about to give birth and was apparently looking for a birth coach! She gave birth to 6 more kittens in our basement. Watching her birth them was bittersweet?I just couldn?t help but think that I should have been birthing babies around that time. Unfortunately our house was overfull with pets, so we took Diane and her kittens to the local humane society where they were taken to a foster family.

Finally the picture in the upper left corner is the latest photo of a construction paper chain link to countdown the first trimester of our rainbow pregnancy. I am now 15.5 weeks pregnant and hope everyday that we get to bring this baby home with us.

 

 

Day 4--Most Treasured Item. This is a sketch of Alice (born at 18.5 weeks) based on some pictures taken at the hospital by the nurses immediately after her birth. Unfortunately the only photos which clearly show her face have very bad coloring and are blurry. We've never felt comfortable showing them to anyone else. We did have this sketch drawn based on them and the sketch does seem to have captured a lot of Alice's features (though she looks much more like a full term baby in the sketch). You can see in particular the shape of her cheekbones, which are just like mine and my dad's, which my wife noticed immediately while we were holding Alice after delivery.

 

Day 5--Memorial. I got this tattoo of the day Alice was born/lost about 3 months after losing her. It is on the upper right side of my back.

 

 

Day 7-- What to Say. I skipped yesterday because we were very lucky not to get most of the awful cliches that are said to people who have lost a baby. The one thing that stuck in my mind, I turned into this "what to say."

 

tracint

I'm participating as well.  I'm going out of order though. I'm posting on Facebook for family and friends to get a better idea of what all happened. It's definitely been a challenge becuase with such a large audience you never know what kind of reception you'll be getting.  Luckily, everyone has been pretty supportive. Here's a link to my FB - https://www.facebook.com/#!/traci.n.t