But really it's Four {Talking about Miscarriage}

Phone Pic due to computer issues, don't steal!

We had pictures taken on Saturday.

Against my husbands will (he insists I preface with that) the kids and I wore those shirts for a few of them.

Cute right?

But really, that should say 4 and that’s what I kept thinking.

It’s what I thought when I made them. I thought of actually doing it too. My kids are young though. They don’t totally understand, still, what happened. I want to make him part of our life, never forgotten, known. We have nothing physical to help make it real to very young children. I think that makes it harder. All we have is a fuzzy (very early) ultrasound and a stack of condolence cards. There is no tombstone, no ashes, no blankie that was loved and cuddled for even a second, no photo, no footprint, nothing.

My daughter doesn't know or get it (she's only 3). Although God has given her a quirk that warms my heart and soul every time she does it. If you say to her, "you're going to be a big sister" she always, always answers "I already a BIG sister!". She is. She doesn't say it because she understands that, she says it because she is BIG and wants that added to everything. None the less, it warms my heart and makes me squeeze her because yes, yes she is a big sister already.

My son does know, and somewhat understands. He tells people all the time. He told the photographer, “we had another baby but it died”. My husband hurried him quiet and it has sat in my heart since than. I know my husband was trying to protect me, we were trying to celebrate this pregnancy in pictures, me crying was the last thing he wanted. It still weighs on me, I wish I would have jumped in faster, been stronger, talked to him, acknowledged it. 

Why can’t we talk about it?

I’m asked frequently, is this your second? So this is your third? (depending on how many children are with me). I almost always answer it’s my fourth, or it’s my fourth pregnancy, this will be my third child.

Responses very from stunned silence, sad eyes stares, quick conversation changes or need to leave, and on one occasion I had a women I just met (who was in her late first or early second trimester) come right out and say “I can’t hear this or talk to you” and walk away. I get it (sort of). Oh and the two worst responses ever, “oh you didn't loose a child you miscarried” and “I know what’s it like, we chose to terminate at that time”- I still can’t respond to those statements in anything less than a tirade.

Why can’t we talk about it?

When word started spreading about what happened at least half a dozen women reached out to me. Some I knew, some that just knew off me from MOMS club, or a friend of a friend. They reached out to say "it happened to me too". At least one of these women was someone I knew fairly well and I didn’t know this.

So, why can’t we talk about it?

Why do we choose to sweep these angels under the rug. Pretend that their lives didn’t matter, that they weren’t loved and wanted? Whether it happens at 6 weeks or happens at 17, 18, 22 weeks. These children were wanted and loved. I had seen his heart, I felt those first early flutters of movement. He was no less a child then the two that run around my house.

So, why can’t we talk about it?

It’s been one year.

One year since I had to walk into an OR and say goodbye to the child that I would never know.

Time doesn’t make it hurt less.

This new child, waiting to make his/her debut, doesn’t make it hurt less. Doesn’t make his death any less meaningful to me or my family. We will always be missing a piece.

Because really it’s our fourth.

And I will continue to answer that way no matter how uncomfortable it makes people.

Because we need to talk about it, we need to remember.

My son was a part of our family and he was loved, just as all the other angels that are born into the hands of God instead of the arms of their mother. They deserve to be remembered and talked about, and not just in hushed tones in our private homes.



Sharing my story with Shell at Things I Can't Say: