Pregnancy & Infant Loss

October is Pregnancy, Infant loss and SIDS Awareness Month. I have been going back and forth all month about writing something, but I only saw a few friends mention it this month on social media, so I wasn’t sure if the audience was there. Which is silly, 20% of all women experience a miscarriage in their lifetime and 1 out of every 100 births are stillbirths. That equates to roughly 1 in 4 of us experiencing some sort of pregnancy loss. So, we’re clearly out there, hanging out and not discussing our grief. Which, I feel obligated to say, is totally okay. If you have experienced loss and aren’t okay with moving past it yet or reliving its details that’s fine. I think we rush people through their grief, sometimes, because we don’t feel comfortable watching them grieve. Grief can be ugly up close, and it might be tough to see a loved one in that state and try to avoid upsetting them more. However, there are lots of women who are okay with talking about their loss.

December will mark the 5th Anniversary of my son’s birth. Five years. I know most of the same people and those I don’t see in person I connect with via the internet. Five years and there is one person besides my Mother willing to mention my son, Elijah, to me unprompted. I’ve known her since my teens when we were still young, dumb and full of…other things. God, our parents had some bizarre phrases. Anyway, I think that’s why she could hear the loneliness and pain behind my “I’m fine” a few weeks after my delivery and came and sat with me on a day that I desperately needed to be distracted. I will always love her for that and because I understand how soul saving that moment was I feel prompted to discuss it. I’m not bringing this up because I’m angry, I understand how awkward it can be to step into that bubble of sadness. How you can fumble for words and feel inadequate in the face of something so awful. Your friends probably do, too. Talk about it together. Before I experienced my loss, I was the same way. I genuinely felt like bringing up someone’s miscarriage was opening a wound that needed to heal. Not talking about pregnancy and infant loss perpetrates the myth that it’s a rare event that only happens to other people but not totally healthy and kind people like yourself. But it does, and those people need to know that they’re not alone.

Please, check on your friends who have experienced loss. Sit with them, hold them, let them cry on your shoulder- or if they’re lazy like me, on your laps. Tell them that their bodies aren’t defective, that this happens to lots of women, that it isn’t their fault. Remember their children and by extension, mention them. Trust me, bringing up their lost child isn’t “Reminding them of a trauma”. They remember. Every damn day, they remember.