The Invisible Mother: Pregnancy Loss & Remembrance Day

I wasn't sure I was going to write anything about pregnancy loss today but seeing the posts on social media by my friends who've been here too made me pull out my little box of mementoes from my first baby, & well, this post just came out. I share my story in the hopes that I'll lighten the loneliness you feel after miscarriage.

I lost my first baby in 2009. June 4, my life changed forever. I became a different kind of mother. An almost-but-not-quite mother. An invisible mother.

I was almost 18 weeks along, which technically, was a miscarriage. Two weeks later, it would have been a stillbirth, officially. Four or five weeks later we may have been in the NICU, rather than grieving at BC Women's.

When I'd imagined miscarriage before this, I never imagined having to make cremation arrangements, or reading an autopsy report, or choosing a name for a baby who would never live. Arrow. I hadn't realized how awkward many people are around this topic & how when I explained that I lost my baby, more times than I'd like to remember I got a response that (unintentionally, I assume) caused me pain.

I'd never imagined the struggle I'd have with how to count my children. "How many kids do you have?" "Um, two." I have had three pregnancies. I've given birth to three babies, though one of them was not much bigger than my hand. I don't want to talk about Arrow with strangers, necessarily. But I don't want to pretend he never existed. Emotionally, he was my first child. I had bought three little velour sleepers for him. My mother had already bought a baby rocking chair for him. Nearly everyone knew I was pregnant, though I was only starting to show.

Arrow counts, but I haven't yet figured out how to talk to my children about him. Linnaeus may have heard us mention Arrow in passing, but we've never really talked about his brother with him in a deliberate way. I have a little photo of Arrow, given to me at the hospital, framed on my dresser in my bedroom, but Linnaeus hasn't ever asked about it.

I write this post with my four-year-old son singing a made-up song on the couch next to me, while my one-year-old daughter sleeps in the next room. I've moved on & become the usual kind of mother, with living children who I love & who drive me crazy. The visible kind.

If you haven't been through pregnancy loss yourself, & you talk to someone who does, please give your condolences. A simple, "I'm sorry" or similar is enough. Please do not tell her that it's God's plan, whether she or you are religious. Please do not tell her that it could have been worse, at least it wasn't later. If it was her first or her third miscarriage, if she already has another child, or several, pregnancy loss is still incredibly difficult. Please just acknowledge her pain & listen to what of her story she wishes to tell. Don't make her feel invisible.

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Remembering the Ones We Lost

I am thankful to have two healthy little children in my arms, but I will never forget the one I had to say goodbye to so soon.

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To All The Mothers

Photo Credit: . SantiMB . via Compfight cc

Here's to all the mothers who lost babies, whether it was in the first trimester or the last, the first pregnancy or the second or the sixth.

To all the mothers who submitted to countless medical appointments and invasive procedures with unpronounceable names reduced to acronyms: IVF, ICI, ICSI...

To all the mothers who created families through adoption: to the birth moms and to the adoptive moms.

To all the mothers whose birth experiences became traumatic medicalized nightmares.

To all the mothers who spent weeks or months in the NICU.

To all the lesbian mothers still fighting to have their relationships with their partners & children recognized.

To all the transgendered mothers and trans men who've given birth.

To all the mothers who are still waiting for their children.

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Retrospective Navel-gazing

No more photos, Mama-razzi!

I decided to look at my blogging archives for inspiration for writing today's post. Where was I at a year ago? Two years ago? I just kept going back, back, back... nearly to the beginning. 2005 was the year I started blogging, over on Livejournal. I think the only person who read my blog back then was me. I had to look at a third blog to find 2006-2009 or so. RenoBlog was intended to chronicle the work we did on our condo, then this house. The fact that I'm using the past tense about this blog tells you how far we got on the renos. :P Spending way too much time on that little project over there→

Anyway, here's the the trip down memory lane in links:

2011: Sprout was starting to talk & still working on mobility a year ago.

I also posted a series of photos of Sprout asleep on me (just like he was earlier today, come to think of it--not much has changed) from birth to age one.

2010: Two years ago, I felt compelled to blog about poop. (But it's cute newborn poop, so it's okay. Heh. I'll understand if you don't read this one.)

2009: I was still grieving the loss of our first baby, Arrow. I stopped blogging for five months after miscarrying him at 18 weeks along in June of that year. In September we went to Europe for a month. The trip was part of the healing process, something else to think about & plan for.

2008, we'd just moved into the house here. I was thinking about ways I could go green.

2007: A bit more than five years ago--I didn't blog much at all that year--I told the story of what happened after I absentmindedly left a bag of just-bought clothing next to the ATM at a bank in our neighbourhood. I called it, "I have a horseshoe up my ass..."

2006: I was thinking about fall fashion & shoes in particular. Still a fan of the Birkenstocks & I still look forward to getting back into layering, come cooler weather.

We were also doing some work on the first home we bought together, not long before we sold it. This post is from November, not exactly six years ago, but I thought I'd throw it in here anyway.

2005: I was wondering what it would be like to move to an island. Clearly I wasn't that serious about it, as we haven't left East Van.

My first sprog, Arrow

I'm going to interrupt my usual Monday programming because today is an anniversary that is tied up in the origins of The Sprog blog. Probably none of you know that I actually started this blog nearly four years ago, in September of 2008. It was a private blog, more of a diary between Oli & I. I used it to collect my thoughts about the baby we were trying for. I wrote about getting pregnant on the fifth cycle & all the milestones of my pregnancy. I had lists of names & useful pregnancy-related sites collected here. I can't recall when or if I intended to make it public (as it is today) back then.

Then exactly three years ago today, my first pregnancy came to an abrupt end at about 18 weeks along. My first little boy, Arrow, came into the world a few weeks too early to survive. It had been a completely normal pregnancy. I'd just gotten my quad screen blood test results back with no anomalies. We were about a week or so away from the detailed ultrasound. Despite trying hard to find them, there were no answers: the doctors were never able to tell us what went wrong.

It still really hurts to think about the details. It was such a traumatic experience to miscarry so late. I went to counselling to deal with the grief & didn't blog at all through the painful summer & fall that followed. When I got pregnant for the second time, I started writing here again, still privately. I had more anxiety than the first time, though less than I'd expected. Getting past 18 weeks was a huge milestone & I breathed a sigh of relief after that.

At Botanical Beach, June 2009

June 4, 2010--when I was about 30 weeks pregnant with Sprout--we travelled to the west coast of Vancouver Island to mark the anniversary of Arrow's death, visiting the place where we'd scattered his ashes the year before. I felt it was important to go back to honour his memory & I though it might become an annual pilgrimage of sorts.

Despite the sadness of passing Arrow's anniversary, I really did have fun my last trimester, going to prenatal aquafit & enjoying the summer, since I wasn't working. However, it wasn't until I was only about two weeks from Sprout's due date that I opened the blog up to you all to read.

June 4, 2011 came & went without a trip to the island. Busy with my almost 10-month-old & a course at SFU, I let it slide. We won't be going to Botanical Beach around Arrow's anniversary this year either, but I haven't forgotten him. Though I do think of him often, I don't associate Arrow with every post I write here. Nonetheless, he's the reason the blog exists.

The Sprog has really evolved in the last couple of years. Since then, I've become much more serious about writing; it's been over seven months since I started blogging daily. I have readers in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia & Australia. I've found work & met people because of this blog. Who knows what the future will hold for the Sprog?