I can’t hide it anymore. There is something in there. Sixteen weeks. Time to turn my frayed emotions on, whether I want to or not. Even if it will hurt me in the end—even if piercing disappointment, crippling trauma, and irreparable loss is all that I have come to expect from pregnancy and motherhood.
Read MoreUs mortals, we like to fathom. Make sense. Calculate. Depend on. Plan. We accept that being derailed is part of the journey, and getting back on track reinforces the predictability, the reliability of life. But when life just becomes one derailment after another, do you create a different path?
Read MoreIt feels incredibly unsatisfying that it takes but a minute to list the essential facts and stats about him. I remember saying—to the first shrink that we saw after—that he was perfect, but he was dead. I think I want, I need that ‘but’. I don’t want A being dead to count as a part of who he is. Isn’t that why people have such a hard time talking to us about our children, because they intuitively see their deadness as their essence?
Read MoreI rarely cry when I draw, and I draw all the time. My art resonates with other women and they reach out to tell me about their moments that were so much like mine. We create a shared narrative as we tell each other about our complex feelings and slowly the words start to return. The blank pages get filled.
Read MoreThe day she died, I felt an ache in my heart. It intensified day by day month by month, and year by year it grew stronger. The ache was crippling and I curled up in a ball of hurt from which there was no escape. No amount of medication could ease the hurt. I feel it still, in my heart where she lives.
Read MoreThis is the consolation prize awarded to every bereaved parent: the mind’s ceaseless spinning, conjuring all the myriad ways your baby could die, backed by the hard-won knowledge that it most certainly could happen to anyone at any moment, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Of course, this is a truth universal to all parents. This is why the horror genre has always been so effective: at its core, a thriller is an allegory for raising children in a world where, in truth, we have absolutely zero ability to keep them safe.
Read MoreBereaved parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion, and the other side of getting through this mess called grief.
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Parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion we learn for others, having been through this mess — and see it reflected back at you, acknowledged and understood.
Thanks to photographer Xin Li and to artist Stephanie Sicore for their respective illustrations and photos.
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