comfort

Two years out from Lucy's death, a friend called to tell me a mutual acquaintance lost her son at 36 weeks. Stillborn. No reason found. Could I talk to her?

Same as Lucy's death. Of course.

I wanted to talk to her. This person was present for me, you know, the one time I ran into her. She just stopped what she was doing and sat. She listened and cried with me.  I left feeling like a fat fool, getting all blubbery and snotty in front of God and everyone, but also I felt immensely grateful for the safe space she created. I wanted to seek her out again, but I didn't want to burden someone with a new friendship that would most certainly be completely one-sided.

I am finally two years out.  Maybe I can be present for someone else. Maybe I can just listen. Maybe it isn't all about my dead baby. Maybe I can be the person I wanted in my early grief. I made plans with her almost immediately after the phone call. We met for coffee.

photo by marina.shakleina

"I just want it to go away. The pain. I don't want to think about it anymore. He wasn't a person," she said. "He wasn't a person yet."

He was a person to me, I thought. Lucy was a person to me, but I get what you are saying.

I nodded. I did not think her not wanting to acknowledge or remember her son was at all weird or strange. I thought her way of grieving was as normal and natural as mine. Whatever feeling I had about my daughter's death, whatever the reaction, the opposite reaction lurked right behind it. Did I want to take pictures of Lucy? Yes. I took them, but at some point in the hours leading up to that decision, I thought no, I wouldn't. I couldn't. I arrived at a decision, but I wondered the whole time if I made the right one. I realize now, I just made a decision, neither right nor wrong, just the one that worked in that moment.  I did the best I could.

"You won't feel like this forever. But I can't tell you when that will change, just that I know my feelings about Lucy have changed through the years."

She said she just wanted another baby right now. She wanted to move on. She didn't want to talk about it anymore. She didn't want to think about him anymore. It was an unfortunate thing, but it was over. She didn't want to be one of those women whose whole lives become about their dead baby.

There was an uncomfortable silence. I write about my dead baby. I have an altar to my dead baby. I blog about my dead baby. I have an Etsy shop in which I paint about my dead baby. I hang out with other people who have a dead babies. My whole life has become about my dead baby. She looked at me.

"I am one of those women," I said.

"But what you do is good," she reassured me.

"I am not offended, but I still am one of those women. It doesn't feel nearly as depressing as you make it sound."

"I can see that," she whispered.

I couldn't explain it in a way that didn't sound defensive. I wanted to tell her what it is like now, how I am completely different, but that isn't a bad thing. I feel like I have integrated Lucy's death into my life in an organic way, but maybe it is strange. Maybe I am a cautionary tale for newly bereaved parents. I look sad from the outside looking in. This life seems surrounded by sadness, baby death, grief, bereavement and losses upon losses but it is actually full of love and joy and gratitude. It is the opposite of depressing. All of those things I do seem like love to me, they are my ways of parenting the baby I cannot parent.  That is what it feels like from the inside. It feels like comfort. That was it. She was still on the outside looking in, she still hadn't quite figured out that all of this--the dead baby and the grief that comes with it--is her life now too.

In my early days, the days of keening and leaking breasts, I didn't want anyone to inform me about grief. I wanted nothing to do with anyone who tried to tell me anything about what grief was about, or what to expect in the first year of babyloss. When I searched for other women with dead babies, I didn't search for people two years out from their loss. I searched for people on the same time line as me. I didn't search for people with wisdom. I searched for people just as lost as me, just as ripped open, just as damaged, who grieved the same way I grieved. I looked for a place where I seemed normal.

We grew quiet together and I realized that perhaps it was not comforting at all for her to talk to me, as my friend thought. I couldn't offer her what was comforting, because that thing that is comforting is different for each of us. It is like a claw game in the arcade, you can reach blindly into a pile of comforting things, and pull out some shiny thing that works for one person, and it looks like some cheap, anger-inducing cliché for another. And really, here I was, sitting with a woman I respected, liked, felt heartbroken for and with, whose loss was like mine, and I was seeking to comfort her. Had I learned nothing in my grief? Nothing I said or could say would have comforted her, because there is nothing comforting about your baby dying. Our babies died. That is pitiable. That is sad. That is fucking heartbreakingly uncomfortable.

All I could really do is cry into a cup of coffee with her.

Since the death of your child(ren), have you been asked to reach out to someone who has lost a child? What was that experience like? Did you reach out to another babylost parent you knew after your loss? Was it comforting or more upsetting? Have you met a fellow babylost parent who grieved in a different way than you? Did you feel defensive? Did you understand?

Comments

[Missy]

I love this post. I guess there have been some things that I don't exactly agree with as far as grieving goes, but for the most part I hold each to their own. I am sure that I do / have done things that other people find strange or stupid. In the support group I attend, I am the furthest out, but I don't feel as though I have any ground to stand on as far as mentoring. We talk about all things that happen in our daily lives to send us into fits of rage or tears and we just comfort each other. It's nice to have that venue to say those things out loud and have someone really listen to what you are saying. I cannot imagine doing this alone. I am so grateful for all of the wonderful sites dedicated to helping everyone survive this kind of tragedy.

[Jill (Fireflyforever)]

"This life seems surrounded by sadness, baby death, grief, bereavement and losses upon losses but it is actually full of love and joy and gratitude. It is the opposite of depressing." That is how I perceive you, from your blog (which I know is not all there is of any of us, just a window into aspects of us and our grief) and it's how I feel about my life too.

I have realised, through attending a local bereavement group monthly, that there are many, many ways in which we all grieve. There are similarities certainly but, sometimes, people say things and I can honestly say that I don't understand, haven't experienced what they have. And that is okay. There is comfort to be had in simply not being alone.

[Sally]

I am one of those women too, Angie. And I don't feel bad about that. Like you say, that's how I get to parent her.
I remember a friend putting me in touch with another babyloss mum just a week or two after Hope died. She had lost a baby at full term to stillbirth three years earlier. Everyone thought it would be great if I spoke to her. But it was too soon, I wasn't ready. She'd gone on to have a few more babies and was full of peace and acceptance, but I was light years from that sort of "healing". We only exchanged a few emails and I knew it wasn't right for me. I stopped replying to her emails. I didn't think she could help me. Over time though, I grew to appreciate the voices of those further up the road and now I speak to many others who are many months or years behind me. I still feel the greatest connection to those who lost their babies within a few months either side of when I lost Hope. We all held each other up through the shit storm, grieved on roughly the same timeline and many of us were lucky enough to have babies again around the same time.
We do all grieve differently. We all do the best we can.

[Mary Beth]

Well, my timeline is a little skewed, maybe different from most, but when I was in the hospital delivering Calla, I remember recoiling when the nurses suggested going to a support group. I didn't want to talk to anyone, didn't want to know anyone else who'd gone through this--really, I just wanted to evaporate.

I eventually, when I was pregnant with baby O, went to a group for parents pregnant after a loss. And I met another mother there on my same timeline; her baby's due date, the one who died, was 5 days after Calla's. And she too was pregnant. We bonded instantly, and the group leader was so kind and understanding.

One thing that we differed on, though, was this: she and her husband didn't name their baby. Even though she delivered her at 30 weeks. Personally, I didn't get it for us, for myself. But iI get it, too. Everyone needs to process in their own way.

The group leader has since called me an asked me to meet with other women, and the timing just never works out. But it makes me nervous, too, because what if I say the wrong thing? I don't have anything more than "I'm sorry" because everything else, if I'd heard it then, sounds glib.

I'm sorry for your friend. I agree with Sally--we all do the best we can. And it looks different for everyone.

[Merry]

Someone approached me not long after Freddie died, someone I had met once, because they were pregnant with a baby who couldn't survive birth. I tried to say the right things but all I could manage was "this is going to be awful, do everything you can to make memories, even the things which you aren't sure feel right because there isn't a second chance". I don't really know what they wanted of me, perhaps that it would all feel okay if they went to term and held that baby a while - but what could I say? I don't know how stillbirth feels, except that Freddie was so close to one that the trauma began the second of his birth, but there isn't a whole lot of comfort in a short life either.

Mostly I had to say "I am not yet in a place that can support you." I didn't even feel bad for that.

They never came back to me. I guess I got it wrong :(

[niobe]

Pretty much everyone grieves differently than I do. Except maybe this woman you had coffee with.

[Olivia]

I am two years out and have been asked to speak with newly bereaved moms. When Veronica first died, I was desperate to hear from women who had lost children and come out ok. That they weren't still mired in grief years out and had somewhat "gone on" with their lives. I just wanted someone to tell me I wouldn't feel like complete shit for the rest of my life.

So that's what I tell these parents. Because the worst thing I heard after Veronica first died was "this is such a hard road," or "you will never get over this." Fuck, might as well blow my head off now, right? I want parents to know that they will be happy again. Because I think most of us will/are. Whether they want to hear that, can't say. But I say it anyway.

[Wiley]

I think I am the other mother. Not that I don't hurt or care, but that I want to accept it and have it be part of the sound track rather than part of the plot. I honestly don't know if I count to many babylost parents though because she died right at the point of viability (24 weeks), I didn't deliver her for six weeks after she died and when she born, we also got her live twin brother (at 30 weeks).

Reading the internet has partially made me feel bad that I do function. That I do carry on, because that doesn't seem to be normal. But I don't really feel bad, I know we each have our own ways. And while I may not be sensitive as others are, I guess I am in my own ways because I purposefully seek out and read the stories of others.

You are right, there is no right path.

[curlsofred]

I resemble you in this conversation Angie. I do believe each has to grieve in whatever way works best for them. But sometimes I feel light years behind others due to Lyra's death being a huge part of my life. But L has made it that way too. And it works for us. I liked Wiley's analogy, and Lyra is definitely a part of our plot.

Another BLM and I joked that when we hear about a friend or someone local who has lost a baby, we "pounce" on them. I want to give them all the resources and offer them help and be there for them in whatever capacity possible. And it's overwhelming, I realize now. But I remember feeling so alone, and that I just gobbled up all the information I could after my baby died, and don't want others to feel alone. So I often get a nice email response, and nothing after that...because it's a process. And they don't have to go through the process like I did, and I don't have to be a part of their process. So I'm learning to offer my condolences, and share that I have some resources if they are interested, but to leave it up to them for how engaged they want to be.

[Shana]

I have a work friend who had been pregnant with her 2nd son while I was pregnant with my first. She was incredibly helpful every day, explaining what was happening and urging me when to call the doctor for help. Her son was born, full term and perfect on 1.15.11, my son was born at 24w 4d on 1.16.11... almost exactly 24 hours later. After a terrible turn of events, her son became violently ill from a virus while my son struggled as micro-preemies do... On Feb 16th, at two hospitals 120 miles apart, doctors approached each family and said they could keep our sons alive if we wanted, but there was no hope. We said goodbye to our little boys that day.
I am so grateful to have someone on the same timeline as me, but our grief has been completely different. We talk a lot of imagery of our boys playing together. We also talk about what a-hole said what to us. We talk about the disappointment in parts of our families reactions to us. But there a big differences also... she has maintained her son's room. We packed things up within a month. I don't cry much and she has spoken about it a lot. It isn't stuff that separates us at all though... we're just different. Mourning the collective lost futures of our handsome little boys.
My mother-in-law lost her first son (stillbirth) and my sister lost her youngest son (SIDS) and I did expect them to be more helpful. Calling, checking on me. But each have called maybe once. That was disappointing to me until reading this blog. They are more aware of people saying the wrong thing then most people... those guileless people who speak of "their worst nightmare". I have understood, but more so after reading your blog, the double pain of my mother-in-law... We had named our son after her lost baby. We told her that before he was born so she knew it was always to be this way. Our homage to her lost son. A sign that we hadn't forgotten her own sweet son. But now, she has another baby to mourn and must watch her son experience her darkest pain... It is overwhelming at times...everyone wrapped in their own pain.

[eliza]

You know, I used to be a part of a big national message board for women/babies/trying to conceive. I remember, about a year or so before Gabe was conceived, a woman lost her son right at 21 weeks. I didn't know her well, but felt badly for her and subsequent trials they went through which left them unable to conceive again. I remember thinking about how sad it was, but being a little creeped out by their attitude towards everything. I remember discussing with other women from the site who had become real friends how awkward it was and how unhealthy we thought it was. Pictures of him everywhere, constant references to him, a birthday party on the day he was born garnered a lot of discussion. When they successfully adopted, their first stop home from the hospital was to the child's grave, and let me tell you - that freaked us out. It was constantly underpinned with "Well, of course I can't imagine how I would be, but" and "Everyone has to grieve differently," but there was a fair amount of judgment anyway.

I can't tell you how I cringe now to look back at how callous and harsh I was, how unyielding about something for which I had no basis of understanding or comparison. I am ashamed. I also understand better how those same friends couldn't contemplate the depths of my grief or loss - should have been more obvious than it was.

I have met with several women. Through the blog and discussion boards, I have been introduced to many women, I've met one or two other dead baby parents in person, and I have been asked to reach out to a few. I often do, though I generally try when specifically asked to stick around those who are in similar circumstances to my own. Not that I won't meet or condole with someone who was further along or had a stillbirth or a birth accident - I will. But there is always a tiny barrier of detail that separates us. I can talk about some things - there is a lot that is universal in this arena we are in - but I remember very well the feelings of "You don't understand!" - the wailings of grief comparisons Tash talked about recently. There are people who don't count my son because he was born pre-viability, and someone who lost their child after birth can't relate to that, as I can't relate to a full-term stillbirth fully.

Not wrong, just different.

I think for me, it's more often healing than it is not. To reach out with compassion and offer up that you can survive, that you can learn to function, that your life can be whatever you want to make of it . . . that helps me too. I hope it helps others (or it's an exercise in self-gratification at the expense of a grieving parent, which is awful).

I can't always do it. There are times I'm not in the place for it. There are times it cuts me too much. There are people who grieve in a way that is wholly alien to me. It's not wrong - I'm past that judgment now! - but it's foreign in a way that I can't identify with.

Gabriel is not my life - he is a facet of it. He is remembered and loved, but not central. I think I'm a mix of the two, somewhere in the middle. What is hard to understand is how much I have changed because of him. Some do and some don't, and much of the change isn't visible. I can appreciate someone who brings forth life and joy as you have done, Angie. And I can understand not wanting to be a sad woman, forever marked as the dead baby mother - but I do make my motherhood known with my son. I don't hide him away.

I do remember vividly the first time I realized all the grief wasn't the same, and how silly I felt. It was emails, which left space to blink and think about a response. I can't imagine how awkward it may have felt in person. . .

[Angie]

Missy, that is kind of how I feel. Two years, while I can tell the difference in little things, still feels like I have no wisdom to share. I like what you and Jill said, that there is a kind of wisdom and comfort in just not being alone.

Sally, This is it exactly, "(she)was full of peace and acceptance, but I was light years from that sort of "healing". " EXACTLY. That is what is hard about meeting one on one with someone at different stages of grief. I felt a kind of anger at that kind of healing, even though I hate saying that word. I think that dynamic is awesome in a support group, but one on one is what seemed to be hard about it.

Olivia, that is what I try to say now too. Maybe the only thing I say is "You won't feel like this forever." Because whatever feeling we have, that is one certainty.

Niobe, I wonder if it is the women in this online community who have something in common simply by dint of coming on line, looking for people to connect with, and writing about their grief. I think your voice was so necessary because of that. There were some points you would make that resonated with me very deeply. I wonder how many women are out there who feel like you or this woman who we never hear about because they never write about that experience of loss.

Wiley, I can only say that I deeply wished that I could accept it, or move forward. My place of grief felt nothing like a choice.

Curlsofred, that was really hard for me with this woman, because we are so similar in our likes and dislikes. Perhaps superficially similar. I thought we would grieve the same, so I sent her websites, I sent her my book. I heard that it was too painful for her to read any of it. She wasn't interested, and wouldn't even take the book into her house. It is fine, but it is what got me through. I am not a therapist, just a grieving mother. I have no other gifts to share, but my ears.

Shana, reading your comment, wow. powerful stuff, lots of overlapping grief. And yet, it does show how grief imparts no wisdom except how you, yourself, grieve.

Eliza, there is so much there. Wow. What a perspective to look back at your time in the message board. I don't even know what to say about it, except that it is powerful.

[Erica]

I think that being there to cry into a cup of coffee with someone means a lot, even if it feels like it's not enough.

A distant friend (we only knew each other on the internet, from a fairy tale bulletin board we used to post in) lost her baby after I lost Teddy. I am still kicking myself for not asking for her address at that point rather than just emailing her. I think my email helped if only in a "if you want to scream, I will sit here and listen" sort of way, but it didn't feel like much to me. It didn't feel like enough.

I'm in a small college town, and all of the local support groups seem to be located in the city an hour and 1/2 away from us. This makes me cranky because you know who shouldn't be asked to drive an hour and 1/2 to find support? Grieving parents. So I've been thinking of offering myself, somehow, as a contact for my area, but I'm also not sure how much time and energy I can really make available. Maybe I'll talk to my work-provided counselor about the possibilities of creating a support group of some kind once I've shaken off the heaviness of summer.

[Natasha]

The fact that you were there willing to support here and talk with her shows that you are caring and compassionate. I have learnt that everyone grieves so differently and I have met with several woman who through varying circumstances have lost a baby and we all have experienced and are living through the loss in varying ways. I find whatever comfort I can in items such as jewellery and paintings and seek my child and closeness in those. However a lady I know did not want photos of her baby, did not name her baby and said it 'was God's way' and yet I am extremely different to this, however we are both grieving and have both suffered like no person ever should. Thank you for your wonderfully insightful entry today!

[eliza]

You know, Angie, if I thought it would do anything helpful besides relieve my guilty conscience and shame, I'd find her email address and apologize. It certainly colored my own grieving, realizing how completely ignorant I had been before, how patronizing. I never shared Gabriel's picture with a wide audience, despite requests, because I remembered how it frightened me to see her son without preparation.

And while I have now been in her shoes and can now say definitively that there are things I would or wouldn't do - I will not say them. Because I know better now. You said something really spot-on. We do the best we can. And my best is different from your best, as your Lucy is different than my Gabe. I didn't hold a birthday celebration, but why did I ever think that was so crazy? She and her husband really had a beautiful way of celebrating their son's short life, of honoring him in a joyful way that I appreciate now.

Now I can say, with certainty, there isn't right or wrong. I can also say with certainty, do what is best for you without regard to outsiders, because even the most well-meaning can't understand.

There is wisdom to be gained from those ahead of us, even when that wisdom is "You know - I still can't entirely reconcile my experience. It simply remains. These facets don't seem to match, but I'm still Gabriel's mother, and I'm still not a mother. And it's just who I am. I can't tell you how I came to be that way, only that it is possible."

I commented on the discussion board recently that I wonder if I scare people, being nearly two years out and still very present in that moment. I remember how some people scared me when I was fresh with grief. I remember the horror I felt in thinking - 'I never will get over this. My God, it's been three years for her, and look at that. She's still crying. How can I live with this?' I didn't want to be the dead baby mama you describe.

And yet . . . as you say - I'm happy with where I am. I'm happy to have found a way through and a balance in my life. It's never perfect. It's still in progress. It always will be. But there is a serenity. A peacefulness. There is so much love and beauty. So much compassion and so much less judgment. It is perhaps the thing that makes me pause when I think about whether I'd trade it all back. The answer, of course, is yes, in a heartbeat and a simultaneous, no, I don't think so. Gabriel's gift to me is one that has made me a better person, given me a way I never expected to fulfill what I thought was my destiny or my legacy. Pretty amazing for such a small little boy.

So maybe I scare someone. I know I've helped others. I know that there is someone out there who needs to hear my voice. And it may not always say the right thing, but I think that's why I feel compelled, in most cases, to say something. Because it will help someone, even if someone else doesn't need it or understand it.

And definitely, not being alone is a huge relief. There may be differences, but that solidarity is reassuring, I think.

[Sophie]

I identified with your post so much Angie. I have come to the same conclusion that really the only thing I can do is cry with them and support them. A couple of my friends have experienced loss since my own loss and the way they experience it is very different to me on some levels, the same on others. What I really didn't want was to be some 'babylost mama guru' that had all the answers even though I frequently found myself telling these mothers that there experiences were normal. I love them both but I do not want to tell them HOW to grieve, knowing full well how different the experience is for so many.

Like Sally said, I have found more comfort in my peers, the women who have lost around the same time as me. Our losses are all different, but the timing seems to matter a lot. I am very aware of that when talking to newly bereaved. Our positions now are so different... but of course, I still remember how lost I felt. Mostly I just want to tell them "You are not alone, " and to let them know that it DOES change.

I worry that people percieve my grief to be depressing and dark, it really doesn't feel that way to me either. My Jordan is my light, my rainbow, my dragonfly. She is Life. She is God. She is Hope. More than three years on I very rarely think of her as my dead baby.

Brilliant post Angie. It really resonated. xx

[tash]

Funny, I read this and I kept thinking, "This is like me reading Niobe early on." And here she commented. And I used to read her comments to me and think, "Wahhh?" but then I'd chew on them for a day and realize she has a point. And maybe I'm not that far off, after all. There's just a lot of hedge in front, or something.

I think I used to be that person, that blogged and talked and lived and helped, and everything was about the deadbaby. And I can't really pinpoint when or why, but at some point I began to move . . . . above? beyond? away from? that person. Point being, I'm not sure I could even relate to that woman in the coffee house anymore, either.

[Christy]

I work with 2 babylost mommas who are years and years out from their loss. One of them dropped by my room shortly after I returned to work. She said that she just wanted me to know that it does get better. That's probably the best thing anyone's said to me so far.

On the other hand there was my nurse the day after Mary was born. She told me that she laid in bed for a couple of days feeling sorry for herself, but she had another child to care for so she just got up and that was that. I wonder if she meant it to sound like it did. I wonder if she really is ok. Maybe so. But she said it like she isn't use to talking about her loss to anyone... I hope I was just projecting and she's just fine. Of course in the midst of everything my first reaction was, well good for you but this was my only child. Only in retrospect did I find something like compassion.

[julia]

I've met and cried with many, early on and later too. In my own cohort, those whose loses were nearly in my timeline or who started writing arond the same time, there are those who grieve a lot like I do (though obviously none of us are the same, and we all come close on some things and drift farther on others) and a very dear friend who doesn't. We talk about our different ways. It's perfectly comfortable, at least for me. It's a narration and a discussion. It's never prescriptive, which is why I think it works.

Separately, there are long-time friends who lost one of their twins 2.5 years before A died. They are very private about their grief. We talk about it sometimes, but not frequently. Though we have this unspoken understanding. It's often just a glance, a dropped sentence, a kind of a code that works in a room of 100 people or where we are the only ones present.

I think what you said to her is true-- her perception will change with time. I don't think anyone, even her, can now predict how it will change. And though it is what we say here a lot, I'll say it again-- you did the only thing there is to do for her, and the only thing there will be to do as she moves through time-- you followed her cues, you abided.

[Lindsay]

I think even if some tiny part of you recognizes your dead baby, there will be people who consider you "that lady whose life is all about the dead baby". I strive to never let any one thing define me (be it my marriage, my parents, my career, my dead baby, my living baby, etc.) and I do take offense when someone claims that I am "that lady". Just as I would be offended if someone claimed that I am attached at the hip with my husband and am incapable of doing things without him. Just as I would be offended if someone said my career was all-consuming and led to my loss of identity. You get the point.
However, yes, I have a son, and he passed away. I will not deny something that IS so big a part of who I am. We have his name in the sand framed and hung below a memory shelf of little momentos (mostly statues and things we find to be symbolic - butterflies, angels holding a baby, etc.) He has his place in our home, as he should. Yet - MANY visitors don't so much as say anything when they see that shelf.
We had a party last night, and I was looking forward to someone complimenting me on the gorgeous sunset photos (I won a set of three). I couldn't wait to explain the back story on Carly Marie and the lovely work she and other BLM do in honor of our babies, that my son was being remembered globally. Well, no one freaking asked about it.
I find myself suddenly self-conscious, wondering if that room looks like a shrine to my dead baby or if it communicates somehow to people that we are incapable of enjoying life. (But wait, we are hosting a PARTY and are having a blast. I'm even wearing makeup and am in a fantastic mood...)
The other day I posted something on my FB page about not knowing how to use my new cell phone. Someone commented, "Yeah, you're way better at weeping. Haha j/k." I was shocked, disgusted, and confused by this comment. I deleted this person from my friends' list, but started asking others how I come across, wondering if I seem overly weepy in what I post. If you are my FB friend you will see I never post about my loss (that's what my blog is for!). I didn't understand WHY someone would comment in that fashion, what they could have possibly meant, what they thought they were achieving.
I do NOT sit here all day weeping!!!
I hate feeling so self-conscious and judged as to how I grieve.

[K]

Phew. That was powerful. I remember in the early days trying hard to believe my daughter was a "potential life" and not my dead child. It was the only way I could cope, the only way I could imagine my life returning to normal. And I loved my pre-babyloss life. But after not too long I realized I was just in denial. My daughter is dead. My life is changed. Forever. And like you said it can be a happier life still, but it is now a sadder life as well. Maybe it's even going to be a more full life too.

Thanks for sharing.

[loribeth]

Having attended & then facilitated a support group for 10 years, I know firsthand the variety of ways that grief manifests itself. I think that if you come to a support group, though, you're much more likely to be an Angie than an Angie's friend in how you express yourself.

About 3-4 years post-Katie, we had a call from one of dh's cousins: another one of their cousins , married almost five years, was pregnant for the first time. With triplets. There were actually four sacs on the first ultrasound (= quads) but one was empty. (Although nobody said so, I immediately knew she must have had fertility treatments.) I called her up & congratulated her, gave her a few websites that I knew about for moms on bedrest that I'd learned about via the Internet. Over Christmas, we found out that she had lost one of the babies. I called her mom & was told that she did not want to receive any calls, any cards or flowers, any acknowledgement of the loss. She knew people would be thinking of her, and that was enough. She wanted to put this behind her and focus on getting her two remaining babies as close to term as she could.

I knew she knew she could contact us, if she wanted to talk. I had to respect her wishes. Neither she nor her brothers had called us or sent us a card when we lost Katie, which I found odd, since she was probably the most baby-crazy of all dh's cousins.

But I found it incredibly frustrating, personally. Here was the one person in the family whose experience came closest to mine, someone I felt I could help, who didn't wan't my help. I remember reading a Cathy cartoon where Cathy's mom complained that she sometimes felt like an encyclopedia that nobody opened, and that's how I felt at that moment.

That was almost 10 years ago, and she's still never spoken the words "infertility" or "loss" to me.