tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post3390626292137455361..comments2023-10-22T11:45:23.103-04:00Comments on dead baby jokes: hand-knitUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-86880860204728353932009-01-28T17:29:00.000-05:002009-01-28T17:29:00.000-05:00Ha! I knew you couldn't stay away.My life is much ...Ha! I knew you couldn't stay away.<BR/><BR/>My life is much happier now that I have a real, live, baby. I still get sad about our son dying here and there, but I no longer ache for a child and that was, I think, harder to deal with because it didn't get better (easier to deal with) with time. Rather, it got worse. I guess I was coming to terms with our son's death, but not the absence of a child altogether.<BR/><BR/>I'm glad your life is lighter nowKamihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01215000341567119958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-60533149338813975432009-01-27T19:53:00.000-05:002009-01-27T19:53:00.000-05:00Hey! Congratulations! I've been away. :-)On the qu...Hey! Congratulations! I've been away. :-)<BR/><BR/>On the question - My experience with this journey is that it hasn't traveled in a linear direction, a sense of completion with that which came before. It's more circular, with me passing through where I've traveled before - kind of like an orbit. It's not the exact same path because time and life continue to evolve me. <BR/><BR/>For instance right now, I am experiencing a new wave of grief in relation to the fact that I cannot have another child - which links feelings about the ones that I've already had that should be here. I do have my sub bub and that is marvelous and so fun. When he was a baby, I relished in all things with him. There was never any of those usual complaints from me! What, he's awake? Yeah! Oh, he pooed all over my pants? Yeah! Is that chuck up on the floor? Yeah! <BR/><BR/>And in a blink of an eye, he turned into a big 4 year old. I find that I'm visited by grief again and find other people's pregnancies difficult to process once more. Everyone I know has 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 kids. And so clearly for me, the journey continues - not in the same way, but it continues. <BR/><BR/>I've developed some resilience along the way. Because I've been here before I know that I can survive. When our son Soren died, I was not so convinced. His death was the worst thing that had ever happened to me up to that point in my life. My grief muscles had not been stretched before. Perhaps this is a common experience - many of us go through a fairly straightforward, uncomplicated life - up until this happens. It was the first hands on experience for me of really questioning on an existential level. Sure, I've done it before but it's been in the abstract. This was real.<BR/><BR/>Long response but yes, when my sub bub came into our lives, we could finally have the experience of brightness and it felt good. Babies just need you so much. The here and now is all they are about and you have to be there with them. I didn't want to miss a minute of that.Karinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00422440351227886164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-84793837274928703122009-01-26T17:40:00.000-05:002009-01-26T17:40:00.000-05:00Not sure what to say about what it means either. ...Not sure what to say about what it means either. I think it's a good thing to be able to see the half full version of the glass and the half full version of life. <BR/><BR/>I am glad you are enjoying him and if this here and now experience lessens any pain you have held/still hold in your heart, then so much the better. Don't let doubt or guilt cloud that joy for you.<BR/><BR/>xobeaglehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17627886826215379414noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-73165105678066528702009-01-26T16:20:00.000-05:002009-01-26T16:20:00.000-05:00Sometimes I struggle to explain to myself and othe...Sometimes I struggle to explain to myself and others why I feel a certain way, why it makes sense, etc....but in my clearest moments it occurs to me that my feelings just ARE. Regardless of how the same situation would impact someone else, my feelings are my feelings because they are my feelings. <BR/><BR/>"what does it mean if you feel something close to the opposite; if the magnitude and depth of your grief seem to dwindle when viewed by the lens of a brighter here and now?" <BR/><BR/>I don't know what it means, or if it means anything specifically. I just know it makes me smile to think of you, feeling this way, holding your sweet baby in your arms. If where you are now is a place where pain is lessened, the depth of grief diminished....you don't need me to tell you this...that's OK. And for those that don't feel that way, that's ok too. <BR/><BR/>Blessings to you and yours.Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12046435354312254726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-6155548418232721132009-01-26T09:34:00.000-05:002009-01-26T09:34:00.000-05:00I will say up front that I have never had a baby l...I will say up front that I have never had a baby loss...<BR/><BR/>A couple of friends who suffered through several miscarriages before ending up with their lovely take-home babies, however, both told me that while they were sad about the miscarriages, had any of those pregnancies continued, they would not have the lovely child they were then holding. And that they wouldn't change for the world.ewe are herehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13339650361453626546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-81633584599487351202009-01-25T09:13:00.000-05:002009-01-25T09:13:00.000-05:00I haven't read any of the other comments before me...I haven't read any of the other comments before me. But I kind of agree with you. And I think anyone who has been through loss and then experienced parenthood would agree. I wanted each of the 3 that should have come before my son. I wish with all my heart that each of them would have worked out because I did love each of them regardless of only having one trimester or less with each. In the end, I mostly feel that we have what we were meant to have. This child was meant to be ours. And while I am sad about each of the others and on occasion still feel the grief, I mostly can't -- those pregnancies, had they continued would have each overlapped the next and I would never have had THIS child. Three years after the birth of my son, I think of the year preceding that pregnancy, the year of all the losses, only fleetingly -- only on specific days. And I no longer directly remember the anniversaries. I can't. I need this. I need the happiness. It's all still there, and on certain days I remember it...but somehow the birth of my son on Halloween 05 and the joy each year on his birthday by far overshadow the grief of Halloween/Nov. 1, 04 when the SCH took the life of a perfectly healthy growing little girl inside me. Thinking about it now makes me sad. On Halloween this year, I won't be. I'll be happily celebrating a 4th birthday and, as it hasn't at any point yet, I won't even think about the loss of 2004...only the gain of 2005.Miss Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05177663584794717107noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-55440304959768891482009-01-24T16:32:00.000-05:002009-01-24T16:32:00.000-05:00After my son's death, a friend of mine said, "peop...After my son's death, a friend of mine said, "people think that the grief is worse when you've lost someone you've known and loved for a long time. But really, it's the opposite. Because what you are grieving is what would have been." In her 30's her fiance died, and then a month or so later she miscarried their baby. She never had other children. Many years later, she married again, and that marriage lasted for 10 years before her husband died suddenly and unexpectedly. She said that her grief over her fiance was so much more terrible than the grief for her husband; she had so many happy and loving memories of their 10 years together after he died. There was nothing so mitigating when her fiance died and she miscarried--in their deaths were the deaths of an entire imagined/hoped for future.<BR/><BR/>In the same way, it makes sense to me that a subsequent child would diminish the grief because grief over a dead child is partly both grief over the child, but also grief related to lost motherhood and the future that a child would have brought with him/her. <BR/><BR/>And although a subsequent child would not replace the earlier child as an individual (to be debated), it does relieve the grief related to things which would have been associated with that child.<BR/><BR/>That being said, I am not even totally convinced of my own answer, because I have a living 3.75 year old daughter. I lost my son this past may 10 weeks before he was due. Since I have a daughter, it seems my grief couldn't really be related to the loss of parenthood. I am pregnant again, and there is a part of me that is very much academically curious how this next child will or will not alter my grief.<BR/><BR/>As an aside, during this pregnancy, I often think back to a comment/post you made that during Cole's pregnancy, you believed him to be one of your children trying to make his way back to you. We conceived on the same cycle as my son, a year later, and so this one's due date is exactly what my son's would have been had he lived. In the dark and in secret, I try that thought on in my mind, that should this pregnancy end in a living child, that indeed I would never have lost a child at all, because here he is, alive. And the ashes we released on the mountain, are just that, ashes, like old fingernail or hair clippings, because the essence of him, came back.<BR/><BR/>It comforts me, and scares me at the same time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-53178993775481651322009-01-24T09:08:00.000-05:002009-01-24T09:08:00.000-05:00My new son doesn't replace his dead sister. On the...My new son doesn't replace his dead sister. On the now rare bad days – like when I read about the stillborn infant being thrown out with the laundry in Montreal – I grieve her just as keenly.<BR/>But he's softened the bitterness, the rage, the feeling that there's something just plain wrong with me.<BR/>And, practically, I don't have much time to poke and prod at my grief when I'm nursing, changing diapers and soothing a colicky baby.<BR/>You feel what you feel, Niobe. Enjoy the brighter here and now.Meganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02222598464601154747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-23575787246282198382009-01-23T00:09:00.000-05:002009-01-23T00:09:00.000-05:00I think it also kind of depends on what you are wa...I think it also kind of depends on what you are wanting to "replace"......<BR/><BR/>Some experiences ARE replaceable, or if not replaceable, than substituted for something just as good. Not our actual children, but parenting experiences can be.....I think whether or not a subsequent child is healing depends on what it is that the parents are grieving.<BR/><BR/>It is a little less common, perhaps, for a woman with a later loss to feel as you do, but I know plenty of women who had first trimester losses who go on to have healthy babies, and do not consider their situation to be unbearably tragic. More like, it was horrible when it happened, and I certainly don't want to go through THAT again, but really, I'm fine now, this beautiful new baby really does make it "better". Not all of course, but enough that I think if you "hung out" with enough of them, you wouldn't see yourself as an oddity at all. Your feelings are just a little less common among women who experience later losses who blog, or comment on babyloss blogs. That doesn't mean uncommon among all women who don't get to bring all their babies home.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-7009331921797082922009-01-22T22:44:00.000-05:002009-01-22T22:44:00.000-05:00I am so happy to hear it! I hope to be there with ...I am so happy to hear it! I hope to be there with you one day.jsuworkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17200537120767138205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-66915903950459464952009-01-22T20:58:00.000-05:002009-01-22T20:58:00.000-05:00There is no template or handbook for grief. And ev...There is no template or handbook for grief. And every sadness, no matter how intense or profound, will eventually fade - the scar may still be visible but the acute pain will be gone. <BR/><BR/>If Cole has filled that empty place in your arms where the twins should have been, that's not anything you or anyone else should sit in judgment on. You have found your path forward. Allow yourself to be joyful.<BR/><BR/>He is beautiful.Hannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15855682469727450176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-11503833887395517732009-01-22T15:19:00.000-05:002009-01-22T15:19:00.000-05:00I love that you have a brighter here and now. I ha...I love that you have a brighter here and now. <BR/>I have always taken the view that there is no "appropriate" way to grieve - here really is an arena for each to her own. I have my own personal pain olympics: my first m/c coincided with my b-i-l's diagnosis of terminal cancer so i didn't tell my family. It seemed too petty to grieve over a very small foetus when someone else was dealing with never seeing his live kids grow up. And for me too the next live baby did make it better again and the grief is just a small undercurrent which doesn't surface - well not much.Betty Mhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02106396238018550134noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-1778065374331765752009-01-22T14:21:00.000-05:002009-01-22T14:21:00.000-05:00i will say, i feel exactly the same way...magnitud...i will say, i feel exactly the same way...magnitude and depth of grief dwindling when viewed through the lens of brighter here and now...but only in relation to Josephine, who came shortly after m/c, as opposed to Oscar, who came shortly after Finn. i think i've said before that your reaction to the twins' death doesn't seem strange except - for whatever it's worth - for their gestational age. for whatever reason, some of us attach differently as babies grow bigger, some attach from day one, and some, maybe like you, attach when the baby is born healthy and safely in their arms?Bonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14403701620708365171noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-83706424018122729562009-01-22T12:14:00.000-05:002009-01-22T12:14:00.000-05:00He is beautiful.Niobe, this is terribly selfish of...He is beautiful.<BR/><BR/>Niobe, this is terribly selfish of me, but I am so glad you didn't go away, and I hope you continue to stick around.<BR/><BR/>I understand though that you need to do what's best for you right now.<BR/><BR/>Much love.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-87630324972415796282009-01-22T10:51:00.000-05:002009-01-22T10:51:00.000-05:00It's a survivability trait of the species. If we c...It's a survivability trait of the species. If we couldn't move on from great grief and pain, if its memory didn't fade, we couldn't continue to function (and women would never go through childbirth more than once). The fact that you have a new source of joy is making the process even easier and giving your heart something new to focus on. Nothing like sleep deprivation and the sight and smell of your newborn to plop you firmly into the happy here and now.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08063176984640227885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-82562892554651421582009-01-22T10:45:00.000-05:002009-01-22T10:45:00.000-05:00As said before, there is no "right" or &...As said before, there is no "right" or "wrong" way to grieve. Everyone makes different choices and reacts in different ways to the same or similar situations. I'm sure we all have had times where we felt/feel like the odd man/woman out. Sometimes I feel that way because I "chose" to stop treatment & not to adopt -- i.e., live childless/free. There's not much out there in the way of support for people like me (although I have found a few wonderful kindred spirits via the Internet). I get the feeling that some people (including fellow IFers) think that if I REALLY wanted a baby, I would have one, somehow, some way. They have not walked in my shoes, or in yours. They don't know all the factors & circumstances that led us to make the decisions we did. <BR/><BR/>What's important is that we feel we had choices, that we made the best decisions we could under the circumstances, and that others show respect for the choices we made (and we for theirs).loribethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09272814565916935113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-81377686334066205952009-01-22T10:05:00.000-05:002009-01-22T10:05:00.000-05:00Niobe...I've been reading your comments on the boo...Niobe...I've been reading your comments on the book tour and i just had to say that in no way is your heart two sizes two small. Each and everyone of us deals with grief and loss in our own individual manners. You dealt with yours and have moved forward with your life. Nothing at all wrong with that.Kristinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10791317184998122691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-26528052010691497112009-01-22T06:29:00.000-05:002009-01-22T06:29:00.000-05:00Glad that question was rhetorical, very glad, you ...Glad that question was rhetorical, very glad, you deserve to feel that way. <BR/><BR/>I can answer this simply by saying it's not the same if you've never met the babies, my miscarriages are proof of this theory, once you have, its a different story. <BR/><BR/>See what I'm saying here. <BR/><BR/>There are days I wish I hadn't and others I'm glad I did, go figure!Artbloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18308365442607751511noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-70164714554521188332009-01-22T03:27:00.000-05:002009-01-22T03:27:00.000-05:00I'm so happy to read these words Niobe. It brings...I'm so happy to read these words Niobe. It brings a lightness to my understanding of you. Your Cole is just so precious. I guess a living baby forces us to live in the moment. Change the diaper, feed, hold and generally feel this overwhelming love for someone else. It cannot take the past away, but it changes the moment we live in.<BR/><BR/>Anon is a hater.<BR/><BR/>Je suis très contente pour vous et votre famille.<BR/> allpallyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-40105508702668938392009-01-22T01:02:00.000-05:002009-01-22T01:02:00.000-05:00Niobe, you already know my conflicted feelings fro...Niobe, you already know my conflicted feelings from our e's and that I am 100% at peace with the fact that none of us will ever respond to what has happened to us in the same way and yet all of us can be here to support each other as we each find our own way out.<BR/><BR/>To anon: First, you do know how incredibly easy it is to track you down by the IP address you leave EVERY TIME you visit this site, right? Muddle that for a while before you come back.<BR/><BR/>Second, this blog is here for Niobe, not you. If you don't like what she has to write, get the fuck out and go bother someone else. We don't want you here. Troll.<BR/><BR/>Sorry, N., I had to:)k@laklyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05366772609212990882noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-32129352845178579712009-01-22T00:26:00.000-05:002009-01-22T00:26:00.000-05:00pssst, email me your address, I have another handm...pssst, email me your address, I have another handmade thing to push on your kid ;pflutterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11828689769747130419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-82486357090547425452009-01-22T00:11:00.000-05:002009-01-22T00:11:00.000-05:00So. Have you told your mum and dad yet?He is truly...So. Have you told your mum and dad yet?<BR/><BR/>He is truly beautiful.<BR/><BR/>I am glad the pain has changed for you.<BR/><BR/>BBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11890663570732346315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-50202008579462773172009-01-21T23:54:00.000-05:002009-01-21T23:54:00.000-05:00The truth is, deep down I tell myself all the time...The truth is, deep down I tell myself all the time that Pumpkin absolutely came along and saved me. She brought with her a happiness I couldn't seem to muster on my own. Superdad and I still look at each other sometimes and wonder, "where would we be without her?" Because, truthfully, I don't know.<BR/><BR/>I still miss Molly and Joseph. I still remember them and everything that happened surrounding their short little lives. I love them. Pumpkin didn't change any of that, but she sure brought a whole lot of light into our lives.Lorihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05528541804521203406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-74476356660973844282009-01-21T23:49:00.000-05:002009-01-21T23:49:00.000-05:00I'm hoping (if I get there) that that's what it is...I'm hoping <I>(if I get there)</I> that that's what it is for me<BR/><BR/>Realistically, I think we all know the new baby is not a replacement of the lost baby, but I hope for myself, and for that new baby, that not one moment of joy is minimized because of the grief that once consumed me.<BR/><BR/>I don't bring any more honor to the baby I lost by neglecting to celebrate the baby I have <I>(or in my case, the baby I hope to have)</I>.Amandahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10540060049975721555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225058560254819105.post-40389002513758026912009-01-21T23:21:00.000-05:002009-01-21T23:21:00.000-05:00hey -- that's a lovely hat. and i am glad your no...hey -- that's a lovely hat. and i am glad your now os so joyous.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com