You would have been one today. I can picture it now. My chubby little bouncing boy not having a clue it's your birthday or what that even means, but excited nonetheless at the sight of the banners and balloons surrounding our place. Family gifts piled up and you fascinated by the boxes, ribbons and wrapping paper. How I wish this was the reality today instead of me visiting your grave with balloons in hand, a small attempt of what you should have had today.

Happy birthday my beautiful boy know that wherever you are I am with you loving you. Happy 1st Birthday my Luke.

Happy birthday Luke! Thinking of you and your parents today.

Happy Birthday Luke ! Sending strength to your tough mum, so sad for you two not being together the ordinary way. Keep strong, you will never be forgotten Luke. Love to the whole family.

Happy birthday Luke!!

Hi luke's mom, happy birthday to you as well. My son's birth day was the best day of my life. It has been 21 days now since I lost my son. I have not reached any would-be milestones yet but i know he would have been a whole different baby by now, in these 3 weeks since he left me. Everybody who has not lost a child tells me it won't get better, but it will get easier. I have moments of the day that feel easier or at least longer distracted moments, but I still have the knife to the gut moments when you get the deep realization he is not coming back and those moments feel like they are going to scar me forever more at every little thing that makes me think of him, and there are millions of things that make me think of him.
Do you feel as though it has gotten easier? Are your thoughts less consumed at least? I guess I am just begging for anyone to assure me this won't be unbearable forever and I will find peace.

Dina,

I am so so sorry for your loss. I'm still very new to this pain and although for me it has become easier to cope and speak with others, without bursting into tears, I think of Luke every moment of the day, and I don't want it any other way. It's my way of having him with me and my way of showing him how much I love him.

The first couple of months after losing him I couldn't think or speak properly. I couldn't get out of bed or eat, the pain of my surgery was adding to the realization that this was all actually real. Everyone is different, but I feel as if we are all similar when it comes to this loss. I tend to be a very sensitive person when it comes to loss of any kind.

I'm not sure if we will ever forget or fully lose the pain of missing our sons, but it will get easier to cope.

This forum has been a saving grace and knowing I'm not alone in this pain and unfortunately there are others that understand what I'm going through, that alone has made it easier for me.
If you should ever need to talk or even just vent it's a great place to come and I truly don't mind if you want to respond to me we can go back and forth as much as you want I find sometimes that helps. And please remember you have every right to talk about this as much as you want and no thought in your head is wrong.

I'm sending you love and strength.

I have been thinking of you for several days now. I read through some older posts on this site and read your story and I wanted to say something to you and just had no words to express how your story touched me and how much my heart went out to you. We all have different stories of how we lost our children and we all have different pain.
My story is filled with guilt and it makes it so much harder to deal with losing Macklin. I had been to his 2 month check up the day before and the doctor said it was fine for him to sleep on his tummy. I always worried but he slept much better that way. He went down for a nap on my bed the next day, my husband laid him down, and did not use the monitor. For some reason I did not even think about it and we always used it. I find myself blaming the doctor, blaming myself for not realizing the monitor was on, blaming my husband for ever placing him on his belly to sleep and laying him down that afternoon without the monitor. I know it does no good to blame myself or anyone else because it can't change the outcome but the guilt digs so deep and I will never forgive myself. The pain that comes from this just makes me want to give up the fight to be "normal" again. It makes me wonder if I am even worthy of conceiving more children and if I could even bare it without realizing what I had lost at every should be joyful moment. Do you plan to have more children?

I know we all go through different loss, but in no way is this your fault. I blame myself as well. I was told by my Dr that it was okay to go away when I was four months pregnant. She also said it was fine to go Swimming. When I came back every thing was still fine,. 2 months later my water broke. What if it was from that? what if taking him off of palliative care was the wrong decision even though everyone told us he had no more brain activity? I go through the what-ifs more times than I can count. It comes down to them touching our lives. And yes it angers me that I have to rely on that thought but it's all I have. There are mornings that I'm disappointed that I wake up, but I realized the ripple effect the lives of my loved ones would have if I left to. Friend of mine said the best thing I've heard to date from someone who's never been through this loss, she said "if you're having a hard time believing in anything believe in yourself with your husband, hold each other tight and just believe in yourselves". It's neither one of your faults.
We have spoken about trying again. And to be honest I'm terrified. I'm always afraid of this happening again. The other thing is we had a lot of fertility issues with me having PCOS. The fact that we got pregnant was amazing because we didn't use any treatment at that time. I had stopped because not having the positive result was causing too much stress on me. I started working out and then I got pregnant. I don't know if I'll be lucky a second time but it would be nice. I guess right now I'm just trying to get through Christmas because I've promised myself I would try for my family this year as last year I refused to celebrate.

Macklin is a very lovely name by the way. I hope he's found Luke. I hope that all of our children have found each other as we found each other.

First let me say you sound like such a strong and lovely woman and I am grateful to have you to talk to. I am very proud of his name =] my husband is Irish so I wanted a very Irish name, Macklin Killian O'Neill. I would love to think all of the lost babies find one another. It is so painful to not know where my baby is, where we go when we die. I ask him every night to let me know his presence is around me, that he loves me and forgives me.
I worked out heavily through my entire pregnancy, sometimes 2 hours a day and lifting heavy weights.. do not think for a second going swimming caused this. I was told by my doctor to stop lifting and start swimming and I was like yeah ok, not doing that. I know my body and if I feel I am straining I will stop and I worked out until the day I went into labor.
When I found my sweet baby and laid him on the couch his eye cracked open and he made a small sound, I thought my husband could save him before the ambulance even arrived. But that didn't happen. Paramedics worked on him for what felt like an hour giving cpr and epinephrine injections. Blood began to come from his nose and they said they didn't know why. He was transported to the hospital and after a few minutes the doctor said he had no brain activity.. how the hell could he know that? He wasn't hooked up to any machines. Could they have saved him? I want to know the moment his soul left his body. It wouldn't help me or change anything but I just want to know when it happened and where it happened. How many minutes earlier would it have made a difference if I found him sooner?
I can't stop picturing finding him, my scream. It haunts me every night when I try to go to sleep the moment I close my eyes. I don't know how it can ever get easier when those memories will not disappear.
I try to picture myself healed, pregnant again, happy, and sometimes that gives me comfort and sometimes I think I will never be happy, even with a new baby it still won't be Macklin. Everything will remind me of Macklin and how I failed him. Maybe this was my chance for children and I blew it. Ugh I don't know. I never in a million years would have thought this would happen to my baby. Everyone has kids, even bad parents that don't care about their children and they all survive. But mine didn't. People tell me "God will never give you more than you can handle"- what a cruel joke.
Sending you lots of love Luke's mama!

My girlfriend says I'm strong bit truth be told I don't see it. Remembering the sounds he made as he gasped for air that last day in my arms cripples me. I truly crumble and the thought of it. The feel of his skin going cold. I can't talk to many people about it, they can't bear to hear it and honestly sometimes I just want to say it out loud so someone here is it. But here I found that people will listen.

Your last paragraph I feel it's so deeply. Let me say that it's as if I wrote it myself that's how I feel. I sometimes feel as if God turned his back on me. I have so many people praying for us when I was in the hospital I prayed from the moment that I found out I was pregnant with him till the moment of his last breath I still had hope. The minute he stopped breathing I stopped hoping and I lost faith. It's hard and it's very scary on this side when you lose that faith that you have had your whole life. I want to be a mom but like you said the next baby will never be Luke I know I'll love my child no matter what but it'll never be him.

I am truly grateful to have found this site and I'm glad that we can speak.

I too remember the feeling of his body going cold but that doesn't haunt me, I was grateful I got to clinch him to my chest and scream. That I could kiss him. I never wanted to let go. I was able to visit him at the funeral home twice before he was cremated and he did not look like my baby and I don't know what they did to him, I won't go in to detail but it was awful. Still it was him and I was happy to be able to hold his hand and kiss his feet. On my second visit I got to hold him in my arms and his body did not feel like him but the way his legs folded over my arm was absolutely my baby. I wish I could still go visit him and hold him, it is impossible to bare the thought there are no more visits, no do overs, no reliving of any special moments.
I was never overly religious but everyone asks God for help when times are tough. I generally believed there is a God and a heaven and hell. I believed in karma and if you are a good person you will live a good life, but what God takes pure innocent babies? And what could I have ever done in my life to deserve this ultimate punishment? My husband and I ask God every night when we say our goodnight to Macklin in his room, to show us what we are supposed to take from this? What is his grand plan? Nobody has the answers. Our babies are gone and the world just keeps spinning. I don't want to be in pain but I don't feel I deserve to be any other way. He lost his life how can I complain about what I am going through?
I am certainly not mentally healthy enough to be pregnant again but I don't want to wait more than a few months either and really how healthy will I be by then? The pain won't fade. And will I be judged for being pregnant again so soon? I believe people hurt for me and would be happy for me but you always wonder if they think I failed him and shouldn't have children. Facing people is hard. Talking to people is hard I just want to hide away and be left alone.

It's as if I read my own words when I see what you write, I have that feeling with many posts but you really have hit the nail on the head on this mixed emotion turmoil. It's like standing in the middle of a tornado and not being able to focus on one thought or one need. The first few months I'd begged Luke to come back to me, to let me be pregnant again with him, and truth is I still wish it. The other part of me thinks how even if I was told without a shadow of a doubt that it was him, it still wouldn't. I never had the chance to visit him st the funeral home but I did ask to see him before he was buried. That doesn't haunt me as much as the sound he made when he was passing in my arms. Gasping for air as I just sat useless begging him to forgive me and telling him I love him.

"I don't want to be in pain but I don't feel I deserve to be any other way. He lost his life how can I complain about what I am going through?" THIS, this is what I feel. I don't deserve happiness when I failed him, how can I smile or laugh without him, when all I want is to squeeze him to my chest. It's like I have no lungs without him I can't breathe right.
I still can't look at people right, only my closet family am I able to speak to now properly. I almost feel as if being happy shoes I've somehow stopped caring for him or that somehow I'm over it. I know he is here, I feel him so strong at times, and I don't ever want him to think I don't love him more than my life.

You certainly did not fail Luke. Your situation was out of your control, you had no choice but to trust the doctors caring for your sweet child. The human body is complicated. I was oblivious to all the issues that could arise with having a child until I started reading posts and seeing all these tragic scenarios. I am so grateful for this place and yet at the same time I wish I never stumbled upon it because ignorance was bliss. My heart aches for all of you and I suppose in a way that helps me because it takes me out of my own heart ache for a moment and lets me hurt for someone else.
I believe the key factor in trying to heal is being able to forgive ourselves. I have no idea how to do that. The guilt is a deep sickness. The what if scenarios are endless. The replaying of the last moments we had with them will never go away so how could we ever heal? How could anything ever come with genuine happiness again? It won't, no one can tell me otherwise.
My husband and I know there is no purpose to our lives now without children and we have to try again and I don't know how to navigate that. Assuming we are successful I don't want my head to go into dark places with feelings I have forsaken my first born child that took my heart with him when he left. Sometimes I think if I was pregnant I would be able to just tell my head no, you will not go down that path. You must be happy and healthy for your unborn child.. but we will never truly know until we are living it. My goal today is to try to find a grief therapist that will see me in person, I cannot work through this on a damn zoom call it is so impersonal. Have you done any counseling?if so was it beneficial to you? I am in fear it may make things worse but I have no where else to go.
We even began researching Ayahuasca retreats are you familiar with it? It is a powerful hallucinogen they do in Peru and costa Rica that helps with emotional and spiritual healing. It's an awful experience when you are in it but the stories of the results these people have sound like it is worth it. I am not a person who messes with drugs mind you but I have heard so much about this from pod cast and a special came on TV the other day and I thought how ironic.. maybe this is a sign? I don't know. I am desperate.

I completely get that, this really is a club no one wanted to pay the membership for. And nor should anyone. But I am grateful I found it. It has allowed me to gain some of my sanity. So to the person who began this site, THANK YOU. I remember being so ignorant and I miss it. Fertility issues was one thing, but once you pass the 4 month threshold it's smooth sailing till you give birth...right??. Boy how pleasantly ignorant I was. It's interesting you say that you feel as if you now need a child in your life. My husband and I have been so close through all this but we constantly feel as if something is missing. I had some counselling, but that was in the hospital. My depression was crippling for months that I never spoke to anyone, than I was due to go back to work, and as I started thinking maybe I should see someone all this started, and like you I can't do this on zoom. I think in the back of my mind the guilt will always be there. I'm just bitter now and angry with the world for taking my heart away from me like this.

I feel the same about your story. There is nothing that you did wrong. As parents we rely way too much on doctors. If by some miracle I'm blessed with another child I won't leave the hospital till every single test has been done. My trust had been. Shaken to the core.

Did you end up going back to work? I told my boss I would try to come back tomorrow if I can get to sleep before 4 am, I have been so screwed up since all this happened and the night time haunts me. I am afraid to even lay in bed and close my eyes, that is when the painful flashbacks come back and I don't know why. Why can't a beautiful memory come to mind? I wish I could control my thoughts. Anyways enough of my babbling. If you went back to work how was that for you? I don't like the idea of distracting myself, I should think of him every second. My mother in law lost her youngest child and she is pushing me to go back to work that it helped her.

I took my 5 month sick leave. First time in my life I went on unemployment. It was hard for me going back to work and being around people. I work with very understanding people. I am grateful for them. But it was hard because I was 1 out of 10 people who were having babies at the same time. We were each only a couple of months apart. When I went back knowing I was the only one out of us not still on mat leave, it was hard. That was last May. I'm not sure what your situation is with work, but give yourself time. You deserve that much.