I'm coming up on a significant anniversary - 10 years since my 2nd daughter was stillborn - and I've been thinking a lot about the early days of loss. I remember how incredibly hard it was to be a good mom (whatever the hell that is) to my daughter who was 3 at the time. She was so needy - of course, she was, she was three! But I needed so much myself: time to process, to grieve like an animal, to really let everything out instead of having to hold it all together and keep things on a more-or-less even keel at home. It was excruciating. And I felt like I could never talk about it properly, how excruciating it was, because it seemed I was just supposed to be grateful for the living child I had. WHICH I WAS. But which also in no way negated the pain I was feeling at the death of this new baby. Anyway...I'm just thinking about this, and putting it out here, on this forum that always seemed pretty quiet and lonely, in case there are any of you out there reading who are in the early throes of all this and trying to hold it together for older kids and feeling terrible (and probably terribly guilty as a result, too) - if you're there, I see you and I FEEL FOR YOU. I'm sending you so much love and a virtual hug. What you are doing is so, so hard and it shouldn't be so hard to talk about it. I'm here to listen if anyone needs to vent. Jen.

Hi Jen,

I was such a mess when my daughter died at 9mo gestation, I didn't have any other children to be a mess in front of nor to be comforted by. I understand the feeling of isolation you felt tho. Thank you for this website. I like being able to share anonymously. You asked if anyone wanted to rant and I do.

I just had a rainbow baby in november. He is amazing. I struggle to balance the intense joy I feel with the crushing pain of loss. Everyday as he grows I see what I lost out on with our first. She was supposed to be perfectly healthy and there were so many signs she was meant to be. Her death was a complete shock and I experience a lot of guilt and horror around it. It took almost a year to conceive again, and now that our living baby is here I'm discovering all the adorable parts of parenting I will never get to experience w my daughter. Our rainbow baby has a severe congenital heart defect. He has only one ventricle. He had open heart surgery at 1 week old and will need two more before age 3. He is doing very well considering and continues to grow every day. I like to think he left a piece of his heart with his sibling. I love him intensely, he is so good natured and cute.

It's been so hard dealing with other people throughout all this, "is this your first?" is such a popular conversation starter. I had to tell hundreds of nurses and doctors our first was stillborn over our 3 weeks in hospital. I refuse to not acknowledge my daughter. My loving partner and I got to see a wide range of awkward reactions to our answer, the most painful ones were those who immediately changed the subject. Others had more sympathy or experience in loss and were a blessing.

My daughter is alive in our hearts. I light a candle in her garden on the 8th of every month, (the day she was born) and peek out at it burning through the night from our kitchen window. I have an ongoing relationship with her as a ghost. Today I'm really missing her which is why I'm here.

My marriage is feeling strained by all the stress and sadness, even though my partner is the only one who truly understands the depth of my pain. I feel very alone or rather introspective/in my head which leads to poor communication and arguments. Our rainbow baby's heart condition means he could be in great danger if he caught a cold. Wintertime and Covid mean all outings and social interactions, even with grandparents, are terrifying. I know some men or masculine types can express anxiety differently than fems, I'm trying to be understanding of his grief but I actually just want my husband to stop being so grumpy at me especially since we are both home 100% of the time.
I should be grateful Ive got it so good. I go for walks with my son, swaddled in a lil backpack or stroller. We take baths and naps together but he sleeps a lot so that leaves a lot of time to spend w my husb. He wants to talk, be present, cuddle, make love. I dont feel sexual at all which makes it difficult to connect. I'm also kind of a bad listener sometimes and struggle to be there for my partner which leads to a lot of fights. I do arts and crafts, play music, watch tv, peruse the internet, all distractions from feeling the pain of losing my daughter and obsessing about her. I am weighed down by the thought that my rainbow baby might die and I want to do everything perfect for him.

I think that's enough ranting for one day. Please tell me, Did your relationship suffer after your loss? Did you feel too much in your head? Did you fear your living child would die? Any tips on getting through it?

Sincerely,
M

M, I'm really glad you used this space to rant. Ranting is so necessary and so often it feels like we're supposed to grieve respectfully. You wrote at one point "I should be grateful" and I hear those words so often, have said them so often, but you know what? In the face of what we've been through those words are just absolute bullshit. There is nothing - nothing - about the death of a baby that should invite gratefulness and it's just cruel to ask - implicitly or explicitly - bereaved parents to find things to be grateful for after losing their children.

Has my relationship suffered? Yes, definitely. It's been a long time for me, and for sure our relationship has gone through the usual kinds of ups and downs that long relationships do, but also so often we've been out of sync in our grief. Desire and sex and intimacy are things we don't talk about enough here but need to. There are some older posts in the archives that you can find, some efforts to bring this part of grief and relationships into the light. I definitely have found that for my partner, sex was a way of feeling close and connected, where for me, I needed space and quiet and solitude. It's so easy to misunderstand each other, to get our feelings hurt.

do I feel too much in my head? have I feared my living children would die, too? yes, yes, yes. I had a third baby after my daughter was stillborn and when he was a baby there were times where perfectly normal things happened that send me spiralling. I still get cold all over when they look too still when I peek on them sleeping. I can picture how different inauspicious scenarios (like, say, walking to school) could end in death. I think all parents feel this sometimes, be we KNOW what it feels like to have a child die and that is just a whole other level of fear. And yeah, I'm always in my head. It's a bit better now but when my children were very young and demanded so much of me, but so simply - like just basic constant attention - I found myself always trying to escape to a place inside where I could be with her, where I could attend to her. I was so angry that I didn't have enough of that space, that she didn't get enough of that space, so, so resentful.

I'm not sure I have tips on getting through. That old cliche of the only way out is through is so true and then in the end there's no way out but the way through does get easier. I feel like the one thing I've learned in my 10 years in this space (10 years!!) is that nothing anyone feels is that weird. It's weird, maybe, to people who haven't grieved deeply, but it's not weird for us and we just really need these spaces to share, to find other people to say, oh yeah, I felt that too. Especially maybe the gender roles that you mention can make those who identify as women feel guilty for feeling angry, or feel selfish for just wanting to escape and scream. The pervasive myth of the Good Mother is debilitating to all who identify as mothers, and just absolutely crushing for those of us who are grieving the death of one of our children - the expectations of how we should behave, including the whole gratefulness bullshit, are so damaging...we need spaces like this where we can say what we are feeling and where other people can just say me too, me too.

I guess this is my way of saying me too to everything you've said. Sending a hug.

Thank you for letting me share and making me feel less weird/crazy about my coping mechanisms. It means a lot to me to know someone out there understands.

I will pour one out in honour of your lost one's 10 year anniversary.