Getting through Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month – From a Mom who’s done it.

October is designated as  Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Twenty years ago this month, I went into labor with my 6th baby at 23 weeks. He was born still into his father’s hands in our home. 

I wrote our story in five parts:
Touched by Grace
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

It’s odd how the passage of time has soothed the aching misery. This year I had almost completely forgotten about it until someone else in my circle of friends suffered a similar loss – a mid-pregnancy fetal demise. Then I realized that the overall melancholia I was feeling might be related to the time of year, and the anniversary waiting for us at the end of the month. 

20 years. It’s a milestone birthday. It’s hard to think of my little one as a man. What would he have been like? Would he have gone on to college, or a trade school? Would he have a girlfriend? Would he be musical and athletic like his siblings? 

When Noah got married a few weeks ago, he asked who we wanted to have remembered during the prayers of the faithful. I listed his grandparents on both sides, and his aunts and uncles who had passed. Then I said, “And your brother.” He looked at me quizzically until I said, “Raphael.” 

The little baby never here in person for his siblings is just an idea for them. But his name was read during the Prayers of the Faithful and I was grateful. When his name is read aloud at church that way, or printed i a program of remembrances, I realize those will be the only times I will ever hear or see his name in public.

Moms with fresh losses

I have read a lot of really raw and sad stories so far from women who have had fresh losses, or whose babies have passed within the past five years or so. I just want to let those moms know that the pain does lessen. The raw grief will disappear. Two decades later, maybe the awful date will even escape you for a bit. 

Yet even as I write that, I know I’m a little more emotional this time of year. Maybe it’s the change of seasons. Maybe it’s the end of the cross-country competition for my kids. Maybe it’s the daunting Christmas season ahead. But maybe it’s also that I remember the little grave out in Holy Cross Cemetery that I’ll need to visit sometime this month with flowers and a prayer. 

To all the moms grieving this month, remember this is just a season of your life. It will pass with time. Here are 10 Things I’d Like You to Know.  See also my pregnancy loss page here. 

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