By the time I left work on Thursday my head was hurting and I was in no mood to cook. So my husband and I headed over to our favorite pizza buffet; I just wanted to eat and go home in peace. We got in line, then I saw her and felt kicked in the gut. She was a precious looking toddler dancing around the room, and she was close to the age that my daughter would have been had she not died in pregnancy almost two years ago. I just couldn’t even look at her without wanting to cry.
We went to find seats but there were babies and toddlers everywhere. Every single section and nearly every table was another reminder of what I had lost. I kept my eyes on my plate, tried to eat my feelings and pretend no one else was in the room; meanwhile, my brain kept counting how many days were left until the anniversary of her loss date. As if reading my pain, each baby started crying in sequence while my headache grew into a migraine. I wish this was an unusual day but it is the story of every day for me.
When you are struggling to conceive it can feel like babies and baby bumps are absolutely everywhere you look. Even when I go to Walmart in the middle of the night to try to avoid them, I will still turn a corner and be face to face with some woman out shopping with three kids under the age of four and another on the way. As a bereaved mother, it’s not just that I see babies everywhere but it can seem like every baby I see will be the age or gender of a baby I lost.
But, after making the decision to stop trying to conceive last year, each trigger took on an added pain, the pain of “never.” That mother in the diaper commercial who is holding her daughter right after birth will never be me. The woman who overcame infertility and posts videos of the first time her child turns over will never be me. That mother picking out school clothes for her son’s first day of kindergarten will never be me. The list of “nevers” that I will not experience is endless.
Let’s stop a moment to dwell on that word. Never.
Never.
Never.
It goes beyond missing each of the five babies I have lost. I am mourning them. But I am also mourning that I will never get to be a Mom to any child. And every pregnant belly, baby and child I see in real life or through media is an excruciating reminder of the lifetime of experiences I am missing. The word trigger isn’t big enough to describe the pain that can be brought up with even a casual mention of someone’s child.
Healing is so much harder when the wound is constantly being re-opened. But I can’t escape the triggers; there is no safe place I can go to avoid them completely. I can’t even try to lose myself in a couple hours of TV or a movie without being reminded of what I have lost. I can’t escape the pain in my own heart. All I can do right now is give myself grace to be hurt, angry, sad, bitter or whatever I need to be in that moment. I will not tell myself that the sight of a baby should not make me sad. “Should” is irrelevant. My emotions are valid and I will grieve on my own timetable. I will not allow people who judge my grief to remain in my life. I will protect myself from triggers where I can, such as not going to restaurants on Mother’s Day. I encourage my fellow bereaved mothers to honor their hearts and allow themselves to grieve with each fresh trigger. Healing starts with accepting and acknowledging our pain.
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Yes, triggers are never-ending. Even when you stay at home all the time, you can’t open a book or watch TV without encountering something. It’s been 14, 12 and 11 years since my children died. Now some of my friends are becoming grandparents, and even that is a trigger for me. Because I will never be a parent. My parenting days were few, only those before my children (stillbirth & SIDS) and I will never have any grand-parenting days. Losing a child changes your life. Every day is a day of grief and struggle. Acceptance does not make anything better or lessen the grief.