“To keep false hopes is to prolong misery.” – Amy Tan
Please stop telling me it will happen. Honestly, I don’t want YOUR hope. I know that’s all you’re trying to give me, but I just don’t want it. It’s not because I don’t want more biological children, but they genuinely may not be in my future. I have chosen to accept that fact… so why can’t you?
Having another baby makes no difference, because they will never be the baby I’m missing. My baby died and there’s no replacing her. The void in my heart can never be filled on earth in this life. I look forward to the day when I’m in Heaven with my Lord and Saviour, but until then there’s no fixing the void. I accept that fact… so why can’t you?
What‘s a new baby supposed to fix? Nothing. So, why do you feel the need to tell me it will happen and I’ll have another baby? I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I need you to stop trying to give me YOUR hope. There’s no fixing my problem. I accept that fact… so why can’t you?
You don’t know my entire story. Maybe I physically can’t have another baby. Maybe I’ve chosen not to have another baby. Maybe I have chosen to pursue adoption. Maybe I’m not ready to have another baby. Maybe instead of offering up YOUR hope, you could really take the time to learn my story and get to know me.
I came across a blog post about hope called, Tiny Wisdom: When It’s Time to Stop Hoping. The author, Lori Deschene, shares something I found so much truth in: “When you hope you’ll someday know happiness—when you get the right relationship, the right job, the right adventure [have another baby]—your hope allows you to avoid reality. It makes it unlikely that you’ll ever know happiness since hope for something else is the only way you know to experience it.”
So, please, let me find my own way to heal my heart as a loss mom. Keep your false hope to yourself, and just support me where I am now: A mother whose only child has died.
Heather is the Co-Founder and President of the 501(c)(3) non-profit Hannah’s Heart and Love. Hannah’s Heart and Love was inspired by their daughter Hannah to help others and to help break the silence of baby loss. She is also a contributing author for All That Love Can Do.
- Instead - September 11, 2015
- 18 Things I’ve Learned - August 3, 2015
- I Don’t Want Your Hope - July 17, 2015
Heather, thank you so much for writing this. When I lost my daughter, it was at the end of a long road of infertility “treatments” and procedures, and at the end of what had turned into an abusive marriage.
By the time I recovered enough to love again, and marry again, I was far too old to consider bearing a child.
Yet people pushed their “hope” on me all along. Hope that I would keep pushing myself through the excruciating physical and emotional pain of trying to get pregnant through IVF.
Hope that I would adopt, even though I would have been a single mother, and worked 12 and 24 hour shifts away from home.
Hope that my new husband and I would have children even though that was not part of our plan or even physically realistic.
Telling people why their hope for me feels more like an assault became too much. I finally just said, “thank you for your kind thoughts.” I have to believe that’s what they were.
Yes, you are right. Hope is not always the answer. I recently heard the following, a line said by the Dowager Countess in “Downton Abbey” (tv program): “hope is a tease, designed to help you accept reality”. I think that’s also true, at first. But after a while, continuing hope does not help you accept reality.
My husband and I lost three children. A daughter, stillborn at 28 weeks. Two sons, both SIDS babies, one at 3 days and the other at 7 weeks. We don’t know why any of them died. Obviously there is a reason, but we don’t know what it is, and (more than likely) we will never know why. We stopped having children, because we didn’t want any more to die. For a long time, people kept telling us to “hope”. But to continue to hope in our situation was wrong. All it did was stop us from accepting reality. Which is: we are parents to three beautiful, dead children.
Hope is not always good. Sometimes hope is bad.
I lost my one and only child when he was 7 1/2 yrs old, my world was turned upside down. I share some of your similar pain and my heart is with you. Sending you love.
Calvin’s Mom
carrillo.mary@yahoo.com