October was pregnancy and infant loss awareness month...as such and appropriately so, more stories of miscarriages, still births, and infant loss made the news. Even the "regular" baby loss forums were featuring more stories. These stories are very touching and they deserved to be shared but as a Mommy that has had her own still born birth I am often left with feeling a bit of jealousy and envy. I know this is completely selfish, ridiculous, and totally not what I want to be admitting but it is true. There is a part of me that reads these stories and thinks "What was so special about their baby- that isn't just as special about mine- that their baby gets to be on the news and be known to the world?"
It honestly pains me to be this brutally honest because I don't want to admit that grief is selfish. My grief is selfish. See, as a parent of a still born baby, I often feel like people have forgotten about our Katherine...that people have forgotten about our loss, have forgotten that we still grieve over the fact that our would be 15month old is not here with us today. See, I believe that when others see other 15 and 16month old babies they don't think of sweet Katherine too.....why would they? In the midst of feeling like Katherine had been forgotten I read articles where it is obvious that these other baby had not been forgotten and I got jealous. Why was their baby so much more important to both the people around them and to the publishing company than mine was to the people around her?
I think the more painful reality that set in to me is the fact that most of the articles the people have found a "purpose" for their losses, they've been able to go on and honor the lives of their babies in extremely significant and profound ways, and then I felt like, here's me....I don't feel like God is going to start some amazingly profound foundation out of our loss, most of the time I don't even feel like Katherine's short but beautiful life has touched any ones but her own mother, father, brother and sister and a very few close friends. Making matters worse is sometimes I feel the "pressure" to find the "purpose" to start something amazing, to not let my daughter's life be wasted that I think I must be failing at the whole grieving process. So I feel like I'm left here grieving, in silence, and completely on my own. I'm looking for a voice but find that I have none....at least none of significance...And without a voice I often feel like my daughter had no purpose...
BUT and please hear the huge BUT what I have realized since writing the above is that every baby IS important because they existed. They did in fact live even if no one else in the world ever hears about it or recognizes that fact. Even if you and just a few close intimate friends and family are the only ones that ever remember and acknowledge your babies existence and importance God still hears your cries, your aches, and your echos just as much as he does those that have made the evening news, and or that have started the much needed foundations, and programs.
I would also like to say that a parents desire for others to "know" their child is normal. Every parent is proud of the life that they had a hand in making. It is okay for those of us whose baby or babies will never make the evening news to still long for the others to cry out with us that even our babies existed and mattered. But let us keep in mind that what is great about the articles, stories, programs , and foundations is they are echoing the very same things that those of us whose babies don't make the evening news are crying out...that EVERY baby matters.
So, while I can't say I won't ever be envious and jealous again when I read another article about how one persons loss and baby is changing the world. I can say that I can still rejoice that change is indeed taking place. We don't all get to be the "spokesman" but we all still play a roll in changing how the world views infant loss and the heart of all our messages is still the same....that is that EVERY baby matters. Mine, yours, the infant on the evening news, and the countless miscarriages that no one ever hears about....all our babies matter.
