Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Every year, I dread this day because I never know how I’m going to feel. Am I going to be functional? Am I going to be in the fetal position? Will I feel a certain type of way? Or Will I cry? Will I break shit? Will the day pass nonchalantly? I think that’s the one I fear more than even completely forgetting… being able to go on with my life like nothing’s missing. Existing while pushing down the miscarriage anniversary grief that is always just a hair away from bubbling to the surface.
Maybe it’s because the baby I lost would be turning 13 years old this year (and that’s a huge milestone)? Or maybe it’s because my youngest daughter is graduating from high school and turning 18 years old this month? Maybe it’s because my oldest daughter, my closest friend, is going away for college in the fall? Maybe it’s the state of the world? Or maybe it’s feeling helpless, hopeless and overwhelmed. Maybe it’s all the forced change and letting go with no way to stop it. No one asked me.
I just know that today, I feel like someone gashed open my scarred-over wound and left me bleeding and broken on the ground. It fucking hurts.
When will it stop hurting? How can anyone ever get over this kind of loss? It lingers with me daily; like a ghost of a memory that never fully existed in this world. It’s believing without ever truly knowing. It’s desperately missing what you never got to hold. How can I miss someone so heartbrokenly who I never even got to lay eyes on him beyond a sonogram?
It’s been 13 years since I heard those words, “ I’m sorry, I can’t find a heartbeat”. 13 years since my entire world imploded and changed me forever. It seems like yesterday ( the pain is still so fresh in my heart), but then again, it feels like it happened a lifetime ago, to someone else. But that’s only because the wound has long scarred over. The underlying pain, throbbing right beneath the surface, fickle and erratic, ready to go from 3 to 10 with the whisper of the wrong word or the thought of a memory that will never exist. How do you love someone so much and go on living without them? Is that even living?
Miscarriage anniversary grief is very real and seldom spoke of because everyone just wants to forget it happened.
But what about the mother’s with empty arms and overflowing hearts. What are we supposed to do with all of this love? Our grief is the proof that our children existed.
It is living, but it’s only a semblance of the life you were evolving into; the trauma and pain of losing your child changes you in ways that only another mother can comprehend because a mother’s love is unlike any other love in the world. A mother is the one person in this world who will love you no matter what. She will defend you with her life because without you, she is unwhole.
So here I sit, in my bed, still in my pajamas at 2:17 p.m. mourning and remembering a child that I loved more than myself but never had the privilege of holding in my arms. It may seem weird to hold so tight but sometimes it feels like he never existed. I have to be his legacy.
The thing is I’m no quitter. I’ve never quit a thing in my life. It’s just not how I’m built but, honestly, I feel like my body failed my baby and I can never pay that debt. It lingers in my heart that maybe my uncertainty and hesitation about being a mom at 39, maybe it was some cosmic punishment for not being as enthusiastic at our unexpected blessing? I have grief from the loss mixed with guilt for my body failing my child. I’ll carry that weight until the day I die. I’ll always feel responsible for lacking.
But, that’s all I can do for atonement is live with guilt. I can’t do anything to bring my baby back and I never could. Sometimes things just don’t work out, for no reason at all; no matter how much you wanted it. No matter how much you loved it. No matter how scared or unsure you were. None of it mattered. It just wasn’t meant to be and I have to learn to live with that.
Miscarriage Anniversary Grief
It never goes away. No matter how I wish none of it were true and you, my sweet baby, were here with me. I never got the chance to hold you in my arms and read these lines to you, my sweet baby, but today…I feel it’s time to say the words I never could to you…
“ I’ll love you forever
I’ll like you for always
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be”
XOXO, Mommy