Dear Friends,
I would like to suggest my book A Diary to My Babies as a companion to you as you navigate your own baby loss. Pregnancy loss can feel so isolating and is such a shock. One minute you’re pregnant and the next you’re not, even after you’re past the “safe zone” so to speak. There is no safe zone in pregnancy. And when you head home empty handed and un-pregnant, nothing can prepare you for that kind of trauma. Some days I found myself rolling on the grass like an animal and other days I found myself unable to get off the kitchen floor, convulsing in tears. This is what I describe in my book. There is no right way to grieve therefore this is not a guidebook but instead a real lived experience of what grief can look like and how it is always changing.
Pregnancy loss is such an awful thing to have to go through and can be so lonely. I hope the words in this book can bring some support. For me personally, when I was going through my losses I wasn’t informed about pregnancy loss books and now in my journey I find that reading other people’s thoughts and feelings about their journeys really helped me to feel a bit less alone and was very relatable comparing similar situations.
I have been pregnant nine times and have lost six pregnancies; all in very different ways and at different times in my life. Building our family has not been easy, but it did build us physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Over the years, I was asked many times, “Why do you keep trying? Haven’t you lost enough? Aren’t you scared it will happen again?” The answer to that was always: absolutely. Absolutely I was scared and absolutely I had lost, but I had also gained in so many aspects, and it was hope that kept me going. This is also what I wish this book to give you, a little bit of hope.
I have gained from my pregnancy losses. I have gained a passion for supporting other families who are experiencing the grief of pregnancy loss, and I have gained a passion for advocacy that I will continue to develop. Our stories can be so powerful and I hope to change the script as I allow at the end of the book space for others to share their GTPAL numbers which tell a part of our story.
Truly, I do not believe everything happens for a reason. People that have experienced pregnancy loss did nothing to deserve it, even though they likely felt like they did something wrong. I do believe that for those of us that have experienced pregnancy loss, we feel deeper and see more clearly the world and the beauty in it. We see life and cherish it in a different way somehow. We are more mindful of the little pleasures that come our way, though some days all we can think about is how our families might have looked a little different. We were graced with the ability to physically hold angels with us, even if it was just for a short time. Not many people can say that.
It is said that people who have had miscarriages are the ones granted a spiritual awakening. I trust this and I am grateful for what I have learned. I see signs of my babies all around me and I lean into the symbolism. I am comforted by these messages and feel that they might be reminders that there is something more, some bigger force at play, that these little signs are messages from my babies. That is what this whole book is composed of “the angel dropping” I continue to witness.
Sadly, there is no real conclusion to pregnancy loss, as grief never goes away. It becomes part of our journey, our story that we carry with us through life. Two truths can exist at the same time. We can still be sideswiped by grief when we don’t expect it, yet grateful and even more in awe of the beauty that is right here right now in front of us.
The poet Rumi once said:
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
So when you see a mother glowing, just know that she may once have been broken, but her capacity to heal was there. Her loss may never go away but the suffering can soften. The tears can be healing. Perhaps with the help of others who understand her loss, or with her ability to speak openly about her experiences and her lost babies, or with her advocacy for others experiencing pregnancy loss, her loss can lighten. Perhaps then the wound can let the light in.
For those who haven’t experienced pregnancy loss I feel this could be a good resource to what it is really like to go through a loss, and the many similarities in the emotions when grieving in other life situations/circumstances.
P.S. This book may make you cry as I write in an honest way to really convey my emotions, but I promise the “gifts my babies send me and their stories that became ours” hopefully brings some comfort.
Carmen
Book Description:
A six-year journey: six losses and three beautiful angels. After losing her son Jude in August 2020, a spark was ignited in Carmen Grover as she read through every diary that she kept for each of her babies. Rather than have them remain stacked under her bed, Carmen decided that her journals would make a difference. The result has been an honest and poignant compilation of the ups and downs of Carmen's experience with pregnancy loss, from rolling in the grass and convulsing on the kitchen floor in her cycle of grief, to seeing the strength she could gain in the signs and special moments all around her. A Diary to My Babies: Journeying Through Pregnancy Loss shines a light on the darkness of pregnancy loss, while also showing there is no right way to grieve. And through her incredible journey, Carmen hopes the story of her family and her babies just might help others to heal.
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