cloud heartThere's nothing like the thrill of finding out you are pregnant, particularly when you are trying to conceive. It's this immediate rush of happiness flowing through your body. It's like you can feel that little bean taking up residence in your womb, the sense of a little soul within you. A creation. A baby. It's magical. Sometimes that baby's entire life flashes in your mind. Picking a name. The birth. Holding baby for the first time. Watching those first steps, the first smile, the first word. All of this happens even early in the pregnancy. Eight weeks. Ten weeks. Twelve weeks. No matter how many weeks, it's real. All is full of love. It's hope.

Miscarriage. One of the most painful words. So hard to talk about. So hard to stay positive and hold out hope for another try. Because a miscarriage essentially destroys that hope.

That feeling of losing a baby, even in the earliest of days, is an empty one. It's almost as if all the exciting chatter happening in your brain, all the hopes and dreams and photo-worthy moments, come to a deafening halt. It stops. Quiet. But loud. There was once a life inside and now it's gone. It's dark. It's colder. And you try to go on. Try to put on a brave face and think, It's going to be okay. These things happen. I will recover. I will try again. I'm not going to lose hope.

But there's a part of you that will never be okay. There's a part of you that may not recover. There's a part of you that does lose hope. And it's so hard to talk about, and so hard to express your emotions, because it's a little being that never was of this Earth, but was of your womb. A sacred, private place. A place that perhaps no one could understand what you knew about that baby except for you, the mom who was carrying her or him, that little soul. Because you were connected in a way no one else was. 

I thought I would be okay. I thought I would recover. And there are ways that I did. But there are also ways that I did not and will never. I'm filled with what ifs. I see my children, my twins who are living and of this Earth, and am reminded that there was another. A sister, maybe. But I feel in my heart it was a brother. Because of my connection. Because of that hope that lived inside me. Because I imagined so much. That pain would be there if I was never able to conceive again, but having a successful pregnancy and birth doesn't heal that pain either. I thought I was healed. But there are many moments like when I see my daughter laugh at her brother and think that there was almost another child in this picture. Another laugh. Another smile. Another love of this Earth. Another being I created. But I do have that child's "heart"-- that soul, that spirit. It never left me. The hopes and dreams I had for that baby may be gone, but there is a part of him that will always live inside me. I keep it, like a secret almost. A reminder of how fragile we all once were, and still are.

Have you had a challenging time recovering emotionally from a miscarriage? Do you also think of that baby often?


Image via Ana Patricia Almeida/Flickr