I am a child loss survivor.

I am a child loss survivor. I have held in my arms children who I then had a funeral for. I am also a miscarriage survivor. I have held in my womb life that never took breath. I have ultrasound photos of children who were never " babies" and babies who were never " children."  I am not alone. I am not the only one. I am the mother of two amazing little girls who are alive and well, who run and jump and play, and because I have these sweet girls here with me on this side I am not supposed to talk about their sister and brother. I am supposed to forget my children who have forged their path in the other world before me. I am supposed to remember that I have living babies... as if that makes up for ... THE OTHERS. It is an unwritten rule. A rule that you only come to understand when you have lost your little one. That... while you have had a tragic loss... you are NOT supposed to share it. You are to get over it and focus on the good.
 I realized very quickly that I could NOT stay silent. Staying silent was driving me slowly insane. I realized that I felt guilty for my grief, a grief that will continue for the rest of my life, because I was supposed to be over it already. And yet I felt guilt at the thought of NOT feeling grief because... They were my children. MY CHILDREN. For those of you who have kids... look at them... and then... imagine they are gone. Forever... never ever to return to your arms in this life time. NOW... if you have more than one children... look at a DIFFERENT child and imagine how you are supposed to feel lucky because you have that child... maybe even hear some one say " well YES Jimmy is gone, but GEORGE over there is ALIVE. That makes it better." No... no it doesn't because George is NOT Jimmy and should never feel that he is a replacement for the other. What a terrible thing to do to George... AND Jimmy. Yes... you see. One is not and will never be a replacement for the other. It isn't fair to mommy or daddy either.
Infant loss is not actually all that rare, pregnancy loss is even LESS rare. I would be willing to guarantee that you know someone ( other than myself) who has suffered one or both. What is worse.. if you know a woman who has suffered it once... odds are... she has suffered it multiple times. Strangely when I refused to stop talking... when I got uppity and started remembering my babies posting photos on facebook and talking about them....I got 100% validation that I am not alone. I got women who I hadn't known had lost coming to me and saying... This is my story. When I started talking about it I started to get friends who asked if they could send other friends my way because she had just lost a baby.. she had just miscarried.. she needs some support and I know you have been there. This has happened because I have NOT sat silently... because I have worked actively to make those children a part of our family not a part of our dirty laundry that shouldn't be aired. The best part of being vocal and earning all of these friends who needed support... is that.... I have also been able to watch as miracles have happened... and mommy's have found their arms filled... sometimes with more than they had ever thought possible. I believe in miracles because I have watched them happen again and again. That is a pretty freaking awesome side benefit of making a new friend... one who knows how it feels to let go.
I personally cannot live in a place of constant grief. And living my life normally has gotten easier with the passage of time. Living a "normal" life however is not a life with out them. For myself IT CANNOT be. There is not a single day where I do not think of those babies. And I work actively to find a way to fit those little ones into my life in an every day way. I share them.. I say their names... I remember them. I have told my children who were born after them... about them... I have shared their names and birthdays with my living children. I cannot hide them away. Sharing them means facing grief waves at times... It means being filled with a soul deep sadness but it means riding those waves out, because I would rather be sad than forget them. I would rather face those waves... knowing that they may take my breath away... that they may cut my knees out from under me... but that it is worth it to remember MY CHILDREN.
A friend who I value greatly once told me that when she became facebook friends with me she was at first a little unsettled by how I share my little ones: By how I post about their short lives,  about their birthdays, about how I as their mommy feel.  She followed that up with the fact that as I shared more, she came to see our angels as a PART of our family... and it became less and less uncomfortable. This was without a doubt one of the most amazing things I have ever heard about our babies. Because it not only validated their LIVES... but my effort to make them a part of OUR lives.
It is coming... my Aidan's birthday. My birthday every year starts the ticker.... the clock that winds down to the anniversary of the first day... and the last day... that I held the only son I have. This year it will be his ninth birthday. Nine years... what would his nine year old self be doing? What would his birthday list look like? Because Ashlynn started hers in January... and it gets longer every week. What would he be like? A reader like myself... A tinkerer like his daddy? There are some answers I will never have. I will never know what it will be like to have a Christmas dinner with all of my children. I don't cry every day any more... but there are days that I always cry... and September 18 is one of them.... As I am faced with a lifetime of commemorating a birthday for a boy who isn't on this earth to celebrate it. I haven't gotten it right... yet.., but I have a lifetime to figure it out.