(7 Years After) Losing A Baby

As a woman, when a pregnancy ends and there is no baby to hold, it can feel like your world has literally exploded into nothingness around you. It can feel like there is no hope left in the world. It can feel like you'll never know happiness again.

I know because it happened to me seven years ago when I miscarried and lost my daughter, Elyssami Faith. It felt like my soul was being torn from my body along with my baby.

After 7 years, that morning and the first few days that followed are still etched in my memories as vivid as if it were happening now. It's not something I think I'll ever forget, just like I won't forget how much love I felt for that little life growing inside me.

There are some things I wish I could forget, like how I went to work that day and all I could do was cry; or how the physical agony ripped through me as my body let go of everything that had kept her alive; or how my own husband created deep emotional wounds asking if I was "over it" two days later and told me he was glad I had lost our daughter. Some things are better forgotten but they stay in my mind anyway.

There are some things I hope I'll never forget, like how it felt to have that little life growing inside me; or what a miracle it was; or how it felt to love so deeply and wholly even before meeting that little person.

And then there are the things I couldn't keep hold of, just the way I couldn't keep hold of her. That's the thing about a pregnancy that ends without a baby - you don't just lose a baby (as if that wasn't enough on its own). You lose all the hopes and dreams you'd had for her. You lose your sense of safety. You lose some of your innocence. You lose confidence in your body's ability to create and sustain life.

You lose a part of yourself.

And then... nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants you to say you had a baby and she died. People don't even want to hear you call a miscarriage a baby, let alone help you honour and remember her. Nobody wants to acknowledge you as a mother, like you don't deserve membership into that special club because your baby never kept you up crying all night -- but they don't realise, she did. The only difference is that it wasn't her crying, it was you.

I've been told that given enough time, all wounds will heal. I don't believe it. After seven years, though, I do believe that we learn how to live around the wounds. You don't get over losing your baby - it's not a hill you get to climb and when you're at the top you get a great view - that's not how it works. It isn't a gap you can fill, a wound you can heal - there is a piece of you and a piece of your life that is and always will be missing.

The thing is, though, you don't have to get over it. You just have to get through it, accept it, learn to cope with it... and live around it.

I'll never forget my daughter. I don't want to. However brief it was - she lived. She was loved. She deserves to have her name spoken, to be remembered and loved. And she will be because I am her mother and I will always love and remember her.

Five Years Ago (Lyssi's Anniversary)

Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of the loss of my daughter. I was 22 years old and after a year of trying to conceive, we'd finally managed it.

Her father was less than impressed, but I was over the moon. I had so many hopes and plans for this baby, but because her father wasn't so keen, we hadn't discussed names yet. I lost her at about 8 weeks gestation, and some time much later I chose her name based on some of the few discussions we had had.

I'd always wanted my children to have unique names - my birth name was so common that I actually knew another girl at the same school as me whose name was *exactly* the same... right down to middle name! It bothered me a lot, and I vowed that my children wouldn't be in that situation. My husband, unfortunately, had a rather common surname as well, and wanted to name our first daughter after our grandmothers.

That wouldn't have been a problem, except his grandmother was Emily Elizabeth and mine was Amy Rose! I had always loved Rose, but my brother's wife had used that in my niece's name a few years before, so it was automatically disincluded from my list of possibles, leaving Emily, Elizabeth and Amy.. all far too popular to go with a common surname!

By this stage, my husband and I had separated (in fact, we separated about a week after I miscarried the baby), so I wasn't in a position to get his input, but I still wanted to honour him somehow within our daughter's name. Playing with the names one day, I came up with the perfect mesh of his grandmother and mine. That left her middle name, and that one was easy.

Without ceremony, on a day I don't even remember, I announced her name. Elyssami Faith.

Always, when it comes to November, my heart breaks with the ache of not having her. Spending time with my nephew, whose mother joyfully announced her pregnancy at the same event I tearfully whispered of my miscarriage and my marriage breakdown, becomes almost impossible and yet is craved beyond all things. I find myself thinking of all the things I wanted to have with her, for her, and wondering who she might have been. I know I need to let her go, but I'm still not sure if I'm ready yet.

'Lyssi, I love you, my little butterfly, my beautiful girl. I will always love you. I will never forget the little life I carried - your little life. I will do my best to honour you, today, tomorrow, and every day, until I can hold you again.



Cheer-leading / Challenge Statements:
It's okay to grieve for her. It's okay to be sad about the things I wanted for her.
It's okay to spend time doing things other than focusing on her for the entire day, too.
Falling in a heap and being an emotional wreck doesn't honour her. Living well, finding happiness, overcoming, THAT honours her.
Fighting my feelings will only make them stronger and lead to them lasting longer.
Letting go and forgetting are two very different things. (Thanks Ghost Whisperer!)



Tomorrow Erica and I are going to do something together to honour my little girl. Ideally, I want to spend some time doing something that I would have done with four year old 'Lyssi, were she here, and I'd love your suggestions! Even if it's too late to do them this year, we could always try for next year.


Take care of yourselves until next time, and may we all find our own small fences along the way.

Mother's Day

Here in Australia, we celebrated Mother's Day today. I organised with my brothers to take our mother out to breakfast, at the end of which they brought out the mints. Two little cards with a chocolate heart on each. I reached for one and my brother said to me, "that's not for you. You aren't a mother."

Right up until that moment, we'd done okay; I'd put aside my anger, put aside all the things that hurt about the day and pretended we were like other families out celebrating mothers day, but my brother saying that pulled everything apart at the seams. I'm not a mother...

My brother is wrong. I have two children. I never had the chance to hold them, either of them, in my arms, but I will forever hold them in my heart. My family may not want to acknowledge them, for whatever reason, but their lack of acknowledgement doesn't change the facts. I am a mother.

So, call me crazy if you like, but instead of heading home after my day, I walked to the park. Maybe it was a nutty idea, but I thought if I could just pretend for a moment that I still had the family I fought for, if I could just fake it, I'd find solace there.

So I took myself to the park and I played their song (thank you, Gerrit Hofsink, for the most beautiful song I've ever heard). I knew she wasn't there, but I pretended I was watching her climb up on the swing and fumble with the seatbelt. I reached forward and I hooked the seatbelt up, and then I pushed the swing. Gently at first, and then higher. It wasn't long before my imagination took over. Soon, I had gone from pretending I could see her to actually 'seeing' and 'hearing' her. And yet... I knew it wasn't real.

Call me crazy, but I stood pushing that swing with tears pouring down my face for at least half an hour. I sang to the music, I imagined my daughter laughing and begging for me to push her higher, and I imagined my son on the swing beside us. I saw him as I imagine he would be today; 14 and all adolescent awkwardness and "mum, can we go home yet"s. I saw her as I have always imagined she'd be by now; almost four years old, blue eyes and blonde hair, all innocence and bossiness and "mummy, I want to touch the sky"s.

I wish I could say that doing it had brought me peace. I wish I could say that I took solace in this imagining, this pretence... but the truth is, it still hurts just as much as it did before. My son and daughter still aren't here with me, and I'm not sure anything will ever take that pain away.

Elyssami Faith and Mykelti Noah, this one's for you. Wherever you are, I miss you. I love you. I think of you every day.

Being a mother is more than having a child you can hold in your arms. Being a mother is one heart, two arms and all the love in the world, all for that little person in your life. So, to all of the mothers out there, whether or not you had the chance to hold your child in your arms, happy Mother's Day.