Dear fellow mom, There is so much I want to say to you — so much I want you to know. But everything will fall short because if you are reading this then you are grieving your child and for that I am so sorry. I want you to know that it doesn’t matter how […]
Story by Melina.
Story by Karen Karanen. “When I finally got a hold of my husband he came to be with me and brought me to the emergency room. I couldn’t talk once we got there. I couldn’t say out loud what was happening. I couldn’t say how I knew it was happening.”
One word. Sometimes all it takes is one word to turn grief into empowerment, sorrow into joy, a life into a legacy. We asked people to share one word for Reid’s first birthday on April 4th 2016 – the response we got was overwhelming. Here are Reid’s Reads: the words that have inspired this community to focus on the good, the positive, the true. The words that motivate us to never give up.
Story by Tina Driver. “I walked over to Jeremiah’s nook and fell on the floor, calling out his name and demanding him back from God. My tears flooded our hardwood as I begged. In my rage I smashed a mason jar at my feet. I examined the shards and wanted to cut my wrist but I didn’t. I calmed down, still singing Jeremiah’s name from my lips.”
Story by Tina Rose. “I wish the future didn’t seem so scary now. I wish I didn’t know how often other mommies experience loss, how many babies are taken from us too soon. I wish I didn’t know how just because you make it through the first trimester, then the second, and the third, nothing is for sure, and we are not safe. I wish for so many things, but mostly I wish this wasn’t our story. I wish we had our daughter.”
Story by Shayla Bradley. “I didn’t know how much grief had seeped into the hidden parts of me until I lost my second pregnancy in three months. Our first loss – which was supposed to be our second baby – came almost as soon as I found out I was pregnant. It hurt, emotionally, and wounded my resolve to keep going, but I steeled myself by reasoning that the bad thing that could have happened, happened, and wouldn’t happen again.”
Story by Nikki Chodos. “I hid at home for almost two weeks while I waited for nature to take its course. It was awful. Then finally, at 17 weeks and 4 days, I started having contractions.”
Story by Joanne Gomes. “We were cleared by our doctor to try again after one month of healing, and as luck would have it, we got pregnant right away. We booked appointments early, had an early scan at 6 weeks that showed a vibrant heartbeat, and were told that lightning rarely strikes twice. Only between 1-3% of women experience a second miscarriage. We were told to relax, that our first miscarriage was probably a fluke, a bad set of chromosomes that landed themselves in the wrong place.”
Story by Laura Miller. “With shaking hands and hearts in mouths, we hugged and hugged and kept checking that those lines were still there as we basked in the bliss of our new names: Mama and Papa To Be. A mum and a dad. Baby, you made three.”
Story by Jessica Meyers. “The air smells strange and the wind is shifting differently, the hail and rain are so heavy that visibility is impossible. This can’t be the one – you’re not ready. You don’t have time to protect yourself from what Mother Nature just birthed. You can hear its deafening ugly roar, but nothing can prepare you for the devastation an F5 tornado brings. It rips you off your feet and slams you into debris that should have killed you. You feel like every limb is going to be torn from your body – like you’re being turned inside out. You want to die. Why haven’t you died? Well, life isn’t that kind.”
Story by Elena Williams. “I spent the day with my parents shopping for the baby. We shopped at the baby Gap for clothes and picked out nursery furniture from Pottery Barn. It was a happy day. That was until our appointment at 5:30pm…”
