13. DEAR WORLD | What is on your heart that you want the world to know about your kind of grief? This is your day to choose your own topic. Some topic ideas are pregnancy or infertility after loss. Anxiety or PTSD. Forgiveness. Trust. What is it that you want to talk about?
I guess it would be, that we are not jealous, or bitter, or hateful. We do not hate you because your baby didn't die. We don't expect the world to tip toe around us, and we don't think we're the only ones to ever go through some sort of tragedy. But we do have strong emotions, and they sometimes involve you and your family.
When you announce your pregnancy, we are happy for you. We are! We never want to hear about somebody going through what we went through. When I hear of another woman, often times a stranger, that just experienced a loss, I don't think to myself, good! Let some bad things happen to other people. I am not happy about it, and I have spent many nights crying over a complete stranger's loss. You've probably heard that loss moms should be treated gently when a friend or family member announces their pregnancy. Tell them in private if you can, especially if you are a close relative or friend. Even better, tell them in writing or social media. It sounds all kinds of backwards, but we need to be told in a way that we can react how we naturally react, and not have to feel bad about not reacting happily to your news. We need to be able to cry, or be angry, or be sad in private.
We don't expect the whole world to tip toe around us, but it is a courtesy that we very much appreciate. It's simple, if you know of our pain, be kind if you can. We don't expect you to not be happy about your good news, we don't expect you to never have kids because we lost ours. But we would just appreciate it a lot if you could take our feelings into consideration. I think people get upset about having to be gentle around loss moms, because they think that we think we're special, or somehow better than other people and deserve special treatment. But trust me, being different for this reason is something NO loss mom wants. I would give up any and all attention, I would gladly revoke my membership in the loss moms club if I could have my daughter back. So please, instead of being annoyed, be compassionate, and be thankful that you don't have to know how we feel.
On that same topic, is fake pregnancy announcements. It's never happened to me personally....I've seen friends comment on a post of someone they know who did it, or I read about a celebrity doing it. But thankfully I've never had a friend or family member do this. But again, we don't dislike them because we want the world to cradle us, and we are not uptight because we cannot take a joke. I'm sure most loss moms have a great sense of humor, but there are just some things that are not funny, and this is one of them. The reason they are so hurtful is because as a loss mom, we dread real announcements all the time. I've had to unfollow many friends, family, and co-workers because I couldn't handle seeing their happy posts about their growing unborn child. Again, not because I am not happy for them, but because it makes me sad for myself, and it is just a huge reminder that they have something I desperately want, and couldn't have. Even now that I have Emily, real announcements are still hard to handle. Why? Because it is a reminder that there is yet another person who (presumably) didn't have to suffer to get their joy. No, we don't always know what goes on behind closed doors, but when someone makes a pregnancy announcements just months after their wedding, it's probably a safe bet they didn't suffer from infertility, and hopefully not from loss (though they could have, I realize this).
So given how difficult it is for us to hear about real announcements, a fake one puts us through that same pain, except it is fake, so there was no need to do it. We know real announcements are going to happen so we deal with them as best we can, but fake ones serve no purpose, and are not needed. It's like I tell my husband....years ago I lived in this second story apartment, but it was an abnormally high second story. So my dad bought me a safety rope ladder that could be hooked to the window so you can climb down. When my now-husband saw it, he wanted to use it to climb out the window. I said no, it's not safe, you could get hurt. He said if it wasn't safe, they wouldn't sell it. I said, but if you are climbing out of a window during a fire, and you fall and break your leg, it sucks that your leg is broken, but you're alive. If you climb out when there isn't a fire, and you fall and break your leg, then you're just an idiot with a broken leg. If we have to endure painful pregnancy announcements, we at least want it to be real, where people are so happy to be adding to their family. Please don't add to our pain for a bad joke. Loss parents aside, it's really not even a funny joke. If you announce a fake pregnancy and someone is upset about the idea of you being pregnant, you'll make them mad for no reason. If they're really excited that you're pregnant, then you just dangled happiness in front of them, only to yank it away. So, it's just a bad idea all around.
I also want the world to know that we are not drama queens looking for attention. I have a friend on facebook...I don't actually know her in person, but a mutual friend of ours introduced us after she also lost her baby, just a few weeks gestation further along than Kayla was. They just marked the first year since their daughter was born sleeping, and with this being October, and October 15th coming up (National infant and pregnancy loss awareness day) she posts a lot of quotes about child loss. I don't know if anyone has said anything to her, but I would suspect there are at least a couple people in her life that probably roll their eyes when they see them, and think "again, another one". People who think she is posting them for attention, or so people think "poor her". But that's not it. We don't want attention, we don't want people to feel sorry for us. We just want to keep our children's memory alive. We want to acknowledge our lost children.
As a parent of a living child, I love to tell stories about Emily. I love to post her pictures of her doing something cute, and so my friends and family can see her growing up. I love to brag when she has done something new, or commiserate with my mom friends when she is being bad. But I don't get to post things like that for both of my children. I don't get to give people updates about Kayla. I don't get to broadcast cute pictures....hell, I don't even get to post any picture of her because I am so scared that someone will say something hurtful or inappropriate because as a whole, the world doesn't want to see pictures of dead babies with bruising all over their face. But most of all, I don't want to not acknowledge my daughter, I don't want to pretend like I only have one. Maybe to other people, they do know I experienced a loss, but they might think I am "over" the worst of the pain and I am happy with Emily. But in our family, in my heart, I have two daughters. Death does not make Kayla any less a part of my family than Emily is. Em is even getting to the age where she knows who Kayla is. She doesn't quite understand I am sure, but when we go to the cemetery she knows we're there to see Keya, she knows when I read her the book "my baby big sister" that it's explaining to her what happened to her baby big sister. She knows the blanket and pillow in the shadow box on her wall belonged to Keya. I don't have one daughter, I don't have any only child, I have two girls. And posting quotes about her and her loss is the only thing I and other loss moms get to do regarding their lost children. No one thinks parents of living children are being drama queens, or not "getting over" how amazing their kids are. So we'd like to be understood. We're not seeking attention, we're just bragging about our kids too.
No comments:
Post a Comment