Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Day

I don't remember ever not being aware of the sadness the loss of a baby brings a family.  When my mom was pregnant with me, her brother's wife was pregnant and due within a couple weeks as well.  It was a family guessing game who would be the oldest grandchild.  Part way through their 2nd trimester, my aunt lost the baby.  So I became the oldest, and a 'shadow child' as my mom referred to me in regards to my cousin.  While my mom calls me the 'shadow child', sometimes I think the babies that are lost are really the 'shadow children'.  An echo that many forget is there, but it is always there.  They seem to be easily forgotten by others that are not directly touched, but can loom large for those who do remember. 

Yet, fortunately I'm on the outside of the loss as I have never lost a baby of my own.  While I'm touched by the babies and their lives that were too short, I'm on the fringe.

I go with my mom on her visits to my youngest sibling's grave when she asks me to come.  Particularly in the last 6 months, I've listen to my mother-in-law go over and over and over the details she remembers around the birth of her youngest daughter.  She was born still, at full term at 7 lbs 11 oz, but much past that the details are murky at best.  I've sat and listened to friends talk about their babies lost to pre-eclampsia, umbilical cord accident, placental abruption, congenital defects, ectopic pregnancies, illnesses caught too soon after birth, SIDS, and some rare complications of pregnancy.  I've seen and treated women in ICU and rehab as they fight for their lives or to regain some of their independence after something in their pregnancy went wrong.  Some of those women have lost their babies, some of the babies are simultaneously fighting for their own lives on a different floor in the same hospital, and on a couple of occasions the babies have been healthy at home in the care of grandparents/aunts/uncles while their mom is fighting and their dad is torn between the two.  When I'm at work, I know how to do my actual job, but other than that, I'm sometimes at a loss of what to do.  I sit, I listen, I offer a hug, or a tissue, or a touch.  If I remember the baby, I try to say that I remember, to say their name.  And always a prayer, sometimes silent, sometimes shared.