Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

It wasn’t until this morning that I knew it was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.

A few years ago, this day wouldn’t have meant much to me.

But in the past few years, I have seen a few friends loose children unexpectedly.
I have seen children die expectedly.
(It hurts me to even write that, because no child should be expecting to die.)
And I have had countless friends who have had miscarriages.
(I’m sure that I knew people who’d miscarried before that, but I just wasn’t as aware.)

Once you have a miscarriage, you are part of a fellowship of women…
One that no one really wants to be a part of,
But from whom you can draw strength and inspiration.
And these people are the ones who understand this(which I recently wrote to a friend via email):

“After my miscarriage, with my next baby I was too scared to be excited.  Too scared to dream.  Too scared to think ahead.  Even after having a happy, healthy baby…this time was the same way.  Miscarriage steals a part of you. The part that lets you hope and dream with reckless abandon.

I was so sick this pregnancy, and although I hated being sick I welcomed it because I knew that meant something was still in there.  And a few weeks ago when I finally stopped throwing up every.single.day, instead of being happy and relieved…I panicked.”

Miscarriage is hard.
Miscarriage is different for everyone.
But here are a few things that I wrote about my miscarriage.
Reading about other people’s experiences helped me tremendously.
And I hope that these posts can help others, too.

So today I remember a host of children…some whose faces were seen, some who faces only live in our minds.
And I pray for those who are knee-deep in the fresh pain of pregnancy loss.
I am praying for you.