It is with both compassion and remorse that we start our blog’s month-long dedication to October-Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. We have received the stories from several brave people wishing to tell their story and we look forward to sharing them with you throughout the month. Actually, we will likely be posting about 3 times a week for the month of October. Although their stories are difficult to read, they are likely all-to-easy to relate to. We hope you find strength and encouragement through the stories that are told.
The first person to share her story is Jessica Martin. She is a fellow blogger, actually a Hope Award for Best Blog Nominee, and we encourage you to check her blog out at A Hummingbird Paused. Her story is about her pregnancy loss at a time when someone close to her was also pregnant with a very similar timeline. Thank you Jessica for your strength and courage to share your story with us and for being our first guest blogger for our October guest blog series.
The Parallel Pregnancy
Jessica Martin from
I was so excited when I first found out about your pregnancy. I was 6 weeks along, and you had just announced at 8 weeks. I thought we could take pictures of the 2 of us together with our big bellies, and that someday we could schedule play dates. I thought it was so cool that I would have someone to talk to who was so close to my due date. We could compare notes and support one another as we planned and prepared for each new life.
But something changed. It happened so fast. My baby stopped growing. I was 7 weeks along, and instead of announcing to friends and family that we were expecting, I announced that we had lost the pregnancy. I was devastated. I had so much hope and had wanted this for so long. I couldn’t believe that it had been taken from me so quickly.
While I fell into a deep depression, I saw you posting ultrasound pics. While I shopped for super absorbent maxi pads for my miscarriage, I imagined you shopping for diapers. And with each week and month that passes, I wonder what I would be going through. I look at you and I see what could have been.
I should be planning my baby shower and nursery décor. I should be complaining about acid reflux and stretch marks. But instead I look down and see a flat belly. And I wish so badly that were different. If somehow I could go back in time and change it, prevent it from happening. If only I had the power to save my baby.
I’m afraid to see you after the baby comes. I imagine the family gathering for Thanksgiving, and swooning over your 9 week old baby. And I will be sitting there thinking that I should be holding a baby of my own. That I should be holding my little pumpkin in my arms instead of in my heart.
These parallels are enough to drive me crazy. It’s like I’m looking in the mirror at some alternate universe where I would be experiencing much of what you are experiencing. I would be happy. But instead, in this reality, I’m with an empty womb and empty arms. And I’m heartbroken and forever changed.
It will take everything that I have, all the strength that I can muster, to see you and your baby for the first time. I hope that when that day comes, that I will be able to hold her and feed her and enjoy her along with you. I want to celebrate this new life. I don’t want to be bound by the chains of “if only” and “what if” for the rest of my life. But to do so, I have to face the reality that your pregnancy continued when mine stopped. That your dreams came true while mine are still unresolved.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
And while it’s so easy to compare what you have to what I lost, I can’t do it anymore. It’s not fair to me or to you. I can’t truly be happy for you if all I can think about is my own grief and loss. It’s incredibly difficult to move past that, and I’m not sure I ever will completely. But I’m going to try, because I don’t want to be a prisoner of the past. So I will keep moving forward, hold on to as much hope as I can gather, and believe that someday my rainbow will shine through the clouds.
