Piper Lynn

The first exercise I did with my grief therapist after Piper was delivered, was filling out the life balance circle. Pretty much everything on there was rated low, joy was the lowest with creativity and relationship being rated the highest. My husband and I were closely managing our sadness together. I was knitting and writing to manage my response to the trauma having and losing so quickly. But even within days of completing that exercise, things were shifting to a darker place and it wasn't looking good. I remember, as I filled it out, that I trully believed life always had been void of joy and always would be. The messages depression was delivering to my concious mind were percieved as the truth. As I sit looking at this life balance circle, I feel like I am looking at someone else's circle. It seems like that person is so sad, helpless, lonely and apparently she was. When grief is no longer alone in your brain and depression makes its landing, shit gets real, real fast and

After our sweet Piper was delivered at 18 weeks and my husband and I began a part of our parenting journey, we so innocently thought we would never experience, I began feeling isolated in my grief. As I reached out via social media support groups and read articles about pregnancy loss, it appeared that I was not alone in my loneliness. As I lived my experience more and more each day, I kept questioning this isolation during and after pregnancy loss. I first chalked it up to people just not knowing what to say to the 1 in 4 of us that experienced this. Then I generally blamed society for not creating a safe space for us to talk. Then I thought it was because we, as parents, were so tired in our grief journey,  that we perpetuated the stigma surrounding pregnancy loss. But none of those fully addressed my wondering.  The dark cloak of judgement and embarrassment that many of us wear after pregnancy loss, isn't made solely of any of my prior wonderings. The fibers that make up that cl