Exploring Our Power After Loss

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 cloak were weaved long before we considered being a mother. As women we are not encouraged to show our true and full self or share our real and loud feelings. Our stories remain silent when they are at their ugliest and shared once their is proof of a happy ending. When we are tired, scared, dealing with mental illness we are asked via silent messages to be strong, which is to be silent. We are asked by the feminists to work outside of the home and be the bread winner for the family and assumed by the traditionalists that we need to be the mother who makes the pies, schedules all the family appointments and looks great doing it. Guess what ? None of this changes after pregnancy loss. We are women here us roar, and so we do. We wear that badge of honor, but what for? The archaic ideal about women and who we should be traps us after loss. This ideal based around the exact notion of controlled emotions, quiet strength, supporting others and being physically beautiful in the process is literally paralyzing when paired with loss. This proceeds us in pregnancy loss and imprints on our sense of identity long before we consider being a mother. This systemic feminine ideal, though generations have worked to change this, still lives in many women in some small way. So when we lose a child in pregnancy at 4 weeks or 38 weeks, when we are taken over by hormonal changes, maternal dissapointment, our bodies physically recovering inside and out, there is a part of the world that still needs us to be silently strong, controlled in our response and our bodies beautifully returning to a normal state. But we can't and when we try, to no fault of our own, we perpetuate silence around pregnancy loss.

We can share our stories, even when it isn't comfortable for those around us. We can love our bodies and show it to the world, even when it doesn't mirror a celebrity. We can struggle publicly and with full, vibrant, loud emotions even if someone else isn't ready to feel that with us. When we as women allow ourselves to feel the deep sadness and fears that surface with our loss(es), and shed layers of negative self images and unrealistic expectations of our process, we become more powerful and give strength to our child's memory. We don't need to be strong in silence, when in fact we can experience our hurt out loud. This is #pregnancyandinfantlossawareness and this is how we stop the stigma surrounding it. We take what makes each of us amazing as women and we choose to show it and share it, loudly and without apology. Uncomfortable for some, comforting for others.